Chapter 1
Reader’s discretion is advised.
This is meant to be an entertaining, mysterious, thrilling, fun story of love, betrayal, and dark family secrets. There will be touches of Christian undertones and values throughout the series.
Chapters 1-49 make up Part 1. The professionally edited version with some revisions of part 1 can be bought on Amazon and Barnes and Noble electronically and paperback.
Enjoy!
Mike
“Jace! I told you not to do this! I knew it was dirty money—the cops are all over us!” I yell at my right-hand man. We always have each other’s six, but he can be so stupid sometimes.
“Can’t believe you, man! You wanted to go on a drug job without me, knowing I can read people better than you!” I shout at Jace over the gunfire. “Undercover cop, really?” I continue my ridicule over the bullets flying in the air and other men yelling profanities at the cops on the other side of the door. The whole cavalry is outside our motorcycle clubhouse, ready to shoot every single one of us over some dirty traced cocaine—the deal I didn’t want to do in the first place.
“It was a detective!” Jace cries out, like that somehow changes things. “I’m sorry!” he yells while grabbing guns from behind our kitchen counter. He tosses me a Glock.21—I have ten rounds. I’m sure of it. Holding the familiar hard polymer in my hands, I notice the doors beginning to fold in. Jace, me, and the rest of us barricade ourselves, armed and ready to fight. They could take us, but we aren’t ones to roll over so easily. We’re waiting until they come bursting in to retaliate. In the meantime, we just let them continue shooting the place up.
Diving behind a couch to hide from gunfire, I peek around to make sure my brothers aren’t getting shot. So far, they’re all okay; just hiding, waiting. There’s a pounding in my chest. I should be used to this sort of thing. I get shot at a lot—it’s the price I pay for being the club president. Some tough decisions have had to be made, and sometimes that means playing God. There’s not a lot of pride in the choices I’ve made, but I have made them, nonetheless. I live with the consequences.
Speaking of consequences, I want to hand Jace over to the cops out of spite to put a stop to this maddening raid, all because he was impatient. I glare at the blue-eyed idiot as he hides behind the end of the kitchen counter. He is shaking like a rattlesnake. Blond hair flipping off little beads of sweat onto his pale face.
I don’t turn my men in.
More shots fire, peppering all our belongings with holes, the sound reverberating throughout the building. Gunpowder and lead fill my lungs. There goes my lovely couch, coffee pot, and wine bottles, then a loud explosion of glass fills the room. No—my flat-screen sixty-two-inch television. Damn cops!
Stupid Jace. If he had just waited for me to do the transaction, we wouldn’t be in this mess. The firing stops; the cops must be reloading. It’s our turn, suckers. I start to signal, but then there is one more shot. The sound is deafening. Immediately, I know something is wrong.
Frantically, I count my men to see who’s missing, and that’s when I see Paul and my heart stops. Paul. He’s only nineteen! Fresh out of high school. He had a tough childhood. I remember when Paul first came to us in search of brotherhood. Out of all the prospects I’ve witnessed, he was the one who proved himself the most. We accepted him with open arms—and now he’s shot.
I stare at his long, lean body—limp and covered with bullet fragments, blood, and shattered glass. I scream my vocal cords raw as I rush over to him. He’s still breathing, but blood is pooling in the center of his chest. I scream for Ron, our medic, but just then the cops burst into our clubhouse and tackle each of my men. I rip off my shirt and press it down hard on Paul’s wound, letting the thick, warm blood soak into my shirt and hands.
“You’re gonna be okay! You hear me, Paul? Stay with me!” Hands grab me from somewhere behind. All I see is red. I whip myself around to straddle and beat the badged man who grabbed me. His cheekbone and nose crunch under my fist, teeth fly from his mouth, and blood smears his face; it gives me tremendous satisfaction. Even though my knuckles burn, I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop.
Two sets of hands pull me off the fool. I shout at them amidst the chaos to check on my brother, but they ignore me. He’s just a kid, with his whole life ahead of him, and unlike me, he has a heart. He needs help. Why won’t they help him?
They snap cold metal around my wrists and force me to walk out of the destroyed clubhouse. My pulse picks up when I notice paramedics walking in.
I’m jammed into the cop car, and they take me right to the precinct and toss me in a cell. While I wait, I pick at the skin around my busted, bleeding knuckles. The iron bars, hard benches, and smell of stale sweat are nothing new to me—but they could never hold me before. Assaulting an officer, though. . . yeah, I won’t be leaving here for a while. Stupid Jace.
*****
“Michael Gilbert aka Red.” The smugness oozes from the officer as he strolls up to my cell. Still studying my bloodstained hands—Paul’s blood—I say a silent prayer for him. I’m not sure why I pray sometimes. My mother, maybe? While I was growing up, she would always drag me to church. Lord knows, she still prays for me on her knees. She most likely sheds tears every night for who her son has become.
