Page 67 of Biker's Baby

My mind was jerked back to the present at the sound of shouting. Kohler and the cartel man were yelling at each other, and it quickly escalated to screams. I didn’t wait to hear what was being said. My two men turned and ran for their bikes as several gunshots rang out.

I didn’t have time to try to calm the situation or figure out where things went wrong. The cartel was shooting at us, and any of their shots could be fatal for any one of us.

It seemed to me that they were giving a warning as none of the shots made their mark, but still. Something had gone terribly wrong during the transaction for them to open fire on us like that. There was always the risk that we would do the same in return.

We sped all the way back to the clubhouse, and by the time we screeched to a halt and got off our rides, I was more furious than I’d been in as long as I could remember.

“What the fuck happened back there?” I screamed. “What the fuck did you do?”

“I’m sorry! I told him that we were firm on our price and if he was going to keep haggling, I’d drop it,” he said.

“You did what?” I screamed. “Kohler, you are a motherfucking idiot! Do you want to get us all killed? We’re already not giving them what they want, and you threaten them with less?”

I was about to come to blows with him when Tad appeared out of nowhere. I didn’t know he was in the clubhouse, and it was lucky for Kohler that he was.

“What the fuck is going on out here?” he demanded.

“These two geniuses nearly got us killed in that deal,” I said.

“What went wrong?” he asked.

“I’m not sure exactly. I wasn’t close enough to hear the full conversation, but this one here threatened to lower the price on them, and you can only imagine how that went over. Fucking asshole.” I shook my head.

“You two are dismissed for the day,” Tad said over his shoulder, and my companions left. They glared at me as they did, but I didn’t care. I didn’t need to make friends with either of them.

“I sent you with them to make sure that didn’t happen,” Tad said. “What the fuck do you mean you weren’t close enough to hear what was going on?”

“You know you don’t send three people to meet one man during a deal,” I said. “There has to be the guy who keeps watch, and it’s a damn good thing I was.”

I didn’t tell him that I only came back to the present moment when guns were being fired. He was pissed off enough with the fact that this deal had gone south. I knew he didn’t blame me exclusively for what had gone wrong, but he was also not going to let me off easy, either.

“You know I send you there for a reason. You are one of the few people we have on our side that the cartel respects. If word gets back that this blew up in our faces, what’s that mean for the MC trying to come into town? Do you want them to just walk in here and take over?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

Not because I had any care one way or the other, but because I knew that was the answer he wanted to hear. He wasn’t in the mood for me to be an asshole and since he was so pissed, I wasn’t going to press my luck with him, either.

I hoped that he would let me go as well after the lecture, and I would have the day to hang out with Iris and Tris. The deal should have taken another hour for us to get through, but with that blown, there wouldn’t be the follow up for us to do with ourselves today.

It would be a while for Tad to smooth things out with the cartel and strike another agreement before we went in for another deal, and since we didn’t have the guns, there wouldn’t be any threats made to the other MC, either.

But Tad was pissed.

And he was still taking it out on me.

He kept me at the clubhouse doing stupid side jobs until it was well into the evening, and I knew he did that to prove a point. He wanted to see how long he could push me before I would tell him that I had to get to work. He wanted the club to be the number one thing in my life, and that meant it came before my job, too.

Knowing it was a test, I kept my mouth shut.

By the time he finally said he was done with me for the day, I called off from work. I told my boss I was sick and had to sleep, and was relieved that he seemed to believe me.

Then, I hopped on my bike to head home.

It was a rough day, and I was over talking to people. I knew I wasn’t signing up for an easy life when I joined the club, but there were days that I really wondered what had been going through my mind in the first place.

This was insanity most of the time, and I was looking forward to the day when I could finally get out. I hoped it meant that I had done my job and got my inheritance, but days like today made me not really care one way or the other about how I left.

I just wanted to have a nice life with Iris and our son.

That’s all.

Was that too much to ask?

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