ROMANCE: Lion Protector (Paranormal Shifter BBW Military Romance) (Shapeshifter Alpha Male Short Stories Book 2) (37 page)

Chapter 13: Razor

When I saw Kelly’s car in the parking lot of the Panhead, I thought about riding on by. It wasn’t because I didn’t like her, didn’t want to see her or didn’t want to be around her. It was actually the opposite. The problem was that I was afraid that I was already getting in too deep, and I didn’t need that in my life. I’d gotten along just fine as a lone wolf, and I wasn’t ready to mess that up. What changed my mind, however, was the presence of Shovelhead’s bike parked in the row out front. I didn’t want to hang around with him either, but I didn’t trust him around Kelly.

As I pulled the door open, I heard Shovelhead curse, the sound of a heavy hand striking flesh and then a body and a stool crash to the floor. I could only see shadows because my eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dim light of the bar. Was there a fight? Jake wouldn’t ever permit that. The answer came to me a few seconds later when I recognized that it was Kelly lying on the floor and Shovelhead was standing over her and glaring at me.

“What you gonna do about it, bitch?” he asked.

Though I had that combination of sulfur, iron and salt in my mouth—the one that came right before I got into a fight—I didn’t respond to his challenge. I intended to give him the beating of his life, but I was a doer and not one who talked about it. My first priority was to check on Kelly. I knelt beside her and she looked up at me.

“You alright, babe?” I said through clenched teeth. I was seething inside.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” she replied.

I helped her to her feet and led her over to a table near the other guys who had stood up and started to come to her aid the moment I walked in. Since Pepper was one of them, I wasn’t concerned about her safety any longer. I moved straight over in front of Shovelhead and stood nose to nose with him. Well, not exactly, since he had about four inches on me.

Trouble had been brewing between the two of us for a very long time, but I’d avoided it, because there hadn’t ever been a point to it. We didn’t like each other, we never had and that wasn’t going to change. I knew that a day would come when we had to have it out; that day had arrived.

“Not here.” I heard Jake’s voice and the metallic click of the hammer on a pistol being pulled back. Out of the corner of my eye, I noted that it was aimed between the two of us. I knew he’d turn it toward whoever started the action.

“The ring?” I asked in a low tone.

“Fine by me,” Shovelhead replied in the same tone.

Jake had always kept the Panhead neat, clean and organized. In order to do that when you had a bunch of rowdy bikers who liked to get a little wild when they partied, you had to have strict rules and be ready to enforce them. Though no one could remember Jake ever using the pistol on anyone, no one had any doubt that he would. So, when a fight boiled up, the combatants went out the back door to what was referred to as “the ring.”

The ring was formed by the delivery alley that came into the back of the Panhead, which was L-shaped and closed off the end of the alley. The other side of the alley was another building facing the adjacent street. In essence, three sides were closed off by brick walls and the fourth was where the crowd gathered to watch. If it was a really good fight, they pulled up crates or carried stools out to sit on and watch.

Shovelhead started for the back door and I started to follow along behind, but Pepper put an arm across my chest to stop me. “Not yet,” he said.

I glared at him. “I’m gonna tear him to pieces,” I growled.

“I know you are, but that son of a bitch will cheap-shot you when you step through the door. I’ve seen him do it. Keep your head, Razor.”

“I always do,” I replied. To tell you the truth, for the first time in a very long time, until Pepper stopped me, I had lost complete control of my temper. Seeing Kelly on the floor, and the bruise that was rising up on the side of her face, had brought me beyond my normal calm. Had I stormed right into the fight in that state of mind, Shovelhead might have actually had a chance to beat me. When I kept my head, remained calm and thought out my strategy, I was completely unstoppable.

Pepper had been right about Shovelhead trying a cheap shot. He’d stepped to the side of the door and was waiting for me, but Bird and Junior stepped through the door first, spoiling his plan, and he was forced to step out into the ring.

