Tyrant (Satan’s Angels MC #1)

Chapter 11

Tyrant

W e pull up at just past seven in the morning, two days later, a leather clad armada. If it wasn’t for the women and kids, it would look like we were heading out on a ride. The rumble of bikes rolling down Elwick Road was no doubt enough to put the fear of god into the neighborhood, but I waited until after seven so no one could complain about noise violations.

I see a few blinds twitch, a few curtains swish as our ladies’ vehicles and our bikes start lining the street. Bikes rumble up behind me and my brothers vie for space on the crowded block. Some have to park well away from the Gardiner’s house.

Our club isn’t massive, but we currently have five prospects and twenty-six brothers including those who hold official positions. A bunch of them have old ladies and even more have kids. And today, every available man, woman, and child is coming out to help.

I make it my mission to lead the fray, stepping through the hedge first and into the yard.

“Gray?” Lark rushes through the front door, dark hair a messy pile on her head secured with a bright purple headband, no makeup, a pair of overalls and a white t-shirt underneath.

She’s so effortlessly gorgeous that my stomach bottoms out. She still has the power to reduce me to a young punk again with just a single smile. My chub is going to be a noticeable problem because apparently, I have no self-control when I’m around her. My mind flashes through a few variations of picking Lark up, tucking her into my arms, thrusting her against the porch wall, and fucking her damn near through it.

“What are you… what’s going on?”

“You said you wanted help turning these dirt beds back into flower gardens. We’ve all got you.” I gesture to the crowd at my back. Some of the youngest kids are already breaking away, laughing and wrestling each other through the hedges, running full tilt over the very gardens we’re here to plant.

My leather and denim clad club brothers clear their throats and shuffle their feet, ready and anxious to be at work. The old ladies wait with much more patience and grace.

Lark’s throat works as she takes in the huge assembly again. “I- I meant that- I thought…”

“You thought that I was going to lend you just a few people? No way, Birdie. You need this done and you need it done fast and right. We might not look it, but we know our way around a shovel and what we don’t know about prettying up a garden, our old ladies can hopefully show us. We’re yours to command.” I sweep my hands, holding them up like I have an entire nation at my back. In reality, I have something so much better. Good men I’d trust with anything, including a job this important and the women who stand at our sides.

Lark smashes her hands over her face, rubbing hard like she might want us to disappear. She’s overwhelmed. I tense up. If she tells us to leave, a few of my brothers might never forgive her.

She moves past me and grasps the porch railing just like she did a few nights ago when I came to pick her up for that ride. “Thank you all so much for coming.” She sounds so uncertain, but her voice stops wavering with every new word. “I’ve never been much for organizing a big gathering and any flowers I’ve ever tried to plant have straight up died. I’m at your mercy here, and I just want you to all know that I’m forever grateful to each and every one of you for coming out.”

I’m so proud of her that I could fucking burst.

The door creaks and Raiden appears, my daughter in his tattooed arms, clutching his black t-shirt, but peeking around his shoulder too, like she’s scared, but also so curious that she just can’t help herself.

Henry follows, half Raiden’s size, shrunk with age, time, and grief. He blinks at the sea of people on his lawn. His face falls. I think we all brace for it, Lark and Raiden and myself, but instead of shouting at us to get the hell off his property and to stop disturbing his sick wife, he brushes at his eyes with the back of his hand and leans against the screen door like he needs the support.

For a few seconds up here, I’m useless. While Lark and Henry are trying to get over their surprise and get mobilized, I take in every detail of my four-year-old child. Not that I can see much of her face past Raiden, but she has a wild head of fine brown hair, slightly curly at the ends, but that might just be the humidity. It’s early morning, but it’s sizzling out here. We’re all going to be burnt bacon in a few hours, even those of us who are tanned and leathery already.

