Page 1 of Blue-Eyed Jacks (Destroyers MC: Skilletsville PA #1)

W hat would happen when the conqueror became a king? Would he grow fat and lazy, relying on old methods to maintain his position, or would he dare risk failing by using a fresh approach to consolidate power? It was easy to see where my ‘boss,’ Nonno, fit on that spectrum.

The National President of the Destroyers MC sat on a specially carved wooden chair. It rested on a dais of hastily cobbled plywood spray-painted black with automotive primer that was so fresh it seeped into the porous surface. The grain of the cover veneer got more visible with each second.

Around him, the tableau was farcical. An easy spectacle, rampant with strippers, hookers, booze, loud music, and bikers like me paying homage to their new leader.

I was present as a witness and an accomplice.

As the lord-baron of my very own fiefdom, I participated in the spectacle with my center of power strategically placed off to one side with my crew.

Including me, our group totaled six. I should’ve brought more.

Pittsburgh’s president brought twelve, for fuck’s sake.

Then again, he always had a thing for numbers between ten and twenty.

“Jackson, have you seen the—” Sprout’s words were cut short by the approach of Hanger—which was the shortened version of “Hang Her High”—the road name of Chicago’s Sergeant at Arms. He had biceps four times bigger than my VP’s.

Despite the bulk, Hanger could reach almost as far as Sprout, my club’s secretary, an officer position more honorary than effectible.

“Hang,” I acknowledged him.

“Boss wants to see you.”

Fuck. When he said Boss , he didn’t just mean his boss. Boss was, in relative terms, the boss. Where Chicago leaned, we all fell over ourselves to tilt further down the path. Nonno may be king in name, but Hang’s boss was the boss.

“What the fuck did we do now?” Sprout’s mouth was going to get us in trouble. Well, more trouble, one of these days.

But hell, trouble was my middle name. I tested the murky deep.

“I’m right here. Does he need glasses?” I motioned to the table.

If that motherfucker wanted to pull rank on me, he’d have to force my hand.

With Nonno now firmly entrenched as the national president, Big G and I were on the same tier, mostly.

“Get your ass up. Bring two guys, not him.” Hanger indicated Sprout and walked away. I resisted the urge to flip him off.

An urge Sprout had no problem with. “Fucker.” He twisted up a double bird and let it rest for a few seconds before wisely hiding them under the table again.

I turned to my VP with a question, not a request. “Wolf?” As in, “what is your take on this, Wolf?”

“Divide and conquer?” he suggested as Big G’s strategy.

“Not on my watch.”

Wolf swore quietly under his breath, then muttered, “Tits is better at this shit than I am.”

His wife, goddammit, admittedly was light years better at this political crap than either of us.

But I’d look like some sort of pansy installing her in an all-male club’s officer role.

“She’s good at flashing those double-D’s.

” I wasn’t trying to piss him off. It just came out of my piehole that way.

His jaw dipped sideways, proving he was either trying to swallow my sarcasm, or trying not to laugh. It could go either way.

“Bear, Skinner.” I picked my two, leaving Wolf with Grizzle and Sprout.

Griz was a right bastard, and Sprout was fast. Blended with Wolf’s tactical sense, he was well protected.

Bear was enough muscle to fuck with Hang.

And Skinner? Well. If Big G wanted to talk about money, he was the right guy for it.

It also made me look “weak” taking a scrawny man like Skinner as one of my bodyguards. And that was the point. I was subtly insulting Big G by not bringing Griz. Moreover, it could be read as I trusted Big G not to fuck with me, therefore brought the B-Team, which wasn’t insulting at all.

Power was a funny thing. It was as alluring as beachfront property with warm breezes all year long. But it came equipped with land mines and was subject to flooding at any time. Therefore, as pretty as it was, I’d kept to the shadows as much as I could afford.

Big G sat near the center of the room and nearest to the catwalk where Nonno paraded his best strippers. Hookers jumped out of their seats and into laps to make room for me and mine.

“G.” I reached out for a slap of the hand.

When he didn’t lift a finger, I diverted the action to a smack on the shoulder, proving I could touch him whenever I wanted.

No one was immune. I settled into the chair a pretty little thing had just hopped off of.

She had an ass like a peach. Sue me, it distracted me for a moment.

