Chapter One

Minus

One week earlier…

“ T his is bad news, man.”

“Well, hello to you, too,” I said as I shoved my tattered duffel bag into the back of Clutch’s ’71 Barracuda.

“Hey, watch her interior, or I’ll leave your ass on the curb,” he said.

“Lucille is still the only gal for you, I see.”

“You really gonna give me shit right from the jump?”

“No, really,” I said. “It’s inspiring to see a couple as committed as you two still making it work after all these years. ”

Clutch flipped me the bird. “Fuck you, Minus. What are you driving these days, a tractor? By the way, if you’ve got any of that cow shit tucked in your bottom lip, you’d better spit it the fuck out before you get in.”

“Why? You hopin’ to kiss me later?” I asked as I slid into the perfectly conditioned leather seat.

“See? You’re even starting to sound like one of them good ol’ boys,” Clutch said. “You’ve changed since you left, man.”

“Yeah, well I’m still smarter, taller, and better looking than you.”

“You checkin’ me out, Minus? You make some other big changes while you were gone, I should know about?”

I smirked. “Sorry, buddy I’ve told you before. You’re not my type.”

“Hey, man, how am I supposed to know what you’re into these days? Just look at you! You’re wearing fucking cowboy boots. For all I know, you’re carrying pearl handled six shooters under your jacket,” he said, pulling away from the curb and into the flow of airport traffic.

“From what I’ve heard, all of Portland is in beards and cowboy boots these days,” I replied.

“Yeah, a lot has changed since you’ve been gone. Then again…,” he paused, “… a lot of shit is exactly the same,” he said, throwing me a sideways glance.

I said nothing, but we both knew very well what he meant. When I left town, it wasn’t under the best circumstances, to say the least, and I had no reason to believe a ticker-tape parade awaited me upon my arrival.

“Don’t get me wrong, brother, it’s great to see you back home—”

“This isn’t home,” I interrupted.

“What? Savannah is?” Clutch asked.

I paused and admitted, “I can’t say that either.”

“Which leads me back to my original point,” he replied. “It can only be bad news that the not-so-prodigal son is back in town.”

“Please,” I said, waving my hands. “This warm welcome is all just too much. You’re gonna embarrass me.”

“Don’t get cute with me, motherfucker, you know exactly what I’m saying,” he replied.

“Oh, believe me, I know all too well. Back in Savannah I’m the Yankee stranger and here I’m the long-lost redneck. I’m a man without a fuckin’ country, but here I am nonetheless.”

“Yeah, but why are you here?” Clutch asked.

“Because Cutter told me to be here.”

“See? Bad fuckin’ news,” Clutch exclaimed.

“How is that bad news?”

“Since when is it not bad news when the Prez sends for you?”

I laughed. “ Sends for you. What are we, wiseguys? He called me and told me to be on the next plane to Portland, so here I am. To be honest, I thought you’d know what’s going on.” I paused dramatically, before sweetening my tone. “What with you being the new Sergeant—”

“I knew it.” He jabbed a finger at me. “I fucking knew you’d hear about it and that you’d bust my balls.”

“Sergeant Clutch. Ooooh, that does have a nice ring to it.”

“I swear to God, Minus. I’ll kick you right the fuck out and you can walk the rest of the way in those shit kickers,” he deadpanned. “I get enough crap outta Grover and the dipshit twins.”

“I can only imagine,” I laughed. “Hey, man. In all seriousness, congratulations. It’s a big deal you makin’ Sergeant at Arms and I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks, man.” Clutch said. “We all miss Rusty but after he died, the club needed someone to step up and I guess Cutter thought it should be me.”

“I’m sure he was right,” I said.

“Bullshit. You know goddamned well if you were still in town, it’d be you wearing the Sergeant’s patch.”

“Well, then it’s good for you I’m not still in town.”

