Raiden (Satan’s Angels MC #2)

Chapter 11

Raiden

I t’s after midnight before anyone is back. Because there was more than one warehouse, groups trickle in separately. Gray is last, riding in with Bullet, Atlas, Reckless, and Gunner. He calls church immediately, as I expected he would do. It’s officers only, and we leave the rest of the club brothers to watch the men we still think of as intruders.

Widow hasn’t come out of her room. I wonder if it will bother Gray this time.

There isn’t a man here who doesn’t think that Zale is behind those fires.

Except… maybe me.

This room feels like a sacred place, so it’s apt that bikers call these meetings our church. It’s where the most important club decisions get made. The clubhouse was an old warehouse, and this room is large and open. Brick on the walls, wood beams above, duct work showing. It’s every bit as raw as the men assembled at the huge wooden table with the scarred surface.

Gray takes the head, sitting in the Prez’s chair. As VP, I sit beside him. We all have the same heavy, antique wood chairs that match the table. It came with the warehouse. No one had the heart to chop it up and throw it away. It serves us well.

There are far fewer men in here, but I’m not sure the emotion isn’t bubbling just as high. The tension in the room is strung so tight I can practically hear the vibrations.

I took Gunner’s position as VP, but he’s sitting in here, on Gray’s other side. I’m still also working as treasurer for the time being, so it only makes sense that the position is occupied by the both of us. I’m new at it, and I appreciate having Gunner here. He’s a surprising calming force, with his coldness and neutrality. No one would ever say so, but we all think he stays so calm because he has an inability to get worked up. He doesn’t feel the same shit that a normal human has to deal with.

Scythe is here, our sergeant-at-arms. Wizard is seated beside him. Normally, we need him on the cameras, but he’ll have arranged for someone else to be watching while he’s in here. Axe, the club’s road captain, Crow and Reaper, who do the club’s enforcing, and Reckless, the club’s old VP, take up the rest of the table.

It might not be how other clubs order their officers, but it’s how we do it and it works.

Gray looks ragged. He and the rest of the men are soot-covered and exhausted. Emotions might be riding high, but it’s clear that we’re getting stretched thin. He still takes the lead on the meeting, getting us immediately underway.

“I’ll come straight out and say that we all think this was Zale’s work. We’re supposed to be at peace, but no one was ever going to trust that fucker. We do have the problem that if we accuse him directly, he wouldn’t admit it and it would only cause trouble with the rest of his club. He doesn’t give a shit about peace, but if it wasn’t him, he’ll just toy with us. He would never admit it one way or the other. If it wasn’t him, he’d probably find out who did it and make an ally out of them.”

“If it wasn’t Zale,” Gunner says coolly, his dead, icy eyes sweeping across the table, “Someone knew about where we’ve been keeping our product.”

“They didn’t get to any of the underground storage units,” Axe points out. He sets his hands on the table, running them along the scarred surface. He’s his usual burly self, grizzled and road worn. The soot didn’t add to his gnarled appearance like it’s done to the rest of the men in here.

“The warehouses were any easy target,” Wizard admits. “We’re stretched thin for guards and men. We can only rely so far on my cameras.”

“What did they capture?” Scythe asks. “They wouldn’t have known where all of them were to avoid them.”

“Four men at each warehouse. They lit them at the same time, but fired the club after. All wearing full black, including black masks. They even blacked out their eyes underneath.”

“So at least sixteen men. That’s almost as much manpower as we have, but we’re a small club,” Gray says. He settles deeper into his chair. He tries to stay strong for all of us, all the time, but knowing him the way I do, it’s easy to see the way this is bowing him down.

“What I was saying was that the warehouses were an easy target. Anyone would know that we own them just by asking around Hart. The club too. They didn’t set fire to any of the businesses that are related to us or get anything more private that we own. It doesn’t scream insider information.”

We all think about what Wizard just said before Gunner gets up and moves around the room. He does that, sleek as a cat. It’s unnerving, even though I’d trust the guy with my life. He has to move to think, and we all wait.

