Biker’s Property: Property of Steel (Rebel Barbarians MC #5)

Chapter 19 – SOUTHPAW

Chapter Nineteen

SOUTHPAW

T herapy and sobriety have brought the best out of me. Ever since the incident where Anna took off with the kids, I put every last ounce of effort I had into getting my shit together. Therapy until I couldn’t take it anymore. Quitting to avoid ever going back to therapy again. Avoiding every Little League baseball diamond within driving distance of our house. And hockey rink. And race track. And dog fighting ring.

It’s slow, but I’m making much better progress than before. Realizing how close I came to losing Anna changed me. The way I feel about her is so different from how I felt about other women because she makes me want to change. She holds me accountable. She scares the fuck out of me by making me imagine a world where I don’t get to hold her.

I know I have to stop. Avoid every poker table. Every dice game.

Instead of gambling, I play online chess. Destroying some idiot halfway across the world is the only high that comes close.

And then of course there’s Anna. And the kids. Who are much better and much more important than any high. I know I have a problem. I know I’m fucked in the head. But I love my family. I love them enough to try to change. Even if it means waking up at three in the morning with the itch to destroy everything… and instead, calling some guy on Chess.com a series of insults Anna would smack me for.

If club business weren’t so damn stressful, riding would be an even better distraction. I miss the freedom of the open road. Right now, we have the open road – but no freedom.

Anna and the kids are asleep upstairs so I can have this unofficial meeting in the garage with the boys. This place used to be a garage. It’s more like a war room now.

Anna says nothing, but I can tell our arsenal of weapons makes her deeply uncomfortable. She understands. She won’t leave. But I know Anna has her limits. If I want to protect my family and keep my wife happy – we need to end this quickly.

There’s a game on the garage television. I keep sports that I don’t feel the temptation to gamble on down here. In this case, cricket. I don’t give a shit how popular it is around the world… call me when a cricketer hits a grand slam or slides headfirst into home plate. The so-called sport is boring.

“What the fuck is this shit?” Owen asks, tipping back his third Voodoo Ranger. My brother Ethan sits next to him on his phone.

“It’s a sport for fags,” Ethan says without looking up. “That’s what it is.”

Unlike me, he doesn’t see any issues with his gambling. He’s probably deeply invested in March Madness. Or college games. Something I wish I could get my hands on. Instead, I drink. Can’t get too drunk or Anna will make me sleep on the couch again, so even with the whiskey, I need a steady hand. Not easy considering the club shit happening right now.

Hunter’s heavy footsteps come pounding down the stairs. Ryder behind him. That’s how they always are these days – one twin a few steps behind the other. They used to be about the same size, but Ryder clearly spent all his time in prison trading shit for ramen noodles and lifting weights. He has about thirty, forty pounds of muscle on his brother.

And finally, his hair is growing back. Doesn’t make sense to keep it longer than a buzz cut behind bars with the lice outbreaks and the bedbugs. It’s easier to tell them apart with Ryder’s hair coming in half-gray – like he’s seen some shit.

“What the fuck are you watching?” Hunter asks, scowling jealously at the beer before tipping a Mountain Dew into his throat.

“Doesn’t Mountain Dew have alcohol in it?” Ethan asks, still barely looking up from his phone.

“No, you fucking idiot,” Hunter says. “I’ve been drinking this shit since I was a baby.”

“Let’s talk business,” I interrupt before this turns into a fistfight. Tensions have been high as fuck around here after the discovery out in the desert. “We don’t have time to argue over liquor.”

“Or gambling debts,” Owen says suspiciously before leaning against the couch back and finishing off his third Voodoo Ranger rapidly.

“Right…”

Ryder shares my eagerness to get to business. He sits at the basement bar on a metal stool, leaning back in the same position as his brother, who takes the stool next to him.

“Good news and bad news. Ruger has Darlene safely out of the way at Oske’s trailer out on the rez. No way a bunch of Nazis ride onto the rez without anyone noticing,” Ryder announces to the club, getting started on our business to avoid any discussion of anyone’s gambling.

Hearing Oske’s name immediately raises my concerns over the bad news. Ryder glances at Owen to fill me in, which only makes me more nervous. My brother looks up at me like he’s trying to calm a raging beast. What the fuck are they keeping from me?