She turns her face slightly to peep at the people on the grass. Have to hand it to the kid, she’s brave. When she spots the kids roughhousing and carousing all over the place, she lets that beautiful little face whip around fully. She’s all smiles and eagerness. She’s got my blood flowing in her and it called out to me from the first second I laid eyes on her. Obviously, there’s not enough resemblance for Raiden to see, or he’s just got too much going on right now to pay close attention. Thank fuck for that.

“Who are you?” Penny asks when she catches me staring.

“That’s our President” Raiden states proudly. “My best friend in all the world.”

Penny screws up her nose. She further proves her courage by giggling. “You don’t look like you do on TV.”

I’m pretty sure the whole yard heard that, because there’s not a brother who doesn’t crack up.

“The president of our club, where we ride motorcycles,” Raiden clarifies. Not the president of the country.”

“Oh.” Penny has to think about that for a second. “Why are you here?”

I finally find my voice. I can’t just stare my daughter down like this, like a real creep, or it’s going to be obvious that something is up. Maybe not to anyone else, but Raiden will catch on fast. “To help plant a whole bunch of flowers for your grandma.”

“I like flowers.”

“What’s your favorite?” Fuck me if I know any.

“Pansies.”

“Pansies. Those are the big red ones with the thorns?”

She giggles. “Those are roses, but they’re okay too.”

Raiden shifts Penny to his other hip so she can look the crowd over. I can’t imagine what she must be seeing. All those great big bears of men full of tattoos, chains and leather, shitkicker boots galore, beards and long hair or no hair at all. Shiny bald heads decorated with ancient ink. There is every age and shape of man here and they come from just as varied backgrounds.

If I was Penny, I’d want to run straight back into the house, but she surprises everyone by wriggling against Raiden until he sets her down. She skips down the steps, barefoot in a yellow sundress, and races up to the first group of boys she sees. She’s her mother’s child because she’s not worried in the least that they’re a good few years older than her.

I shoot them warning glares. Play nice, or else.

They boys belong to Preacher. Justice is eleven and Stone is nine. They’re about as rough as they come, but one look from me and they smile back like angels. They stop punching each other and shoving each other around the yard and instead stoop to pick blades of grass and walk the yard with Penny, clearly watching over her and proud as can be of their newfound roles as heroes.

Most of our club names reflect a personality trait, our past, or were born of lifelong nicknames. Often, a man takes a name because it was once an insult and he’s proud to own not just the parts of himself that he likes, but the parts he doesn’t like. In the club, those parts are welcome. We take all of a person, not the parceled-out bits that society deems viable.

Preacher used to be a legit minister. Born a preacher’s kid, he did the whole seminary bit and everything. He prefers the company of us lost souls to those already saved. Ironically enough, he says he was always the most lost when everyone was looking to him for guidance. His old lady, Rita, runs one of our clubs right here in Hart. The boys are actually hers from two previous marriages, but Preacher loves them like his own.

Raiden starts giving orders, delegating tasks and dividing men up on the porch. Lark and Henry still look shell-shocked. Raiden’s a natural born leader, not that he’d ever believe me. I’ve wanted to make him club VP since I became prez.

There are six separate areas in the yard that need attention and Raiden divides everyone accordingly. The smaller groups are already moving off, eager to work, when Lark turns to her brother in panic.

“Oh my god, Ray. How are we supposed to feed everyone?”

“Take Jodie and go to the store.” Jodie is Atlas’ old lady. She’s fairly new to the club. They’re both young. He’s Hart born and raised, but he met her in Seattle one night, put her on the back of his bike and rode her off into the sunset.

Of course, I think that’s fucking romantic.

Bikers are all heart when it comes right down to it.

“She’ll help you get burgers, hot dogs, buns—the whole lot.”

Jodie nods eagerly. She has a full head of natural blonde hair. She’s model tall and thin. It would be ungentlemanly of me to comment on the authenticity of her assets, or where Atlas might have met her, but it’s easy for most men to see why he fell head over heels in love. More like head over cock with the heart coming later, but it’s all the same in the end.