“It could be an insider and they knew hitting those spots would make it obvious.”

“Or it’s some fucker who searched names on titles or asked around. They might not have even known what was in those warehouses. People store all sorts of goods and products in a place that large. All they’d need to know was that setting it alight would be enough to draw us out and piss us off. If they wanted to send a message, it’s been received loud and fucking clear,” Crow challenges.

Reaper nods. “But as it was, they torched a fuck of a lot of product which is going to cripple us financially for a while. If it’s not Zale and this is someone who wants to move in on our territory and sell drugs, the hard shit or otherwise, the first thing they’d do is get rid of the competition.”

“Someone could just be fucking with us,” Reckless voices his opinion from across the table. He drums his fingers as he talks, then starts pounding his fist repeatedly in the same spot, but without making a sound. “Someone has a grudge, or someone wants to ruin us. Either way, that someone hits the obvious. It seems like the least violent, least risky step for anyone who doesn’t have the manpower to wipe us out. They could force us out or weaken our position here. Weaken people’s trust in us and the way the city sees us. Hit us hard financially. Does that sound like something Zale would do? Destroy what he could have just come and taken because he does have the manpower?”

The room is silent. Even Gunner stops pacing.

I think we’ve all asked ourselves that question multiple times. Just what the fuck Zale Grand’s motive is. Why just torture Gray when he could have killed him? I know he’s his own son, but that won’t stop a man like Zale. If he wants his position back here as president, why not just come and force his way in and get rid of anyone who doesn’t want to comply? Why offer peace and play this fucking games?

“I don’t think it was Zale.” My words break the silence and sit as heavy as a rockslide in the room. “He’d never burn money like that. His most powerful motivator is greed. More so than justice or revenge, even. Money means power and there’s never enough for men like him. He’d do anything to keep it and get it. He could be fucking around with us. Not a single one of us can even fathom what his endgame would be. Or this could be completely unrelated.”

I don’t want to bring up what Widow said, but I can’t stop hearing her say the words. I can’t stop seeing her face, broken and hurting even though she’d tried so hard to close it off, when Lark and Seer made it clear that they would never trust her and didn’t want her here. They made her an outsider and chained her as a prisoner. I should have done something more. Should have spoken up for her, but I condemned her the same way, right after we’d been lost together and found ourselves in each other.

She was right. We need to start using our heads and fighting back or there’s not going to be a club to fight for.

No one has said anything, so I continue, my voice echoing through the cavernous room. “This could be an enemy of Zale’s. We’re now an ally of the Berserkers, however tenuous, and someone might take offense to that. They might think that they can hurt him by getting to one of their associated clubs. It could be a gang, drug dealers, someone who wants to move in here and use this as a base because of our proximity to Canada. They might have a way to get shit across the border same as us, or they might think they can. We’ve left a large vacuum by getting rid of the trash. Where we cut off one head…”

Gunner walks up behind me, so silent that I don’t see him until I see his shadow looming over me. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. “They can’t just kill us all and cause a bloodbath without bringing the law down on them. How do they take what they want? They wage a silent war.”

Gray’s been considering what I’ve said as seriously as everyone else. He strokes his hand down his beard. “We could ask Zale for men and money,” he rasps.

I noticed immediately that everyone’s throats were raw from the smoke, their voices hoarse, but it’s worse now. Maybe the words scald his throat, far hotter and more poisonous than any smoke from those warehouses. I didn’t know that the club had been hit until the first group of men rode in. It happened after Gray called me, probably as I was riding here.

Scythe shrugs, but it’s far from casual. His face is thunderous. “He is supposed to technically be our ally.”

“But if he doesn’t know and he finds out about this…” Gunner leaves that open.

We all know how Zale would delight in fuckery, as long as we were the ones taking it and not him.

