Hard Rider

Well, I wouldn't really be any worse off, now would I? I couldn't very well stick around, knowing Dutch had it out for me. This would just be a catalyst. Dutch would come for me sooner. I wouldn't have to wait around, living a lie, waiting for the axe to fall. It would happen on my goddamn terms.

And if Blade wasn't workin' for Dutch? I'd have an ally. One ally, in this whole fuckin' mess.

“Dutch,” I said, my decision made.

“Yeah,” Blade said, nodding. “Dutch.”

I didn't get a chance to fuck Bex out of my system that night. I barely looked at the stage all night. Blade listened to me tell him everything Bex had told me. And he told me some things I didn't know about.

Bein' closer to Dutch, he was privy to a little more than I was. Like, Dutch was definitely running himself ragged on drugs – if not smack, something just as bad. And there was money, starting to go missing, from strange places. And Blade had seen Dutch lookin' at maps of Cutter, studying them, like he was trying to remind himself which street led home.

Something was up with our fearless leader.

And we came to a decision. I suppose I would have come to the same decision on my own, but Blade made it a quicker process. I hated what Bex had done, but I needed her. The only thing we had on Dutch was the fact that he didn't know that we knew. Bex would stay by my side, day in and day out, and we'd act like fools in love. And she'd run back to Dutch, feed him whatever lies I told her.

Of course, that was only what we'd look like in public. In private, I had nothin' I wanted from her. She could beg and plead and apologize until she turned blue, but it was over between us. I was never going to love her, or touch her, again.

Bex

“I swear, Dutch, he doesn't tell me shit about the club,” I said, sitting across from Dutch and that unholy specter of a woman he called his old lady. Dutch looked downright gnarly. The bags under his eyes wouldn't fit in the overhead compartment on a plane, and his fingernails were ringed with blood. Even his wrinkles had wrinkles. It had only been two weeks since I came to Cutter, but he looked two years older.

“Nothin'? I find that hard to b'lieve,” Dutch growled.

“You know your men don't talk about the club outside the club,” I said. “Even my daddy never told Mama a thing about what you do behind closed doors. I think he's loyaler than you think, Dutch.”

“You tryin' to tell me you know more about my club than I do?” Dutch's voice was just under a roar. “Is that what you think? Is that what Cross is tellin' you; that I don't know my own men, that I don't know my own club?”

“No,” I protested. “He loves you, Dutch. Cross always loved you. The only he says about you is that you were always good to him. Always treated him like a man worth his leathers. Better than his own dad, sometimes.”

Sylvia was tapping her long, red nails on the desk. She stood over Dutch, one hand on her bony hip, her hair pulled back so tight her eyes struggled to blink.

“Butter'n you up, hun,” she said in a low, smoky voice. “Just butter'n you up before he roasts ya.”

“You have proved to be a great waste of my time, princess,” Dutch said. “My time, and my money. I don't like wasting either of those things.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, and I didn't have to fake the panic in my voice. “I wish I could help, maybe if I just have some more time...”

“Sure,” Dutch said. “You have more time. But not much more, you hear? I know why you agreed to this. You want that ex-husband taken care of. But if you don't prove your worth, soon, you'll find yourself on the wrong side of fucked. I can take him out, sure, or I can bring him here, and give him all the ammo he needs to finally make good on those threats. I have that power, Bex. Don't you dare forget it.”

How could I forget it? It felt like I spent every second remembering it. Every time I dragged my sorry ass to Dutch and told him the same damn lies, I knew my neck was on the guillotine. If he ever found out I told Cross, he wouldn't just get Jase down here to beat me up. He'd get his boys to rape me in every hole. He'd kill me, slowly, painfully. And he'd film the whole thing, and sell it for a profit, just to make sure I was worth something in the end. That wasn't my imagination; that was exactly what he said he'd do. And I believed him.

“I won't forget,” I said, softly. He wanted me to be meek, submissive. I could play that role perfectly. I'd done it all through my sham of a marriage. “I'm tryin', Dutch.”

He grunted and dismissed me. Sylvia's eyes followed me all the way out of the room. And even with the door closed behind me, I didn't feel like I could shake them.

I put my hand out and ran it along the wall as I walked down the hallway to the bar, where Cross was waiting for me. I felt like I was going from one kind of hell straight into another.

Trying to live with Cross this way was torture. Whenever we were in public, we were the cutest damn couple you ever saw. He even deigned to kiss me sometimes, for the show of it. But the minute the door closed behind us, it was radio silence. Unless he was telling me something he wanted Dutch to know, or asking me when I expected to see Dutch again, he acted like I didn't exist.

