Unlawfully Yours (Lawless MC #1)

7

I tap my knuckles onto the frosted glass of Walker’s office door and wait for him to respond.

“Come in!” he hollers from the other side.

He’s sat behind his desk when I enter and I move for the same seat I was sat in only a few hours ago.

“Don’t bother sitting down, you won’t be here long.”

My stomach bottoms out.

Fuck .

He’s actually going to fire me on my first day.

I clear my throat. “Sir, may I ask why you allowed a perpetrator to walk out of here unpunished?”

“Because I said so.”

“He was brawling in the street in the middle of the day,” I press.

His eyes flick up to mine. “As I said earlier, Officer, don’t fight me on this. This is my department and you work for me .”

“I’d just like an explanation, Sir.”

I can tell by his face he’s unimpressed with my insistence. I just want to understand how a man of the law allowed a gang leader to walk out a free man after brawling on the street.

“We have uh … an agreement of sorts with the Lawless MC.”

An agreement… In other words, they have him in their back pocket in exchange for free reign over this town. Whatever bullshit they get up to, they pay Walker to turn a blind eye. Perfect .

“They’ve been here in town since the mid-eighties, I knew their founding members, grew up with them in fact. Despite what you might think, they’re good guys.”

I scoff. “They’re a motorcycle gang. MCs go hand in hand with criminal activity. Drugs, guns, you name it. Are you saying you allow that on your streets?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you, Officer. But if you must know, the MC gave us a tip off of a drug deal involving The Cobras just a couple of days ago that we were able to intercept. Thanks to them, that was eighty-thousand dollars worth of cocaine off our streets and their notorious junkie VP behind bars.”

What? “Why would they do that?”

“Because believe it or not, Stillwater is their home too. They have family here. Do you think they want that shit in their backyard?” He huffs.

“And the two Cobras? What will happen to them?”

“They came to Stillwater with the intention of causing tension with Lawless, they will be dealt with. Now, if that has answered your question, that will be all, Officer. And might I remind you, you’re still on probation and if you continue to fight me on the subject of the Lawless MC, you might not bother unpacking your belongings at all. Under no circumstances do you apprehend any member of the Lawless MC going forward. Do you understand me?”

Every instinct within me tells me to argue, but we both know what happens if I do.

I bite my tongue and nod. “Fine.”

“Good. Now, go find a desk and start going through these files.” He slams a thick wad of paperwork in front of me on his desk. “That ought to keep you out of trouble for the rest of the day. You’re excused, Officer.”

I reach for the pile of documents. “Thank you, Sir.”

I turn for the door but his voice stops me. “Oh, and Adams, you’ve already managed to screw up your first day, let’s try not to make anymore fuck ups for the rest of your first week, okay?”

It’s taken me less than an hour to complete Walker’s bullshit assignment and there’s still three hours left until my shift is over. So with the computer filled with an infinite amount of information, I use it to my advantage while I have the opportunity.

The research I’ve been able to do before I got here was limited. The only thing I’ve ever managed to uncover about my dad’s murder was that is was reported to have been linked to ‘criminal gang activity’ by the police and that he was probably a civilian who got caught up the crossfire. The case soon went cold as there were no leads pointing to who shot him, no indication of whether or not he was in fact caught up in the middle of gang activity, or whether it was something more.

It has to be something more. I feel it in my gut, more so now after I saw the snake and dagger patch on the back of that guy’s kutte earlier.

The Cobras MC.

The image in my head is so vivid from that day when I was seven, the only thing that was missing was the image of that snake on the back of the bastards jacket as he rumbled past me.

He’s significant, he has to be. So I decide to start there.

I enter ‘Cobras, Motorcycle’ , into the police database and a stream of information fills the screen. The MC was founded back in the late seventies in Hillcrest, one of the neighbouring towns about fifteen miles out. I soon come across the name, Tobias Grimes who I’ve learned is the current leader of The Cobras. Interestingly, he became their new leader less than a week before my dad was killed after taking over the role when his own father passed away suddenly.

Coincidence? I highly doubt it.

But why?

I come across a not-so-flattering mugshot of Grimes after he was incarcerated for GBH over twenty-five years ago. And that’s not his only conviction; his rap sheet is a mile long including attempted murder, sexual assault and a string of drug offenses.

He was recently released from prison after serving less than half of his murder sentence. According to record, he brutally beat a man to death during a bar fight for looking at him wrong. A man who left behind a wife and three children.

This guy’s a real upstanding member of the community… Jesus . It must be nice to have friends in high places who can pull a few strings.

I pull up a list of businesses and properties associated with him. He owns a club in Hillcrest called, The Snake Pit. Maybe I’ll pay a visit at some point to see if I can dig a little deeper.

As far as I can tell, there is tension between Lawless and The Cobras and I’d like to know what that is.