To say my life was a fucking mess would have been an understatement of epic fucking proportions.
I was elbow deep in blood, debt and drugs, none of them my own and all of them fucking poison. Just ’cause they weren’t mine personally didn’t mean they weren’t my problem.
The Fallen MC had a problem, it meant I had a problem. And right now, we had a big fuckin’ problem.
The Nightstalkers were back.
Cut off the head of the beast and three more grow back, right?
’Cause it seemed that no matter, I’d sliced up the bastard in charge less than a year ago, the fuckin’ MC was back and still lookin’ to take over my operation.
I’d bled, sweat and fuckin’ killed for The Fallen, for the success of each of my brothers and there was no way in heaven or hell I’d hand over shit to those fuckers.
There were a coupla problems with that though.
I stood starin’ at one; the ashen remains of one of the biggest warehouses we had just outside Vancouver tucked away on a supply route off Highway 99. It wasn’t a grow-op, thank Christ, but we had nearly three million dollars wortha grade A weed in that fuckin’ warehouse.
Now, it was grade A trash.
And that wasn’t even the worst of it.
’Cause I stood there holdin’ a eight by ten glossy photograph of my daughter, Harleigh Rose, that’d been staked to the ground just outta range of the fire. I hadn’t noticed it when we’d put out the fire the night ’fore last and we’d had to let the scene cool before we came back to assess the damage but I’d seen it right quick when we’d pulled up that morning.
In it, she was laughin’ as only a beautiful, confident teenage girl could do, lips pulled back over teeth, chin tipped back and hair streamin’ behind her. It was a fuckin’ great photo, one my son’s woman had taken durin’ the summer. I had a copy of it on my desk at the garage, framed in kickass chrome and gifted to me by Cress for Christmas.
I treasured that fuckin’ thing.
And now I was holdin’ a copy with H.R.’s eyes punched out by bullet holes, her neck slashed open by a jagged knife.
A warnin’.
A warnin’ that those fuckin’ scumbags were back and they were gonna play dirty, play for wives, children and families.
A warnin’.
It had been ten years since we’d had to deal with shit like this. Ten years that my brothers had lived an outlaw life of recklessness, boozin’, smokin’, ridin’ out into the night like midnight raiders but without the real violence a life like that could bring. I’d made sure of it when I’d killed Crux, ex-Prez of The Fallen MC, a decade ago. The same night he’d shot a bullet through Lou and me.
“Prez,” Lab-Rat called to me, scuttling like his namesake through the mess of burnt wood. “They took it ’fore they lit it.”
I blinked slowly at him, careful not to crunch the photo of H.R. in my clenching fist. “Say again.”
“They took the supply ’fore they lit the buildin’. There’s no weed left here,” Lab-Rat explained.
Fuck me.
“You’re fuckin’ with me,” I growled.
“He’s not,” Curtains said, appearing with his laptop open balanced on one arm, clickin’ through things on his screen like a maniac. “Got surveillance from Evergreen Gas Station. A sixteen-wheeler with blacked out plates stopped for fuckin’ gas yesterday at five pm.”
I reached out to drag the prospect closer by the hood of his sweater so I could see the screen. “Show me.”
“The fuckers,” I muttered as I watched the truck pull up for fuckin’ gas like it was nothin’ and two tall, familiar motherfuckers crawled outta the cab.
One went into the store.
Lysander fuckin’ Garrison pumped the gas and did it starin’ right into the fuckin’ security camera.
I roared, the fury hot and fuckin’ alive in my chest as it burned out over my tongue. I spun away from my brothers and stomped into the debris, picked up a charred plank and snapped it over my knee.
“Fuck,” I shouted again. Another plank crumbled between my hands. Pretended it was Lysander Garrison’s fuckin’ neck givin’ way to my grip. Or that fuckface defector Ace Munford’s skinny spine snappin’ like a fuckin’ twig over my knee.
“You ’bout done?” Bat called over, standing at the top of the incline with his hands in the pockets of his army fatigues as if it was a normal fuckin’ Thursday.
I rolled my shoulders back, cracked my neck and grinned menacingly at the prospect just to see ’im flinch ’cause I was in that kinda mood.
“Yeah, I’m fuckin’ done. Get the brothers to fuckin’ Chapel and call in some of the Nomads if they’re around. I’m not havin’ another war on my fuckin’ hands without reinforcements.”
Bat nodded as I climbed up to him, his eyes cold and calculating, battle mode. “They’re gonna go after families.”
“No shit,” I said, swiping down to pick up the mutilated picture of my girl.
“You gonna call King?”
“Fuck.” I ran a hand over my tangled mess of hair and across my beard. “Gotta. He’ll fuckin’ hate it, but they gotta be careful even down at the university. The fucks won’t stop at nothin’ to get what we have.”
“They didn’t learn their lessons last time,” Bat noted.