Clutch and I grew up together in Portland, back when I still went by my given name, he was called Nicky, and together we were known as nothing but trouble. We were both orphans who had been taken in and educated by the Catholic church. A handful of us kids were fortunate to receive scholarships to private schools in the Portland area and Nicky and I attended St. Mary’s Academy together. That is, until he was kicked out during our sophomore year.

I loved school, especially reading. I inhaled novels, biographies, textbooks, anything I could get my hands on. I was a straight A student who tried not to hassle anyone. On the other hand, I can’t recall a time in my youth, even when I was happy, when I didn’t have a big-ass chip on my shoulder. Understandable if not predictable for a kid that’s been abandoned by his parents, but it would begin to weigh on me heavily as I grew into manhood. Throughout my life I’ve a had a profound (perhaps overly sensitive) sense of justice. Seeing anyone bullied or treated unfairly threw me into fits of pure rage. This, coupled with my size (I was already pushing six feet), made me the perfect candidate to serve as the unofficial school bodyguard. Because of this, I found it easy to make friends and (more or less) fit in with whatever crowd I found myself in.

Nikolai Christakos, not so much.

Coming up in Portland in the early “naughties,” Nicky had two things working against him. First, he was Greek. Second, he preferred to solve issues with his bare knuckles.

These days Portland was more of a cultural melting pot. It’s got a liberal, artsy, ‘college town’ vibe where just about any type of person can do their thing without being hassled. This was not the case back in the days when Nicky and I were coming up. It wasn’t uncommon back then to see a pickup truck flying a rebel flag or walk around for hours before seeing a face that was neither Anglo nor Saxon. Portland was still pretty dominated by a culture of white boy, blue collar types. After all, the Pacific Northwest was built on an industry of logging, shipping, and paper mills. The dot com bomb had yet to drop so the good ol’ boys would readily ‘come to town lookin’ for trouble.’ A typical conversation with a drunken local might sound something like this .

Local: “What’s your name?”

Nicky: “Nicky.”

Local: “That’s a girl’s name. You some sort of queer?”

Nicky: “It’s short for Nikolai.”

Local: “ Nikolai ? You a Russian?”

Nicky: “It’s a Greek name.”

Local: “Greek huh. That some kinda Jew?”

Nicky: Stares ahead blankly, saying nothing.

Local: Calls to his friends, “Hey, guys. We’ve got some sorta half-queer, half-jew thing goin’ on over here. Come take a look and see what you can make of it.”

Nicky: Turns and looks to me. Fight starts.

Nicky was athletic, but not into sports. Anti-social, but not a loner. Wicked funny, but never the class clown. To put it bluntly, he didn’t fit in anywhere. Also, Nicky would start a fuckin’ fight with anybody, and I mean anybody. Teachers, students, cops… hell, I saw him take a swing at a priest once. Fortunately for Nicky, Father Dowd was a former golden gloves boxing champ and he easily slipped the hastily thrown punch. Unfortunately for Nicky, Father Dowd’s favorite Bible passage was not the one where Jesus talked about turning the other cheek. He hauled off and hit Nicky with a stiff jab right down the middle. Blood poured from Nicky’s nose as Father Dowd dragged him down the hall to the Bishop’s office where he was promptly expelled from both the school and the church. To this day Clutch’s nose is still a little crooked from that altercation. This kind of violence from both peers and adults was simply commonplace when we came up.

Conversely, I got along with just about everybody in the neighborhood, and always did my best to look out for Nicky. I made sure he came with me to parties and football games, the kinds of places where young people met other young people. I thought it would be good for him, but without fail some jackass would mouth off to him or he’d accidentally hit on someone’s girl or make a joke someone didn’t find funny and then it was on. Bloody lips, loose teeth, and black eyes seemed to follow us wherever we went .

He was a social pariah, and I was his only friend. I knew that if he was out on his own, he’d get himself arrested, beat up, or killed within weeks so I left school and we moved to downtown Portland together.

Being flat-ass-broke, we bought old, beater bikes to get around town, which led to fixing those bikes, which led to fixing bikes for other people, which eventually led us to the Burning Saints Motorcycle Club, and our current lives as Minus and Clutch.