I’d only been in the ring twice since I’d joined the Brotherhood. Shovelhead had been there at least a dozen times. He tended to be a hothead and always getting into a fight with somebody. He’d won ninety percent of them, too. I was about to lower his percentage. I stepped out into the ring and started to circle slowly to the left, studying the ring. The footing could be uneven out there and I didn’t need any surprises.

“You know that your bitch used to ride with an LD?” he sneered.

I was pretty sure that he was trying to piss me off. What he didn’t know was that I didn’t give a damn. I knew she used to date a biker, but I never asked any other details.

“Not just any LD either,” he continued. “She used to be Sabre’s bitch.”

That stung a bit. Kelly had been sleeping with the enemy? I tried to push it out of my mind. I needed to focus. “You just gonna talk like a bitch?”

That pissed him off, and he charged. I straightened him up with an upper-cut that cracked on his chin, and then missed with a leg-sweep that would have put him on his back. For a tall man, he had decent speed, and I took a hard hook to the ribs that made me catch my breath for a second. I rolled out and reset for another attack.

We exchanged a number of jabs to the body and the head as we both moved in on each other. One thing about Shovelhead, he could punch. He rattled me several times with blows that would have sent a lesser man to the dirt. I couldn’t have stood in there taking the beating, and I didn’t intend to. I was working on his psyche. I wanted him to believe that I was a slugger just like he was, and I wanted him coming at me up top. I had to take a pounding to set him up, but when I did, it worked like a charm.

I sidestepped his overzealous right hook, which was meant to send me to the dirt, and leg whipped him, sending him crashing into the brick wall face first. I could tell that the blow stunned him, but he came up out of it. When he did, he was holding a blade down low.

“I’m gonna gut you, Razor,” he said, coming at me with blood streaking down his face from splitting his head open on the wall.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have gone and done that,” I responded, reaching to my ankle scabbard and drawing out my own blade.

“Fight’s over,” Jake called out.

“The hell it is!” Shovelhead roared.

“
The fight is over
,” Jake repeated. This time, he leveled the pistol at Shovelhead and waited for him to twitch. “We aren’t going to have a killing here.”

Jake had just saved Shovelhead’s life. I said before that Jake liked to keep his place clean. A fight was one thing, but a killing attracted unwanted attention from the law, and he wasn’t going to let that happen to the main hangout of the SB.

“This ain’t over, Razor,” Shovelhead snarled as he sheathed his knife and then started back into the bar.

I just shrugged and put my knife away. I thought of that line of Val Kilmer’s from the movie
Tombstone
, but it would have been too cheesy to say it out loud.

Chapter 14: Sabre

I had a problem and I needed to fix it. My profits had gotten worse every month for about three months straight. I knew what the problem was. Both the Silent Brotherhood and the KOTR, the Knights of the Road, and the smaller allied clubs had been expanding their territories at my expense.

“We’ve gotta stop these motherfuckers cold,” I told Gonzo.

“Which one you want to hit?” he asked.

It was mid-afternoon on a Wednesday and Gonzo and I were sitting in the Skull ‘N’ Dagger having a few beers and trying to come up with a solution. The hit that had taken out Clap had been a stern warning to me to back down my operations, but with my profits dwindling, that was becoming more difficult.

“It’s a contradiction,” I growled. “They send an enforcer to tell me to back off, but the squeeze from the other two is making me need to keep pushing the limits.” I knew what was going on, but I wasn’t ready to admit it; not just yet. I didn’t have to. Gonzo did it for me.

“I’m starting to think that the Godfather is pissed off at us and is starting to drive us out,” he suggested. “Shit, Sabre, even the Highwaymen are starting to gain some ground, and they haven’t been doing much for several years.”

Messing with the Highwaymen would have brought on a shit storm of epic proportions from the Godfather. They were an older club that had slowly backed down their operations as the average age of the membership started pushing the 60s. It was understood that they were to be left alone and allowed operate. Nobody would mess with them.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m thinking that the KOTR is getting a little too big for their britches.”

