I don’t care if Amelia can take care of herself or not, I’m protective of her, and that won’t ever change. Sure, my little cousin can handle herself and refuses to take shit from anyone. She’s had to learn early on to do just that while also taking care of her kid.
I’m damn proud of her.
Amelia might be my cousin, but we grew up close. I’m closer to her than my own sister, Taylor, who acts as if the world should revolve around her. Where my sister is selfish, Amelia has one of the kindest hearts I know. She’d give the shirt off her back to someone if they needed it.
“Good, just having a beer and watching these roughnecks make a fool of themselves over at the bar.” Turning my attention to Lucifer and not the bar, I smirk and jerk my chin toward the men who had been speaking to Amelia, looking her up and down.
If I didn’t know Amelia as well as I do, I’d never have known that she had everyone fooled as to just how sweet and caring she really is. She’s a damn good bartender here and keeps everything professional. She might have a smile on her face every day, but it ain’t the same as the one she gives her son. If she didn’t have those in here eating out of her palm, she’d never make the tips she makes now.
You never know what type of people you’ll get in here at the bar. Mostly it’s cowboys and bikers, but sometimes you get the wannabes and roughnecks who wish they were the real deal. They come in thinking they know their shit, only to make fools of themselves when they’re proven wrong. Like the men trying to get Amelia’s attention beyond her doing her job.
I watch as the men give up and move from the bar to a table filled with women. They’re definitely going to make fools of themselves tonight, that’s for sure. Those women don’t seem impressed, and they’re not from around here either. Good thing too.
Tourists visit Saddle Ridge throughout the year thanks to the different tour sites and history surrounding the area, like Fort Gibson, which is roughly an hour away, but most especially when it’s rodeo season.
The Fallen Demons owned the rodeo grounds around our parts. The Steel Horse Arena is damn profitable for us. We hold rodeos, training sessions, and in the off-season, we have auctions where the ranchers around Saddle Ridge and the surrounding area can bring in stock, horses, bulls, and cows to sell off. It works for us, but it’s not our only income, and neither is this bar.
We also have ‘The Hideaway’, a restaurant that we’re silent partners of. It brings in a shit ton of money. Mostly because the food is damn good and the place is packed every night except holidays when they’re closed.
Our club also has the other side of things, working with Hector Esparza. Of course, we don’t let the good ol’ folks of Saddle Ridge know our shady side of business. When my brothers and I aren’t dealing with anything on the legit side of things, we are handling protection runs for Esparza, making sure his goods get where they need to be without issue.
We never put our hands on the products, we didn’t ask questions, as long as the money was coming in. It didn’t matter if it was drugs, guns, or people.
“How much you wanna bet they end up gettin’ put in their place by the end of the night?” Lucifer snorts, lifting his beer to his mouth.
“I know better than to bet with you, Prez.” I chuckle and shake my head. “Besides, it’s a damn given they’re gonna be put out on their asses before the night ends. Not to mention, you just took a thousand off me two nights ago with that bet on the game when the Sooners were playing.”
Lucifer had always been known for typically being right about things. Almost like he sees it happening before it does, but it’s one thing that makes him a damn good President of our club. Doesn’t mean we don’t bet him against him every once in a while.
Hell, I made the mistake with that game. Should have known better. It might have just been on the score, no doubt the Sooners would win, that was a given, but we’d bet on what the ending would be, and Lucifer had been spot on.
We all need to remember when it comes to bets, it’s not going to go in our favor if Lucifer is in on it. Guess you can say it’s one of his best qualities to always know what he’s doing.
Lucifer and I started the Fallen Demons motorcycle club with the others members who carry rank. Our club started small and has grown in strength, size, and business. Throughout the past years, we’ve gotten the rodeo grounds to what they are now, which was the first business we started. Then we expanded, wanting even more onto the legit side of things, opening Rodeo Roundup and taking on The Hideaway. We’re even talking about expanding further.
Taking on the rodeo grounds when we first started the club had been a huge risk on our part, but we made it happen. Lucifer and I had gone over the numbers with the other members of the club. Mammon, our treasurer, had also crunched the numbers with a marketing projection, making sure it was the right thing to do.
As good as it was for an investment, we did it for other reasons as well. One of our brothers had a family member get hurt at a rodeo over in Holden, a two-hour drive from here. Guy ended up getting pretty roughed up, and it wasn’t by the bull he’d been riding. It was by a bunch of wannabe cowboys who thought they were better than him and wanted him out of the way.
At Steel Horse Arena, we don’t take shit from anyone. We didn’t fuck around. Those who try to start shit end up with their faces being rearranged or with broken bones somewhere else in their bodies. In the end, they learn their lesson in fucking with others while at our arena.
The way our club sees it, the more legit businesses we have expanding our portfolio, the less likely we’ll get flagged on the illegal ventures we’ve got going.
“You have a chance to talk to Maddox yet?” Lucifer asks, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Not yet,” I tell him and take a sip from my beer. “I figured I’d head out to the barn tomorrow morning and tell him about the offer from the club. Don’t know if he’ll go with it right off. You know it took a lot for Maddox to come to the club with his financials in hand for us to look at.” Maddox had been a friend of mine for years. We’d gone to school together, and I hung out at the ranch with him. So had Amelia. Though, Amelia had been friends with Maddox’s little sister, Della.
Yesterday, I took both Amelia and Dylan to the funeral to show our support. I saw Maddox standing with his little sister. I hadn’t seen the girl in years, but I knew from what I saw of her that she wasn’t a girl anymore. The time she’s been away from Saddle Ridge turned her into a woman.
But I couldn’t get what Maddox said in the bar about her out of my mind. How he talked about his sister doesn’t sit right with me. Granted, I get he’d been pissed over the Will, and how the ranch had been left equal shares with her.
Something else I couldn’t get out of my head is the look on Maddox’s face when I saw him the night his granddaddy died. The guys who worked for him were too drunk to drive home, and Amelia ended up giving them a ride back. Maddox had come to town to get them, only to turn around and head back to the ranch.
The whole thing was fucked up.
“Think it’ll be good for the club and for him,” Lucifer murmurs, eyes coming to me as mine go to him.
“Yeah, it will be good.” It all depends on whether Maddox takes the deal or not. We’re gonna offer it, but we’re not gonna twist his arm and force him into it. This business investment will benefit both us and the ranch.