“Hey man… ah, we’ve got a quick stop to make before we go to the Sanctuary,” Clutch said. I could tell by the shift in his tone that I wasn’t going to like where we were headed.

Turns out I was right.

* * *

Cricket

“Don’t even think about it, asshole!” I yelled at the motorist attempting to merge into our lane.

My Uber driver flinched and covered his right ear.

“Don’t take your hand off the wheel, you’re gonna let him in! Don’t let him in!”

I was a fraction of a second away from grabbing the steering wheel and literally back-seat driving, when my long-suffering coachman shot me a look and said sternly, “Lady, if you do that again, I’m going to have to let you out at the nearest safe stopping place.”

“I’m sorry,” I grumbled. “I really am, I’m just very—”

“Late,” he finished my sentence. “Yes, I know. You’ve explained this many times since I picked you up.”

He’d clearly lost patience with me and I couldn’t blame him. This poor guy was simply trying to do his job and I was sucking him into my vortex of chaos.

“I’m so sorry, it’s just that I’m meeting with someone I haven’t seen in a long time, and I’m a little nervous. To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure why I agreed to meet with him. I know it’s going to get me into trouble with my brother, not that I really care what he thinks, because he’s being a big jerk. I know he’s only trying to protect me, but who asked for his protection? Not me, that’s who. I don’t need him or his stupid protection, or his permission for that matter,” I said, sheepishly pausing to take a deep breath, now embarrassed by my outburst.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’ve got a brother and he’s an asshole, too. What can you do?”

“My brother is not an asshole,” I snapped. “In fact, he’s as far from an asshole as you can get.”

“Sorry.”

I sighed. “No, it’s okay. I’m spiraling, and I must sound like a bitch… or a lunatic. Omigod, I sound like a spiraling lunatic bitch. I’m so…so sorry.”

I was even more nervous than I thought. I hated being late, but more so, I hated that my oldest brother, Hatch, could still make me feel like a little girl. He was going to be furious with me and I suppose he had good reason, but I still didn’t like the fact that soon he’d likely be sitting me down and scolding me for making decisions that were mine to make. I’m an adult and I didn’t need his permission or blessing to visit a family member if I wanted to. It’s true Hatch has had to act more like a father than a brother to me, and the fact he’s seventeen years older makes it worse, but I wondered if there was ever going to be a time when he’d start treating me like an adult. Like his equal. In fact, I really wanted to be treated like an adult peer by all four of my brothers. They were all older than me, and every single one of them was overprotective.

But what the hell does my uncle want?

When I was a little girl, my dad, my uncle Cutter, and their buddy Crow used to ride with the Dogs of Fire motorcycle club in San Diego. They’d been asked by the club’s president to start a new chapter in Portland and we were all going to move, but then my mother got sick and everything changed overnight. After she died, my dad was never the same. She was his heart and soul, and once she was gone, he went off the rails, eventually ending up in prison.

My uncle and Crow went to Portland as planned, but it seemed they had vastly different ideas of what a motorcycle club should look like. Crow stayed with the Dogs of Fire, and over time, became the club’s national president, and my older brother Hatch currently serves under him. For the most part, the Dogs have always been a clean club, consisting of mostly business owners, and ex-military types. They had very few local troubles and a good relationship with law enforcement.

My uncle Cutter, however, along with a group of dirt bags and petty criminals, started the Burning Saints, and they blazed a much more violent trail. Since then, I’d seen extraordinarily little of my uncle, so why in God’s name I’d been asked to meet with him is anyone’s guess.

“Okay, here we are,” my driver said as we reached our destination, failing to hide the relief in his voice.

“Thank you again, and sorry for the… um… backseat…driving…freak fest. I promise I’ll leave you a glowing review. And a big tip,” I said, slinking out of the car.

Moments later I found myself standing somewhere I never thought I’d be in a million years. I took a deep breath before pushing the grimy talkback button of the security box in front of me.