Page 5 of StoryTeller's Tale

Chaz goes around the back of his desk and takes his chair. He nods at the door through which I’ve just entered. Taking the hint, I kick it shut. Then, accepting his offer of a seat, I sit. Leaning back, kicking out my legs, I take a pack of cigarettes out of my pocket. Holding the lighter to the tip, I draw in air until there’s a red glow.

With a shake of his head, Chaz simultaneously finds an ashtray and slides it across, while his other hand reaches back and opens a window.

“You mind?”

He snorts at my belated request for permission. Chaz doesn’t smoke, never has, but doesn’t usually object to secondhandedly sharing the bad habits of others. While his stern eyes focus on me, I take another drag, not intimidated in the slightest. Chaz and I go back years, and I’ve lost count of the jobs, some dirty, many clandestine, that I’ve done for him. I fucking love my life, mostly alone, answering to no one, wearing the patch that’s feared and respected in equal measures wherever I go.

“You’ve come via New Mexico?”

I simply raise my chin. He knows that I have.

He lifts an eyebrow. “Any problems I should know about?”

Filling my lungs again, I exhale smoke out, then with my free hand, reach for my beer. “Slaughter’s got everything under control. Well, he has now.” I take a swig from the bottle.

“After a visit from you?” He chuckles. “I bet he has. Anything else I should be worried about?”

“There’s word about the Alpha.”

Now he snorts. “He fuckin’ hates you calling him that.”

Unrepentant, I grin. “Well, he who doesn’t like to be named can put the fuck up with it.” At his gesture, I continue, “The Dominators think they’ve got a bead on him, so he’s staying underground for a while.”

As I name the MC that’s our biggest rival and enemy, his mouth twists. “Fuckin’ Dominators are always trying to catch up with him. Why don’t they give it a fuckin’ rest?”

The Wretched Soulz MC is made up, for all intents and purposes, of charters acting independently, bound only by name and each organisation’s loose interpretation of the shared regs and rules. While there’s not a mother chapter as such, we do have a national prez, though his identity and location is a very well-kept secret, one only known to patched brothers. The Alpha, as I call him, is a wanted man, and has a price on his head set by our rival MCs. And it's not just them. The feds would like his identity and whereabouts confirmed as well.

Chaz wipes his hand over his beard. “He coming our way?”

Moving my hand in a seesaw gesture, I give him what I can. “Maybe? Probably? It’s hard to tell. Not sure what risk exactly attaches to him at present.”

He doesn’t say a word, but he’s quiet for a moment. A visit from the national prez isn’t necessarily something the clubs vie for. For a start, security has to be tight as a drum, and it’s natural that individual prezes like to impress. Members have to be on their best behaviour, and, as far as it extends in the biker world, mind their p's and q's.

Added to that, the national prez has a habit of making suggestions, which the hosting club is expected to follow.

“Moving on,” Prez states, still carefully schooling his features. “Been a long fuckin’ time since you graced us with your presence. Thought you’d forgotten where the clubhouse was.”

My shoulders rise and lower. “Got any complaints?” The quirk of my eyebrow challenges him. As a nomad, I’m his roving enforcer, and thus, beholden to him as much as if I were a resident in the club. Even absent, I’m at his beck and call.

His lips thin, his brow wrinkles, then he admits, with a broad grin, “Can’t say that I have.”

“Fuckin’ asshole.” I roll my eyes to the ceiling.

Immediately, he leans forward with both hands on the desk. “You and I go way back, ST, but don’t take liberties.”

Cockily I grin, sit back, fold my arms, and show I’m not scared of him. It’s one of the traits he admires about me, and why he lets me have the freedom he does. Not many men survive on their own out on the road, but there aren’t many fuckers who can take me.

Exasperated, he shakes his head, sits back down, and at last gets down to business. “Fuckin’ cartel is up my ass. They want us to shift a shitload of guns for them.”

My head leans to one side. “I thought we already did that shit?”

He raises his chin slightly. “We do. But this isn’t a discreet small load, Brother. This will involve two eighteen wheelers.”

Whistling out air through my teeth, I unfold my arms. “I take it you mean over the border?” When he again makes a positive motion with his head, I continue, “Shifting that amount could risk losing a few brothers.” Even the small amounts carry risk. Case in point, it’s that very reason Captain and Rat are currently serving time in the penitentiary.

“That’s why I needed you back, Bro. Want your brains on it.”

“Are we in that deep with the cartel that we can’t refuse?”

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