Page 52 of Tick Tock, Boom!

“Eye for an eye as Wolf likes to say.” And God help anyone who tried to stop me.

TICK TOCK

After Natalia's death, after the fire, after killing my best friend with my own hands, I felt every second of it tattooed on my soul like a permanent burden. They say vengeance eats you alive, that it never brings peace. But I wasn’t looking for peace. I was looking for blood and a purpose.

After Macabre told me she was gone, I snapped. My whole world burned to ash, and I let the rage take me over. That ticking time bomb I had inside my head finally went off. The tactical weapons training I had gone through during my time in the military, finally served a purpose, and I hunted those who followed Rancid like a goddamn predator. Every bastard that dared call themselves loyal to him met with a bullet, a blade, or a shallow grave. I rode with Knuckles and Colt for a while. We learned from Macabre to ride like shadows through the swamp, ghosts like his father, Spectre, dealing death like it was our fucking birthright.

We were sending every one of those traitors straight to hell, and it didn't matter how much praying they'd do. We were judge, jury, and executioners. It didn't matter that we would follow along with them later on. Everything was going copacetic until Knuckles got locked up. Since Elrik had disappeared and Rancid sure wasn't going to take the rap for what happened to Willow or the fire, they blamed Knuckles. Somehow, they managed to frame him, got the FBI on our asses and he took the fall and got placed in Federal Prison. Powertrain was sharing a cell with him shortly after.

That's when it all fell apart. I started drinking more. The killing spree became a blur of crimson. I couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t sleep. My hands only stopped shaking when wrapped around a bottle or gripping my gun. But through it all, one thing remained clear...Elrik Jameson needed to come back home.

Bulldog didn’t raise him to be forgotten in some fucked up story of disloyalty. He raised him to be tough and to rise above it, to carve his name into this club that Bulldog had built with blood, sweat, and yeah, fucking tears. That boy deserved his throne back, even when it was soaked in blood. And I swore on my cut, I’d bring him back.

We worked with anyone willing to lend muscle. The Death Row Shooters. The Hellbound Lovers. Smaller clubs from out west and from the Gulf. Coy, Hound’s son, ran the crematorium, so when the day finally came that we got our hands on Rancid, there wasn’t even a second thought.

Macabre had found out that Rancid had been working with the Russians and the Black-Market Railroad which stemmed all the way across the damn nation. It was a sex ring that took innocent girls and sold them to the highest bidders. Those that didn't work, basically weren't virgins, Rancid and his men were using them as drug mules, raping them and tossing them to the gators like trash. We found a girl, half-eaten, belly full of drugs, her eyes staring blankly into nothing. That was the moment Colt made the call. If we wanted Rancid gone, then the FBI sniffing around was perfect timing.

About a month later, Elrik returned, broken and full of vengeance. He wanted to be called Jameson now, and no one contradicted him. Thanks to Colt and Knuckles, we got him back to the States. He was changed, though. Inked deeper, voice darker, gaze emptier. He wasn't a kid anymore. Life had made him hard, and that made for a good Prez.

Rancid didn’t have a chance. He was too cocky. Thought his boys would protect him. But no one wanted to take a bullet for a snake, especially when they were snakes themselves. We each had our turn that day that Jameson brought him in. He was going to do right by us, and to do that, he needed witnesses. So he called us all in. Anyone who could ride down to New Orleans. Sat the motherfucker down and we each had a go at him.

Metal hit kneecaps, cracked bones, shattered fingers and when our sole Female President, who'd been raped and used by him and his men, put a blade to his throat and dragged the truth out of him, his life was over. Jameson put a bullet in him, clean between the eyes. Coy handled the rest. We cremated him in secret and flushed the ashes down a fucking toilet. Bastard didn’t deserve a grave.

I debated telling Jameson about how his father had died but watching as he got his own revenge, I thought it best not to have him suffer anymore. He didn’t need to relive that. Instead, with Saddle’s help, we protected him.

After we’d gotten rid of Rancid, cleanup began. Not just the clubhouse and its members, but we all seemed to have a purpose now. I took what little was left of myself, and my savings and I reconstructed my house on that empty lot, the same soil that once held laughter and warmth. But I couldn’t bring myself to live there anymore. The silence was suffocating. The echoes of what I’d lost clung to the earth of that foundation, and it haunted me.So I put the house up for sale and walked away from the idea of a home. Instead, I moved into the new clubhouse. I stayed close to Jameson because I knew he needed me. And if shit ever hit the fan again, I wanted to be right there, ready to raise hell. I owed that to him, and to Bulldog. We all did.

