We met around the bar on the second floor. I stood against the bar and looked around at the men staring back at me, waiting to hear something positive from their president.
“It’s good to see those of us who made it. We lost a few guys today,” I started. “We lost Angelo Wilkes, a long-time member of the organization. He’d been a King of Hell for decades, before some of us were even born. One hell of a man. He was a mentor to me, and I know he reached out to a few of you standing here before me. I’m sad to see him go.”
A few faces turned to the floor. A few faces, like Chase’s and Jaurez’s, stared at me with hard eyes ready to retaliate for what happened to us.
“We lost Cliff Ross today, a prospect. He was a promising young man who had proven his loyalty to the MC a few times already before throwing himself in the line of fire today in an effort to defend us. We lost Clyde Edgars, another long-time member who’d turned down several offers of promotion within the ranks so he could help you guys work on your bikes and just ride.”
Clyde’s name got a few smiles and laughs out of the guys.
“Yeah,” I joined in with a little laugh of my own, “I think we all have funny memories of Clyde telling us ridiculous stories while working on our motorcycles or on someone’s car. We lost Terrell McCoy and Johnny Britton as well, both of whom were getting their colors soon.” I glanced over at Ricky. “Ricky, we need to deliver their colors to their families.”
Ricky nodded. He stood next to Jorell Winston, the member who had drawn the ruined bikes to our attention. Jorell stood to move up to fill the hole left by Angelo’s death. I wasn’t sure if he was fully aware of that yet, but we’d already talked about promoting him several times. If not with us, then we were preparing to offer him a position in another chapter.
Jorell was ripped. Beneath his broad shoulders, his arms bulged with thick, powerful muscles. His chest pushed against his shirts as if it wanted to break out. He always wore sleeveless t-shirts to show off the ink covering both arms. He sported a shaved head and full beard. He was an impressive specimen of biker, and he took club business very seriously whenever he was involved. He stood with his arms crossed and watched me to see what my next order would be.
“The point is we lost some great people today, but I also think it’s a testament to the caliber of everyone standing here now that we didn’t lose more. I want to commend everyone for their response today. We returned fire pretty quickly despite being ambushed. That being said, I think we’ve grown too lax, too soft, too damn comfortable here,” I continued.
Voices murmured as the group certainly felt like I was calling them out.
“Now, I can’t remember anything like this ever happening to us before, so I don’t really have any fair points of comparison, but what I will tell you is that I’ve failed you. I’ve gone soft, and because of that, I feel like the MC as a whole has started to go soft. Well, not again. We’re in too deep, and the stakes are too high for us to go soft now. If anything, we need to harden up. We’re the damn Kings of Hell, for crying out loud. If someone attacks us, they need to be put on the defensive quick. We need security.”
I looked at Chase, Juarez, and Ricky. I could see that we were all on the same page. They nodded, each of them already seeing where I was going.
“Jorell, come here.” I held up my arm for Jorell to come up in front of everyone else. “You all know Jorell, right? He’s going to be our new head of security.”
Jorell gave a hearty laugh.
“You think you’re up to it?” I joked with him in front of the rest of the group.
“You know I am.” He took my hand and shook it. “Thank you for the opportunity, Gage.”
“Alright, guys, that’s the good news,” I said, killing the applause.
I felt the mood drop around me instantly.
“What’s the bad news?” Juarez asked cautiously.
“The bad news is that we still have a lot of work to do to clean up and contact the families of the men we lost today. The bad news is that gunfire like that doesn’t occur without some sort of law enforcement response, so they’ll probably be here soon. Ricky, I need you to handle them when they get here.” I was honestly pretty surprised they hadn’t already shown up, but they were probably on Ivan’s payroll, which meant there was a good chance they would never show up.
“So, all this talk,” Chase piped up suddenly, “but what are we going to do?”
“We’re going to make sure that after we ambush the deal they’ve got coming up, they aren’t able to do anything else. We’re going to eliminate Ivan and his men so that they no longer pose any kind of threat,” I said with as much confidence as I could muster. I still wasn’t sure of what we were going to do, myself.
“We need to have a private meeting with just the kings,” Jorell said in my ear. “We need to leave the princes out of this one until we’re ready to make a move.”
It struck me as odd that Jorell was so eager to assume his position that he’d try to tell me what we needed to do. I agreed with him completely, but it seemed a little early for him to be asserting himself.
“Look, right now, we need everyone to focus on cleaning up the mess from today. We need to replace the back window on the Suburban and fix the bikes. I also want everyone armed, just in case. In the meantime, I need to see Chase, Juarez, Ricky, and Jorell in the boardroom. The rest of you are dismissed.” I waved the group away and hobbled immediately into the boardroom with the other Kings.
