Ride Rough Read online

  CHAPTER 4

  The air was tense and weighted as everyone filed into the Ravens’ meeting room at seven the next evening for Church. Maverick took the seat next to Dare’s at the head of the long rectangular table. The room had probably been a lounge back during the inn’s heyday, which explained the cabin-like floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace and the exposed wooden beams on the ceiling. The Raven’s logo hung on a carved panel of wood above the mantel.

  Ride. Fight. Defend.

  Dare banged an old, beat-up gavel against the table and eased into his seat. “I’m calling this meeting of Church to order.” Everyone settled into chairs at the table or along the side walls. They had a decent-sized crowd here today.

  Clearly, Maverick wasn’t the only one who wanted revenge for the attack on their people and property.

  “Dare, it’s good to see you and Meat here and in one piece,” Bear Lowry said. Maverick nodded in agreement with the Old Timer who also was one of the club’s founders. Bear had served as the secretary/treasurer for years because Dare and Doc trusted him implicitly, not to mention he had a damn good head on his shoulder for investments.

  The guys on either side of Meat, whose real name was Craig Miles, clapped him on the shoulder, and he gave a nod. The night of the attack, Haven’s father had shot Meat point-blank in the abdomen to prove that he was serious about his intentions to take out innocents for every ten minutes that passed without the club delivering her up.

  And the Iron Cross had been the ones to send that asshole their way.

  Dare shifted uncomfortably in his chair, whether from his injuries or his unease at the attention, Maverick didn’t know. Raking a hand through his brown hair, Dare looked down at the table, his brow furrowed. “What we faced at the track that night . . .” He shook his head. “It was unprecedented. And what you did”—he looked up, his dark gaze intense—“what all of you did was above and beyond. It—”

  “No, D,” Meat said, looking the club’s president in the eyes. “It was exactly what we should’ve done. Exactly what we should always do. Nothing more.”

  The visible emotion on Dare’s face reached inside Maverick’s chest. Because he couldn’t agree with Meat more. Maverick only wished that he could’ve gotten to Dare to shield him from those bullets, or at the very least gotten to Haven before she’d been forced to kill her own father to protect them both. And God knew he wished he could’ve kept his mother from getting hurt. Mav knew that his cousin was shouldering a shitload of guilt over all the people who’d been hurt that night. They were alike that way. Not that Maverick thought any of it was Dare’s fault, because it wasn’t.

  Only two groups were to blame. Haven’s father’s crew, who were all either dead or in jail. And the Iron Cross.

  Sitting at the far end of the table, Doc nodded. “Meat’s got it right. This is a family. And every man here is your brother. You can always count on us having your back. And that goes for everyone here. That’s what the Raven Riders are about. That’s why we exist.” Frank “Doc” Kenyon was Dare’s grandfather, the club’s founder, and co-owner with Dare of the Ravens’ property, which the older man had inherited decades before. Doc was also Mav’s uncle. With whitish hair and beard that made him a shoo-in for playing Santa for the kids among the club members’ families, Doc was fiercely protective of the club and everyone in it.

  So Dare came by that naturally. Mav did, too.

  “That’s right,” Maverick said. “Now we focus on getting justice for Jeb and for everyone else who got hurt.” Murmurs of agreement circled the room. And even though his focus needed to be right here on these men, he couldn’t help but think of Alexa. Because she’d been hurt, too. And Maverick hadn’t yet thought of a way to make that right for her. It was eating at him like an itch he couldn’t reach.

  “Which brings me to some news from Baltimore,” Dare said, opening the folder of intel Maverick had received from Nick Rixey. “Off the record, Nick shared that the Feds are running some kind of undercover operation targeting Baltimore’s gangs. Ongoing investigations into narcotics and especially heroin. Long story short, in the week since everything went down, the Feds have tightened the noose around the Iron Cross as the primary player in that market, so it’s very possible the Feds are about to take them out all on their own.”

  “Well, that’s . . . kinda fucking unsatisfying,” Phoenix said.