We even had some of my shit moved to his apartment after a week, but when I spent the night there, I spent it on the couch. I considered those nights of being poked by rusty springs a form of penance. And Cross' silence was just more penance. I'd say a million Hail Mary's if I thought it would bring me forgiveness, and trust me, I'm not the praying kind.

But I tried. I never stopped trying. I apologized to him every day, and every day I asked if he could ever forgive me. Just so we could be friends again. Even if he'd never love me or kiss me (really kiss me, I mean) – I missed seeing him smile at me. I missed his laugh. He laughed when we were out together, but it wasn't real, and I knew it. No one else did, but I knew. Even those fake kisses were ash in my mouth.

How much longer would Dutch tolerate me coming to him empty handed? I knew Cross and Blade were working together to figure out what was up with their President. But I didn't know if they'd figure it out in time. And even if they did, would they be able to do anything about it?

And, when it came down to it, I didn't know if Cross would protect me. When Dutch's patience ran out, which seemed more and more likely every passing week, would Cross keep me safe from his rage? Or was I a trapeze artist with no net underneath me? I couldn't imagine Cross would be cruel enough to let me fall – but then again, there was a time he couldn't imagine that I would betray him. And look how that ended up for us.

The end of the hallway came on too quick for me to feel recovered from my meeting with Dutch. But I put on my smile anyway, and put a hop in my step as I flounced to the bar, sliding an arm around Cross and pretending I couldn't feel how he stiffened.

“Darlin',” he said, half-smiling his way around in his stool and putting those lips of his on my temple and reminding me for the hundredth time of everything I could've had if I hadn't made all those awful mistakes.

Cross

The days turned into weeks, quicker than you'd believe. And two weeks after Bex came clean, Blade and I were no closer to figuring out what the hell Dutch was up to.

I won't say I'm proud of what I did to Bex those days. I treated her like dirt, plain and simple. She didn't deserve all of it. She deserved some of it, but not all of it, and I'll be the first to tell you that. Because even I knew that she didn't need to be there. She wasn't tellin' Dutch anything ground breaking to help my case. I could have shoved her on the next bus to Tijuana and been done with it.

But I didn't want to do that.

Because even with my cruelty, even denyin’ her every chance at forgiveness, even leavin' her, night after night, to sleep on that damn couch...I wanted her around. Those times we were “pretending”, acting like a couple in public for Dutch's sake? Those were my best damn times. That's when I was happy. When I could kiss her, could hear her laugh, even though it was forced.

And I tried damn hard not to like it. Believe me, I was

strainin’ and stressin’ every day, telling myself she wasn't worth it, reminding myself that she was a traitor, and a no-good woman. But it didn't stop me from lovin' it every time I got to slip my arm around her.

At any rate, those moments were especially sweet in comparison to the rest of my days, which mostly consisted of worryin’ that the axe was gonna fall before Blade and I could get our shit together and find out what was going on. We were bikers, after all, thugs; not detectives. I didn't know the first thing about sleuthing, and I sure as hell wasn't going to be sneakin' around Dutch's office at night.

The only thing that came even close to a clue came from a prospect named Hunter, as good a kid as any we'd had come through our doors. Bonafide, tried and true, he was at the top of the pack as far as I was concerned. So when I came into the clubhouse bar one day and found him half beat to death, with a pretty knife wound slicing across the side of his face, I was naturally concerned.

“You should see the other guy,” he said, smiling as best he could through a cut lip, as I slid beside him. He was as Irish as they come, with red hair and blue eyes, a boyish face that I suspect didn't do him any harm with the ladies. It was a damn shame, seeing that ugly cut leading down from his ear. It would distinguish him, for sure, and make him look a little less like a golden boy and a little more like a roughneck, but it was still a shame. First scars always are.

“What the hell happened?”

He didn't seem to want to tell me, but focused on drinking his beer.

“Just, ya know, injured in the line of duty,” he grunted. I looked around; the bar wasn't too full, but I thought maybe the kid felt a little crowded. It being the middle of the day, I figured Johnny's across the street might host a thinner crowd.

“Let me buy you a real drink,” I offered, clapping him on the back. “Across the street. Got a song on the jukebox I think you should hear.”

He agreed, and soon we were settled over bourbon and listening' to Warren Zevon moanin' about being strung out on the wrong side of town.

“This the song you wanted me to hear?” Hunter asked, raising an eyebrow.