Hard Rider

Well… it looks like this is happening with or without me, I thought to myself as I climbed out of bed. I threw on a shirt and strolled out to find my woman, wherever she was.

The couch.

She comes here, tells me I’m going to be a daddy, fucks me senseless, begs me for help, and then she sleeps on the couch?

There was no point in getting the day off on the wrong foot, so I walked into the kitchen, turned on the stovetop, and started cracking eggs. I slapped some bacon and sausages into a pan of hot grease and whipped up French toast. While I cooked, my mind started drifting towards my unborn son.

From the moment Sarah told me that she was pregnant, I knew she was giving me an heir to my empire. If I could hold the Outlaws together, my son would inherit the mantle. He could be born the Prince of the Outlaws.

I really liked the sound of that.

Prince of the Outlaws. I ran that over in my mind again, imagining my child at eight, maybe nine years old. No fiddling around with iPhones or zonked out in front of Call of Duty.

My heir was going to challenge his old man in the badass department. I was learning rifles and hunting at twelve. When I inherited the bike at sixteen, I took to it fast.

I expected to offer my son all of these opportunities and more. I’d teach him to think critically, make the difficult choices, respect life and the club, and most of all… to always protect the things that he held precious.

I would give the kid the shirt off of my fucking back and then some.

Willingly.

With these convictions in mind, I prodded Sarah on the shoulder with her plate at the ready.

“Mmm?” She lifted her face, eyes half-lidded. Even if she was dancing on my nerve, it was hard to not fall hopelessly in love with that sleepy face all over again.

“Breakfast, beautiful,” I enlightened her. As she sat up, I handed her the plate with my thumb over the cutlery, a glass of O.J. at the ready.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” she replied sheepishly as she took a few bites.

“Wanted to,” I replied, strolling back to prepare my own plate. “It’s gonna be a long day… better get our strength now, before the shit starts to hit the fan.”

Sarah let my assessment slide, eating her food in silence. The last thing I wanted was this kind of tension between us, but I could sense that pushing the issue now was a bad idea.

Life was simpler when we were dumb, love-struck teens. Sarah and Hunter against the world... Luckily, the world was pretty small back then…

I caught Sarah’s eye, and something seemed to pass between us. An understanding, perhaps – the tension in the room slowly softened, and we started to cast each other small smiles as we ate.

It was certainly a start.

When we were done, I took her plate with mine and slipped them into the sink. I rinsed off the juices and let them soak for a while as I strolled back into the living room.

“I’m glad you came back...”

Sarah had already stepped into the other room, changing into some fresh clothes. She’d brought a small suitcase from Phoenix when she arrived, locked away in the trunk of her conspicuous Crown Vic outside.

I really needed to convince her to spring for something that screamed something a little subtler than “law enforcement.”

It was a few minutes before she stepped back out, looking quite the professional. The desert was too hot for a trenchcoat, so she dressed in a slimming blouse, slender black leggings, and a pair of casual but fashionable boots.

“How do I look?”

I let a grin cross my face. “In all honesty, like someone I’d rip out of those clothes and fuck hard on the kitchen table.”

Sarah stepped forward, slipping a finger beneath my chin seductively. “We’ll have plenty of time for that… but we’ve gotta get ready to meet our new friend.”

“Yeah, I know,” I feigned dejection, grabbing my leather jacket from the hook near the door. “We both slept in, and it’s already lunchtime… better tell the boys what’s going down.”

“Does that mean we’re going to California?”

I grabbed my keys from the countertop and flashed her a confident grin. “It means we’re going to find a shipping container.”

Hunter

When I walked in, most of my Dragons were sitting around and sipping beers, playing darts, shooting the shit, or playing pool.

Mostly, it was a combination.

Sarah walked up to the countertop and ordered a diet coke from my spunky redheaded bartender, Elmira. This time, there wasn’t some smart-ass retort. I thought maybe the two of them were going to start getting along, until I spotted Elmira giving Sarah dagger-eyes the second she turned her back.

I gave her a quick shake of my head and she finished pouring the glass of soda, quickly pushing it across the bar.

“Status report, boys,” I spoke up as I noticed Sarah pull out her phone and start to make a call. “Where are we?”

“Same as usual, boss,” Victor answered. “Everything’s caught up and good to go. Weapons are cleaned, bulletproof vests are wiped down. We’re ready to ride...”

“Good,” I replied. “That’s what I like to hear.”

My men were a solid bunch, loyal as anyone could ever be. They were also some of the roughest bikers I could ever ask for, and the combination meant that they fiercely followed me into battle, no matter where I went.

They made me proud.

“I’m calling a meeting…” I glanced around, scanning for the face of my second-in-command. “Where’s Grizz?”

Another one of my men, Skid, called out from the pool tables. “He’s gone to go get his cast off. Said he was tired of not being able to ride a fuckin’ bike.”

I couldn’t help but smile, although thinking of my tactical sharpshooter taking a bullet during our last big assault still bothered me. A few inches to the right and I’d have been burying the best friend I ever had...

“You let me know the second he waltzes back through that door,” I pointed for the front of the bar. “Soon as he does, I want each and every one of you in the war room.”

While it was rare before to find more than a handful of bikers on the premises at time, things had changed. These days you’d find most of the men partying it up here at the clubhouse day and night.

It was an… unfortunate turn of events.

Our armed protection contracts out here in El Paso had been running dry. After the shit went down in Juarez, the whole area had went quiet. Big and small, fear of a deadly club of vigilante bikers had sent the criminals scattering to the winds. That was great news for the people in El Paso, but it wasn’t so great for our livelihoods.

You can’t sell protection to people who don’t need it…

Contracts were fewer and farther between and that meant it was getting about time to pull up roots and follow the money. That’s how we’d survived ever since leaving Phoenix. A new city every year or two, padding our pockets along the way.

I needed to give my Dragons more than that. They deserved something more permanent. We couldn’t wander the desert forever… I’d already started deliberating with Grizz on some possible locations for a permanent base of operations, and knowing I had a kid on the way was only making the gears in my mind turn faster.

I couldn’t drag my kid all over the desert. The heir to my kingdom needed consistency, solidity, and a strong foundation.

Shaking my thoughts aside, I pushed open the door to my war room – a space set aside for higher club management and planning our next moves. The single large round table in the center was covered with maps and notes, with important information pinned up on the walls.

It was small, but it did the trick. Having an entire room dedicated to my work streamlined things for guiding my boys and managing the club duties. While we were busy with club operations, I spent a lot of time in this chamber.

Sarah must have finally hung up the phone, because it wasn’t long before she followed m

e in, locking the door behind her.

“I’d almost forgotten what this place looked like,” Sarah commented wistfully as she gazed around the familiar pages on the walls and the tabletop. “Some things never change.”

“Some things change for the better,” I grinned.

She gave a quick smile, “I just got off the phone with the detective… She says the client is doubling the reward for that cargo container… One million dollars paid on delivery... Cash…”

“And what exactly are you going to do with that kind of money, Sarah? You can’t exactly deposit it into the bank. You don’t even know where it’s coming from.”

“I was hoping you’d help me with the accounting side of things…” she replied.

“So, what? Now I’m your big bad accountant?” I asked, laughing.

“No… I don’t fuck my accountant,” she replied, moving toward me and sinking to her knees. I let out a load moan as she worked my belt quickly. This woman was going to fucking kill me.