Page 73 of Menace

“Love you too, Rider.”

Shutting the phone down I dropped it on the bed and looked down at Ry.

“Mama loves you sweetheart. I promise to love and care for you all the days of my life. Now, your daddy is a bit of asshole but he’s not a bad guy. He’s just never had to pick between his club and his family and it makes him nervous as hell. But you’re his family, make no mistake, and he’ll realise it soon. You have a lot of people who love you, like your uncle Rider, he’s loves you so, so much. You’re a very lucky boy.”

My smile was a bit sad when I called him a lucky boy.

If I had a crystal ball and saw what was coming I wouldn’t have been smiling.

I would have run.

TWENTY ONE

Lucky

Walking away and leaving Harper and her child under the protection of other men burned like acid in his gut. It should be him in that house, him watching over them, him taking care of her. Instead here he was getting ready to once again entertain that lying slut Carmella Mendez at the clubhouse.

Tonight’s party was a big one, they had several chapters coming in and as usual they would be showing their brothers a good time. And he will be walking around with the bitch on his arm, giving everyone the fucking wrong impression. He hated that, hated deceiving his brothers. He couldn’t wait to scrape her off and be done with this bullshit.

Maniac had called for a meet with the presidents of the chapters closest to Savannah and they had been rolling in all afternoon. Tonight was the welcome party and tomorrow they were going into church to talk. They were going to discuss the threat from the cartel and ways to ensure the safety of their people.

He wasn’t feeling like a party or the slut he had to entertain.

He would rather be with Harper than here.

Harper. Just thinking about her new name had him gritting his teeth.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like the name. He did. It was the reason she had to have a new name that pissed him off. If he could have he would have gone to Johannesburg and taken care of the problem the only way it should be taken care of. Permanently.

Her family needed to burn in the fires of hell. Asa Malone had to get his ass in gear and eliminate the threat to Harper and her child before he got on a plane and sorted it out himself. He wasn’t afraid of spilling blood to get what he wanted, the end of her family.

A knock on his door jerked him back to the present.

“Yeah.”

“Lucky, prez wants to see you in his office.” Mouth called through the closed door.

What now.

“I’m on my way.”

Pulling his kutte on over the faded black tee he was wearing he glanced in the mirror and grinned. Marie, one of the nicer club girls, had braided his hair in what she called a Viking braid, it looked badass. It made him look different, more menacing, if that was possible. Meeting his eyes in the mirror he breathed in then out, waiting for all emotion to leach from them before turning and leaving his room, locking the door behind him.

The door to the office stood open and he walked in after a single knock on the door jamb.

Jonno, the president of their Vegas chapter was sitting at the desk with his prez and all the officers and senior patches were in the office, except Viper and Bruiser who were watching over Harper and Frankie. Giving his prez a chin lift he took his place next to Dive.

His prez didn’t beat around the bush. He got right to the point of the meet.

“I called you in to have a word before we welcome the rest of our brothers. Jonno brought some news, listen and once he’s done we’ll talk.” He turned to the man on his left and gave him a nod.

Jonno cleared his throat loudly. “As you know we’ve had the Robbers encroachin’ on our territory for the last year. It started when they became mules for the Los Rojos cartel. After our meet in Vegas they backed off but as of two weeks ago they’re back. They’re ridin’ through my territory as if belongs to them and we’ve had several skirmishes that resulted in a few of my brothers gettin’ shot. I’m not taking this bullshit a moment longer. I came here to tell my National President that the Las Vegas Chapter of the Shadow Wraiths will be goin’ to war with the Grave Robbers MC. I know it’s against the rules but I have no other options, I have to do what I have to do to ensure the safety of my people.”

He glanced at Maniac as he continued.

“Let me give you some examples of the dangers we are facing every single day. I didn’t ride here with my brothers because it would have left my compound undermanned. I had to fuckin’ fly in with only two of my brothers to take my back. There has been two attempts on my life and an attempt to snatch my sister and her little girl. Thank fuck I had put brothers on them and they were able to get them to the safety of the compound. I’m tellin’ you this so you can see that none of us are safe and neither are our women and children. I’ve put my chapter on lockdown until further notice. It fuckin’ pisses me off that we had those fuckers at my compound for the meet. They were most probably taking note of our defences and possible weak spots. It means we’re vulnerable, more vulnerable than we’ve ever been. At the meet tomorrow I’ll be asking for volunteers to come to LV to help rid us of the motherfuckers. It’s not just my chapter that’s at risk, if they wipe us out it makes our club look weak and we’ll be fighting a war on all sides. We have enemies who would love a chance to get at us, and if LV falls, pretty soon another and another will fall and Los Rojos, through the fuckin’ Grave Robbers, will own our territory. We can’t let it happen. We need to hit fast and hard, kill the fuckers before they kill us.”

Jonno gritted his teeth and visibly tried to calm himself. Lucky had been watching his brothers and saw several nods in agreement but also some who looked not too sure.

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