The next few days were spent rounding up Babyface’s “happy helpers,” as Wolf called them. As it turned out, Bentley was a former Skull that Wolf had kicked out of the club for using hard drugs and bitch-slapping his woman and dipping his fingers into the club treasury to fund his drug addiction, about a year before Ash joined up. When Ogre was putting the Impalers together, Bentley had been one of the first to join up. Ogre didn’t monitor the behavior of his men outside of club business. They were a ragtag bunch of wife-beaters and drug addicts, and Bentley fitted right in. But when Wolf kicked him out of the club, it had come at the price of any self-respect or dignity the man might have still possessed. Wolf had the Skulls tattoo on his back burned off in front of anyone in the club that wanted to watch...and to top things off, he’d given his blessing to Bentley’s abused old woman to stay in the club. She was now an old lady to one of the older men in the club who had ridden for years with Coyote before Wolf was even born. The age gap didn’t bother either one of them, and the old lady was happy probably for the first time in her life.

To be fair, Wolf decided he’d let Ogre choose which two he wanted to “punish” for being a part of Babyface’s plans...anyone but Bentley; Wolf wanted him for himself. Ogre, surprisingly to Ash, never asked a single question about his son. Not that anyone would have ever told him that pieces of him were currently feeding the corn in a field in southern Madera, but still, he was his son.

Bruf explained to Ash later on that Ogre had kicked Babyface out of the club himself. It seemed the kid had the same penchant for hitting women, added to an obsession with rough, sometimes not so consensual sex. Unfortunately, he was making his rounds in Oakland and the northern part of the state, stirring up all kinds of shit while wearing his Impalers kutte...thinking he could get away with anything because of who his daddy was. But Ogre had a reputation to establish in the north and he didn’t put up with his son’s behavior for long...he just hadn’t been able to bring himself to order a hit on his own boy...so the Skulls had. He picked Poppa and Petey, because other than his own son, those were the two he’d thought would never betray him. Wolf only wanted Bentley...so he gave Marco and Slate to Jacob. Those two were probably the luckiest, although at the moment, neither of them could possibly realize it.

“Let’s get this fight started!” Jacob yelled into the microphone. The audience was fairly small, only the Skulls who could make it, the fighters that were in town, and Jacob’s two special guests, Dax Marshall and his brother Gunner, who volunteered to star in one of the matches. He’d be fighting Marco...and Slate’s draw was Jagger. Ash wondered if it was the life that was hardening him sometimes, or if he’d always been this way...but as hectic as the week had been, and hard at times, what he’d done to avenge Smoke’s death and what was about to happen today didn’t upset him at all. Like him, these men had made their choices about how they were going to live their lives. Babyface had made a choice to shoot a good man in the back and let him die in the parking lot behind a dive bar in the middle of nowhere. What Ash left in that cornfield was a promise that the cold bastard wouldn’t hurt anyone else as far as he was concerned. And Marco and Slate were going to wish they were dead by the end of this day...but if they were smart, they’d thank whoever they believed in when it was over that they were still breathing.

Ash took a seat in the front row between Bruf and Wolf. His phone vibrated and he pulled it out and looked at it. It was his sister. He got back up and walked a few feet away and called her. “Hey, kid, what’s up?”

“Mack has been trying to get in touch with you for a week.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen the text messages and voice messages...”

“Why aren’t you calling her back?”

“Charlie...honey, I’m glad you have a good heart. I’m glad you’ve been able to find the good in Mack, because there is a lot of that, and be her friend. But Mack and I are like fire and kerosene, and sooner or later if we mix too much, there’s gonna be an explosion. My life was a lot smoother when I didn’t have to think about Mack every day.”

“I know, Ash. I understand that she hurt you and you’re not over that...”

“Charlie, I can’t really talk about this right now.”

“Ash, she told me what happened. She told me why she stood you up. Please, talk to her. Let her at least tell you her story, and then you can decide what to do.” Ash could hear Mason crying in the background.

“Shouldn’t you be tending to the baby?” Did he want to hear what Mack had to say? The last time he saw her, he thought he was ready. He’d promised her that he’d forgive her, if she’d only tell him the truth. But what if she told him the truth, and he still couldn’t forgive her?

“No. Sabrina is here.”

“Well, I have to go anyway. I’ll talk to you later, kid, okay?”

“Okay, but there’s one more thing.”

He sighed. Charlie had been doing great. She took care of the baby for Sabrina and Bruf, she pitched in around the clubhouse with cleaning and meals, and she’d signed up for community college to start online classes in the fall. Ash didn’t want to run her off simply because he was impatient and didn’t have a handle on his own emotions. For her, he was trying to learn the patience that he’d never had for anyone else.