“I can work the grill. Don’t worry about Penny. She’ll be happy and safe here with us.”

Lark narrows her eyes, but when they sweep over the yard, I see only gratitude. “Okay. If you think that’s enough.”

“Grab about thirty boxes of ice cream sandwiches and you’re golden,” Raiden responds.

“Picnic?” One of the kids shouts from the yard.

“Cookout?” Another asks.

They’re used to the club hosting events for the community, and there’s palpable excitement. Though those events usually devolve into hard kid-free partying at the clubhouse after.

“I wasn’t thinking. Let me go see if I can round up another grill.” I planned on getting my hands dirty, but food is equally important.

“Need help?” Raiden asks.

“Nope. I’ll take my bike and bring your truck back with it.” Lifting our beast of a stainless-steel grill into the back of the truck by myself is no biggie. My manly pride will suffer a blow if I bring the thing here dented to shit.

Raiden grins, reading my mind. He tosses me his keys. “See you soon, Prez.” He claps his hands and shoots down the porch steps, making suggestions about which plants should go where. They’re all in the trucks, cars, and vans so far, overflowing the vehicles like we’re getting ready to put together a parade float, but Raiden doesn’t even need to see what we brought to start planning. He’s got his phone out and apparently there are apps that tell a person where to put shit, so it thrives.

Lark is just as surprised as I am, at least about the flowers. We both know her brother is brilliant, but if he has a passion for gardening, he’s kept it close to his chest.

We share a guarded expression with each other that reeks of guilt. This is the same man who we are going to put another knife into sure as that bastard did in prison.

I give her a nod and turn, spinning away to get down to business no matter how much I long to stand there with her. I’m half sick with guilt and longing and it’s a near lethal combination.

I zip back to the clubhouse on my bike, enjoying the way hot, sticky air always turns refreshing on a bike. No wonder people feel like they can breathe out here.

I wrestle our huge grill onto the back of Raiden’s truck without much trouble at all. It’s heavy, but the truck box is low and shifting one end up onto the tailgate and getting up to pull it all the way in isn’t a challenge. We have a gym in our compound. I’ve hit it hard and consistently since I was a teenager, but it finally took after Lark left. Probably because I was going at it twice as hard in an effort to forget. After becoming prez, it’s one of those things that helps you forget about the stress of the job.

We have all sorts of tools lying around our auto repair shop across the street from the clubhouse and it doesn’t take me long to find a strap to secure the chrome beast of a grill in place.

Driving Raiden’s bitchy truck back through town is another matter. I can handle anything with an engine, but Christ. I think this particular truck was made just to irritate the hell out of a guy. I have no idea how Raiden gets it to cooperate. I remember him grinding gears when he drove me to Archer’s, but I thought that was just distraction.

Archer did a bunch of tests which were mostly just annoying, took a whole lot of blood, tested it right in front of us, and went through it. The shot of it is that I’m fine. He gave me some pills to help with the migraines, and a whole bunch of advice that I didn’t listen to. I can use the fucking internet just as well as the next person.

Pulling back up to Raiden’s, I leave the truck parked in the middle of the street. Most people are going to take a look at all these bikes and take a detour anyway.

Every single person is grubbier than when I left, but they make an art out of getting sweaty and filthy. Not a single man here looks like he’s out of place or out of his element or wishing he was somewhere else and that makes me glow with pride at how my men pull together when needed.

I spot Decay and Grave first, both of them working hoes and churning up earth like it’s their sole purpose in life. They’re twin brothers, born in Canada on the prairies. They made their way down here a few years ago. They stopped at the auto repair shop because one of them was having problems with his bike, and they never left. For everyone else, citizenship can be a pain in the ass, but as with most government functions, palms can be greased, and paperwork can be dealt with by professionals and expedited without all the usual questions.