  “‘Possible’ isn’t good enough for me,” Maverick said. “And letting the Feds do it does nothing for avenging ourselves and defending our reputation.”

  “I agree on both counts,” Dare said.

  Doc sat forward in his seat. “Given everything this club’s been through the past six weeks, first with the fight over at Hard Ink and then with the attack here, we do not need more good people put in harm’s way.” He’d been leery of getting involved with the Iron Cross in the first place. Well, they all had. Maverick sure knew he’d been. But those motherfuckers hadn’t given them much choice if they didn’t want to make an enemy of a new player in the region. Turned out they had anyway. Which pretty much proved that the road to hell was paved with good intentions. “I get that the Iron Cross is a problem that has to be resolved, but if someone else is willing to do the dirty work, I say we let them.”

  “All due respect, Doc,” Maverick said, the anger inside of him hot and thick like the June night outside. “We sit back, even if the Feds do their job here, we pretty much invite every other fucker who wants to make a name for themselves to do it on our backs. They invaded our territory. Attacked our home. Hurt and killed our people.”

  “I agree with Maverick,” Caine McKannon said, his ice-blue eyes slicing toward Dare. Low murmurs of agreement rumbled around the room. Wearing a black knit cap over black hair and with black gauges in both his ears, Caine served as the club’s sergeant-at-arms, which put him in charge of rule enforcement. The guy radiated a quiet intensity you didn’t want to cross. Maverick had never heard the guy raise his voice, and could only imagine what kind of pissed off he’d have to be to do so. Of the six men who made up the club’s board of directors—Dare, Maverick, Bear, Phoenix, their Race Captain Jagger Locke, and Caine—Caine was by far the one Maverick knew the least, despite having known him for years.

  “So, what are we talking about here?” Phoenix asked, face set into an unusually serious frown.

  Considering glances were traded around the table until Dare finally spoke. “Here’s what I suggest. We’re not typically into offensive assaults. But we have to assume that the Iron Cross will keep coming at us, because they made it clear they want to push us around until they push us out as a player in the power dynamics in this area. In my view, going after them would be a defensive preemptive strike.” More murmurs of agreement. “I say we make a statement that hurts them where they live—we attack their clubhouse, clean them out until they’re left with nothing, and then burn their world to the ground. And if that sonofabitch of a leader Dominic gets in the way, so much the better.”

  “And how do you think Haven will feel about you doing that?” Doc asked.

  Dare’s dark gaze cut to meet his grandfather’s. “This is club business, Doc. But if you really want to know, I told her this was the likely reality. Don’t think for a minute she doesn’t understand our world after the one she grew up in, nor that this is still her father’s mess that needs to be cleaned up. She’d be on the back of a Harley helping us do it if she could. Haven Randall is a hundred percent behind every one of us. Always.”

  Maverick surveyed his brothers’ faces and saw the bone-deep respect they held for Haven. By saving Dare’s life, she’d more than earned it.

  “So we’re going after property, not bodies,” Phoenix said, eyebrow arched.

  “That’s what I’m proposing.” Dare looked from one member to the next. “Discussion?”

  “It may not be a long-term solution,” Caine said, eyes narrowed.

  The concern echoed Maverick’s own thoughts; then something else occurred to him.
“But think about this. If the Feds take out the Iron Cross after we take them down, then maybe it’s the best of both worlds. They’re out of the picture and we protect our rep and make it clear that fucking with us comes at a cost. A big one.”

  “Exactly,” Dare said with a nod, his whole face set in a frown. “Anyone else?” When the room remained silent, Dare heaved a deep breath. “Let’s put it to a vote. Raise your hand if you support going after the Iron Cross.” His gaze sliced through each and every one of them, because they all knew he was asking them to cross some lines. But sometimes, that shit couldn’t be helped.

  “Goddamnit,” Doc bit out, fisting his hands on the table.

  Nearly every other hand went up. Dark satisfaction rolled through Maverick’s gut. Maybe that made him a terrible person. He didn’t know, but so be it. Because he’d seen two good friends shot and hospitalized, another murdered, and his own mother bound and gagged and stuffed in the back of a car. And that was all besides the harm done to the club’s reputation and livelihood.