“No shit,” I growled. “But last time we were on the fuckin’ defensive. This time, we’ll take this war to them.”
“You ready for that, brother? Got a lotta other things on your mind lately,” the fuck chose to remind me.
I glared at him but he did have a point.
I was a thirty-six-year-old man with two kids, both born before I’d been old enough to grow a full fucking beard. One of them was off at college livin’ a mostly clean life that I fuckin’ loved for him and his woman. Missed him like hell-fire in my chest but knew it was good for him.
Got another kid, Harleigh Rose, grew up like an angel and only now had discovered how to be a serious pain in my ass. She was too gorgeous for her own good and she’d discovered it young, given how she’d grown up around a group of men that were all men and made sure she knew that ’cause she was such a beaut, they’d beat on any man that mistreated her. My girl found she liked the attention, both from my protective brothers and from other darker men. She was dating a two-bit drug dealer called Cricket of all fuckin’ things and she was “in love with him.” Keepin’ track of her was a bitch and now with this new threat, there was no way I wouldn’t shackle her to her fuckin’ bedroom so I’d know she’d be safe. She’d fuckin’ hate it, cause a drama because she was too much her mother’s kid sometimes. Not that I gave a fuck, so long as she was safe.
Then there was Lou.
What the fuck was I gonna do about Lou?
I was a man who kept his fuckin’ word and I’d promised to teach her about the outlaw life.
It wasn’t the place for a girl like her, with a soul too wise for such a young thing, with eyes the colour of pure, unblemished skies and hair like pale gold. She may have had the body of a sinner but she had the looks of an angel and the heart to match.
Too good for the likes of me and this life.
But she was in it now, I told myself because I wanted to believe it, she was in it and if there was trouble brewin’, she’d be at my side for all of it.
No one could keep her safe like me.
“Garro.”
Just what I fuckin’ needed.
Cops.
I turned around, crossed my arms over my chest and tipped my chin at the young officer Danner and his partner, Riley Gibson, as they stepped outta their squad car.
To say “fuck the police” was The Fallen’s mandate would have been an understatement. Cy actually had the words tattooed on his back over The Fallen symbol.
I hated the fuckin’ pigs.
“Long time no see, Garro,” Danner said, strollin’ toward me as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Not long enough,” I told him as I felt my brothers take my back. “What can I do you for, pretty boy?”
I grinned at his frown. The kid was always tryin’ to prove himself. He was somethin’ like sixth generation British Columbian cop and his daddy was staff sergeant. He’d been tryin’ to use the MC for years to make his mark but fuck if I was gonna let ’im.
“Seems the question is, what can I do for you?” he asked, recovering quick enough to indicate the wreckage. “Wasn’t aware you had property up here but seems like you’ve had something of an accident.”
I snorted. “Yeah? What makes ya think that?”
His partner, more impulsive than Danner, stepped forward. “Stop screwing around, Garro. We’ve got forensics coming up behind us. Before they get here, why don’t you tell us what the story is?”
“Can’t say for sure, boys.” I shrugged and rubbed at my bearded chin like I was confounded by the situation. “Just bought an empty building up here, thinkin’ about demolishin’ it and making myself a pretty ranch like home on the land. Not surprised it went up in flames, givin’ how old it was and how dry the weather’s been.”
The cops stared out at the scrubby, remote wilderness and looked back at me skeptically.
I fought the urge to laugh and won. Instead, I shrugged. “Like bein’ alone.”
“Cut the bullshit, Garro. It’s obvious there was foul play at work here,” Gibson snapped.
I pressed a palm to my heart. “Now, why the fuck would anyone want to do somethin’ like that to little ole’ me?”
Gibson looked ready to beat me but Danner just smiled slightly and shook his head. More cop cars pulled up and my favourite cop of all time emerged into the sunlight.
“Hutchinson,” Danner greeted the other man with a grimace as he approached.
The other cop, a Fallen cop, grinned at him and clapped him on the back. He was an older man with serious seniority in Entrance police ranks and he’d been livin’ in my back pocket for a good nine years. Older, yeah, but the old codger sure as fuck loved the weed we gave him to soothe his arthritis.
“I’ll take it from here boys. Let’s let the experienced men get to the bottom of this, hmm?” Hutchinson told the rookies, already roundin’ em to shake hands with me and Bat. “Spot a trouble here, Garro?”
“Not much. The old thing crapped out on us. I’ll file an insurance claim and all that shit but I gotta be gettin’ home to my kid. You cool to catch up with me later if you find anythin’ in your investigation?”
Hutchinson nodded like the good ole boy he was. “Sure thing, Garro.”
I grinned at Danner and Gibson as I passed them on the way to my bike but I noticed the way Danner’s eyes caught on the photo of H.R. peekin’ outta my back jeans pocket, the flash of apprehension in those sharp eyes, and I knew he wouldn’t drop it for shit.