“I see you still have an eye for the ladies.”

“Plural.” I gave up trying to twist my head like an owl and faced Giovanni Accardo.

Big G. One of three men in Chicago who had more say on world affairs than most foreign leaders.

“Been a bit. What was it, bumfuck West Virginia?” He’d popped down to help our sister club and scope out expansion properties. That was working out well.

“We had those redneck cops shaking in their boots.” G smiled at the memory.

“Fucking great moonshine. I’ll send you some.”

“Walt already did.”

Fuck . I plastered a smile on. He called him Walt, not his road name—Disney. If he was that tight with the chapter on my southern border, I was screwed. “Then I’ll get you some primo weed. Sprout’s holding.”

“What did you do to piss Nonno off?”

He wasn’t one for extended small talk. Luckily, I had a quick and honest answer. “I let Wolf marry his niece.”

G’s head snapped sharply left to the table where Wolf sat. “Niece? That chick with the—” He held his hands out in front of his massive chest and got the size about right.

“Yup.”

“Huh. Poor guy. You don’t buy the cow just cuz it’s got big udders.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “It isn’t just that, though, is it?”

Damn it. I couldn’t lie to him. Such a thing would bite me in the ass.

I’d been protesting a rate hike in our monthly dues.

“Skilletsville isn’t exactly a hotbed for intrigue these days.

I pay my shit on time, fully. Nonno’s got nothing to bitch about.

” And that was the truth. Just because we were pulling in more scratch legally than illegally shouldn’t be an issue.

The bigger issue was the vacuum between Nonno and our club, which had no buffer.

We needed a Regional President to bitch at, instead of going directly to the fucking top. That was bound to get old soon.

G’s smile cracked just a hair wider. “He’s upping your payments, isn’t he?”

I nodded. Inflation sucked balls.

“Can you afford them?”

I glared at him. “Affording isn’t the question. It’s a matter of fairness . We pay what everyone else pays, not more. You’d do the same.”

He leaned back in the chair, pondering the situation.

Hopefully, he was trying to see it from my point of view.

Just because my membership had three millionaires on paper, and one skyrocketing multi-millionaire, it didn’t mean the chapter had to eat Nonno’s shit.

G wasn’t a poor man. He had almost as much, maybe even more than Sprout.

All of it skimmed from wallowing in the cesspools of Chicago’s crime money.

The trouble was that Sprout’s money was all legit.

Filed on tax forms, making headlines, and every son of a bitch from here to Timbukfuckingtu wanted a piece of it, especially the new national president for the Destroyers MC.

“How many did you bring on this trip?”

He was asking about my men, members, and liabilities.

“Half,” I begrudgingly replied. Besides Wolf, Sprout, Griz, Skinner, and Bear; Baldy and Sketch rode with our enclave.

We had three RVs, two of them pimped to the fucking nines, and three old ladies with us.

The rest of the crew—Trout, Poke, Cutty, Coop, Rocket, Big Joe, and Hickey were back in Pennsylvania making money to replace the scratch flowing out on this stupid trip.

But it was one we had to make. If I wanted any shot at being a regional president, attendance was mandatory.

Failure to appear would be seen as treason.

I’d lose not only my chance but possibly my life.

Big G finished musing. “That was a mistake.”

No shit . “Got businesses to run.” Too fucking many, but that wasn’t my fault.

G set his hand on the table slowly, warning me he was controlling his temper, but only barely. “You’ll pay the extra this month for that.”

“And next month?”

G shrugged. It was too early to breathe a sigh of relief. Next month would be a whole new set of shit. Movement to my left had Bear shifting his bulk to shield me from whoever was approaching.

G’s man stepped forward, too. Interesting. We were all brothers here, but like any fucked up family, we hated each other more than anything else. In my small window of blindness, I searched G’s face for clues about who it could be.

His eyes squinted in displeasure, and his usual scowl deepened. He saved me from having to look by saying, “Did you bring me a present, Shock?”

Ah . The biggest asshole in the room. Considering I was present, that parsed things closely. I shifted in my chair to see what had caught G’s interest.

She was a little thing. If I had to guess, given the location, company, and Shock’s proclivities, she was barely seventeen.

Sweet little C-cups and freckles she tried to hide with goop.

