Page 7 of Gonzo’s Grudge (Saint’s Outlaws MC: Dreadnought, NC #1)

Gonzo

T he first time I ever laid eyes on a coffin draped in SOMC colors was twelve years ago. I wasn’t even patched yet—still a prospect scrubbing oil off the garage floor and scraping gum from under the pool table at the clubhouse.

Back then, I thought the cut draped across polished wood looked like armor. A shield that could stop bullets. A symbol that meant you were untouchable, even in death.

But standing here now, a decade later, staring down at a coffin draped in Pop Squally’s cut laid over his earned American Flag, it didn’t look like armor anymore. It looked like a wound that would scar us all.

Pop Squally wasn’t just my president. He wasn’t just the man who sat at the head of the table and banged the gavel. He was my compass. My anchor. The son of a bitch who taught me to survive when the world was set on chewing me up.

When the wild man inside me was testing the waters of the Marines, it was Pop who sat me down and got me on the straight and narrow.

When the cops shoved me face first onto the hood of my car it was Pop who showed up dragging me out of the county jail for the drunken behavior at a strip club when I was twenty-one.

It was Pop who went to my court-martial hearing for getting in trouble off base when I wasn’t authorized to leave quarters.

The man not only saved my career, but he honestly saved my life.

And when I earned my final rocker as a Saint’s Outlaw, it was Pop Squally who sewed that patch on my cut.

And his words that day have carried me ever since. “Brotherhood ain’t blood, Gonzo. It’s bone deep. You break it, you’ll feel the pain forever.”

Now his bones were about to be in the ground separated from us forever.

The Saint’s Outlaws stood in formation around the grave.

We carried him with a Marine guard escort since we weren’t using them for pallbearers.

Every patch gleamed black, teal, and beige in the sunlight.

Leather creaked as brothers shifted, boots heavy in the wet grass.

Our bikes circled the cemetery like steel beasts, engines still warm from the ride in.

We’d thundered through Dreadnought that morning in a procession so loud windows shook and dogs barked for miles. It wasn’t just a funeral—it was a warning. This town would never forget Pop Squally’s last ride.

But for me, for us—it wasn’t just about grief. It was about rage. Because Pop didn’t die of age, or chance. He died of betrayal.

And the reason for that betrayal stood across the graveyard, dressed in a black silk dress with a veil shading her tear-streaked face.

Hampton Stanley’s wife.

As much as I wanted to choke the very life from her body and feel her last breath in my arms, it wasn’t what Pop would have wanted.

She fell in love, he was in lust. They weren’t destined to be something, but she wouldn’t leave Stanley, and his pride was too much to have a whore for a wife that fucked around with a biker.

The preacher’s voice droned, but I barely heard him.

The bugle piped in playing Taps before the guns fired his twenty-one gun salute.

With a nod from the presentation Marine, I removed the cut from the casket, draping it over my arm.

Two Marines flanked the casket at the head and foot to remove the flag.

With practiced precision they fold the flag and present it to Pop’s nephew as that was his only blood family in attendance.

The preacher piped back up and the ache in my chest grew tighter.

His words about eternal rest and God’s plan floated like smoke, meaningless against the roar inside me.

What the hell did God know about Pop Squally?

About what it meant to bleed for a brother, to keep a code when the world offered you nothing but rot?

This wasn’t God’s plan.

This was Hampton Stanley’s.

And his wife had been Pop’s lover.

She thought she could hide behind her veil, crying crocodile tears, pretending like she hadn’t sold him out. Pretending like she wasn’t the rope that tied him down. Luckily she kept her distance and allowed us to grieve our president without her invading our time as a reminder of why he was gone.

The official service done, it was Saint’s time to honor our brother.

I passed the cut to Tower to hold while I had the honor of the first scoop.

The shovel felt heavy in my hands. The dirt was wet, sticking in clumps, weighing twice what it should.

I tossed it in, each thud on the coffin like a gunshot in my chest.

Memories slammed me with every scoop.

Pop laughing so hard he fell out of his chair when I accidentally lit my sleeve on fire during a run. Pop grabbing me by the collar when I nearly shot a man who’d spat at me, growling, Save your bullets for the ones who matter, Gonzo.

He mattered.

And now he was gone.

Shanks lit the torch. The flames caught quick, leaping sky-high in the old oil barrel. One by one, the brothers dropped their flames in, fists raised high.

“For Pop!” they roared, voices shaking the earth.

“For Pop!” I bellowed, throat raw, chest hollow. I dropped the worn cut down into the barrel, allow the flames to carry the particles to the sky where Pop would be riding for eternity.

The fire reflected in their eyes, but all I saw was smoke. Smoke and betrayal.

I didn’t wait. I walked straight for her. She stiffened, clutching her purse like it was a shield.

“Mrs. Stanley,” I said, my voice low and sharp.

She tried to steady herself. “I only came to pay my respects. He was a good man.”

“Don’t.” I stepped closer. “Don’t you dare pretend like you respected him.”

Her lips trembled. “That’s not fair?—”

“Not fair?” My laugh was sharp as a knife. “You fucked him behind your husband’s back. You whispered secrets while Hampton sharpened the blade. You think this coffin ain’t on you? Think again.”

