“Okay, Justice.”

Abigail almost fainted as the person’s hand slid away from the door and disappeared. They’d be back—the window. It always worked in the movies. She masked her movements with the bikers’ tossing and smashing of Geneti’s cheap furniture. The frame slid up, the screen kicked out, but she hesitated at the drop.

“Hey bitch, don’t move,” an angry voice yelled.

Abigail leapt without hesitation or any more thinking. Right now she had to survive for only one reason—to give Jack a proper burial. She busted her ankle, but easily outran the possibility of any one of the bikers chasing her down. Her car was parked away from unit 2021, so they wouldn’t expect a connection.

*     *     *

Rage rocked the cheap office chair back onto its hind legs. Fingers mashing keys like lightning, he glared deeper into the screen until he appeared consumed by it. Justice and the rest of the Savage Souls searched Geneti’s apartment and the parking lot for something, anything to lead them back to their money but found nothing.

“There’s a lotta shit on his system. Going to take a while to decipher and recover stuff,” Rage, the information technology guru, said.

“Ain’t got time. Shocked the cops ain’t here yet,” Justice said. “Just bag it and lets get out of here before that bitch calls 9-1-1.”

Rage banged away on the keyboard. “One second, I’ve gotta thread on an e-mail just sent from his address to someone. Probably our guest who just escaped. I’m trying to zip up his hard drive and Dropbox it.”

“Fuck. That makes three things we gotta get done—find my money, recover the guns and kill her. I’ll send the others out of the area so we don’t draw any more attention than we already have. Do what you have to on tracking that e-mail. I’ll cover your six.”

Chapter 7

It was time for church. The small town of Mystic reverberated with the rumble of mighty horsepower as brothers of the Savage Souls Outlaw Motorcycle Club arrived for their Wednesday night services at the clubhouse. It was a weekly requirement for the Savage Nation, and the 4553 citizens of Mystic tolerated the drill.

Justice had relocated the club’s headquarter from Chicago to Colorado because he hated city life. Growing up, he and his blood brothers rummaged along the bayous deep in the heart of south Louisiana’s Cajun Country. While Chicago had wildlife, it wasn’t the kind he wanted to put up with. He’d tolerated the Windy City just long enough to snatch the reigns of power from an antiquated hierarchy. Those he left alive in Chicago weren’t ever going to be anything but pains in his ass—so he bugged out West.

The isolated town of Mystic didn’t seem to mind. The Sheriff of Custer County had actually become a regular at the clubhouse, but Justice wasn’t yet convinced he was one to trust. The Mystic Police Chief on the other hand was pure one hundred percent prick. She’d soon push Justice over the line, and when that day arrived, the big-mouthed top cop would find herself in a war she’d never win.

Church was a time set apart from the parties, dirty dealings, the fucking and fighting. It was a night where Justice held business meetings with full patch holders only. Prospects, supporters and hang-arounds were prohibited. Justice also made it well known that if a full brother missed church, he’d better have a damned good excuse.

The Savages acquired the old Western Ways Saloon, bed and breakfast and stables, from a supporter who’d served in the military. He often invited Justice for visits where they both enjoyed the free culture of America’s last western frontiers. It’s what attracted Justice to the place—people still believed in live and let live and limited government.

The new OMC clubhouse was less than a quarter mile inside the Mystic city limits. With ample space for regular members, visiting bothers were always welcomed at the vast estate. Although it had once served as a quant, rustic destination favored by tourists and families escaping the Denver Metro area, it now resembled a subculture’s stronghold. In true CIA paranoia, Justice had welded security bars to windows and replaced decorative carved doors with steel—the former hospitality center had now become a fortress.

Inside, the sanctuary was immaculate. Each week the old ladies, mamas and house mouse worked to clean the hell out of the business room. Military training had been embedded in Justice’s core values. Cleanliness was one of them.

He rocked back and forth in the wooden office chair, isolated from the gathering crowd. Concerned thoughts swarmed. His burden pressed heavy against both temples—he rubbed his brow often. His club, but mostly him, was under attack.

“I’m trying to keep my cool, Bro, but fucking Vengeance will destroy everything I worked to build.” His square chin rested on his reddened knuckles. “I should’ve left his addicted ass back on the bayou.”

“How could he have been so stupid?” Mercy asked.

“Shit if I know. All he had to do was snatch Geneti and torture the prick until he gave up the goods.” Justice slammed his fists onto the oak desk. “Son of a bitch, he murders the asshole instead. Him, I don’t give a shit about, but lord knows, that little boy. It turns my gut. My daughter’s not much older than him.”

Mercy patted him on the shoulder. Himself the father of four girls, one daughter battling cancer, losing one scared the shit out of him.

“And could he have drawn anymore attention to the Nation? Fuck, the vehicle pileup had news choppers buzzing whole highway. The feds are going to be up our ass any day now. I’m not going down on a racketeering charge because Vengeance can’t keep his drug habit and temper in check.”

Mercy’s hands were clasped together like he was in prayer, the tips of his fingers tapped against his teeth. “I know you say that, brother, but I also know he’s still our kin and we’ll do anything to protect his dumb ass. Savages Forever, Forever Savages.” Mercy said, turning to the door for church.

Justice waved him ahead. He had to think this through. The chapel was full, and brothers wanted answers. It was time to stitch the gaping wound.

Justice greeted each brother at the entrance before he bolted the conference area’s door closed. “Thanks for your loyalty to the Savage Nation and to your president. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance.”

Almost two hundred men, most who looked as if they’d escaped from prison or belonged there, stood rigid with their right hands over the American flag patch sewn on the upper left side of their cut. Not all were military, but enough so that the culture respected service to their country. Other than that virtue, there wasn’t much else admirable about the collection.

“What the fuck happened to Red out in Vegas?” called out a biker who looked to be in his sixties. The group muttered as the cordial tone shifted.

“He made himself dead. Red ratted us out to a mobster, and helped him set up the rip off. Confessed it was for the money.”

The old biker scoffed, “How we know it’s true?”

Justice’s blood ran cold, sinister fury bubbled beneath the surface. “Because I said so. You don’t trust your president, then drop your colors at the door,” he snarled. “It’s fuckers like you who took a shit on the black and blue decades ago. Instead of handling your business like men, you pretended to be bikers and ran from the conflict. It’s posers like you and Red who keep trying to sabotage the Savage Nation because you’re afraid of what it’s become—the real fucking deal.”

A chair scratched across the linoleum floor. It toppled and bounced. An older man groaned to stand straight. The former cafeteria hall echoed with the chair’s noise and his aching moans. Everyone else was silent—this shit was set to erupt sooner or later. The old guards weren’t happy with the power grab—they just didn’t know how to stop it.