Their black eyes, dark as their hair, follow me in a way that’s natural to them but would be unnerving to a regular person. They’re massive, brutish looking men, both of them around six and a half feet. They’re surprisingly sensitive until it comes to the opportunity to knock skulls together, then they really come alive. If Reaper ever gets tired of being the club’s enforcer, I think the position would be well shared by these two.

“Got a minute to give me a hand?”

“Sure, Prez,” Grave says. He’s not named after burial spots. He took his name because everyone says he’s so solemn.

His brother thought it was hilarious and took his name to match.

“This hoe’s blistering my hands anyway.” Decay sets it aside and cracks his neck loudly. He holds his hands up, so stained with motor oil and heavily calloused from working in the garage beside his brother that there isn’t room for a blister to so much as think about forming.

We laugh about it, and they haul the grill out of the truck. They carry it up the sidewalk and onto the porch like they’re working with a feather pillow.

After parking the damn truck further down the street, I’m only too happy to return Raiden’s keys to him in the backyard. Lark and Jodie aren’t back yet. He’s still out there planning and supervising, keeping an eye on Penny, who is running wild with most of the other kids, bouncing all over the place. They’re flinging weeds and dirt, celebrating being kids and being alive. I can barely tear my eyes off her, but it’s not smart to watch her like a father would, so I focus on Raiden instead.

I clap him on the shoulder, shove down the confession that’s been hovering in my throat for the past five years, and hassle him about leadership again. “Got a right-hand spot with your name on it.”

He elbows me in a brotherly way. “Happy doing the books, Prez. Always have been and always will be.”

“Even if you’re wasted there?”

“Wasted?” he snorts. “Nah. Love what I do. It’s relaxing.”

I let out a bark of laughter. I wouldn’t call any kind of accounting relaxing. “It’s funny how in high school everyone thought you were a dumb jock even though you were getting perfect scores on your math and science shit while the rest of us were barely scraping by.”

“It balanced out because I was failing everything else. You’re the one with the brain for philosophy and books. You remember everything you hear and read. You’re the planner. Not me.”

“You’ve planned this out well. More than a damn fine job.”

He blinks a few times too many. “My dad might have gone inside, and Mom might be resting still, since just walking around a little takes it out of her now, but they’re thankful. Dad just can’t say so. Mom will, when she sees the transformation. It’s me and Lark who are never going to forget this.”

He turns his face away, ashamed of getting emotional and I lay a big hand on his arm. “Meant what I said about the club and all of us being here for you. Whatever you need, brother.”

A cheer goes up from the front yard and echoes around back.

“Must be Lark and Jodie with the food.”

He rolls his shoulders back, dark eyes sparking with concern. He drops his voice real low, just for me, not because we’re club brothers, but because we’re also best friends. Even if he’d never patched in or had anything to do with the club, that wouldn’t have changed. “Lark’s so different. She’s- I don’t know. She’s trying to be strong. She mentioned something to me yesterday about maybe coming back for good. It’s a lot for her. I don’t know that it’s the right move, but she’s a grown woman and can do as she pleases. She’s being tough for Penny, but a girl losing her mother is different than it is for the rest of us. I’m not worried about her, but… I don’t know. What do you figure?”

I figure that I’ve fucked his sister and, on my honor, would do it again. The only thing I’d change is everything . I’d have her at my side. She’d be our club queen by now. One baby? No. I would have made her take my cock and filled her with my cum on the daily, just for the sweet pleasure of watching her grow round and beautiful with my child. Watching her be a mother, holding our babies in her arms. She’d belong to me, and I’d be hers, every part of me from my scarred body down to my blackened soul. She’d be my wife, legit and proper, not just an old lady. She’d be wearing my ring on her finger. She’d know every single one of these men and women here and all their kids. Seer might be the official head of the old ladies, but even she would be looking up to my queen.

I carefully conceal all that and scrub a hand over my face. “Lark is… you’re right. It’s been a long time.” I throw him his keys as I head around to the front. “What I really think is that truck of yours should be scrapped.”

“Shh,” Raiden hisses. “Sacrilege. She’ll hear you.”

