After a restless night of sleep, and a strange and awkward morning with Zandra, Levi dropped her off at the diner where she worked and arrived at the motel to meet up with Dax and the other men, who he thought were headed for Texas. He knocked on the door to room 201 and Dax opened the door and invited him inside.

“Have a seat, Levi, and I’ll lay this out for you.” Levi sat down and so did Dax. Dax seemed to be studying him for a few moments and then he surprised Levi by saying, “I don’t need you to steal bikes in Texas.”

Confused, Levi said, “You don’t?”

“No. I told Cheney I needed the best he had at hotwiring bikes because Zack Leoni told me that’s your specialty.”

“Oh…okay…” Levi wasn’t sure what to say. He just waited, assuming Dax would give him more information.

“My father and your grandfather were allies back in the day. My dad did a lot of business in the south—Texas, Mississippi, and Memphis—and your grandfather was the president of the Defenders at the time. Your dad was a sergeant at arms when I first met him. I was a teenager at the time, but I remember that my father was extremely impressed with him, and Doc was hard on people, so getting noticed by him was no small task. I wanted to extend my condolences to you for your loss, and Zack tells me that you lost a lot more than your dad.”

Levi nodded and tried to clear the lump from his throat before he said, “Krissy, my girlfriend, was with him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” Levi hesitated and then said, “No disrespect intended, but…I doubt that you came all this way, and paid Cheney whatever you’re paying him, just to offer condolences.”

“That’s true. I’d like to hear about you first, before I tell you why I did come all this way. You, and your family.”

“Okay…what do you want to know?” Levi wasn’t easily intimidated, but there was something about Dax Marshall that made him feel like a commoner in the presence of a king.

“Everything,” Dax said. “Start at the beginning.”

Levi cleared his throat and said, “Well, my Pops and some of his friends, his brothers that he fought with in Vietnam, they started this club. I grew up listening to him tell stories about their adventures. His vision for the club was a lot different than what it’s turned into. They wanted to form a brotherhood, but none of them were into anything illegal. They thought they would just be a club that rode together and partied together…but like a lot of MCs, I guess, it evolved into a lot more than that. Pops was vice president from the beginning and for a brief time after their president, his best friend, was killed in a traffic accident, he took over that role. By that time there were a lot of younger guys in the club. The brothers had thought it would be good to recruit— you know, collect more dues and all of that. Pops says that he and the original crew were quickly outnumbered by the younger guys. One of those younger guys was my father. He met my mom at a concert and asked her out when she was 22 and he was 27. She wouldn’t go out with him. She says it was because she didn’t think he’d fit in with the club lifestyle and she’d grown up in it, so it was all she knew. She’d never dated anyone except bikers. My father was determined, though. He bought a bike, learned how to ride it, and became a hang-around. After a year, he earned a spot as a prospect. My Pops didn’t like him back then. Dad was college educated and Pops thought that he looked down on the rest of them, because he was always coming up with ideas and new ways to do things, and of course he just didn’t like the fact that my mom was starting to fall for him. Pops was old-school and he liked things the way they were. Mom was still turning him down, even though she was attracted to him, because she was really close to Pops and respected his opinion. Dad still didn’t give up, and when an SAA spot opened up, he put in his bid for it. There were enough younger guys, with fresh ideas of their own, that he was voted in. He moved up to lieutenant quickly and by that time, Pops was getting sick. He had diabetes and arthritis and it was getting almost impossible for him to ride. Cheney’s father was the V.P. at the time. When Pops finally had to give it up, Cheney’s father moved into the position of president. Mom finally gave in, and she and Dad got together around the same time. Cheney was a teenager then, and Dad said he was always in trouble. Five years after his father took the position of president, the man was killed in a shoot-out with police. Cheney was an SAA at the time and someone put his name forward for the spot of president. He was voted in, since no one particularly cared for the V.P. at the time, and Dad told me that no one else wanted it. Cheney and the old V.P. butted heads for about six months and then that guy was killed in a shoot-out with a rival gang. By that time, a lot of the younger guys were intimidated by Cheney, and he more or less muscled Jackie D, who was a childhood friend of his, into that position. He’s managed to put all the people he wanted in place since then, and get most of the older guys to retire. He even put Spider, who has always been a little crazy, into an executive position just to cash in on what Spider’s family could do for the club. The old guys got tired of fighting him for the most part, but my dad was the one holdout. Dad didn’t want to be there any longer, but he and Cheney were in this crazy, heated race to see who would come out on top. Dad hadn’t done anything against the by-laws, so Cheney couldn’t remove him from the executive board and Dad knew it. He kept verbalizing his objections to our getting into businesses like…” He paused and Dax said:

“After the incident with Spider, Levi, it’s no secret that this club was cooking and selling meth.”

