Page 25 of Caution to the Wind

A sigh rattled around in my lungs, but I kept it from leakin’ through my lips. Rooster wasn’t a dumb man. No leader of an outlaw MC could be without bein’ imprisoned right fuckin’ quick. But he was an obvious one. Everythin’ was black and white, his way or the highway. So, when Rooster looked at me, all six foot, four inches and two hundred forty pounds of muscle, he saw a perfect example of brawn.

He used me anytime someone needed to be shaken down, frightened, and intimidated into capitulatin’ to the club.

In some ways, it was the same way the military had used me.

Canada’s boogeyman.

The Fallen’s weapon.

Hence my biker name.

Axe.

A man whose sole purpose was to cleave people in two.

Rooster swung onto his own bike, not requirin’ any assurance from me that I’d follow out my orders. Not ’cause he trusted me––he didn’t––but ’cause if you disobeyed Rooster, he’d fuckin’ gut you.

Last year, when I’d refused to steal drugs from the hospital or use my old scripts to get illegal pharmaceutical drugs, Rooster’d doubled my dues, decreased my cut from jobs like this, and, worst of all, he’d taken to makin’ casual threats about the women in my life. I knew that if I ever seriously questioned him, he wouldn’t hesitate for a fuckin’ second to hurt Cleo, Lin, or maybe even Mei.

Rooster begrudged me my life outside of The Fallen. Only Rooster was allowed to have his family, his son, Red, and daughter, Faith, and even they were being forced into places in the club at Rooster’s orders. Red was only fifteen, but he was already hangin’ around the club more than at school, and Faith…well, she’d been forced to marry Hazard. Rooster wanted his boys locked up tight to the club, beholden to its president for every cent and ounce of companionship in their life. The MC tradition of takin’ Old Ladies was heavily discouraged and only three brothers had wives who were always kept at home. One of them, Cotton, had a kid he didn’t give a fuck about, so I was the only brother headin’ home at the end of each day instead of stickin’ around the clubhouse to shoot the shit and cater to all of Rooster’s needs.

He hated me, my president, and I hated him right back.

But I was too valuable to him to excommunicate, and he had too much on me now for me to break away clean.

I took half a second, straddlin’ my bike, feelin’ the purr of power beneath my body, to squeeze my eyes shut and wish an impossible wish to wipe my soul clean and feel for once like the hero I’d grown up wantin’ to be and not the villain I’d somehow ended up as.

A cacophony of revved Harleys ripped through the cold night air, echoin’ across the empty parkin’ lot that ran alongside the industrial-sized silos where the local Chinese triad, Seven Song, stashed their heroin.

The silos we’d just raided and fuckin’ looted.

“War,” Cedar murmured to me under the low hum of bike pipes as the men in front of us peeled out of the lot. “Mark this, brother. Rooster just bought war for us all.”

I rolled my lips between my teeth but didn’t answer the only man I happened to like in the club. Not because I disagreed, but ’cause he’d stated somethin’ so obvious it didn’t need acknowledgment.

When I’d tried to voice my objections earlier, Rooster’d claimed he was doin’ thisfor me.

Takin’ down those motherfuckers who took down your wife. Just like you wanted.

But no.

This didn’t have shit all to do with me. Rooster was startin’ this war because Seven Song was gettin’ bigger and stronger. In another two years, they’d be runnin’ shit in Calgary, and Rooster, bigoted and prideful as he was, couldn’t fuckin’ stand that. They’d already started to monopolize the meth and heroin market, importin’ shit tons of product from their production facilities deep in the jungles of Myanmar. There was no way we could ever produce that level of product, but Rooster didn’t care about logic.

He cared about being the biggest cock in the hen house.

I knew Kate’s murder was linked to the triad, but that didn’t mean I wanted to start a fuckin’ war over her. Even though I didn’t spend much time with my brothers in the club, I didn’t want to see all of them die either.

“You think we should do somethin’?” he muttered low, just for me.

“Like what?” I asked, the words sharp enough to cut my tongue. “We signed up for this, man. You know what kinda prez Rooster is. You wanna be the one to stand up to him?”

My old friend went quiet and white as a sheet.

Maybe in other clubs and other chapters of The Fallen there was some semblance of democracy, but in the Calgary outfit of The Fallen, Rooster’s word was fuckin’ law. The last time a brother had spoken out against him, he’d been excommunicated, his club tatt seared off his skin with a fuckin’ cattle brand.

I’d always known that joinin’ up with this crew could mean incarceration or death so I’d already taken precautions for Cleo. I’d buried a small fortune in cash beneath the shed in the backyard, and if anythin’ happened to me, Lin was supposed to take Cleo with her to Vancouver where she had some family they could stay with while they settled in.

I hoped it would never come to that, but I’d seen too much in my life not to have a backup plan.