Zack was anxious to see Nicole, and Liam, but he’d gotten a call as he was saying goodbye to Tammy that he unfortunately felt like he couldn’t ignore. Now, the next day, he pulled his bike into the parking lot of the Greasy Wheel, a bar in Nashville, in a seedy part of town. The sun was just beginning to go down and the glint off the chrome of all the Harleys in the lot was almost blinding. He knew he was taking a risk by walking into a bar full of Defenders, dressed in his Invaders kutte and obviously sleeping with Spider’s ex old lady…but he wasn’t about to let this piece of shit believe he was intimidated by him, not even a little bit.

He opened the door to the run-down little bar, and it seemed all eyes were on him as he walked inside. He ignored the stares and made his way to the bar. As soon as he sat down, the bartender said, “Well hey there, handsome, what can I get you?” The bartender looked like a tweaker to Zack, thin to the point of being almost emaciated. Her eyes were blood-shot and her hands shook as she wiped out the glass she was holding. But, she was the only one in the bar not glaring at him, or looking at him suspiciously, so vive le Meth!

“Give me a shot of Jack and tell me where I can find the owners of all those bikes out there.” The bar was packed, but Zack didn’t see a single kutte. It looked like one of those places where the locals came to shoot the shit and buy their drugs. The bartender wasn’t the only one that looked like she’d just gone outside and hit the meth pipe. This was where Spider had told him to meet him, and judging by the Harleys parked out front, there had to be a back room somewhere.

The bartender laughed, inappropriately, and sat a shot glass down in front of Zack. Her hands shook as she filled it and whiskey splashed out onto the bar. “There’s your shot, beautiful,” she said, looking at him with glassy eyes. “As far as the guys…” She motioned toward a door in the back with her head and then winked at him. “I think it’s poker night, at least for now. Later it will be ‘poke-her’ night.” She threw her stringy blonde hair back and laughed at her own joke. She started to lean in on the bar in front of Zack when she was interrupted.

“Cammie! What’s a man got to do to get another beer around here?” a middle-aged, balding man at the end of the bar yelled at her. Zack was relieved she had something else to do besides trying to flirt with him. He was almost embarrassed for her; she was so pathetic. He sadly doubted that she’d end the night alone, thanks to the collection of losers already in the bar. She flipped the balding guy off, but grabbed a bottle of Bud from a cooler underneath the bar and headed toward him. Zack slammed his shot quickly and started toward the back room. He was already pissed off that Spider thought he had the right to “summon” him anywhere, but that feeling doubled when the two overly muscled bouncers stepped into his path.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Zack could have told them he had a meeting with Spider, or he could have texted him and told him to call his dogs off. But the truth was that Zack was still simmering inside from what he’d witnessed with his mother the day before and he needed an outlet. These two apes in leather looked like they would do just fine.

Zack didn’t answer the growled question, not with words anyways. A quick, unexpected punch caught the big ape on the chin and knocked him off balance. He fell into his friend, who pushed him in the floor, but not before Zack could get off another punch that landed hard on the soft part of the partner’s belly. He doubled over and his friend, still on his way down, pulled him down with him. A crowd had gathered, and one of the men that had been at the bar looked like he was about to step in. Zack reached into his waistband and pulled out his gun and said:

“I’ve been up for over thirty hours and I’ve had a bad fucking couple of days. Anybody care to help me blow off any more steam?” The man headed his way took a quick turn and everyone else took a step back. The two on the floor stayed put. When Zack looked up, the door to the back room was open and Spider was standing there watching the show.

“You finished being a badass?” Spider asked.

Zack looked down at the gun and back at the man that was the source of all of Nicole’s problems. He thought about the day she had the ugly bruise on the side of her face, and the split lip. He looked Spider over and estimated that the son of a bitch had to outweigh her by at least a hundred pounds. The only woman Zack had ever wanted to hit was his mother, but even as pissed off as she made him, he had still never raised a hand to her. He wondered how this muscled-up piece of shit could even look at himself in the mirror after doubling up his fist and using it to hurt someone like Nicole. His trigger finger almost shook with need.

Finally, taking a deep breath and tucking the gun back in his jeans he told Spider, “Maybe.”

Spider chuckled and stepped back to let him into the room. There were five other bikers, all wearing Defenders patches, sitting around a card table with cards, drinks, and a pile of chips in front of them. A layer of marijuana smoke filled the room and there was a glass pipe in front of one of the men that Zack was sure wasn’t for smoking pot. He was outnumbered, but they were drunk, high, and not half as irritated as he was, so he figured that it would take at least five of the sons of bitches to kill him if that was their plan. He walked in and took a seat at the table without being asked. Spider closed the door and said, “Boys, this is the famous Zack Leoni you’ve heard so much about.”

