Struck Love

1

Jason

“What are you thinking?” Archer asks, tipping back his beer and taking a long pull from it. He’s got his dirty-ass boots kicked up on my desk, pretending to work with me to avoid hanging out with anyone else. I don’t blame him. We enjoy being left alone. Especially when there is a full party in swing.

It’s a damn good thing I learned to be able to think straight with the world exploding around me. It’s a helpful skill set when I’m trying to work late on a Saturday night and a full-blown party is raging not even thirty yards from my office in the clubhouse.

“I think the bastard saved us a whole lot of money.” I laugh.

“That’s what happens when you get vindictive and greedy. People forget they don’t live forever. Especially in our world.” I lift a head toward Arch.

“It was a heart attack, right?” He smirks. That same smirk that would get about any woman to drop to her knees if he wanted her to.

Arch has a dark side to him. Not that anyone would know from looking at him. With blond hair and blue eyes, he has this warm charm about him that gives off reassuring trust. He should have been a damn lawyer. I know for a fact it’s what his parents were hoping he'd turn out to be. Instead they think I corrupted him. Pretty sure they have that backwards.

“That’s what the coroner said was the cause of death.” I shake my head at Arch’s response.

I don’t care at this point under what circumstances old man McGuire met his maker, as long as he's dead. Now I’ll have the opportunity to get my hands on his land. I've been itching to own it for so many years. The hatred between the McGuires and Lockes has been going on for well over two hundred years. I have no fucking clue why or how it really started.

If I had to take a stab in the dark, it’s because we didn’t buy in to their bullshit. The bulk of my family's money came from bootlegging long ago. If you ask me, it was honest money compared to how the McGuire’s operated. They made their money every Sunday passing a bowl around a church all but begging people to believe their lies.

I have no problem with church. The honest ones, at least. What I do have a problem with is while the McGuires claimed to be godly men, none of them actually were. They are just as dirty as the rest. In fact, they are way worse.

They tend to hide it while my family let it be known who they were. The McGuires are wolves in sheep’s clothing. That’s more fucked in my eyes. It doesn't matter now, though. They’re dead and gone. Everything they once had is up for grabs. And I plan on doing the majority of the grabbing.

“How much do you think the bank is going to try to sell it for?” Now it’s my turn to smirk.

The president at Watermark Bank has a few vices he can't seem to keep control of. He’s in deep to my bank here at the Ravens MC at this point. It hadn’t taken much to get the man to bury himself. Now he owes me more than a few favors. It’s time to collect.

“We’ll offer them two million.” Arch lets out a low whistle. “You’re robbing the bank.”

“This time legally.” A rare bark of laughter comes from Arch.

That land is worth a lot more than that, and I know it. No one else seems to think that but me, thankfully. They’ve had all kinds of professionals out there digging away. They can’t find shit. Not one speck of gold. But I know better.

Four years ago, I stumbled upon the jackpot while I was looking for a place to stash some goods in one of the old mines on my land. It was like winning the lottery.

The mines go deep and venture over toward McGuire territory. Once they found out I’d struck gold they tried to find their own. With our lands running ass to ass, they were sure they would. They never did and eventually gave up looking.

I tried to buy chunks of the land from that old fucker McGuire, but he would never sell. I knew that the old man loved money, so I offered him a shit ton for a piece of land. He still turned me down, which got me thinking he’s got something he’s trying to hide over there. Guess I’ll find out soon enough.

“How times have changed.” Arch polishes off the rest of his beer.

Isn’t that the damn truth. More than a decade ago, Arch and I got ourselves in a world of trouble robbing the very same bank we are planning to all but rob again.