Prologue
The glowing ash as I pulled on my cigarette was the only thing that lit the room. I had been sitting in the Stilettos and Steele MC meeting room waiting on a report. The music from inside the Femme Fatale gentleman’s club was blaring through the walls in dull beats. The last thing I knew, one of the members of Tidals & Anchors Motorcycle Club had been taken hostage and half the club was for his death, while the other half was against it. I can’t say I didn’t know what he had done, because it traveled through the grapevine, but what he did wasn’t a crime; it was a mercy, not to mention a setup.
It was shady shit and I didn’t like it. From what I heard, Pardon Quinn, the current president of Tidals & Anchors had setup one of his crew to kill our President, Alaska Winslow, so that he could have him taken out and no one would question it. That’s when I knew that Pardon had to go down and that Swing had to be saved. I wasn’t sure where he was, but I was just sitting here waiting on a location. My best tracker, Tumbler, was on the case, and I knew she’d find out what I needed without being seen.
But once we got Swing out, then what? Should we turn him loose on Tidals & Anchors, or should we put him down ourselves? I wasn’t sure about it yet. If we let him take out Pardon, all of the charters of Tidals & Anchors would end up at our doorstep looking for him and would most likely kill anyone in their way. If we put him down, the same result would happen unless Pardon stopped it.
Fuck.
I used the tips of my fingers to rub my forehead before taking another drag on my smoke.
In the near distance, I heard a motorcycle engine roaring toward the strip club we managed. There was money to be made in women flashing their bits and pieces, not to mention that it was good, legit money. It was also how we came up with our club name. The dancers wore the stilettos, but we rode the steel.
About ten or so minutes passed before there was a knock on the door.
“Yeah?” I called out.
“It’s me,” Tumbler said through the door.
“Come in.”
She pushed the door open and flipped the light on. I turned, stubbing out the cigarette in the ashtray that sat on my desk and propped my legs up. One thing I liked best about her being my tracker is that she was to the point with her information.
“I found him,” she said, taking the seat across from me. “He’s in a warehouse kind of place in Bend. Pardon was there, so was Mary Ann, and I’m pretty sure I saw Saylor too, but I can’t be sure.”
“Mary Ann and Saylor?” I asked curiously.
“Yeah. The decoy was her kid. Did you know that?” Tumbler asked.
I shook my head. It was true, I didn’t know that. And if Saylor was there, it would make perfect sense, because the decoy was her sister.
“Is he alive?” I inquired, pushing my thoughts aside for the moment.
“Barely. They’ve got someone there cutting him up slowly,” she replied with a shudder.
I let out a long sigh and crossed my hands behind my head. I still wasn’t sure what to do with the situation at hand. Maybe it was time to ask someone else’s opinion.
“What would you do if you were me?” I asked her.
Tumbler let out a good-natured laugh, “I wouldn’t dare try to put myself in the Dame’s shoes.”
Dame was the nickname given to my by my girls because I was their leader; their president. See, we had caught wind of Pardon’s plan to have the president of our club assassinated and knew that couldn’t happen. We hadn’t found out why until later, but I had come up with a solution to it.
One of our Newcomers, I had found out, was terminally ill. She said she wanted to have a little fun before she died and volunteered to play the part of the president of the Stilettos and Steele Motorcycle Club. When she went crashing into the Tidals & Anchors MC clubhouse, she was putting our plan into play. She made them all believe that she was Alaska Winslow.
When Swing put a bullet in her head, he did her a kindness. She wanted to die but wanted to got out like a warrior, and she did. The only problem now was that Mary Ann had teamed up with Pardon and possibly Saylor to get revenge on Swing, even though I was sure they knew why he had ordered the hit by now.
“We have to save him,” I finally decided quietly. “I can’t explain it, but I think he would do the same thing for me.”
“Because of Warner,” Tumbler agreed, with a nod.
Our eyes met for a brief moment, before I dropped my legs down from the desk top. I reached into the top right drawer and pulled out my Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum Revolver and got to my feet. I rarely used this gun because it was so big, but I didn’t know how many people I would have to take down to get him out, and I was a damn good shot. Anything in my way, was going to go down.
“I’m coming with you,” Tumbler said.
I didn’t argue with her; I couldn’t. I needed all the help I could get and I wasn’t going to ask the rest of the girls to get in on this.
Swing thought he killed Alaska Winslow. I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when we saved him and told him who I was.