Zack ignored him and reached for a bottle of Crown Royal sitting on the table. He wiped off the top of it and took a long shot straight from the bottle. The men at the table were all glaring at him, Spider looked amused. Zack sat the bottle down hard enough to rattle the chips and bottles on the table and said, “So let’s get this shit over with, Roach. What the fuck do you want from me?”

Spider kicked his chair out and sat down. With a hard stare, he leaned in and said, “It’s Spider, asshole, and you better not forget it.”

“Whatever – bugs, spiders, all the same shit. You’re wasting my time. What the fuck do you want?”

“You know what I want. I want my kid.”

Zack pushed the chair all the way back and stood up. “Then we’re finished here, because I’m not about to help you take Nicole’s baby away from her.”

“My baby. That boy has my DNA and that bitch has no right to keep him from me.” Zack drew back his fist, but the man sitting next to him caught it. Zack turned and hit him with his left hand, not hard, just a light jab to the jaw. The man pulled out his gun and, still holding onto Zack’s right arm, shoved it into his temple. “Calm down there, Lug Nut,” Spider said. “Looks like Leoni’s just having a bad day today. We’ll give him a little bit of rope. Hopefully, he won’t hang himself with it.”

“Call her a bitch again and I’ll fucking kill you,” Zack said through gritted teeth. Lug Nut was twisting his arm at an unnatural angle, and it hurt like hell.

Spider laughed. “Ballsy, I’ll give you that. Lug Nut, let our guest take his seat. I think he realizes now that this is just a friendly conversation.” Lug Nut let go of Zack’s arm. He pulled away, trying not to let them see how badly it hurt. “Sit,” Spider told him.

“I’d rather stand. I won’t be here that long. You’re crazy if you think I’m helping you hurt Nicole in any way. Unfortunately for Liam, he has tainted DNA, but it’s not his fault and I’m sure his mother will be able to help him overcome that.”

“That boy is mine and I mean to see that he and everyone else knows it.”

Zack rolled his eyes and said, “You sound a little unsure of yourself, Fly. I thought you had some fancy lawyer that was going to walk into that court hearing, announce who you are, like you’re fucking Bruce Wayne or some shit, and you were going to walk out with Liam. Isn’t that what you told Nicole, the day you brought him back after you kidnapped him?”

“You can’t kidnap your own kid. I had every right to take him. And not that it’s really any of your fucking business, but my lawyer is sure he can get me visitation, but I want full custody. You can have his slut of a mother…” Zack lunged at him again. Lug Nut grabbed him but this time Zack shook him off and got in a couple of good punches to Spider’s face before they pulled him off. Spider’s chair had been thrown backwards and he was on the floor, bleeding from his mouth and nose. “Stupid fuck!” he said, spitting blood. “I’m trying to help you here. Don’t make me fucking kill you.”

Two of the men were holding Zack back now, both of them using all their muscle to twist his arms hard behind his back. “You’re trying to help me? How’s that exactly, Larva?”

Zack could tell that ignoring the bug names was killing him, but as Spider stood up and wiped the blood off his face with the back of his hand, he took a deep breath and said, “You want Nicole, I want my kid. We can both have what we want if we work together. If not, you’ll regret it, and so will Nicole.”

“Fuck you.”

Spider smiled. The blood on his teeth made him look more evil than ever. “Last chance, Leoni.”

“Fuck. You. Fucking cockroach.” Still smiling, Spider said:

“Let him go.” The men released Zack’s arms and as soon as they did, Zack went for his gun. He hadn’t even realized it wasn’t there until Lug Nut held it up and laughed.

“Fucking idiot,” he said.

“Get out of here,” Spider said. “Go fuck your bitch one last time…” Zack growled and attacked the other man, taking them both to the floor. This time, Spider fought back, but he was no match for Zack. In seconds Zack had him pinned to the floor with both of his hands around Spider’s throat. He wanted to squeeze so badly, but without even looking up, he knew there were at least a few guns pointed at his head.

“Fuck,” Zack said, as he pounded Spider’s head into the floor, “you.”

When he got up off him he saw Spider motion at the men with the guns to let him go. When he reached the door, in a winded voice, Spider said, “You’ll regret this, Leoni…and Nicole will never speak to you again.” Zack heard the solid threat in Spider’s voice, and he didn’t doubt that the other man had a plan. He just didn’t know what it was, but his patience was shot and his good sense told him that if he didn’t keep walking, in a few more minutes he and Spider both would be dead on the floor.