Ice (Regulators MC 1)

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Mom, I can’t find Madyson.”

“And this is my problem, why exactly?” she questions coldly. “Your cousin mailed us a thank you for attending her wedding and for our gift. She was wondering if you will ever get married since you didn’t bring a date. A date we requested you find and you didn’t. Now we have questions to answer.”

The audacity of her quickly and easily changing the subject adds to my anger. No longer able to contain myself, I explode. “It doesn’t matter when or if I get married. That wedding was show and tell for the family. She’s already sleeping with the best man. Seriously, get a clue. I’m so over you and everything you stand for.”

“What does that mean? We are a family. You are my daughter, my only daughter.”

“You are sick and twisted. Go get some help. You have three beautiful, amazing, intelligent daughters, but your head is too far up your own butt to see it. I have nothing left to say to you. And, if you are going to feel that way about Mallory, pack her up and send her to me. There is no reason for them to continue to feel less than perfect because you have some warped ideal family when you have awesomely unique children who are perfect in their own rights.”

Ending the call, I wipe away the tears that are freely falling. Now, more than ever, I need to find Madyson.

Chapter

8

Ice

“Count is up to three this month. It’s increasing,” Hammer states to the room of Regulators.

Looking around the room, I take in the posters of naked pin-up models draped over Harleys. Then I move my attention to the large, hand-painted, wooden sign on one wall that bears our insignia of an eagle holding the sword of justice with ‘Regulators’ over the top of it. I feel that familiar sense of purpose wash over me.

This room is a far cry from the sort of ‘War Rooms’ we have been in the past—the numerous sterile rooms with their white walls and uniformity —but this is our ‘War Room.’ It is the place where we hold ‘sermon,’ otherwise known as the meetings where we decide whose ass needs kicking or what we are doing as a club next. Now my men are waiting for information on one of the biggest problems we have looked into since we hit the Miami area.

We sit around a large, rectangular, sturdy, wooden table with four chairs down each side and two chairs on each end. I sit at one end while Coal as the VP sits to my side. If Coal is considered my ‘right hand,’ then Hammer, as my Sergeant of Arms, is my ‘left.’ Big Jim, the large redheaded bastard who joined my Army Special Forces team when we were in the desert, sits at the opposite end of the table as my Road Captain. The rest of the men fill the chairs in between.

All of my men are ex-military, all of them green berets that have served with me, Coal, or Hammer at some time. No one who saw us now would be able to discern that. Some of these boys have taken to the role of becoming a mean-ass biker like a duck takes to water. Of course, we have been living this life for years. We have not only come to accept it, but we enjoy it. We are more than former military men now.

We are the Regulators MC, a group of men not to be fucked with. A band of brothers who have walked through blood, bullets, and war to come home and dish out our own kind of blood, bullets, and war. Only, this time, we don’t have some pansy ass commanding officer giving us orders. The boys have me, and as I stare at them sitting around the table, I know the respect they give me has been earned doing shit overseas that is far worse than what we do now.

We might put blood on our hands in different ways these days, but the perks that offset the life we live make it worth it. Freedom to run our shit the way we want to run it: pussy, booze, and no tight-assed dickwads issuing orders to us. Life is good.

Until this shit landed on our doorstep.

We watch as women keep disappearing randomly and regularly for over a year now. At first, the missing women didn’t stay on our radar because the victims were randomly spaced out. There was nothing to indicate that it was the same person behind all of the kidnappings. Then I came across some classified information, via Screech, that had the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.

Another Army brother of mine and Hammer’s, Lucas Young, was working a case with his nifty little black ops crew, the Ex Ops Team. They moonlighted as a private security force, but I had intel that indicated they were a hell of a lot more than that. As in, the men the government sent in to solve their worst problems without the public ever finding out. Not that I could tell Lucas I knew about his gig. No one other than the head of Homeland Security and the President are supposed to know about them.