Levi nodded. He was fed up with Cheney and most of the Defenders, but he still felt strange talking about their private business to an outsider. He took a breath and went on, “Yeah, Dad had a big problem with us working with the street gangs to transport hard drugs, and especially our creating and selling meth. He had been a part of getting the club into selling weed and even growing and cultivating several farms back in the day, but he knew something like meth was going to cause a whole new slew of problems. He thought the money wasn’t going to be worth fighting with the gangs for turf…and he had a problem with what putting that shit out there was doing to the community. He was always vocal about it, but he was outnumbered in all the votes because the rest of them kissed Cheney’s ass. Dad got more and more frustrated and started drinking a lot. So much that he was drunk more than he was sober, and he didn’t really give a shit about anything. He might have drunk himself to death, but one afternoon he had a heart attack. It was a major one and when he woke up after surgery, my mother told him that if he didn’t stop drinking and smoking, she was finished with him. She told him she didn’t marry a coward who stayed drunk to keep from having to face his problems, and she wasn’t going to live with one and watch him kill himself. He stopped drinking and smoking. Of course, being sober made him care again about what was going on in the club, and once he recovered, he started up trying to get someone to listen to him again. Cheney and Jackie and a few of the other guys started treating him like he was a big joke, doing their best to make him want to leave. One major thing Cheney was doing was putting me on as many of the drug run jobs as he could, just to piss Dad off, I think. I’m sure it’s why he sent me after Spider that night too. I think that Cheney thought whoever took him out would get the shit end of the deal from Spider’s parents, but what he hadn’t counted on was Spider trying to kill his own father first. The family wasn’t exactly grateful to me, but they could hardly come after me, knowing that Spider would have probably come back after them to finish the job if he’d lived.”

“Zack said you saved his life and the life of his girl Nicole that night too.”

“I did what I had to do. Dax…I’m still confused. Why are you here?”

“Your father came to see me about a week before he died.”

Levi sat up straighter in his chair. His dad had been gone for almost a week, but he’d told Levi and his mother that he was scouting some new property for the club. It was one of the crap jobs that Cheney gave him toward the end, so no one thought anything of it, at least not Levi and his mom. “He went to Massachusetts?”

Dax nodded. “He was looking for a club…for you.”

“I’m confused again. He was trying to get me a spot in another club? He hadn’t mentioned anything like that to me. We had even talked about how well I got on with a lot of the guys from the Invaders and maybe I could find a way to join their club…he never mentioned the Skulls.”

“Your dad wanted to retire, but he was worried about leaving you with Cheney and the Defenders on your own.” Levi didn’t know how to feel about that. His first impulse was to be insulted. He was a grown man who could out-ride and out-shoot most of the men in the club. Why did his father think he needed his help? “Your dad was well aware that he’d made a lot of enemies in the club, and he said that he could see how that was affecting how they treated you. After they sent you after Spider, and you handled that so well, he was afraid Cheney would use you for more assignments like that…and make a killer out of you.”

“I’m still blown away that he went behind my back.”

“He didn’t look at it like going behind your back, more like just clearing a path for you. He was afraid if you chose to leave the Defenders, that Cheney would pretend to let you go. But he would come after you later. He’s the kind of guy that doesn’t seem to be able to let any slight go.”

“So…are you offering me a spot with the Skulls?”

“I’m going to offer you a trip to Massachusetts to check out the club and the ranch and see if it suits you. If so, we tell Cheney that I was so impressed with your skills in Texas that I’d like you to join up with the Skulls.”

“He won’t go for it, unless there’s something in it for him.”

“There will be,” Dax said. Levi waited for him to go on, but he didn’t. Finally, Levi said:

“I’m…honored, thank you. But there’s my mom and Pops to think of.” For some reason Zandra popped into his head. That was ridiculous, Levi knew. He’d barely met the girl. Just because he had some bizarre, pornographic dream about her didn’t make her anything to him. He reached into his pocket and took out the silver heart. Holding it between his fingers seemed to help him think straighter. He’d love the chance to get out from underneath Cheney and far away from the meth business that he was sure would bring them all down someday. But he couldn’t just leave his mother and her ailing father all alone to fend for themselves.

“Family is a big thing at the ranch. I will tell you that I’m like Cheney in one way, I hand pick the men that I surround myself with. The difference you’ll be able to see the first time you sit in on church with us, if you choose to do that. My guys are far from being yes-men. They all have their own opinions and I encourage them to voice those. Respect is still mandatory, but I don’t always get my way when it comes to how we do things, and that’s okay. My guys have all brought their families to live on the ranch and if you choose to come aboard, you’d be welcome to do the same.” Levi wasn’t sure that his mother, or his Pops for that matter, would go for it. But…taking a look at the club and the ranch couldn’t hurt, as long as he had the time off and Cheney thought he was in Texas. He looked down at the heart between his fingers. Usually when he held it, he saw Krissy’s face. Today, he was thinking about Zandra. That freaked him out a little. It had only been two months. Krissy was the love of his life, his soulmate. What kind of man am I for even thinking about another woman so soon?

“Okay,” he said, looking up at Dax. “It might do me good to get away from here, for more than one reason.”