  Dare let the weight of their decision hang in the air for a long moment before he spoke again. “We need to be the ones to do this, but I want the Hard Ink team to help strategize, especially since we’re using intel they collected. We good with that?” Nods all around. Dare placed a call and let the ringing sound out on speakerphone.

  Nick’s voice mail answered, and Dare left a message. “Nick, I need your help ASAP. Gimme a call.”

  “Fuck, I hate waiting,” Jagger said, his fingers moving in a perpetual progression of invisible guitar chords against the table top. Their race captain was brilliant with his hands—musical instructions, engines, it didn’t matter—and was nearly single-handedly responsible for every good thing that happened down at the racetrack. A big fucking deal since that provided the club’s main income stream.

  “Well, we have other business to pass the time,” Dare said. “Maverick came up with something else we can do to honor Jeb. Mav?”

  Nodding, Mav glanced around at all his brothers. “I move that we posthumously vote Jeb Fowler in as a fully patched member. He gave his life for my mother, for Rodeo’s wife. He more than earned his place among us.”

  The group’s discussion was quick and in full agreement, and then Dare put it to a vote. “All in favor?” Dare asked.

  Without a word, Maverick rose to his feet. Then Rodeo did. Then Meat and Bear and all the others until every man in the room stood in honor of their fallen brother. A knot lodged in Mav’s throat—pride that these men were his family.

  Dare stood, too. “It’s unanimous. Jeb Fowler is a fully patched member of the Raven Riders Motorcycle Club.”

  Silence hung thick and laden with emotion for a long moment, because the words highlighted the fucking tragedy of it all, and then Bear’s quiet voice broke the tension. “I’ll get his picture up,” he said, referring to the wall of honor in the clubhouse’s lounge where photographs of every member hung.

  “Yeah,” Dare said, sitting again. “That’s good.” Everyone else sat, too, and for a moment, quiet conversations filled the room. Dare banged the gavel, his gaze latching onto his phone like he could will it to ring. “We’ve got two more issues to discuss. First, Phoenix and Caine, a heads-up that county social services has reached out to us with a new protective assignment. I e-mailed you all the information before the meeting. Assess and see what the situation is going to require.”

  As the road captain and sergeant-at-arms, respectively, Phoenix and Caine took point on organizing the club’s protective efforts, whether the cases came the Ravens’ way through social services, the sheriffs’ office, or local people who knew what the Ravens were willing to do for those who couldn’t protect themselves.

  “What are the basics?” Phoenix asked.

  “It’s a child abuse situation,” Dare said, his expression grim. “The mother’s getting heat from several directions to keep it quiet.”

  “We’ll handle it,” Caine bit out, his tone like ice.

  “Good.” Dare slapped the folder closed in front of him and sighed. “Last thing. We’ve got a major fucking PR problem at the racetrack now following the shootings. Given that we missed five weeks of racing while we were tied up in Baltimore, and then a sixth week this weekend as the police wrap up their investigation, we can’t allow our income stream to be further compromised. Ticket sales are down, and even though the club was cleared of wrongdoing, the press hasn’t helped the situation with their continued coverage of what happened. So we need to stop the hemorrhage and restore the public’s confidence in the safety of our events. To that end, Jagger has an idea he wants to propose.”

  Jagger raked his hands through the length of his brown hair, his gaze fixed on a sheet of paper in front of him. “So, this idea comes from the position of you gotta spend money to make money.”

  “How much money?” Bear asked, his voice skeptical.

  Jagger shoved the paper in the treasurer’s direction. “I’m proposing we do a big family weekend with half-price adult tickets, free tickets for kids under sixteen, and paid uniformed security. A carnival, a dunking booth, a fucking petting zoo. We get all the local businesses in here with their food trucks which motivates them to promote the event, too. With no vendor fees. Maybe we give away some prizes of season passes or photo ops with drivers. We go all out to get people here and make them see there’s nothing to worry about. And, if we wanted to be really ambitious about it—”

  “This number is pretty damn ambitious already,” Bear said, studying Jagger’s proposal.