I round the front and find an assembly line of my brothers helping bring in bags of groceries. Lark walks through the gap in the hedge with two bags in her arms. She doesn’t see me, which means I get a few seconds to look my fill. I drink in the blue highlights that the sun paints into her dark hair, the sinful way those overalls, which should be boxy and masculine, outline her ass. She has them rolled at the bottom over canvas high tops.

“Thank goodness we have that ancient chest freezer in the basement that was never going to see the light of day again. It’s mostly empty, but great for all this ice cream. There’s no way it would stand up for more than a few minutes on a day like this. You can follow me,” she calls to the guys over her shoulder. They troop inside like a bunch of soldiers, eager to obey her commands.

She’s taking charge like her brother, rising to the motherfucking occasion, but she’s doing it like a queen, which burns those thoughts I had in the backyard into my brain in a done deal kind of way.

***

Hours later, Raiden and Reckless—the club’s old VP who gave up the position when I became prez and there was a reshuffling of the ranks—are manning the grill. Lark and Jodie passed out chilled waters endlessly all morning long, going around and making sure everyone is hydrated and no one is going to stroke out from the hot sun.

I threw myself into working on that damn hedge, trimming it all down and square. A few of the guys filled up trash bags with all the grass and weeds pulled out of all the gardens. With so many hands, the gardens were tilled up with a few small rototillers and then the planting started.

I was just on time finishing up the hedge to get corralled by Seer, who ordered everyone into planting teams and even laid out a few rough sketches she’d done when we arrived and got Raiden to approve. She’d meticulously checked flower tags and planting instructions all morning, seeing which ones liked shade and which liked sun, and mapping out the beds accordingly.

Seer is a great woman. As the official head of the old ladies and legit married to Reckless, she’s used to organizing most of our club gatherings, cookouts, and a lot of the charity stuff. She might be deep into stuff I consider kind of strange, the mildest of it being tarot cards, but she commands the club officers with ease. She’s in her mid-forties and often bitches about getting older, but she still looks damn fine. Not that I’d say that to her old man. All in all, she’s good shit.

Everyone is thankful to break for lunch. I stand back, brush the dirt off my hands onto my jeans, and survey our work. The backyard has been completely transformed. The grass is neatly cut, the edges of the lawn trimmed out, and every last weed removed. A sea of flowers dominates the entire space around the fence. On three sides, it’s a riot of color. I’ve become nose blind to it over the past few hours, but I bet that it smells good. There’s one large tree in the corner that gives good shade. Lark used to have a tire swing hanging from its branches, but that’s long gone. The front yard is coming together. The flowerbeds have to be finished, but the hedge looks like a hedge again.

All around the front yard and near the porch, people gather, brothers clapping each other on the shoulders and backs, the women pointing out the work to each other, laughing and hugging. The sun might be punishing, and we might all be sweaty and dirtier than I’ve ever seen most of us— and that’s saying something—but the happiness is infectious. I thought we might have gotten some pushback from the neighbors, but they’d seen what we were doing, so instead of angry glares, it was more friendly smiles and waves. A few even joined in and helped.

Lark is up on the porch with some of the other women, setting up a long folding table that’s been dragged out of the garage. It’s the old kind, with faux wood, dark paint, and chipped legs. They’ve got stacks of paper plates going, a few big roasters and pots for the cooked burgers and hot dogs to keep warm, bags and bags of buns, and a ton of condiments.

“Okay,” she says proudly, beaming like the huge weight of the world that’s been pressing her down for years is gone. “Thank you all so much for the magic you’ve worked on this yard.” The guys pause at the grill and no one else makes a sound in the yard. “I’ve never been part of the club even though my brother- well… darn it.” She swipes her eyes again. “I told myself I wasn’t going to cry.” She laughs softly. I’m transfixed watching her.