But the heat and closed barroom melted that shit, and those little brown specks stood out against her pallor.

Besides liking them young and freckled, Shock liked ‘em scared. She fit the bill nicely.

“Meet my wife.” He shoved the girl forward.

Lying asshole . “Which one is that? Number twelve? Or are you still searching for a twelve - year-old ?” I should’ve kept quiet until I was on my feet.

Bear went down, and the girl went somewhere screaming and scrambling under his feet.

Shock barreled through the pile and knocked me, my chair, and the table in front of G to a broken mess on the floor.

Beer, whiskey, and blood flowed. Shock landed on top of me. His fist broke through my block and clipped my jaw.

That was just fine with me. I pummeled his head with jabs and elbows.

I locked his brace leg with mine and kicked his balance point loose.

The bulk of him squashed me, but I was already moving, pulling, shifting, and twisting.

Once I was on top where I belonged, I locked him in place with an arm bar and wrenched it hard.

With the momentum of the move, I slipped a hand free and locked it around his head. My whole body worked to pin him in a choking headlock, and if I was lucky enough, one twist and all my troubles would be over.

Except for a murder-one charge. But that never stopped me from trying to make it happen—especially with Shock.

“Enough!”

Nonno’s enforcer, G’s enforcer, hell, my own enforcer jumped on the pile trying to peel me off that fat fuck. It took them and Shock’s man to tear me off—which meant Shock was free to fire a cheap-shot fist into my gut.

I wheezed out air I couldn’t afford to lose.

My stomach spasmed as nature tried to fix the lack of it in all the wrong ways.

Stars broke out at the corners of my eyes and my knees felt like Jello.

But I’d be damned if this was the end. I locked my right leg and sucked in air and blood between my teeth with a hiss. “Cheating fucker!”

Fresh energy surged through me. I broke Bear’s hold and was only tethered by Hang.

Nonno’s man stood between us, but I couldn’t see him…only the rage I’d held onto for sixteen years and Shock’s ugly face. “I’m gonna kill you.” That was a vow. And it wasn’t the first time I’d thought about it. But it was possibly the first time I’d ever said it out loud.

“You’d like to try. Where’s my wife?”

“Which fucking one?” I spat back. Even amped on adrenaline, and still trapped in a tunnel of red hate, I managed to guard my mouth, or at least not think about the words.

“You know goddamned well which one. The legitimate one. Kate. Where the fuck did you hide her?”

The girl at my feet gasped. I was certain her name wasn’t Kate.

She squeaked out a plaintive, “You’re already married?”

Oh my God. What a fucking soap opera . “Yeah, sweet tits, he’s got a real wife.” Shit. I almost outed myself. I hastily tacked on, “Or had , but her body ain’t shown up yet.”

“You lying motherfucker. She better not be dead!” Shock roared and broke through the line of men between us, trampling on his little piece of ass in the process.

But I was ready for him this time. Using a dirty trick my father taught me, I twisted to the side and used his own momentum to smash his face into the stage behind me.

“Enough.” Nonno waded into the melee, brandishing a shiny new baseball bat. I stuck both hands up in the air.

“That dick jumped me twice, and I’m the one standing!” I owned my victory, with witnesses and fucking everything.

Shock tried to get up but got tangled in his woman.

He hauled his hand back to clobber her, and Bear caught my eye with a sharp shake of the head.

The blow landed, and I felt every ounce of that pain.

My men knew why, and both Bear and Skinner flanked me just in case I’d get stupid and try to save the bitch. But I’d learned that lesson years ago.

“He stole my wife.” Shock repeated to anyone who’d listen.

The girl blubbered in the background, and I couldn’t tune her out.

The sobs grew louder in my mind. She was so young and…

dumb to let someone like Shock break her that way.

Foolish to take up with a biker off his leash like so many were during this event.

And too much like my own damn mother for me to forget that from whore to lady, you don’t win by treating them poorly.

I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I really should’ve.

“No one stole your wife. She fled your dumb ass because you treated her like shit.”

Shock got his feet under him and pointed, singling me out from the crowd. “And how would you know that?” To everyone else, he pled his case. “He knows that because he helped her leave. He betrayed the brotherhood!”

No, just you , asshole.