Page 3 of Under the Influence

For more than twenty years, I’ve lived and worked in Basin Rock, West Virginia without fearing the Charleston motorcycle club might start shit here. Even after they became more militant, the Charleston assholes stuck to their territory and I kept my people out of theirs.

Now, I suspect the Charleston club has its eye on claiming territory belonging to smaller clubs like the Blood-Red Suns and Rawkfist in nearby Tumbling Rock.

I refuse to play nice with the assholes from Charleston. Once they take a little, those crazy fucks will destroy everything good about my world.

No matter my big talk, I feared the future for the first time. If the Charleston club killed me, there would be no one left to protect my family, club, or town. I have no natural VP within the club. Dallas is happy in Florida, and I prefer him in another state. None of my guys are smart or commanding enough to take over if I’m gone.

This reality sent me spiraling. My “heart attack” turned out to be a panic attack. I felt my world coming to an end. I would die and leave my daughters vulnerable to the desires of evil men.Why hadn’t I been planning for these threats long ago?

After my panic attack, Lola and I decided our best option was to align with the Rawkfist Motorcycle Club. Their crew was well-established with smart men at the top. Court Bayer, Donovan Mooney, and Emmett Mercer also had sons ready to take over in the future. An heir is what I lacked.

Yet, I have two beautiful daughters. With our family’s curse in mind, Lola offered to marry a member of the Rawkfist club. I agreed out of desperation and contacted the Rawkfist club.

At a meeting in my Irish pub-inspired clubhouse, Emmett Mercer’s younger son instantly offers to marry Lola and shadow me for a few years as my VP.

On paper, Val Mercer makes sense. His older brother West will become president of the Rawkfist club one day. The Blood-Red Suns would be safer if its next president had ties with the people in charge in Tumbling Rock. Val’s not a bad-looking guy, either. Lola wouldn’t be stuck with a toad.

Yet, I can’t stand the dumbass! Val’s mouthy and hyper like Erin’s old Jack Russell Terrier. He also has a history with Lola, and they’ve gotten off to a testy start. I feel like everything’s unraveling.

“Maybe we should close up shop in Basin Rock and head somewhere else,” I blurt out to my younger daughter, Clover.

“No.”

“We might not be safe here.”

Clover looks at me with the pretty green eyes she inherited from Kerrie. Both of my daughters are beautiful. Lola always knew how to benefit from her good looks. Clover was more awkward, falling back on her tomboy status to keep boys from bothering her.

If that didn’t work, she’d sic the club on them. More than once, I’ve sent a handful of my guys to hassle a troublemaker. If the problem remained, I’d make a personal appearance. I might be in my early forties, but I can still beat the shit out of any little turds sniffing around my daughters.

Not Val, though. The asshole will one day run my club. He’ll share a bed with my daughter. My grandkids will call him dad. The man’s tentacles are already wrapping around my life.

That’s why the engagement party will be at his family’s homestead. The gated acreage is filled with prefab homes for the extended Bayer-Mooney-Mercer-Sheerer-Earlham family.

I’ve never paid much attention to the goings-on in Tumbling Rock. A while back, Val’s younger sister hooked up with one of my guys. Tuesday went with Cubby to Florida for a few days before her father sent a hitman to pick her up. On their way back, Tuesday sunk her claws into the new guy. That seems to have stuck.

Besides Tuesday’s antics, I don’t know much about the homestead families. Today, I’ll get a crash course.

My mom Erin comes along. She’s the one person I’ve been able to depend on all my life. I’m the result of her smarter tendencies. My brother is what happens when Erin gives into her wackier ideas.

In my SUV with the girls and me, Erin looks nervous. Her dark hair is tied back in one of those half-ponytail styles. She changed her shirt three times before deciding on the simple blue one.

Clover usually hides her wavy brown hair under bandanas, but she’s brushed it out for this party. She’s also wearing a nicer pair of jeans and a shirt without a sarcastic saying printed on the front.

Lola looks lovely in a white blouse, faded blue jeans, and sandals. She’s been moody all morning, alternating between assuming the worst about Val to acting heartbroken over how she can’t have him for real. I consider reassuring Lola that the curse isn’t real, but then I recall Erin’s warning about unrealistic expectations making people unhappy.

Pulling my mom’s SUV onto the picturesque homestead, I glance in the rearview where my guys roll in behind us on their bikes. I suspect a couple of them messed with their mufflers to make their motorcycles louder. There’s been a long-simmering drama between the younger Rawkfist guys and my meatheads. Immaturity will bring out the worst in men.

“You won’t live here, correct?” Erin asks Lola.

“I don’t know.”

“What good is having a VP if he lives in a different town?” I ask Lola.

“But the clubs are linked now,” Clover says, leaning between the seats to see Erin and me. “It’s not like he’s living somewhere random. He’ll be in the mix of Rawkfist plans, meaning he’ll be around to speak up for Basin Rock.”

I glance at Clover and wish she were a guy. My daughters would make incredible leaders, but they have no interest in keeping sweaty men in line.

Those sweaty men arrange their motorcycles in a circle before climbing off and moving to the center. I hear them congratulating each other on creating the shape they were aiming for.

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