Her eyes widened, tears spilling. “I never wanted?—”

“Save it.” I leaned in so close she flinched from my breath. “Pop’s dead because you couldn’t keep your mouth or your legs shut. You might think tears wash blood clean. They don’t. Not with me.”

She sobbed, stumbling back, heels sinking into the grass. Whispers rippled through the crowd as she turned and fled.

I didn’t chase.

Didn’t need to.

I just called after her, my voice booming across the cemetery. “This is far from over. Let your man know I’m comin’ for him and I don’t give a fuck if you land in the crossfire.”

O ne Week Later

The courthouse reeked of bleach and fear. Too clean, too false. Like they were trying to scrub the corruption out with soap.

The brothers filled the benches behind me, a wall of cuts staring down the system. My ex-wife sat stiff as stone, rosary digging into her palms.

Devyn stood at the defense table, suit sharp, hair pulled back tight, steel in her eyes.

And then there was GJ.

My boy. Shackled at the wrists, orange jumpsuit drowning him.

But his chin stayed up. His eyes found mine the second he walked in, and for a heartbeat, I didn’t see a prisoner.

I saw my kid at ten years old, grinning up at me while he begged to ride on the back of my Harley.

I saw him at six in his little league uniform, dust on his knees, beaming because I’d made it to the game despite the chaos of military life.

Now I saw him broken, crushed under the weight of lies.

The prosecution spun their tale smooth as bootcamp sheets on a rack. They painted him as a killer with motive, rage, and opportunity. Witnesses paraded in, eyes darting, voices rehearsed. Evidence laid out like a predator’s candy, shiny and poisoned.

Devyn tore into them. She ripped holes in their stories, exposed contradictions, shredded the timeline until it barely held. But none of it mattered.

Not with Judge Walsh smirking over his bench, overruling every damn motion Devyn made. Not with Hampton Stanley’s money greasing the whole system, he wasn’t being impartial and it was obvious.

Each time Devyn stood, Walsh cut her down. Each time the jury looked hesitant, Walsh steered them back with instructions dipped in poison.

I sat there, fists clenched, rage coiled tight in my chest. I wanted to tear the place apart. Wanted to wrap my hands around Walsh’s throat until the smirk drained from his face.

But I sat.

Because my boy needed me there.

The time passed by agonizingly slow and yet too fast. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I felt like I was stuck in a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.

I had been to war. I had watched men die.

I had faced widows to give them their husband’s dog tags or letters.

I had watched enemies use children as weapons strapping bombs to their little bodies and sending them in.

I had seen the worst things a man should see.

And nothing cut me deeper than seeing my son stand before a jury of twelve facing charges for a crime he did not commit.

The jury filed back, stone-faced, their eyes avoiding mine.

Walsh leaned forward, smirk tugging at his lips like a wolf waiting to feast. He followed the protocols asking if they had reached a verdict and giving any of them a chance to reverse their decision before it was announced.

The words were a blur until the crushing blow came in.

The foreman stood. “We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree.”

The words detonated in my chest. I didn’t take in much of what was said next. I kept hearing the word over and over.

Guilty.

Guilty.

Guilty.

My breath came ragged, fists slamming against the wooden half wall in front of me. “No.” The word tore from me, drowned by Walsh’s gavel.

“Bailiff, remove this man and his associates.”

Rage coursed through me as my son turned and looked over his shoulder at me. “It’s okay, Dad. Devyn said this might happen.” His words a whisper but not one bit soothing.

Tower grabbed me by my shoulders, squeezing. “Come on, brother, you gotta get out of her before you make it worse on the boy.”

I shook my head and gathered myself together.

The deputy approached me, and I sat back in my seat.

He came closer as Judge Walsh spoke. “If he can remain in his seat then we can continue.” The bailiff back away just a bit.

“We have a special provision from the governor today to move forward with sentencing.”

The world stopped spinning. Everything froze. How was this possible?

I didn’t comprehend what the judge was saying until the end. “Sentenced to life in prison. Without the possibility of parole,” Walsh declared, smirk spreading wide.

The floor dropped out from under me.

GJ’s face stayed stone, but I saw the flicker—the hopelessness he’d been fighting finally slipping through. He stood, keeping his head held high and allowed the deputies to approach him.

“GJ!” I roared as the bailiffs hauled him away. Chains rattled, orange glaring bright against the marble walls. He turned once, eyes locking with mine.

And then he was gone.

I stumbled out of that courthouse hollow. Nothing mattered.

Only two names played in my head. Target acquired. Mission begins now.

Judge Connor Walsh.

Hampton Stanley. The mayor who thought he was untouchable. The judge who smirked while my son’s life was stolen.

They thought they’d won.

But they didn’t know me.

I was Gonzo.

And this war had just begun.

I swore it on Pop Squally’s grave. I swore it on my son’s chains.

I would make them both pay. And anyone else tied to them would feel my wrath too.

Every law broken, every line crossed, every sin committed—it didn’t matter.

The only thing that mattered now was vengeance.

And I’d burn Dreadnought to the ground to get it.