Chapter 1
Rodeo
Fred was dead, and Marcus didn’t know anything else. We were all in shock, but I had charged right at Marcus, pushing him up against the wall of the bar. He had his hands up in defense, and was struggling against my grip on him.
“I don’t know anything else, man. This is all I know!” he screamed.
“Fuck! How did this happen?” Lewis was yelling behind us, and I heard Lila burst into tears.
“Who told you this? What the fuck do you mean he’s dead?” I was barking right at Marcus’ face and he was shaking his head.
“Little Will. He saw the cops. He said Fred was being carried out on a stretcher!” Marcus yelled back.
“The cops got there first? Fuck! Fuck!” Abe was growling. I could feel waves of rage washing over me as I kept Marcus pinned to the wall. He had given up struggling to get away from me. He knew I was stronger.
“Rodeo! Let him go,” Lewis said, in a calm and subdued voice behind me, but I was seeing red.
“What else do you know? Tell me what else you know!” I barked and some spittle flew out of my mouth and landed on Marcus’ face. He shook his head, his eyes were bloodshot.
“I don’t know anything else. I know whatever Little Will told me. I swear!” he yelled back.
“Rodeo!” Lewis called out to me again, and this time, I released the pressure of my hands on Marcus’ arms. He slid away from me the moment he got the chance and I ran a hand through my hair.
“How is this possible? How did they get Fred?” Abe was pacing around the bar, while Girth had Lila in his arms and he was consoling her.
Fred had been like a father to us, especially to Lila and me. I had nobody before I had Fred. I didn’t even have the MC before he pulled me out of the life I used to lead. He was the one who introduced me to the Marked Skulls. He changed my life, he saved me; and now he was dead.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” I hissed through gritted teeth.
“Was it the Dark Legion?” Abe asked and Marcus shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know man,” he replied.
“It has to be!” Lewis roared and when I looked at him, I could see the rage in his eyes too. Lewis and Fred had been best friends. Fred was Lewis’ right-hand-man, the MC’s vice president.
“When they realized that they can’t get to my daughter,” he continued and swung his head around to look at Lila who was still in Girth’s arms, “they decided to take out one of us.”
“I’m going to fucking kill him. I’m going to hunt him down and kill him, whoever this motherfucker is,” I growled and Lila burst into another fit of tears.
“I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe Fred is gone,” she blubbered, while Girth held her tightly. Lila was like a sister to me, I cared about her the same way I would have cared about my family if I had one. I was glad that she now had Girth in her life, so I didn’t have to worry about her.
“Where was he going? Where was he?” Abe asked, turning his heaving shoulders towards Marcus again. Marcus gulped before he spoke. He was clearly getting the wrong end of having to be the messenger.
“Don’t know. All Little Will said was that he was found on the corner of Shelby Street and 42nd, in front of some apartment building,” he replied, just as the doors of the bar burst open and Hugh Ashland rushed in.
He was a young beat cop who had long been working with our MC. He looked up to Lewis and Fred and helped cover up any shit that our MC got into. He was breathing hard when he came in and I charged at him next.
“What the fuck is going on, Hugh? Where have you been?” I growled at him and Hugh clenched his jaws.
“He got shot. He got shot by a drive-by shooter,” Hugh said, walking in towards us. The color had drained from his face. Fred had left his mark on a lot of people’s lives. He was a calm and composed man full of wisdom, who had seen the best in a couple of street-kids like me. Hugh used to admire him too.
He looked apologetic now as he came to a stop in the middle of the bar.
“What else do you know, Hugh?” Lewis asked him and he breathed heavily as he looked at each of us.
“All I know, all anyone knows at this point is that there was a single gunman on a bike and he got Fred right in the chest as he rode by,” Hugh said and there was another burst of tears from Lila. She was uncontrollable in her shock. A couple of weeks before this, she had been in a similar situation when the Dark Legion were trying to get to her to get to us. They wanted to teach Lewis and the rest of us a lesson for dealing weapons in their territory.
I clenched my jaws, fisted up the palms of my hands and tried to control the rage that was bubbling up inside me. We were a small MC, smaller than the Dark Legion and any of the other big players in the city but I wasn’t going to sit back and do nothing when Fred had been shot and killed. I wasn’t going to cower away in fear.
“So, there’s nothing else? We don’t know who exactly shot him?” it was Girth who spoke up now, and Hugh shook his head. Then slowly, he turned to look at me. Everyone knew the relationship I shared with Fred. Hugh narrowed his eyes at me before he spoke.
“But there is a witness,” he said.
Want more? Rodeo comes out on June 6th!