Two

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“W hat you got for me, Joel?”

Joel closes the meeting room door behind him and throws a pile of papers down on the table.

“All done. Rik isn’t gonna do shit, we’re clear.”

“How much?”

“A thousand. And he wants paying in US dollars. Wade’s transferring the money now.”

“Danish Krone not good enough for him, huh?”

“As long as he keeps his side of the bargain I don’t care what the fuck we pay him in.”

I flick through the papers, throwing them back down on the table. I’m satisfied. “We need Rik with us. Jakob being transferred left us vulnerable, but that place, Jesus, it’s full of fucking saints and do-gooders now, not like the old days. Finding a replacement was one major headache I’m in no hurry to go through again.” I get up, stretch my legs, start pacing the length of the room. This club – my club, it means everything, it’s my haven. My home. I spend my days doing anything I can to protect it. Keep it safe. Keep it running. “He understands that that payment, it was a one off. Anything else, he has to earn it. He has to prove his loyalty before we fully trust him.”

Joel leans back against the wall and flips a cigarette between his teeth. “He understands.”

“Good. We need a lawman on board, and he’s the only option we’ve got right now. Let’s hope he doesn’t fuck us over.”

“He knows that wouldn’t be a sensible decision.”

“Keep eyes on him as much as you can. Get a couple of the prospects on to it.”

Joel blows smoke up into the air before stubbing his half-smoked cigarette out on the wall behind him.

“Jesus, Joel, use an ashtray. What are we? Fucking animals?”

“Most of the time, yeah.” Joel grins and drags a hand back through his hair.

Joel Madsen. One of my closest, most trusted friends. We met over twenty years ago, when he came to this chapter a messed-up sixteen year old with no direction. No clue where his life was going. Now he’s one of the most lethal brothers this club has known, the Vikings made him the man he is today. A man I rely on to help me run this chapter, I’d trust him with my life. We’re as close as blood, yet there are still things I keep from him. When it comes to some aspects of my life I’m a fiercely private man.

“I’ll get Kit and Jep on Rik’s case. I’ll be in the workshop if you need me.”

Joel leaves, closing the door behind him, and I make my way across the room, to the window that overlooks the compound. My compound. Now.

I wasn’t born into the biker world, even though my father had once belonged to a club, one based just outside of Malmo, Sweden, before he crossed the bridge into Denmark. That’s where he met my mother. She was the one who’d persuaded him to leave the life behind, settle into normality, and he let his dick take the lead on that one. He did what she wanted. They bought a house close to Christianshavn, got married. Had me. He never returned to the biker life, preferring instead to run a small bar and restaurant in the Copenhagen suburbs before returning to Sweden. I’d been seventeen, hadn’t wanted to go with them, and they’d reluctantly let me stay. Denmark was my home, I had friends. A life. I’d started hanging out at a bar frequented by a local biker gang – The Viking Bandits. Started to hang out at their clubhouse. Their world became one that fascinated me, and by the time I was nineteen I was a fully patched-in member, I was all in, a true brother. I had a place where I belonged, I had focus. And now I’m president of the club I love, and I think, deep down, even though he never told me as much before he died – I think my father was secretly proud of me. I was living his life. The one he never got to fully experience. He was happy, with my mother, but I know there was always a part of him that missed this world. So, I owe it to him to be the man he never had the chance to become. The best man I can be in a world that can fuck with your head, but sometimes the shit it throws at you is worth all the crap.

This is my world.

But it’s not one I live in constantly.

My father had another side. I have one, too…