“You want to work the allied clubs?” Gonzo asked.

The usual way of backing off another club was to do so with some force, but the bigger clubs didn’t usually square off with each other. Doing so would start an all-out war that would bring way too much attention from the DEA, FBI and the locals. The allied clubs were smaller and less conspicuous. Working in their areas and making certain that they understood that they were to back off was a way of taking some of the profits away from your rivals and hitting them where it hurt the most. That was the usual way of doing things, but I’d been working that way and I was tired of pussy-footing around. I wanted to send a real message.

“No, I want to hit back, and I want to hit back hard.”

“Jesus, Sabre, you’re talking about starting a war,” Gonzo responded.

“You got a problem with that?” I glared at him and waited for him to answer. It was, of course, a loaded question. I knew he wouldn’t go against me. He was a great lieutenant and was pretty strong in his own right, but he would back me.

“No. No problem.”

“Good,” I grinned. “Because I’ll need you more than ever.”

“You gonna hit the SB?” His eyes were wide with both fear and admiration.

“That’s a possibility,” I replied. I’d kept that idea on a back burner. Hitting them directly might not be good for the future of the Lost Disciples. The Godfather had his favorites and the SB was included in that list, but KOTR wasn’t. “But we’ll wait to do that one. Right now I want to hit the KOTR. You know, push back and send a message back up the chain.”

There was another reason that I wanted to push back a little bit. I wasn’t entirely convinced that the hit on Clap had been ordered by an enforcer. I had a suspicion that it was a hit by one of those smartasses from the Silent Brotherhood. The best way to find out for sure was to hit the KOTR. If there was a response, it would come from the Godfather. If there wasn’t a response, then I’d know that it was an SB operation that had taken out Clap.

The whole mess sometimes reminded me of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Was it rabbit season or duck season? Who was trying to fool whom with what, and making it look like it was someone else? I didn’t have time to play the mind games, and I didn’t have the patience either. While those bitches were playing games, I’d start kicking ass and taking names.

“KOTR is a better choice,” Gonzo agreed after several minutes.

I could tell that he was hesitant about starting a war, even with the KOTR. He had reason to be. Though they were weaker, they were solid, and it wouldn’t be a cake walk. I considered challenging him on it but, to be completely honest, it was better that he was a little bit scared. Being scared made people concentrate more. “You’re going to lead the show.”

“And you?” he asked.

“I’ll be right in the thick of it, but I want you to take point.”

“Gee, thanks,” he chuckled. He took a long draw on the fresh mug of beer that had just been placed in front of him. “When?”

“Soon,” I replied. “Our profits need to start turning around pretty quick.”

“Alright,” he said, taking another long sip.

What I hadn’t told Gonzo—in fact, hadn’t told anyone—was that I was beginning to develop an idea for penetrating the Silent Brotherhood. It wasn’t an easy plan and it would take some time to develop, but I knew that if I could start disrupting them internally, then I could work on splitting them and working on a takeover. To date, I had only been talking to someone who was inside an ally club, but he seemed to have a good ear for what was going on inside the SB. That was good for the time being, but I wanted to work into the actual club and get someone inside there.

Trying to hit the SB head on would never work. If the rumors about them were true, they were all silent and deadly killers, not like the tough bunch that I had in the Lost Disciples. My guys were tough and could hit you hard in a brawl, but they would never stand against guys who used their heads and killed with precision. No, the best way to take down the SB was to weaken their financial base and then get inside and start splitting them apart. The first move in that campaign was to strengthen the position of the LD. To do that, I needed the grey area. To own the grey area, I needed to weaken or destroy the KOTR.

“Strap in, Gonzo,” I said, slapping him on the back. “We’re in for one hell of a ride, but when we get off this wild hog, we’ll be sittin’ pretty. You with me?”

“Hundred percent,” Gonzo replied, raising his mug to me.

I raised my mug toward him in response.
Better make it a hundred and ten. This could get ugly fast.