“I thought we should wait and let her think this through but… she’s insistent.”

“On what…”

My teeth grind together automatically. Despite my continuous support, Oske remains a pain in my fucking ass. While occasionally useful, I find myself wanting to lock her in a damn cage when she isn’t doing exactly what she’s told.

“Oske wants $1,400 for emotional damages and freedom from her alleged captivity.”

“Is that a goddamn joke?”

“I told you we should have just paid her,” Ethan grumbles.

“With what goddamn money?” Owen snaps. “Do you have $1,400 in cash lying around because the last time I checked, I’m completely fucked. ”

“Quiet,” I growl.

“If you stopped losing then you’d have the money,” Ethan says.

“I said quiet. ”

Hunter and Ryder exchange glances. I ignore whatever twin-speak they have going on and focus on my idiot brothers.

“Oske can’t have $1,400.”

“That’s what I said,” Owen replies smugly, casting a disapproving glance in Ethan’s direction. Ethan continues gazing at his phone – a fact beginning to get on my damn nerves – and doesn’t notice Owen’s smug look.

“She’s a crazy bitch,” Ethan says. “Small price to pay to get her off our backs.”

“Can we focus?” Ryder interrupts, taking the burden of getting my brothers in line away from me for once. If Hunter weren’t busy being such a sour puss over the smell of liquor everywhere, he would have been the one to step in. “That isn’t even the bad news.”

Hunter puts his hand on his brother’s shoulder and takes the lead. “Ruger wants to kill Darlene.”

“He can’t. Not until we get information from her.”

“It gets worse,” Owen says. “She’s pregnant. So he wants to keep her in the trailer until she has the kid, then kill her.”

“I don’t have time for this,” I grumble…

“He doesn’t believe in abortion,” Ethan says. “Killing babies and shit. It’s fucked up.”

“Tell Ruger he doesn’t have permission to execute his wife. Not until after we have what we need. She’s pregnant. She’s vulnerable. Instead of torturing her, he should be promising her the world.”

“It’s Ruger,” Owen says. “He’s not logical. He nearly killed her on the spot.”

“It’s a matter of time before he does it,” Hunter says. “The Blackwoods are irrational and fucked in the head. We turn our backs too long, that bitch is dead.”

Keeping Ruger under control is a full time fucking job. When Doc was alive, he took on the massive project, but Gideon doesn’t give a fuck and with the twins gone, Ruger is off his fucking rocker. Some rednecks are built crazier than others. I would think twice before naming my son after a gun. That asshole is just as volatile as a weapon.

“Maybe he won’t kill her if she’s pregnant,” I grumble, barely hopeful that Ruger can manage that much moral fiber. If he’s keeping her alive because of that, remind him of his Christian morals or whatever the fuck he has going on in his dimwitted redneck brain.”

“We’ll need more than a few of us to get the job done,” Hunter says. “No way in hell Juliette lets me go out to the rez without pestering me.”

“Ryder can handle it.”

“I can’t.”

He turns red.

“Why not?” I ask, giving him a suspicious look.

“I have my own problems,” he says. “Personal business.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Hunter asks, spitting out exactly what’s on my mind without me having to ask it.

“It means mind your fucking business.”

“It’s a woman,” Ethan says, barely looking up from his phone.

“Shut the fuck up,” Ryder says. “I couldn’t get Ruger’s crazy ass to listen to me, anyway. He might listen to Gideon. Tanner could put him through a wall.”

“I could handle him,” Owen says. “But… Not without backup.”

“I’ll get Tanner on the job,” I reply. “He needs to keep his mind busy.”

“I heard he has family trouble,” Ryder says. “Anything related to Midnight SS?”

“Not sure,” I reply, nervous as we get close to the subject of Avery, her identity, and the fact that the woman Don Hollingsworth screwed with might very well have a connection to these people…

Once I find out what that connection is exactly, I’ll take action and sort this problem out once and for all. No more bullshit, no more war, no more bodies in the desert.

I’m done with this shit. I just want to go home to my wife and children, and settle into my life as a family man and my father. I’ll never stop riding, but I want to stop packing heat and living every goddamn month like it’s my last. It’s not good for me and it’s not good for my marriage or family.

In the end, that’s the only thing that matters – my family and the woman I love.