Watching my woman give her utmost gratitude to my brothers and our women hits straight to the heart of me. Again. She might not be my woman yet, might be one day at a time, but it’ll be one day soon. She’s brave and strong and sure, she’s made some mistakes, but who hasn’t? I’m not over the fact that I didn’t get to watch my daughter be born or grow, but sulking about it like a little bitch isn’t going to help anyone. I have right now, and I’m not wasting another minute of it.

Lark claps her hands and brushes at her eyes one more time. “You don’t need a big speech because everyone’s hungry, but just... thank you. I’ll never be able to say it enough or properly because there aren’t many words that can do what you’ve done today any sort of justice. I get why Raiden loves you all.”

She starts the applause, enthusiastically beating her hands together, and it’s followed up in a somewhat shy round by the rest of us on the lawn. We’re embarrassed doing it, we don’t fucking clap for each other like a bunch of upper-class snobs, but you know what? Fuck it.

“I bet the kids are the hungriest. We can get them taken care of and then we’ll help the rest of you dish up. We’ve got ice cream after too! I just have to make enough time to haul it all out.”

I catch one of our newest prospects, Jonathan, a seventeen-year-old kid from the not so nice part of Hart, clapping a little too enthusiastically. He hung around our auto repair shop for years, begging anyone who would listen to show him the ins and outs of mechanics. He barely went to school, that I know of. We finally got tired of him pestering us and decided to give him a job and a purpose. Raiden and I both graduated, but he’s the smart one. He thinks it’s important for a man to have his GED at minimum, and so he’s been working with Jonathan not just on prospecting, but on preparing him for the test he’s going to be taking in a few months. I like the kid. He came from a rough home life, the typical trash ass piece of shit father who drinks too much and likes to play heavy with his fists, a mom who worked two jobs, and a ton of little brothers and sisters. He wanted that job so badly because he needed to help his mom put food on the table.

It doesn’t matter how much I like him or how I’ve secretly threatened to maim his father if he lays another hand on his wife or kids, or how the club paid for renovations to the family’s crumbling doublewide. When I follow his line of sight to Lark and see that slight flush creeping up his cheeks just above the baby down he likes to think is a beard, I want to knock him flat to the concrete and crush his skull with my boot.

Right. Now would be a good time to dial back the protective caveman instincts for a woman who doesn’t even know that she’s mine yet.

First thing I’m going to do is take Lark and Penny out to our shooting range and teach her how to use a weapon to protect herself. I’ll talk to Bullet, because he owns the range and heads the local gun club, and Scythe, our sergeant-at-arms about getting her trained with more than just a gun. Knife too. Self-defense. Anything and all of it. How young is too young to learn? I want Penny to know what to do in an emergency. Short of putting a protective detail on them, I’m not going to rest to ensure their safety.

Someone passes me a plate loaded up with two triple burgers and I startle, nearly flinging the thing onto the ground.

Raiden gives me a raised brow. “You were gone there, Prez. Don’t tell me I have to take another trip to Archer’s for heat stroke.”

I peek at the burgers. Ketchup, mustard, two big pickles on the side. No onions or relish. Just how I like them. Lark’s the one making them up. She remembered.

“Thanks again for all of this.” Raiden’s eyes get misty despite the fact that he’s a tough motherfucker. He doesn’t look it the way I do, like a human killing machine, but he is. I would never tell Lark, but her brother is lethal in his own right.

“Fuck, not you, too.”

“Just the dirt in my eyes, that’s all.” He grins, but I see that fear he tries to hide about how much things are changing.

Only an idiot walks the world without fear. Listening to your gut is a good and healthy thing. I nod to let him know I’m with him and watch him walk off to keep handing out burgers to the rest of the ravenous lot.

I’m a father. Dad . A parent.

A few days ago, I learned the meaning of fear in a brand-new way.

I like to think that I’ll have everything under control, but I just hope that when the time comes for me to tell Raiden everything and claim Lark and Penny as my own that the whole fucking sky doesn’t come tumbling down on top of us.