  Jagger shrugged. “Yeah, it is, but if we think of it as buying a publicity campaign and not giving a bunch of shit away for free, I think it could be worth it.”

  Nodding, Maverick agreed with Jagger’s thinking. Having lived in Frederick his whole life, Mav knew that they were going to have to make amends with the community. Frankly, he didn’t have a problem with that. The Ravens took care of the local community and the town took care of the Ravens in return. Well, most of the town did, anyway.

  They had a couple of perpetual thorns in their side. Like fucking Slater, who hated them because he wanted to develop the prime real estate they held. And because the Ravens had once successfully campaigned against one of his developments on environmentally fragile land adjacent to their own that might’ve impacted the zoning for their races. And because Maverick had been balls deep inside his wife-to-be. Maverick wasn’t sure which one of those made Slater hate them more. But, mostly, the Ravens had a symbiotic relationship with their neighbors, one that needed to be nurtured.

  “So, what would be even more ambitious than all of that?” Mav asked.

  “Donating all profits from the weekend to a local charity,” Jagger said. Bear looked a little like he might have a heart attack.

  “How quickly could all that be pulled together?” Dare asked. They couldn’t wait too many weekends to get back up to their regular numbers, that much was clear.

  “I’ve got a carnival company available the last Thursday through Saturday of the month, which would give us two weeks to plan.”

  The first thought that Maverick had was perfect.

  The second? That Saturday was Alexa’s wedding day. For fuck’s sake. At least he’d have something to do besides sit around and resist driving to the church so he could raise his hand when the preacher asked if anyone had any reasons why the happy couple shouldn’t marry.

  Conversation pretty quickly fell in support of Jagger’s idea. The club had a rainy-day fund for exactly this kind of thing. Protecting their livelihood was more than a good enough reason to dip into it. Without their activities at the Green Valley Race Track, things would get tight fast. Certainly, the funding for their protective mission would largely disappear.

  “The only hitch is that the county wants to move up our annual inspection before the event. I actually think it’s a good idea. Get our permits and paperwork in order. Have the county sign off that everything is as it should be,” Jagger said.
/>   “Sounds like one more thing in our favor,” Dare said. “Let’s vote.” The vote was overwhelmingly in favor.

  “I’ll get on it,” Jagger said.

  “Talk to Haven,” Dare said. “Bet she’d make a bunch of stuff for a bake sale.”

  Jagger winked. “Already did, and she already agreed.” Dare grinned, pride clear on the man’s face.

  “Can I just buy everything she makes now?” Phoenix asked, feigning as if he was taking out his wallet. Maverick laughed, and everyone else did, too. You never had a better cookie or cinnamon bun than what Haven made, that was for sure. And damn, it was good to hear everyone just laughing and shooting the shit. With everything they’d been through, they hadn’t had nearly enough of that lately.

  “You can,” Dare said. “But I have it on good authority that she, Bunny, and Cora are making dinner for us, so—”

  A cell phone rang out, immediately silencing the ruckus that had risen up in the room. Dare’s expression revealed who it was before he even answered. “Nick, thanks for calling back so fast.”

  “Of course,” he said, his voice sounding out through the speaker. “Sounded urgent.”

  “It is,” Dare said. “I need to know if your contact has specifics on the Iron Cross’s whereabouts. Hangouts, headquarters, meeting places, that kind of thing.”

  “Marz actually just got some new intel from our guy this morning.” Nick spoke to someone on his end for a minute. “He’s emailing it to you right now. Why? What’s going on?”

  “I won’t draw this out,” Dare said. “We’re going after the Iron Cross. To be clear, we don’t want you involved, but we’d appreciate your team’s thoughts on carrying it out.”

  Silence for a long moment. “Shit, okay,” Nick said. “I can’t say that I blame you, but this is complicated by the Feds. They have undercover agents on the inside.”