CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

-:- ROCK -:-

Friday and everyone is wired ready for this evening’s raid on Stone’s town. We have the Ol’ Ladies at Club Whisky with Dep, Sober and Hands watching out for them. With them being deputies, no one is going to mess with the club or the women.

Red is going to be with the other Ol’ Ladies, and it seems after they’ve had a meal with Cookie tagging along, Jessica is going into the kitchen to make cookies with Cookie.

I am proud as fuck to see Red walking around with her property patch on her back. She keeps giving me a cheeky smile, which has been giving me a boner, as it would any red-blooded male, I’m sure.

They are all going in the minibus that Axel has purchased for any excursions the club may have. He wants to keep the women corralled, if you ask me, but I’m never going to say that.

All brothers have been called into church and rather than sitting as we normally would, we are all standing and agitated, ready to be getting this shit show started.

“Get into threes or fours, and I don’t care which, but you will stay together all evening. I want nobody going off on their own,” Axel says. Turning when the door opens, Winter walks in, along with Star. Both have a rifle over their shoulder, a knife strapped to their thigh and look like Lara Croft, with T-shirts and tight pants.

“What the fuck are you two doing?” Axel snaps, but Meat and Target step next to their woman and glare at Axel. The only time I think we’ll ever see them go head-to-head with him.

“We are going the places you cannot, or do you want to be seen walking into the ladies' restrooms?” Winter eyes Pres.

Now, Winter is a tough woman, and she has a high respect for Axel, her meeting his eye and holding it tells him how serious she is.

“What are you thinking you’ll gain from this?” Axel asks.

“We can speak to the women and find out if it’s true they are being forced to prostitute themselves, and if so, I’m going to take names and numbers and get them the hell out of that town. Even if I have to get my sniper rifle and take out every one of the fuckers that are involved in this.” Winter is calm and controlled. Everyone can see she’s in her sniper mode. The body language alone shows she is primed and ready.

“We may hold you to that. Now, what’s your excuse?” Axel turns to Star.

“Oh, I’ve been having lessons with Winter and I’m fully versed in all weapons, and nearly as good as her with the sniper rifle. Not as good, but not far behind.” Star gives Axel that look she’s perfected from Meat. The one with the grin that doesn’t meet the eyes, and looks like you best run if you want to live.

Winter grins proudly as she looks at Star, and anyone in their right mind can tell these two are going to be trouble. I look at Axel as I’m interested in what he’s going to do next.

“Okay. You go do your own thing. You stay out of trouble. You report TO ME…” said with a lot of force, “every hour on the hour. Give the brothers a signal if you need help. I don’t want any excuses as to you being in trouble and not calling out.”

“Yes, Pres,” Winter responds calmly.

Star, however, has a grin on her face when she replies, “Aye, aye, Captain.”

Axel rolls his eyes at her, but everyone can see the laughter in his eyes. “Get the fuck gone and don’t make me regret this decision.”

The two of them rush out of church and close the door quietly. We then get down to the business at hand.

“Okay, again, you stay in threes or fours, you ride the town, be seen, make sure you are noticed. Display your kuttes, and if you see Stone, do what you can to grab the fucker. I don’t care if he’s dead or alive. When we get him, he’s off to Nell’s.”

The door is thrown open and Graham, Tank and Richie rush inside, closing the door behind them. What is amusing is the way they quickly stand quietly, waiting for whatever we’ve been discussing.

Axel shakes his head before mumbling, “What the fuck did I do to deserve you fuckin’ lot!” Which, of course, has most of us chuckling.

“We miss much?” Graham asks, looking from Axel to the rest of us.

“No. Just do your own fuckin’ thing, the same as these are.” Axel snarls, then walks out of church again mumbling about, ‘assholes,’ ‘idiots,’ ‘fuckers.’

An hour later, I’m riding around Bensonville, which is the town being taken over by Stone. It’s quieter than I expected for a Friday evening. Fist is riding next to me, with Chaos and Target behind. Not sure how we ended up with two crazy fuckers together, but Fist and Chaos could cause us trouble.