“We could deal with this ourselves.” Crow leans forward, the intensity in him sometimes as frightening as it is with Gunner. They’re different, but both are scary fuckers. Crow only ever wears black, and his hair and beard are jet black too. He’s so quiet unless he has something truly important to say. “We could hire men to get us answers. Remain more vigilant. We’re spread thin, but we make sure our remaining businesses are protected, including the people who work for us. We make sure that our authority in this city is unquestioned. We stop our supply for now. We’re already not doing runs, but we make sure that we can keep our suppliers safe as well. We take the rest of our product, and we make sure it can’t be found.”

“Where are we with the insurance for the buildings?” Wizard asks Gray.

“I don’t know yet.” Gray tugs on his beard again then swipes a hand over his face. “I’m hoping it’ll cover it. Given that it seems like it’s a vendetta and it’s absolutely arson, we have video proof of it, we might not have to fight for it, but if it comes down to it, I will. It won’t go a fraction of the way to cover the product we lost, but at least it’s something.” He frowns and every single one of us knows what he’s going to say. “Things could get worse before they get better. They might never get better. We might have seen the glory days of this club. I didn’t step up as prez to sentence men to death. I failed to see one enemy coming back, let alone a war we might have to start with another unseen one.

“You’ve more than proven your loyalty to me and this club. Some of you have families. No one here would question you if you wanted to take them and not return. This isn’t why we joined. My grandfather wanted to do something more than become just a bunch of thugs who take what they want, rape their way through life, and are continuously so fucked up that they’re a menace to themselves and everyone else around them. He had hopes for this place, Hart a great community, and he started the club to safeguard it, carving out a brotherhood for us where we could live free no matter what our pasts were. Idyllic, but it was working. It worked under him, and it worked under my own fucking father. I’d die before I’d see this club fall apart, but I’d also die before I saw any one of you, my brothers, or any of our women and children get hurt.”

Gunner walks around to his seat, steps on it, and vaults onto the table. My mouth drops open. What in the fuck is he thinking standing up there?

“No one is leaving,” he announces in that creepy monotone. “This is just a temporary rough patch. Anywhere else, this is the price of the life. This is what freedom costs, all the time.”

He turns to Gray, which makes me want to grab his leg and tackle him off the table, plant my fists into his face. He’s not challenging him. I know that. Maybe I’d just like to hit something, but someone would also do. Gunner would fight back. He’d make it hurt.

Gray nods and motions for Gunner to get off the table before I can fulfil my fantasies of tackling him, smashing my fists into his face, and eating some of his own blows. “We’ll hire some men. It won’t be cheap, but I’ll make sure they get us answers. If Zale is behind this, it’s a declaration of war, and we reassess when we have proof. We convene either way, whenever we know who is behind this and figure out how to deal with it. We double security and suspend everything else further. We’re all tired. We’re stressed. Our women and kids are scared. I understand all of that. I will do my best to have answers as soon as I can.”

There are murmurs of assent and support and then the meeting is over.

I wait until we’re alone in the room. The door is open, so I drop my voice and lean close enough to Gray that only he will hear. I don’t need to put more on him, but I need this.

“Ask one of the men you’re going to hire to look into Widow. I want to know everything. The four with her here as well, but especially her.”

Gray’s jade eyes turn to me and study me for a long time. He holds me suspended and breathless. I don’t know how to read him, which is a near first for me. I think he’s going to say no, that he’s going to express displeasure and disappointment. I let out a slow breath when he nods.

“If you think that’s best, you’re my VP and my best friend. I should have done it before.”

“A lot’s happened. You haven’t had the time.”

“I should have made it. Should have done a fuck of a lot of shit differently.”

I clap him on the shoulder, squeezing hard. “You need to get some rest. Shit will sort itself, but if it doesn’t, running yourself into the ground isn’t going to help. Whatever comes, I’m going nowhere. Club or not, I’ll always be your brother.”

I slam his forehead to mine, so we’re breathing the same air.

We stay that way for a long time, Prez and VP, until our minds, though far from settled, are calmed enough to go back out there and lead and care for this club.