Page 1 of Tyrant

Chapter 1

Tyrant

“Here we go! He’s red carpet ready, gents!”

Odin spots me first—not bad for a one-eyed man who donated one eyeball to a fight in LA, twenty some years ago. He winks at me with his lone eye and gives his big, meaty palms a hearty smack and the rest of the brothers gathered in the clubhouse take up after him, clapping and stamping boots as soon as I walk into the lounge. To get from our private rooms in the back, we pretty much have to pass through here. I could have skirted down the hall and gone out the back door, rounding through the compound to my borrowed cage that way, but that would have meant depriving my brothers of a much-needed laugh and I’d never be so cruel.

Crow, our club’s enforcer, gets up off the couch, shoving away Barbie, one of our women who was sitting perched in his lap. He walks over and appraises me, ignoring the pouting going on behind him. I’m somehow vastly more interesting than Barbie’s assets and she hasplenty—blonde hair flowing all the way down her back, her big fake breasts pushed up in her tight pink clothing. She likes to dress to match her name.

“Black.” Crow has this strange way of talking in one syllable grunts that used to unnerve the hell out of all of us. The scars we could all deal with. It’s the eerie way he loves what he does, which is mostly stalking and gathering information right now because we’re living a time of peace, but if it was more, he’d enjoy it, gives off some chilling vibes.

“Thank the fucking stars you went with black, or you’d look like a penguin,” Bullet notes from one of the couches on the far end of the room. It’s evening, so that means it’s morning for most of the brothers, but not Bullet. He spends his days at Hart’s only gun range, proudly running the place. He holds up a can of beer in a salute.

Reckless, the club’s VP, is known for his wise and calm demeanor, but at the moment, a big grin carves its way into his cracked and weathered face. He joins the fray, walking over to give me a smack on my back that would send a smaller man flying. I’m not as thick around the middle as he is, but I have a few inches on him and an athletic build. “You’re a little late for your new job. The nine to five starts at nine, son.”

The rest of the guys laugh hard and there are a few more whistles. I roll my shoulders in the stiff suit, throw my head back and laugh. My father might be president of this club and it might run in our blood, but I don’t think I’m like him in the least. I’ve never heard him laugh full out about anything. If he was here in this room right now and not out on the road with a few of the other brothers, meeting with a potential new supplier up across the border in British Columbia, the guys wouldn’t cast so much as a wrong look in my suit clad direction.

I don’t mind the good-natured ribbing. It makes me feel like I’m part of something. I’ve always thought my dad had it wrong. Aloofness doesn’t make for a good leader but fuck if I’d be the one to ever tell him. He’d pound my ass into the ground. No son of his is going to disrespect him. He’s been prez of Satan’s Angels MC for as long as I’ve been alive, so he must be doing something right, even if we don’t all agree with his decisions. I’ll say one thing, the club is his lifeblood, his one and only god. Cut him and he’d bleed gray, the color of our bowedangel insignia, her wings spread wide over her kneeling form. He made sure I was named for that shade. Gray.

“Come over here and give us a kiss, princess,” Axe snorts at me. He’s a big, burly, older biker with a scraggly gray beard down to his heavy gut, and equally long hair to match.

“Looks like you’ve got as much as you can handle at the moment.” I indicate the three women sitting in his lap.

He laughs long and hard, which makes his huge belly bounce. “Always room for one more.”

That’s probably true. The night is young yet.

The club whores have never been for me. I refused to let my dad send a woman to me when I was fourteen, to teach me about becoming a man. No one refuses their prez, but he was just my dad back then as I hadn’t patched in and wasn’t even a prospect yet, so I got away with it. Not judging anyone here, I just prefer to enjoy women outside of the club. Privately. A few other guys are that way too, so I don’t catch much shit for it. I might not party as hard as the rest, but I’m every bit as serious about the MC as they are.

I spread my arms wide and stride to the middle of the room. The lounge is massive and so are all our private rooms here, compliments of the old warehouse that became our clubhouse. This place was all my dad’s doing and it’s been a second home to me for as long as I can remember.

The new clubhouse was just the first of many changes my dad made when he became President of Satan’s Angels MC. My grandfather didn’t believe in hard drugs and wouldn’t let the club have anything to do with them, and when he passed and my dad was voted in as president, he changed that too. He alsostarted the long process of wiping out any and all competition to make Hart—our city in northern Washington state, an hour’s ride from Seattle—ours. There was never a full-scale war. One of the smartest things my grandfather did was to move to a place where no competition existed. Mostly, it was just smalltime thugs, gangsters, and dealers they took out.

