Or being forced to toss another man’s salad.
Fuck that shit.
He made it through almost six years without doing shit like that. And he didn’t feel like taking that risk again.
He took one more long drag, pinched the end to extinguish it and tucked it back in his tin.
It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust as he walked through the barn’s new front entrance. His step stuttered and he put his boots in reverse until he was back outside. He looked up.
And smiled.
A new sign hung above the door.
No, it was the old sign he’d brought back from the warehouse. The day he rented a box van, took a few of the stronger Amish men with him and loaded everything that wasn’t complete shit into that van and brought it back to what he was dubbing “The Barn.”
But the wood sign above the door didn’t say “The Barn.” No.
It read...
For one, For all
For our brothers
WE LIVE AND DIE!
Yeah, it sucked. He wished it was better. But it was what it fucking was.
He could change it. A club reborn might need a new motto. But Trip could remember as a kid hearing his father yell, “For one, for all, for our brothers...” And as one, the rest of the members would yell out, “WE LIVE AND DIE!”
Just thinking about it sent chills sliding down his spine.
It was supposed to represent how strong their brotherhood was. But in the end, those words, that battle cry, meant nothing since they all turned on each other. Or at least, most of them. The ones that weren’t shot dead, anyway.
He took a walk around the inside of the barn, running a hand over the custom- made wood bar, checking to make sure all exterior walls were reinforced with steel between the original wood exterior and the new interior drywall, something that was highly recommended by the president of the Dirty Angels. The Fury didn’t have any enemies at this point, but that didn’t mean they never would.
He peeked out the rear door into the new section attached to the original barn—what Trip was calling the bunkhouse—where the construction crew was still working. The concrete floors were already poured and set, exterior walls up, the roof finished, and they were quickly framing the inside to create one bunk room to hold six prospects, a common bathroom for them to share, and then seven private rooms with their own small bathrooms. Bathrooms just big enough to shit, shower and shave. Only members in good standing would be offered those.
He heard a few of the men working upstairs on the second level of the bunkhouse. He was having two apartments built up there. If he didn’t need them for BFMC members, he’d rent them out and put some extra scratch in his pocket. He made sure the stairs leading up to their entrances were on the outside, just in case that happened.
He wouldn’t need one of the apartments for himself since the farmhouse was in good enough shape to live in at this point. It could use a bit more work, but it would do for now until he was more flush and the club’s coffers weren’t in the negative.
The house had to wait, since the barn and the bunkhouse were priority because no club existed without members.
No club existed without a church.
No club existed without an executive committee.
Right now, it was a club of one.
Him.
A president who presided over no one.
That shit had to change.
His fucking gut churned at the thought maybe he was doing this all for nothing. Nobody would want to patch in. No one would want to be a lower than dog shit prospect.
Then he’d have a really nice fucking building on a farm he had no plans on farming that he could jerk off in.
Maybe throw himself a couple pity parties.
And drink himself half to death.
Fuck.
He needed to talk to some people in town. Dutch being one of them. Crazy Pete another. And from there, maybe he could dig up some other former members, or even some blood of former members.
If not, then again, he’d have a huge fucking building where he could whack his dick by himself.
And that would suck.
He also needed to find his half-brother, Sig, even though he had no clue where to even begin looking. Besides checking prisons and jails online for his name.
At least that’d be a start.
Trip wasn’t even sure if Sig would talk to him.
Not just because of Trip inheriting the mess their grandfather left behind but because of their father.
He gave the head Amish guy, the one with the longest salt and pepper beard, a nod, and ducked back into the barn, which now had an open floor plan, with wide plank floors and a large center fireplace to help heat the building.
Almost like a goddamn ski lodge.
Not that he ever saw one in person. There was no way he was strapping long, flexible blades to his feet and then heading down a mountain like some crazy motherfucker with a death wish. That was what snowmobiles were for. But, anyway, the barn was as nice as some of the photos he’d seen of those high-priced ski resorts. Only much more fucking badass. And definitely better than that rusted-out, drafty, rat-infested warehouse.
The new BFMC church would be the shit.
He jogged up the thick, rough-cut wood stairs to what used to be the hayloft and once he hit the second floor of the barn, he stopped and inhaled the scent of oak. Wouldn’t be long before that fresh cut lumber smell was gone and was quickly replaced by smoke, weed, booze and pussy.
The first three would be easy. That last one, though...
He didn’t even want to think about where his future brothers would find snatch to scratch their itches. The town wasn’t tiny, but it also wasn’t any kind of metropolis where females who weren’t jailbait were plentiful. So, they might be on their own for a while just fisting it. Though, he didn’t want any sweet butts, or patch whores, or cum-bucket hang-arounds staying in the bunkhouse.
It wouldn’t be like military barracks, but it also wasn’t going to turn into some whorehouse.
Fuck that.
The second floor had been sectioned in half. One portion had been closed off and turned into storage. For booze, supplies, whatever. But the other... He stepped farther into the finished loft, which was now where the executive committee would meet. He walked around the old, worn, wood table that sat in the center of the large open area. The long table that used to sit in a back room at the warehouse.
The table where his father used to sit. The table that needed a good cleaning and polish.
He ran his fingers over the carved center—the insignia of the Blood Fury MC, the same as his center patch—which was covered in dust and dirt.
Pretty fucking fitting.
The dust needed to be blown off and the dirt scrubbed away, and it would be as good as new, just like the MC. Or at least, he hoped.
He moved down to the far end to the chair with the highest seat back and traced the initials that had been crudely carved into the armrest. Probably with a knife similar to what Trip carried.
B.F.D.
Yeah, his old man thought he was a big fucking deal. Probably a lot of Buck’s club brothers didn’t know what those letters actually stood for. Burchell Fletcher Davis.
He pulled the heavy chair away from the table and settled himself in it, putting his elbows on the armrests and trying it on for size.
He flatted his palms out on the tabletop, spread his fingers wide and closed his eyes, imaging what it was like back then to sit at the head of the table. To hold that power. To be the one with the final word on all the decisions.