A small pang erupts inside my chest at the thought of her. . . it’s been a while since I’ve seen my mother. Slowly, I lift my head and rest it on the concrete wall behind me and glare at the pinhead.
“Someone wants to have a little chat with you,” the officer sings. The guy motions for me to come to the door; opening it, he snaps cuffs on my wrists. The guy is shorter than me, rounded, probably from eating out every day. I debate whether to pummel him and run for it. Something tells me it won’t end well, seeing how a few more cops have entered the jail area.
The cop grabs my arm to lead me toward the interrogation room that I know all too well. The door opens to the room with black tile floors, three white walls, and a large mirror taking up the fourth wall. I notice they added a camera in the far corner. The guy walks me to the center of the room where an aluminum table and matching chair await. On the other side is a second chair, but with padding.
The man with the badge takes me to the aluminum seat without padding and forces me to sit. The ice-cold chair bites into my back, making me lurch forward—suddenly, I miss my shirt. I left it with Paul.
The cop instructs me to keep my hands on the table as he attaches the cuffs to a metal bar in the center. I sit there in silence as he leaves, staring into the mirror in front of me. I know it’s a two-way mirror, and someone is probably standing on the other side, watching me like a pervert. Lifting my middle finger, I give whoever is on the other side the bird.
Minutes later, a decent-sized man walks in wearing a uniform with a golden badge signifying he’s an investigative detective. Great. He’s in shape, no beer belly or much fat around the gut like the others around here. Gripping a manila folder in his hand, I see strained brown eyes with dark circles under them. His dark hair has some grayness sprinkled in; the man also has a thick dark mustache and goatee. With hesitation, he pulls out the seat in front of me, letting the obnoxious scraping of aluminum scratch the tile floor before he sits. After staring at me like he knows all my dirty secrets, he throws the folder down and opens it. Looking, I know it’s my portfolio; the first thing he pulls out is a document with my name on it.
“Red.” My eyes dart back up to him at the mention of my road name. “You have quite the record here. Quite the reputation—” The detective has a faint southern accent. Before he continues, I cut him off.
“Aw, you know my nickname. I’m flattered, and I don’t even know who you are,” I state coolly, with a smile.
Without missing a beat, he introduces himself as Elijah Cochran, Detective Cochran. I nod my head. He removes a picture from my file and places it in front of me. I don’t look at it.
“Do you know who this is?” He motions toward the polaroid.
Not looking, I tell him, “No,” keeping my eyes on his. My fingers find themselves picking at the ripped skin around my knuckles again. My mind reverts to the cop I nearly killed and Paul.
“You didn’t even look.” He lowers his voice to a frustrated growl.
I glance down at the black and white photo. Crap. I know exactly who the man is. Marcus. I give my best poker face while repeating my answer.
“No.” Marcus is the devil incarnate. He is even more ruthless than I am.
The detective fidgets with the corners of the file and informs me, “I once heard a rumor that he sold his wife into slavery. Do you know why?” He leans back in his chair. “Because she didn’t do it for him anymore. So, Marcus sold her after beating her to a pulp.”
I roll my eyes. No new information there.
He leans over the table, interlocking his fingers, and says, “He has two sons. Did you know that?”
No.
“One is Paul’s age. Word on the street says that this man is training his son to take over the drug business.” He tells me with a strained smile, “He’s a drug lord.”
The drug lord, I want to correct him. Marcus also buys and sells women on the side. The devil’s prodigy has killed three of his own men for just looking at him the wrong way. Of course, Detective Cochran probably doesn’t know that.
I have dealt with him, not by choice. I wasn’t in a position to say “no” because he threatened my mom. Working for him once was enough. Annoying as he is, he keeps trying to get me to do little things for him here and there, but I continuously decline. To get him to stop dangling my mother’s life in front of me to take those jobs, I have moved her away from this forsaken town.
Detective Cochran locks eyes with me while pointing a finger at Marcus’s face in the photo. He warns me, “I’m only going to ask you one more time… do you know who this man is?”
“No,” I repeat.
Fantasies of murdering Marcus a few times have commonly filled my imagination. He is a sick bastard. Demented as he is, I know better than to cross him. There is no hesitation for him when it comes to taking someone’s life—whether it’s a man, woman, or child.
Detective Cochran slams his fists on the table; it barely makes me flinch out of the memory of Marcus. He takes out more pictures; photos of me with Marcus scatter between us. A photo shows the side of my head, but anyone can tell it’s me. One picture, in particular, is of us shaking hands. I recall that day. I scrubbed my hands in the sink with scalding hot water, ridding my first layer of skin cells from his touch. “You’re lying!” The detective’s nostrils flare.
Well, I’ll be damned.
I lean back in the cold chair, letting it bite into my hot skin. A thin, humorous smile stretches on my lips because this guy can read people too. I thought I had the perfect poker face. I should work on that more.