Pulling over, I look at Fist. “The ones I’m seeing are only teenagers. Is this gang made up of young kids who are hardly off their momma’s tit?”

“These are the ground runners. I bet the ones we are after are in the clubs, keeping behind the scenes while telling their minions what to do and how to do it,” Chaos chimes into the conversation.

Target nods in agreement. “Let’s go to the next place we would pass. It’s a club on the right, three blocks over.”

None of us ask how he knows because we know he will have done all the surveillance needed before setting out. “Okay, we can do that. We need to do something ‘cause this is boring as shit.”

I notice Target taps his helmet before grinning with one side of his mouth. That means something is going down, but as it’s not coming through from Axel, or the officers with him, it can only mean it's Winter.

“Star lured a kid into an alley, then Winter snuck up behind him, and they took him down, fast and quietly, just as I taught Winter. They’ve called for the van to go pick them up. Now, I knew that Pres had Wings on compound duty, but he’s now become the van-man for the night.”

We all chuckle because we know as Second Enforcer that won’t go down well with Wings. But he’s in less trouble nowadays than he used to be. He just gets bored easily, and with his sense of humor, he finds things to amuse himself, which leads to him being in trouble.

Meat has the excuse of his PTSD, but Wings can’t say that, unless he’s hiding something from us all. But according to BS, who I’ve spent time in the past drinking with, Wings is just a fun guy who doesn’t take life too seriously after seeing the shit he has. None of us can blame him for that.

“Do you want us to go over to Winter and Star?” I ask Target, but notice he’s grinning.

“No, seems Meat got to them first, and he’s hogtied the asshole, stuck an apple in his mouth, and is grunting at him like a pig. Winter and Star are laughing at his antics. Not so much the asshole who’s tied up,” Target chuckles.

“Who is with Meat?” Fist asks.

“Well, he was with Knuckles, Mav and Colton, but seems he ditched Knuckles and Mav along the way. He wasn’t as lucky with Colton, who says he is learning from the ‘Master,’ much to Knuckles and Mav’s disgust,” Target again informs us.

Chaos laughs. “Well, Colton has the ability to be a berserker, so let’s teach him how to be the best berserker he can be.”

“Fuck, I’m not getting involved in that shit. Now come on, we’ve a club to invade.” I move off with my brothers at my back and head for the club Target had mentioned.

Parking our hogs, we place our helmets on seats or handlebars. I give Fist a nod and we walk inside the club. The noise hits as soon as you walk inside. People are dancing on one side of the room with the DJ playing rock music while dancing on a raised platform.

It’s easily noticed that a group of men are watching us closely. We stand at the bar and order a beer. The whole time we are keeping our eyes and ears open. I’m watching one of the men grab the server by her waist as she was passing, brings her down on his lap and kisses her. She gets away from him and runs the back of her hand over her mouth.

As the server passes I hear her mumble, “Fuckin’ asshole.”

I watch as the server disappears around the back of the bar and through a door. Turning to Fist, I give a nod of my head for him to follow her. “Find out what she knows.”

Giving me a nod of the head, he walks away to follow her, and I turn to Chaos and Target. “Nobody to get past us. Fist is gonna find out what he can from the server.”

The asshole who’d pulled the server on his lap stands, stretches and then walks toward us to follow her out back. Chaos, I notice, gives the grin. Shit, he’s gonna start a riot. I flex my fingers and get ready for trouble.

The thing about these assholes is they are unfit, undisciplined and going up against prior-military, and those in the club not prior-military are trained as though they are.

“Move,” the asshole snarls when Chaos steps into his path.

“Why, you gonna chase after the server and force yourself on her, like the piece of shit you are?” Chaos calmly states, still with the grin in place.

The punch isn’t unexpected. The stupid fucker is so far off, it’s laughable. I lean on the bar with an elbow and watch what’s going to happen.

