Page 38 of Single Mom for the Bikers

Fuck!

Then it’s all chaos. I’m the first to stop, letting my bike hit the pavement as I throw myself off and jump over the divider to get to General. “Prez!”

He lies still, like a puppet with its strings cut, half under his bike. When I drop to my knees next to him, I already know it’s over, but that doesn’t stop me from checking.

“Motherfucker, wake up!”

I shake his shoulder, trying to rouse him, get any kind of reaction, even if it's pain, but there's nothing. We wrench the bike off him and get him rolled over. His eyes are wide open, glassy and unseeing. There's no rise and fall of his chest. I grab his wrist, but there's no pulse.

“Hellfire…” says Savage, one of the old timers. “Look at his head.”

Just above his ear is a perfect circle, straight through his fucking skull, leaking blood and who the fuck knows what else into hishair. It was over the instant I heard the shot. He was fucking executed, and whoever it was knew exactly what they were doing.

And they might still be out there. “Shooter! Stay low!”

But it’s dead fucking quiet. Whoever it was, they got exactly what they wanted. Our prez is dead.

“Shit, your neck,” Ghost hisses.

I touch where I felt the sting and my fingers come away red. Whoever hit General was going for a full fucking house. “God damn it!”

“Fuckers tried for me, too,” Badger growls. He gestures to his bike where one of the mirrors got blasted in half, the glass missing and the metal and plastic mangled. “Do you believe me now? Those fuckers act like their shit don’t stink but as soon as we got out of their front yard, they didn’t fucking hesitate.”

“How the fuck would they even have time to set that up?” But at the same time, they’re the only real threat we have at the moment.

Not that we don’t have enemies. Shit, we’re fucking mercenaries, there’s plenty of people who think we’re the scum of the fucking earth. If it shoots, explodes or generally fucks shit up, we’ve probably had our fingers on it, but our business relies on us staying neutral. A mercenary you can’t trust to do what you pay them for is a dead one.

“We don’t have fucking time for this,” Savage says. “Collect our—our dead and get back to base.”

I nod. We’re sitting ducks in this ditch. “Help me get him?—”

“We should go back and fuck their shit up before they have time to prepare.” Badger smiles, showing all his teeth like a fucking lunatic. “This was a message, and you're reacting just the way they fucking want you to.”

“What’s the alternative? Leave General in the dirt while we charge into their ambush? Say it is the Eagles who set this up. You think they sent a gun out to do this and then pulled out the grill to have a fucking barbeque when we get there?”

“You're a fucking pussy. We’re not gonna let the Eagles get away with this.” Badger’s speaking loud enough to carry to the whole group, and from the angry grumbles, he isn’t the only one ready for blood.

“Of course not. But a frontal charge right now would be fucking suicide, and I don't think even you're that stupid. Am I right? We’re bringing Prez home, and we’re getting him his rites before we go to war.”

Badger's hand twitches near his gun, but he shakes his head. “Fine. But once we’re back….”

The way he hisses it angrily through his teeth almost has me believing that he gave a shit about General, but for him this is just another reason to want the Eagles dead in the ground. Meanwhile, I’m the one that’ll have to tell Bonnie her man is dead and make sure General gets the seeing off that he deserves. It’s my job to hold this fucking club together now.

“We’re going to do this smart.” I'm impressed with myself for keeping my tone even. I hate this motherfucker’s guts, but we’re in this together. “They have the bigger numbers, but we have more firepower than they can even fucking imagine.”

If the Screaming Eagles want war, then war is what they'll fucking get.

22

SLEDGE

“A sidecar?”Shelby eyes the loaner from the garage curiously. “Is that really safe?”

“Hundred fucking percent. We keep a couple of sidecar bikes for club use, and Mia won’t be the first kid out in one. If someone can't ride bit—” I glance over at Mia, who's just enough out of range that she hopefully doesn't hear my language. “Can’t ride behind for some reason, or isn’t old enough, it works.”

Shelby smothers a laugh. “It’s hard, isn’t it? Watching your language all the time. There are things I didn’t even realize I said so much until I heard them coming back out of Mia’s mouth. Alright, I trust you.”

Shit, the weight of her trust is real fucking heavy, but it’s the kind of weight that could give me the strength to be a better man.

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