Page 55 of Ride Forever
“So that’s what happened to Chaser’s bike,” I said. “I was wondering if he’d lost it for good.”
“You got a taste now?” Spike asked with a grin.
“I felt the wind in my hair and a wave of bullets at my back,” I declared. “The rush was…”
Chaser grunted, signaling his presence, and I looked up at him. He was so stealthy.
“I’ll trade you a Harley Sportster for it,” I said, pointing at his sexy, black motorcycle.
“It’s stolen.”
“So?”
“I like my motorcycle,” he declared. “Get your own.”
I made a face and turned to Spike. “And he says he loves me.”
The poor guy choked on his beer, causing the others to laugh again.
“Gasket’s calling a meeting,” Chaser said to the assembled men. The smiles faded from their faces and hands tightened around their beer cans. “Common room, now.”
His tone suggested talk was going to get serious, and they knew exactly what that meant. A fight was on the horizon, and it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. It was surreal watching them turn from big teddy bears into the frightening bikers I knew they embodied. We could laugh and joke and talk nonsense, but when it came down to it, these were guys who’d committed crimes beyond comprehension. At least they had the chops to attempt to turn their lives around. Some people were destined to get stuck in the cycle…like Rocket and his crew.
I grasped Chaser’s hand as we followed the bikers into the compound. This was it. Speeches would be made, the plan set out, and Fortitude would unite, or it would all fall apart. Obviously, we were counting on it sticking together. One last battle to win the war for forever.Everyone’s forever.
The common room was packed as we entered. Forty burly bikers were arranged on every available surface and leaning against the walls. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and tension, causing me to cough slightly. Chaser glanced at me, then tugged me forward through the mass of bodies.
“This is big,” I heard someone say. “Something’s going down.”
“Yeah, it ain’t good,” another man replied.
“You think Gasket found the renegades?”
“Don’t know, but Chaser and Sloane are back.”
“Ringer said they had a shootout with Rocket out in the desert.”
“Seriously?”
“Listen up!” Gasket bellowed as I sat on the arm of a sofa next to Spike.
Chaser leaned against the wall, half in shadow, surveying the room.
“I know I’ve asked a lot of you these past weeks,” Gasket went on. “More than I should. We’ve been split down the middle, forced into a civil war with men we once called brothers, lost good guys to their bullets, forced part from our women… I know it’s tough, but we have one last thing to do.”
“What? Suck Chaser’s cock?” someone shouted from the back of the room. There were a few answering snickers from the shadows.
“Sorry to break your heart, but there’s only one woman I let suck my dick,” Chaser drawled, causing a few laughs to cancel out the dissent.
“The Hollow Men and their…Hollow Ridersare a threat to us all,” Gasket went on. “We need to be in this together, or we have no chance of beating them.”
“Why should we take our fight to the Hollow Men?” Bones asked. “Our fight is with the renegades.”
“Because they threatened Sloane,” Gasket stated. “They threatened her, and they destroyed Chaser. Now they’ve got their sights on us.”
“No thanks to them!”
“Fuck this.” Chaser stood and looked at each man in turn. “You all know me,” he said, glaring at Bones. “You know what I did for the club. You know what I was to Marini. But you don’t know who I was…or who I am.” The room was so silent I could hear each man breathe in and out. “The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been. We face an organization so dark they put the things Marini did to shame. If we’re going to trust and fight alongside each other, then you should know my story.”