* * *

Church was calledto order on a stormy Friday night.. The new clubhouse was tucked away down a hidden path shrouded in weeping willows, it had an old lookout tower. The place had seen better days, but Colt and a few of us started on construction and expansion. The place held a quiet menace at night, surrounded by thick swamp trees and the scent of moss and damp earth. Inside, the wooden floorboards were freshly stained a dark brown. The scent was thick with fresh paint and sawdust. We sat around an old horseshoe table, solemn and silent, mostly new faces.

Knuckles sat two seats over. Jameson had given him the title of Sgt. at Arms. He'd been through fuck all these past few years, and I was glad to have him ba. There was no one else I'd rather be riding through hell with than him. Colt sat off to the side, not patched, not VP. Jameson was struggling to trust him, and the air between them was thick with tension. Colt had risked everything to destroy Rancid from within, but Jameson saw only betrayal. It wasn’t about logic; it was about pain.

Powertrain and Bullet sat across from me. Loyal to the bone, they were back and patched in full. Treasurer and Secretary now. Riddick stared blankly down at the table, another product of what Rancid had done to this club and its men. Rancid had killed his sister, she'd been pregnant with his own goddamn child. When I say that fucker was vile, I meant it. He was the scum of the earth. When Jameson heard his story, he named him Lead Enforcer. My eyes glanced at the man sitting at the other end of the table. Jameson’s new Tail Gunner, Goshawk, a lean, quiet, mean lookin' son of a bitch. He sat quietly, his eyes always watching. I didn’t trust him yet, and neither did he. But I respected the fact that he didn't trust easily. It meant he was always on alert, and we needed that.

Me?He named me Road Captain, returning my title to me.

Jameson kept me close after he heard the count, seventy-three kills across the nation, done by my hand, since Rancid took over. Some said I was unhinged.

Maybe I was.

But my loyalty was to Bulldog and his son. And I'd go to any lengths to do what was right by them. Especially since I knew what they had done to his father.

Jameson sat at the head. Eyes shadowed beneath the brim of his cut, tattoos crawling up his throat like vines choking the last of the boy he used to be. He didn’t speak much these days, just nodded, listened, and gave orders like a war general in enemy territory.

“We’ve got movement in the east,” Bullet started. “New players tryin’ to claim turf. Bloody Scorpions left a bloody trail."

“And money’s still low,” Powertrain added. “We need a big move. Guns, runs, something heavy.”

Jameson just nodded. “We make the move next month. Clean, quiet. And anyone not loyal?” His voice dropped to a low growl. “We gut them.”

No one argued, they just silently nodded. I watched all of them, especially keeping my eye on those Jameson brought in. I judged every blink, every breath, because I knew this was only the beginning. Rebuilding brick and properties was easy, pain fades, wood rots, steel can be reforged. But the Royal Bastards MC wasn’t about structures. It was about blood. Brotherhood. A code etched into skin and soul. And reclaiming our name, rebuilding the brotherhood that Rancid tried to corrupt, that was what was important here.

My brothers, the founding members, they'd gone on to help where they could. Brimstone and Cipher had gone back up to Washington, returning to the roots they had left behind. Brimstone retired as a decorated Fire Chief, settling into a quieter life, though his fists still itched for a fight if one ever came knocking. Cipher slipped back into his role as a detective, gray at the temples, badge worn thin, he’d seen enough blood to fill volumes, and though he was nearing retirement, he still worked the cases that would help lock down Rancid’s remaining rats. They did their part up North, building files, making arrests, tightening the noose from the outside in.

Spectre had vanished like smoke when his Raven had gone quiet. Macabre, his son, had gone dark too. No one knew where he was, but I could feel him out there like a shadow waiting for the right moment to move. He was blood, and blood never stays buried for long.

Guardian, Colt’s old man, lived in the house a few miles down from the clubhouse. Didn’t say much, but his presence was constant. December, his Old Lady, was practically family. She wrapped Jameson in a hug so tight the first time she saw him back, I thought she might break him in half. She’d always been a mother figure, and seeing the boy who once sat on her kitchen counter now running the club... that meant something.

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