Mark
“Today, we are riding out to ambush the Demons. These are city boys, so they think they’re harder, rougher, and deadlier than a club from a little border town, but we’re going to show them why we’re the Shadow Reapers,” I said to the guys standing outside the clubhouse, getting ready for the ride.
Nora stood by my side while I addressed the members of the MC who were gathered in front of me. She looked like a queen ready to lead her people into whatever battle her king had in mind.
Simply having her at my side drew more attention from the guys. Many of them had been there when she stormed out of my office. That moment had hurt my credibility as president. It damaged MC morale and made the guys less willing to ride out today, but having her next to me, I saw that their faith in me and willingness to ride had been restored, at least a little.
“We have faced threats before,” I told them. “We have faced off with the Asphalt Demons before. It was our last confrontation with these guys that left Alan behind bars. Apparently, they haven’t had enough of Shadow Reapers and they want more. Why else would they be fucking stupid enough to move in on our territory and in our markets?” That got a little response out of them as they cheered me on.
Still, I didn’t feel like we were quite ready. They weren’t fully rallied behind me yet. They still weren’t excited about the ride. We weren’t united. There was one thing I hadn’t done. I hadn’t brought Nora into the mix yet.
“Have I introduced you to Nora?” I asked them, putting an arm around her shoulders. I wasn’t exactly sure what to call her. She wasn’t my old lady. She wasn’t a club girl. Calling her my partner or girlfriend would have given them the wrong impression. One sounded to business-like. The other sounded too juvenile.
They applauded as I stepped her forward, presenting us as a couple to the MC. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. Her face beamed with pride at the MC’s warm reception. She was finally getting to witness the MC’s reaction to our union. She finally saw what I had been trying to explain to her this whole time.
“I have an announcement to make,” I told them, and I saw everyone’s reaction to that statement. They all watched with bated breath. A hush fell over the MC.
Even Nora reacted to the statement, shooting me a look that asked me what the hell I thought I was doing. I nodded to her, signaling that it was okay. I had it all under control and knew what I was doing.
Really, I had no fucking clue. There was no manual, and my only guidance was locked up. I was on my own here. I knew that if they were excited to see us back together, they were going to be hysterical if they knew we were expecting a possible heir to the MC leadership legacy.
“This is big news,” I said, prefacing the announcement with a pause. I could feel the anticipation growing in the crowd before me. I relished the feeling, but I knew if I waited too long, I’d lose everyone, so I finally said it.
“We are expecting,” I told them, rubbing her stomach for everyone to see.
They started cheering then, but I wasn’t finished. I wanted them to understand what I was trying to tell them beyond a shadow of a doubt. Some of them already got the magnitude of the announcement, but there were others standing around practically yawning, ready to go home rather than go face off with the Demons.
“In a few short months, we’re going to have an heir to the MC,” I announced. “There will be a new generation, ready to be groomed to take over when my time is done.”
The crowd erupted. Cheers and applause filled the air in front of the clubhouse. I had finally inspired the kind of energy we needed if we were going to have a successful ride.
“What we have to do now is ensure that there is still an MC when this little one is ready to take over behind me,” I added. “Today, we are preparing for a ride against a threat to that future. We have to take these guys out and push them back from our turf.”
A few moments earlier, the same statement would have been met with bored stares and dead eyes. Now it was met with hardy cheers and hungry faces ready to stir shit up. This was the Shadow Reapers I knew and loved – the men who were ready to do whatever had to be done.
I kept my arm around Nora while I talked to the crowd, pumping them up to go. This was my first big ride – my ride. I didn’t have to tell Nora or Ozzy what it meant for us to come out on top of this situation. If we came back victorious, I had a pretty good chance of taking the presidency away from Alan when it was time for him to come back from prison. If we won today, and our child turned out to be a boy, there would be no stopping me.
Suddenly, realizing what was truly at stake, I felt a surge of ambition. I wanted to take the presidency. I wanted to continue to be in charge of the MC, and I wanted to do whatever it took to make that happen. The presidency of the Shadow Reapers MC was going to be mine. I could feel it already.
I was ready to ride.
###
Nora
“You ready to ride?” Alice asked with a sarcastic little smile on her face as she started up the car and pulled out of the parking lot behind the group of bikers heading south.
