Page 40 of Tick Tock, Boom!

Rancid lunged, fist swinging wide. Bulldog ducked, slammed a fist into his ribs…crack. Rancid grunted, stumbled, swung again. Bulldog caught his jaw this time, spinning his head with a sharp right hook that sent blood flying from his lip.

Rancid staggered but didn’t fall. He came back wild, fists flying, catching Bulldog with a solid shot to the cheek. Bulldog’s head jerked, but he didn’t flinch, just stepped in and landed a brutal uppercut to Rancid’s gut that knocked the air clean out of him.

The men watching flinched, murmuring. Some of Rancid’s crew moved. Saddle, Hart and I also moved in,hands on knives, guns within reach. The air was heavy with the implication of threats.

But Rancid held up a hand, spitting blood, shaking his head. “No.”

He was limping now. One eye swelling shut. Blood smeared across his mouth, his knuckles busted open. Bulldog circled him like a wolf.

“You don’t get to takethisclub,” Bulldog said, voice low, panting. “You don’tearna patch by poisoning it.”

Rancid stumbled forward, swinging wild. Bulldog dodged, grabbed him by the collar, and drove a knee into his gut.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Rancid dropped to his knees, coughing, gasping for breath, clutching his side. Bulldog grabbed him by the hair, yanked his head up, made sure every man standing there saw the truth.

“This,” he growled, “is what happens when you come for a king and forget to bring a sword.”

Then he dropped him. Just let him fall face first into the gravel.

Broken, battered and beaten.

The tension snapped like a wire ready to split. Rancid’s men inched forward, and Saddle was forced to pull his gun. “Back the fuck off.”

Rancid lifted a shaky hand. “Don’t,” he barked. The men froze, uncertain.

His voice cracked, but his pride still clung to the scraps of his ego. He stood, slow and unsteady, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he looked straight at Bulldog.

“You’ve got your vote. You’ve got your golden boy,” he hissed. “But this ain’t over.”

He turned to me. To Saddle. Then to the others.

“I see every one of you. And I promise you this…when the dust settles, I’ll still be standing. And yourprecious Elrik?” He spat in the dirt. “He’ll be the first to bleed.”

Then he picked up his cut, slung it over his shoulder, and staggered off, alone, but not empty-handed.

He still had followers, and they still had venom.

His threat hung heavy over us all, and we all knew this wasn’t the end of it.

NATALIA

I’d never known peace like this. The small house he'd recently acquired sat tucked away at the edge of the French Quarter, far enough from the noise but close enough that I could still smell the river in the air. It was warm, always warm. The kind of warmth that came not just from the late Louisiana sun but from something like a home. Maybe it was the way it felt when you walked in through the door, familiar, safe and away from the havoc that was the clubhouse. It protected us from all that and made us feel like we belonged.

Tick Tock had forbidden me from going back to the clubhouse. He had come in one night after what I assumed to be a job, blood on his knuckles, jaw tight, eyes darker than I’d ever seen them. He didn’t speak, just dragged me into the kitchen, sat me down and took control.

"You are never to go near that clubhouse again, you hear me." Handing me the phone he continued. "You call Aiyana right now, and you quit."

"What? you can't tell me what to do? You don't control me."

"Oh yeah," he'd growled into my face.

I met him word for word. "Listen I may be young but I have every right to work where I want, do what I want, and decide my own damn fate."

---