Once the heavy double doors were closed, we took our seats around the table.
“So, how’s it going down?” Chase asked almost immediately.
I looked between his face and Juarez’s. Neither of them held any humor. There were no more jokes to be shared. Their faces had hardened in the course of the evening.
“Might I make a suggestion?” Jorell spoke up before I could answer, raising his hand like he was still in school.
“Sure.” I sat back in my chair and gave him the floor, eyeing Ricky the whole time. Something suddenly didn’t feel right about Jorell. He was too eager to take charge, it seemed, but I figured I’d hear him out. He’d been a great asset to the MC so far. Maybe his eagerness was just a reflection of how long he’d waited to get to where he was now.
“Whatever we decide to do, let’s hold off on it and take time to plan. Let’s not jump into anything. We need to prepare,” Jorell suggested to everyone. Before sitting back down, he added, “I’m only saying that because emotions are running high right now, and I don’t want to see us lose more men by acting on those emotions and doing something stupid.”
“Thanks, Jorell. I think that makes a lot of sense,” I told him as he seated himself again. “Now, let me catch you up to speed with where we are right now. Julia Danvers, the woman who was translating for us with Dimitri, Ivan’s right hand man, is gone. They’ve got her. One of the guys told me so when he grabbed me and told me he was going to take me to Ivan.”
“What did you do to him?” Chase asked.
“Shot him right under the chin, blew his head off,” I answered. “Anyway, we know they’re going to be on Lake Michigan in a couple of days. Ivan has a pretty big deal going down on his yacht with our mayor and a handful of other corrupt politicians and law enforcement officials. And, Jorell, I’m glad you said something, because I really was thinking about running in there with guns blazing tonight just to take them out.”
“Well, what are you thinking?” Ricky asked me.
“I’m thinking we ambush the meeting and just kill everybody,” I told him, “but that’s a knee-jerk reaction to what happened tonight. I feel like there’s a better option. I just haven’t figured it out. But, no matter what we do, I want to rescue Julia.”
“Well, let’s spend tomorrow getting all of our resources together,” Jorell said. “Tonight after this meeting, though, I’m going to start positioning guys so that HQ is guarded properly. We should have seen tonight’s ambush coming a mile away. They don’t need to get the drop on us like that again.”
“Yeah, I don’t think there’s much else to say tonight. Let’s try to get some sleep tonight and make sure everyone who’s with us is safe. Let’s help the families of the guys we lost start making their final preparations. Most of all, tomorrow, we’ll need to start our plan to take Ivan’s punk ass down.” I stood up slowly. “I think we’re done here tonight, guys.”
“Alright, I’ll go ahead and secure the building,” Jorell said, already heading out the door.
“We’ll start contacting families,” Juarez said, and I could see it in his face that he dreaded having to call Cliff’s family. They followed Jorell out of the boardroom.
“Ricky, hang back a sec,” I told him while the others left.
“What’s up, Gage?” He leaned over to me.
“I need you to keep an eye on Jorell, or get an eye on him for me,” I said quietly.
“I’m on it. I don’t trust him either.” He eyed the door while he talked to me.
“Is it just me or does he seem too eager?”
Ricky nodded. He patted my shoulder as he got up, telling me, “Don’t worry about it, brother. I’ve got it all under control.” He walked out, leaving me to sit back down in the president’s chair behind the boardroom table. I sighed and shook my head.
Everything hit me. I’d almost lost my MC tonight, and if I didn’t respond to the attack the right way, I could easily lose my position within it. I had actually lost my girl to Ivan, and the longer it took to get her back, the more danger she was in.
“How the hell did you let this happen?” I asked myself.
To top it all off, I knew that the only way to save Julia and salvage whatever was left of our budding relationship, I had to refrain from killing anyone on the yacht. Julia wouldn’t want me to murder Ivan and his men, despite the fact that they’d endangered her life. She didn’t even want me fighting. She would have been horrified if she’d seen what happened at HQ tonight.
I closed my eyes. The next few days were going to be long and unpredictable. I needed rest to be able to manage. I’d lost a lot of blood, it felt like. I struggled to stand. The pain in my leg pumped and throbbed with my heart, but I knew that if I failed to make it upstairs, I’d either get no sleep or fall asleep right here in the boardroom. I trudged up to the third floor where I wandered to my room at the end of the hallway. I opened the door and climbed into the bed.
I inhaled deeply. The sheets still smelled like Julia.
“I’ll have you again soon. I’m going to bring you home,” I said to my memory of her as I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.