“I guess so,” I said. “Do we really have a choice?”
She laughed. “No, we really don’t,” she said. “We sort of have to do what we’re told, but it’s not so bad, right? They only act like they care about us when they need something, and after that, we’re shoved aside. It’s all for the MC, right?” she continued.
It didn’t take a genius to see that something was very wrong here. Alice was usually pretty gung-ho about Shadow Reapers. She was as much a member as a club girl could have been. To see her acting less than thrilled about the MC or her place in relation to it was disheartening.
The look on Ozzy’s face at Mark’s little pep rally made more sense as I listened to her. I had spotted him standing off to the side with a serious scowl on his face while Mark had been talking.
Ozzy was the only member who wasn’t sharing in the excitement of the rest of the MC. I had thought initially that his expression had to do with the dressing down he received from Mark after our talk, but I was starting to think it might have been due to the trouble in paradise.
“What’s going on?” I asked Alice. “I saw Ozzy back at the clubhouse, and he didn’t seem to be in a very good mood either.”
“I think he’s done with me,” she started. “He doesn’t seem to be in love with me anymore. All he ever talks about is you. He doesn’t want to see me. He’s always got to watch you, or he’s talking about you and Mark. I just don’t know, Nora.”
She shook her head with a sad, put-out look on her face. I knew I needed to be reassuring and to try to tell her that there was no way Ozzy did not love her.
“You know Ozzy loves you,” I said. “There’s no way he doesn’t.”
“You don’t know that,” she fired back immediately. “Honestly, he seems like he’s half in love with you most of the time.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the notion. “He’s stupid if he is.”
“What do you mean?” She looked over at me in disbelief, like she couldn’t imagine I would say anything like that.
“I mean, Mark would surely kill him if it came out he was in love with me, even just a little bit,” I explained.
“It must be nice to have someone so devoted to you that you know how they’d react if your relationship was challenged,” Alice said thoughtfully. She had turned inward, comparing what I’d said to what was going on in her relationship with Ozzy.
“I’m sure Ozzy is very protective of you.” The conversation was starting to make me feel uncomfortable. I couldn’t believe Alice’s jealousy over my relationship with Mark.
“I don’t know. I’d do anything for him. Hell, I do pretty much anything he requires of me already. But I don’t know if he feels the same way. I don’t have the kind of devotion from Ozzy that you have from Mark,” she said.
I didn’t say anything in response. I looked out the windshield and thought about Mark. He was a very devoted man. I was very lucky, especially considering where he came from. I hadn’t expected the president of a club like Shadow Reapers to be such a loving, devoted man, especially not when I first started spending time alone with him.
Still, I felt like he led by example most of the time, and I figured some of that would have rubbed off on the people closest to him in the MC, like Ozzy. Surely, Ozzy had to have picked up on some of Mark’s gentlemanly traits, even if he did still have to maintain that rough biker exterior.
The ride seemed to go on forever. I started to wonder how far south we had to go to get to this other MC. I didn’t know if I could spend hours in the car with her, talking about our relationships. Mine still wasn’t an official relationship yet. We were still calling it our arrangement, but it didn’t change the fact that even as only a business deal, I had a pretty good thing going with Mark.
“How far is this place?” I asked her after we rode in awkward silence for a while, having abandoned our conversation after her comments about Mark’s devotion.
“It’s a little further up the road,” she said absently, making it clear she wasn’t trying to commit to more conversation yet.
She focused her gaze on the road ahead, not looking away as we rode the rest of the way. I couldn’t see the bikers up ahead of us. They’d sped off into the distance. I hoped Mark or Ozzy had given her the address or good directions on how to get there. Of course, having already dealt with Mark’s failure to talk to people beforehand, I didn’t have a lot of faith in him to be able to do that.
I had to have faith. That was all. And faith seemed to be in short supply in Alice’s car. She didn’t have faith in her man, and mine had been challenged, despite his encouraging words and hugs.
I felt the weight of the gun on my hip, reminding me that I was carrying a weapon with me to the meeting with this other MC. It still didn’t seem like a good idea to have a gun at my side, but like Alice had said, there wasn’t a whole lot we could do about some things.