Chaos throws himself to the side, and the asshole's fist passes easily. That’s when Chaos half turns and throws his elbow up and hits the asshole easily in the nose. Everyone in the club must hear the crack of it breaking because the place has gone quiet.

Seeing the asshole's friends stand and make their way over to join in the fun. Rubbing my hands together, I stand next to Target and we are ready for whatever the fuckers want to bring to us.

Target surprises me when he launches himself forward and kicks one in the groin and punches him on the chin. Now he must have a glass jaw because he goes down so easily that I can’t help but chuckle.

Seeing a fist head towards my face, I duck, but also spin, kicking out a roundhouse which hits squarely where I wanted it to. Now biker boots are nice and heavy, and that asshole’s jaw cracks. I hear it and grin with satisfaction.

The place is in uproar, but the three of us have the assholes all down and unconscious in no time. I see Fist is back and has taken a few down himself and every time one starts to come around; he knocks them out again.

It can only be twenty minutes before the door opens and Wings saunters into the club. “Hi, brothers, I’ve come to take out the trash.”

Yeah, he takes the trash in the back of the van to Nell’s, where she’s going to keep them in her cells for Axel to have a quiet talk. I feel sorry for them because they will not be leaving that place unless it’s shown they had nothing to do with the shit that’s been happening.

The evening progresses with us hearing reports of brothers taking out groups of the gang in different places. As yet, none have found Stone, which has pissed Axel off more than anything else.

Outside the town council building as a whole, the club stands behind our Pres. Axel is calmly standing, looking around at the people that have gathered to see what’s going down.

“THIS IS YOUR TOWN, SO WHY ARE YOU ALLOWING THIS STONE ASSHOLE TO TAKE YOUR WOMEN, MAKING THEM PROSTITUTES, TAKING THEM TO FILL brOTHELS?” Axel shouts, and we see men dropping their heads, looking at the ground “GROW SOME BALLS, PROTECT WHAT’S YOURS. THIS STONE IS A PIECE OF SHIT AND WE ARE AFTER HIM. THESE…” Axel throws his hand out to encompass us all behind him, “ARE MEN THAT WILL DIE FOR THEIR WOMAN, DIE FOR THEIR CLUB, AND DIE TO DO WHAT’S RIGHT. YOU EITHER STAND WITH US, OR YOU ARE AGAINST US. IT’S TIME TO MAKE UP YOUR MIND.”

What happens next takes every one of us and the townsfolk by surprise. Five young women step out of the crowd. They are all wearing dark pants and t-shirts, and all are carrying a weapon.

“We stand with you,” the woman in front states, and turns to give the townsfolk a dirty look, particularly the men. “We’ve saved some women, gotten them out of town. If you can get the women away from the bastards, we can make them disappear. We have a place of safety set up and any of them can go there and be safe.”

Axel nods, and the woman gives him a piece of paper before nodding at the others with her, and they disappear back into the crowd as quickly as they arrived.

Getting the signal from Axel, we all rush back to our hogs, and straddle ready for his signal to start them up. It’s gonna make one hell of a noise when all the hogs fire up, and it’s gonna make a point that we are here and we know what’s happening.

“STONE!!” Axel shouts, “We’re comin’ for you.”

The silence that follows shows he’s hiding, and the people of this town need to get to grips with their fear and fight back. Axel gives the signal and we all fire up. The noise is deafening, and we of course make it worse purposely to scare the shit out of everyone.

Following Axel, we have to look intimidating. We are all on high alert, and when Target grins, then flicks his eyes toward the top of a building across the street, I see nothing. But I get what he’s ‘not’ saying, and that’s Winter is up there, with Star as her backer. They’ve been watching our backs, and Axel’s, of course.

As we are riding back to the clubhouse, I can’t help but wonder how many of the gang we skimmed off the streets tonight. It has to be quite a few because we had gotten ten from the club. I hope Nell has enough room for them all! Well, she can always offload some to the gaters if it gets too tight!