“You coming to Church tonight?” I ask my brother as I load bullets into a magazine.
“Naw, man,” he grumbles. “I’m not patched in. Don’t change your rules for me.”
My rules.
Sure, I am president of the Tulsa chapter of the Royal Bastards MC, but at the end of the day, I abide by a different set of rules. My club follows those rules without hesitation. They may not understand where the hell my mind goes half the time, but they’re right there with me. Loyalty is everything to me. I reward them with money, pussy, and endless opportunities.
“Least stay for dinner. Stormy can cook half the time,” I offer. “You can spoon feed your baby boy.”
He laughs. “I still can’t believe you nicknamed him Nees. That’s harsh. Even for you.”
“He doesn’t act like a nephew. He acts like a vagina. A fucking niece. It’s better than Momma’s Tit, which was the other option.”
“Asshole,” he says with a smile.
Filter and Dragon begin firing at one of the targets, taking turns like two kids on the schoolyard. Nees awkwardly shoots his Glock while Bermuda watches like a proud parent.
Copper picks up one of my AKs and shoves a magazine into it. I grab my own AK and walk with him over to a dirt patch. We both raise our weapons, standing side by side, and without hesitation unload into the target tied to a bale of hay about fifty feet away. The sound is deafening as we unload our magazines. We finish at the same time and lower our guns like practiced soldiers.
Some call it target practice. I call it preparation.
The other Royal Bastards chapters are building their clubs with members.
I’m creating a fucking army.
“Calm the fuck down,” Payne, my SGT at Arms barks out. “You dumbasses better not be drunk.”
Gibson and Bizzy try and fail to stop their laughing. I don’t have the energy for their comedy tonight. They’re the fucking bozos of this club. Goddamn children.
“Not drunk,” Gibson assures Payne. “Scout’s honor.”
Payne grits his teeth. It’s his job to keep order at Church, but sometimes these outlaws are too damn disorderly for that shit. “Bermuda, give us a rundown on finances.”
This is my favorite part of Friday nights. Discussing how much money we made. At one time, I was the breadwinner for my family. Now, I’m the leader of a club of misfits who are pretty fucking smart and can win their own damn bread. They make me lots of money. Dirty, filthy money. Money we take from those who don’t deserve it in order to further our own agenda.
Bermuda pushes his reading glasses up his nose, looking like a fucking grandma, and opens his laptop. We’re like those other Royal Bastards and other motorcycle clubs in the sense that we have a strong brotherhood and are always up to some shit. But where we differ is we don’t live in some rundown clubhouse that smells like piss and old beer. We look like bikers, but beneath the leather and hair and snarls, we’re savvy businessmen. Every single one of my guys drives an expensive-ass bike, has a fat bank account, and takes a fucking shower every day.
“I swear to God, I will tape your mouths shut,” Payne warns, snarling like a rabid wolf at Gibson and Bizzy. They live to torment him. If they weren’t loyal as fuck and great marksmen, I would’ve kicked their asses out long ago. But, like two goddamn eager puppies, they like to annoy the shit out of me and would lick my ass if I’d let them. They’d take a bullet for me and that fucking matters to me.
Church, for our chapter, is a massive boardroom-style room with a huge window that overlooks a thicket of trees. The room is outfitted with Wi-Fi, a Keurig, and a sixty-inch TV hanging on the wall. We take our meetings seriously. Well, most of us.
Gibson and Bizzy continue to snigger like a couple of girls, but I ignore them. Bermuda has my focus. He clears his throat and taps on his computer. Then, he grins at us. Bermuda is thirty something and a former ranch hand from Dallas. He ran the books for the ranch owner, but when the guy died, the kids took over, leaving him shit. The ranch filed bankruptcy not long after he left and they begged him to come back. By then, though, he’d already patched in under me and I was giving him the acknowledgments he deserved.
“I’ve been following that lead Drake gave us,” Bermuda says. “You know he hates those human traffickers, but even crazy ass Drake can’t kill everyone. He hooked me up with a few names there in Georgia. Followed the money. Siphoned a shitload out of three players’ shell accounts.”
“No shit?” I say, leaning forward in my chair. At one time, I sat in a boardroom just like this one but wearing a suit and a smile that made deals happen. Now, my smiles are evil and sinister. Vindictive. I roll my cigarette between my finger and thumb, itching to light it up. But per my own rules, no smoking in the goddamn house.
“Bannon White, some dude named Will Dartmouth, and Grady Anderson.” He turns his laptop around to show me his spreadsheet. “Two mil, six mil, and half a mil.”
Several guys slap the table and holler out praise for Bermuda.
“Good fucking work,” I tell him. “Any of it trace back to us?”
He rolls his eyes. “Koyn, you know me better than that. I ran it through so many loops, it’d take a whole damn team of digital experts and fucking Snowden to make any sense of it.”
“Good. Looks like everyone’s getting an early Christmas thanks to Bermuda.”
Bermuda scratches at his close-shaved beard and then twists the laptop around again. “I moved some of last quarter’s profit into the stock market. Been doing a little day trading to turn a quick dollar.”
Day trading is exhausting and will give you ulcers, but Bermuda lives for this shit. I trust him implicitly, so I know he won’t fuck us.
“Great, we’re rolling in the dough,” Payne says, slapping the table with his huge, tattooed hand. “Next order of business.” His eyes cut to me, imploring to move the meeting along.
It’s always the second thing we go over after finances.
Revenge.
Always revenge.
“Anything on Bastards in Blade Blood?” I ask, my voice tight as I rein in the violence thrumming through me.
Several guys shake their heads, but Dragon slaps Katana on his shoulder before leaning in. Katana—a small, quiet Asian guy who’s a fucking ninja with a blade, but can’t grow a single hair on his face to save his life—remains emotionless despite Dragon grinning in his face.
“We heard some things today,” Dragon reveals, his voice low and wicked like he’s a character on stage at the fucking performing arts center.
I don’t have patience for his theatrics when it comes to this. Never this. My blood boils and before I can punch him in his pretty fucking face, Filter smooths shit out like always.
“Dude, spit it out. Prez has been working on this shit for a decade. If you have something, fucking tell us already.”
Dragon has the sense to look ashamed. “Right. Sorry, Koyn. Katana and I rode to McHenry’s downtown. Some old biker was there we didn’t know named Bison. Bought him some drinks and he got to talking when we inquired about the BBBs.”
Katana nods, his nearly black eyes gleaming. “He’d heard of them. Started telling stories about what a bad gang of bikers they were, especially this one guy named Randall Putnam.”