“What’s that?”

“Allison wants to settle this lawsuit out of court, so we can finally probate the will and end this mess.”

“She’s not going to fight the emancipation?” Charlie had taken to calling her mother “Allison.” Sadly, she’d decided that “Mother” wasn’t a term her mom deserved.

“Nope, but it was never about me anyway. She was all about the money. I think if I agree to pay her a couple million and let her keep the estate, she’ll go away.”

“I’m sorry, honey.”

“Don’t be. I won’t miss a couple million, that old mausoleum, or her. I’d rather have you...and of course a ton of money...” She giggled. That was the Charlie he knew.

“Well, good then. I have to go, but we’ll talk later, okay?”

“Sure. Be good, alright? Don’t get shot.” Charlie barely knew Smoke, but she’d known Sledge her entire life. With him hurt and Smoke dead, it had made her begin to worry about her big brother and his mortality. Ash never shared with her what was going on in the club...but she lived there, so she heard a lot more than she should.

“I won’t. I have a big birthday bash to plan.”

She giggled again. “Wait until you get your cut of Dad’s money, okay? I want my sweet sixteen to be off the hook.”

He snorted. “We’re going to Chuck E. Cheese’s.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Bye, Charlie.”

“See ya, old man.”

When Ash got back to his seat, Jagger and Slate were already going at it. Slate threw out a right cross that caught Jagger on the chin. He stumbled back and Ash heard him say “Bitch” before moving in with both fists raised and throwing out a left jab. Slate dodged it, but as soon as he popped up, Jagger was ready with an undercut that caused his teeth to slam together so hard that Ash heard the sound of it from where he sat. Slate looked dazed. Jagger was grinning from ear to ear. “How’s that, you little pussy?” The name-calling seemed to get to Slate more than anything else. He pounced toward Jagger, surprisingly quickly for his size. Jagger sidestepped him, gave a roundhouse kick, and caught him in the ribs. That one took the other guy down and an agonizing howl came from his lips as he hit the mat. Jagger stood over him with his signature grin still plastered across his face.

“I’m going to fucking kill you!” the man on the ground spat out. Jagger laughed.

“Big talk from way down there, douchebag.”

The man got up on his hands and knees. Like the professional fighter that he was, Jagger took a step back to let the other man get to his feet. The guys in the audience were yelling insults at Slate as he struggled to pull himself back up. He was up on his knees when suddenly he reached out, wrapped his arms around Jagger’s legs, and took him down to the mat. The bikers and fighters watching were all on their feet and a few of them already had their guns in hand. A look from Jacob caused the guns to disappear, back to where they had come from, but Slate had seen them and suddenly, in a high-pitched, whiny voice, befitting any self-respecting teenaged girl he said, “You fucking said this would be a fair fight.”

“Look around, you ass-wipe, the guns are gone,” Jacob said. “And trust me, a fair fight doesn’t involve grabbing a man by his legs when he was kind enough to let your sorry ass get up off the mat.”

“Yeah, for now. What happens if I beat this guy? You’re going to let me walk out of here? I don’t fucking think so.”

“Well, little buddy, I don’t guess you have any choice but to trust us, do you?” Jacob said. “I also guess you’ll think twice next time before you join a bunch of little pussies in an unfair fight against one man.”

“I wasn’t even fucking there.”

Jacob lost his cool...just for a second...and clocked the guy upside the head, knocking him about a foot off of Jagger. Once he landed, Jacob narrowed his eyes at him and said, “Liars are almost as bad as pussies.”

Slate was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. He wiped the blood off his mouth onto his arm and got back up to his feet. For the next ten minutes, he took one hell of a beating from Jagger. When Jagger finally had him down on the mat, pinned and practically unable to move, he slowly lifted his hand up about half an inch off the floor and dropped it. Jagger looked at Jacob and raised an eyebrow. Jacob shrugged. With a mischievous smile Jagger put a hand on either side of Slate’s head and pulled it up off the floor. Spitting blood and saliva, Slate spat out:

“You gonna fucking kiss me?” Jagger’s grin grew wider. He pulled the man’s head up a little higher and planted a kiss right on his lips. As Slate was cussing and raring at him, Jagger used his hold on the other man’s face to slam his head into the mat. He went silent...thankfully. The match was over, and Slate wouldn’t be talking shit to anyone, anytime soon.

As Jagger made his way out of the cage, Brock handed him a towel and said, “You kissed him.”

“Fucker practically dared me,” Jagger said with a shrug. “My manhood is intact enough to take a kiss from a man...like a man. You want one?”

Brock pulled back so quickly that he tripped over his own feet and fell on his ass. Jagger cracked up laughing on his way out to the locker rooms, and the next fight was on....