Mason and Connor looked the most pissed of anyone in the room. Steele and Brock looked like they already knew of the decision. Zack and I…well, Zack looked a little nervous. I was just wondering what the hell we had to do to prove ourselves.
And my curiosity was, unfortunately, seeming to draw the suspicious eye of Mason, who was probably wondering why I wasn’t frothing at the mouth for the chance to kill some Bandits.
“So when do we go to take out their bikes?” Connor said, speaking like he had been tasked with cleaning up horse shit. “How soon do we get to prove we’re capable of handling fucking easy tasks?”
“Tonight.”
“At least we’re fucking talking in that regard.”
The other men murmured in approval.
“Butch will follow with you to help you on this run,” Cole said. “I will leave the rest of the explanation to him. Please refer all questions to him.”
With that, Cole thanked everyone and took his leave. We all understood why—he had a wife and a newborn kid at home. He’d helped form this club as much as a form of “community service” as a passion for MCs.
But shit, I would have loved to have him on board with us. Also, I couldn’t understand why the fuck anyone would want to get married.
“Garrett.”
I snapped to attention. Butch stood at the front of the room.
“Pay attention, stop looking at the door.”
Well, shit, guess he’s not taking any prisoners.
“If you do this right, you can escape without any damage done,” Butch said. “But if the need comes, be prepared to kill.”
“Been prepared for almost a decade now,” Connor said.
“Good, but do not provoke,” Butch said. “Until you have shown that you can handle an escalation in combat, do not trust yourselves to handle it. You have survived one shootout. But none of you have military experience. None of you, Brock and Steele aside, have killed a man.”
I knew that wasn’t true for Connor.
“And even if you have, you are still green in the world of MCs,” Butch continued. “Do as I say, and the consequences will be minimal. Questions.”
No one said a word.
“Get to your bikes. Let’s go.”
* * *
There was just something about seeing a man over six and a half feet tall, with the build of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, on a bike that inspired a sort of unshakable fucking confidence. The Bandits may have had numbers, and before a few weeks ago, they might have had Sheriff Davis in their back pocket, but we had fucking Butch.
The remaining six of us got behind Butch. He slung a rifle across his body, and we did the same. He nodded to us, revved his engine to life, and we followed him. Just before we had taken off, he had given us instructions to head east—he had scouted out a distant outpost where many Bandit bikes were. I knew the location well, for it was an old, abandoned warehouse that used to belong to a storage company.
None of us had ever dared venture over there. We’d never felt like we had the resources or manpower to eradicate such a problem. Fucking lucky for us, that wasn’t going to be a problem anymore.
We drove for about ten minutes when we came to the intersection where it was. Butch slowed down and waved us forward, almost coming to a complete stop. The message was clear—I guided you here, but this is your initiation. You have to prove your own worth.
The compound actually wasn’t as full as I had anticipated; there were maybe a dozen or so bikes out front, but the Bandits were often rumored to number in the two dozen, maybe even thirty-something range. Admittedly, the Bandits were not an organized gang; some of their members seemed to only dip in every so often, while others essentially treated it as a full-time job. Brock stopped his bike, and the rest of us followed.
Without a word, we dismounted, pulled out knives from our boots, and spaced ourselves out evenly, each of us taking about two bikes each. We slashed their tires, cut up their seats, and stole whatever we could. For the most part, there was nothing of value; we knew better than to leave credit cards or guns in our seat. Mason, however, found two hundred dollars cash, which was going to do wonders for how many more shots we could do at our next party.
We got halfway back to our bikes when we heard the first, “What the fuck!”
“Shit, run!” Brock yelled.
But that only meant that the Bandits could fire upon us without worry of retaliation. Mason and I turned, laid down some suppressive fire, and retreated further and further back to our bikes. Both of us made it without getting hit and without any trouble, but we also didn’t hit any Bandits. It was a victory in one sense of the word, but that the Bandits could identify us as the perpetrators wasn’t exactly ideal for our future success.