I clear my throat roughly, setting levity aside. “It should be Raiden here tonight, wearing this tight fucking thing, stuffing himself into these polished sons of bitches that pass for shoes. He’d rock it like he really was going to walk the red carpet.” Murmurs echo around the room and I catch a few seething looks. “He wanted me to do this. For him, I’ll make myself as ridiculous as it takes. I’d be much more comfortable in my old jeans and bike boots, wearing my cut with pride, but that’s not what tonight is about.” A few more heads bow solemnly. People have this notion that bikers are animals and that might be true of some of us, but our family issacred. No one fucks with our kids, our sisters our mothers and fathers, or our old ladies. “I want to be the man who takes my club brother’s little sister to her prom and makes sure she has the best night of her life. I want to get her home safe afterward, because Raiden’s not here to do it himself, and if it takes a suit and a fucking cage to make that a reality, then so be it.”

“A-fucking-men,” Bullet yells, stamping his feet in the corner. He’s an average man in height and build and doesn’t look overly fearsome. You’d never guess that he was in special ops, and he is extremely lethal.

Steel and Vigil are two of the club’s newest brothers, freshly patched in. They work at the range with Bullet and take most of their cues from him even though he has zero fatherlyinstincts. They raise their voices in assent and soon the rest of the club joins in.

I get at least eight beers and shots of stronger stuff passed my way, but I shake my head. I meant what I said about seeing this through.

Lark isn’t just Raiden’s little sister, she’s like one to me too, even if we’re not blood. After Raiden patched in, he wasn’t welcome at home. Lark did what she could to see him, but it split her in half, trying to obey her parents and maintain her relationship with her brother. We might be seven years older than her, but she and Raiden were always close. It made me detest Mabel and Henry. That feeling solidified into something much stronger and colder after Raiden went to prison.

The brothers usher me into the compound, where our bikes and cars are kept. I fucking hate driving a cage, but sometimes needs must, as they say. It’s guarded by a few prospects, but we really rely on the high level of security that Wizard installed. Every one of our businesses, warehouses, and storage spaces have pretty much the same. He has it wired all up so he can monitor everything all at once.

***

Everyone always jokes that I’m too sensitive to be a biker, too quiet and nice when it comes right down to it, but I’ve always taken that as a sign of respect and not grudgingly given either. No one doubts my blood or my toughness. I’ve more than proven myself over the years. Saving Wizard’s life in Seattle in a bar fight a few years ago when some fucker pulled a knife out of nowhere and taking that blade straight in my own shoulder, solidified just how far I’d go for any of them. I might be a little less rough around the edges thanks to the very place I’m headingand people I once considered like second parents, but that doesn’t mean I’m afraid to use my fists or that I’m incapable of extreme violence. I’ve just chosen when and where to unleash it.

I park down the sidewalk and stare at the yellow two-story house down the block where the Gardiners live. The street is quiet, lined with mature trees and manicured yards. It’s a solidly middle-class neighborhood without huge boats or fancy sports cars in the driveway. I grew up more than a few streets away, but close enough that Raiden and I attended the same school. We met in kindergarten, me about as rough and uncouth a brat as could be imagined, and him with his shiny new school clothes, his ordered belongings, his lunchbox packed lovingly with a matching thermos.

As different as we were and as much as I hated him because I was burning up with childish jealousy and longing for the things I didn’t have, we became instant friends. It turned out that as much as I envied Raiden’s shiny home life, he was enthralled with my own. All the rough around the edges club brothers, and the shiny chrome and black beasts they rode when they dropped me off at school the few times I didn’t have to walk. It was them who picked my ass up when I was sick or came to my games or parent fucking teacher interviews. It didn’t hurt that we were always seated together and paired up because our last names were so close alphabetically. In time, I was more than willing to share my life—mostly in secret so his parents didn’t know—and he was willing to share his family, not so in secret, with me.

This house used to be a second home, but now it’s full of the ghosts of good and bad memories.

I haven’t set foot in the Gardiner house since I was sixteen. They asked me not to, and I respected their wishes. Itdidn’t stop Raiden from prospecting with the club right at my side and patching in as a full brother when we turned eighteen. Mabel believed that I was a good kid who came from a bad situation up until the time I was old enough to get my bike license and it became clear I was destined to follow in my father’s footsteps. My sweet, innocent boyish youth gave way to an undeniable rough and rugged manhood. I went from boy to outlaw with almost no transition between. I was the one destined to end up in prison or on the wrong side of the turf.

Except, I’m still here and their son is the one doing time.

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