Page 32 of Tinsel & Chrome

MAMMOTH

2 Years Later...

It was September, and the annual Ocean City Bike Fest was in high gear. One week out of the year, thousands of people from up and down the East Coast rode in on their bikes or pulled them on trailers. Bike Fest was a riding-drinking-eating-fuck fest, but by the end of the week, it got the best of some brothers in the club, including me. I had this monkey on my back called insomnia, which I’d suffered from for a few years, and by the time Bike Week was over, I needed a week just to recover.

Bike Fest also brought in our other Merciless Few chapter members from up and down the East Coast. The Maryland Chapter in Ocean City was the national chapter, hosting parties at the clubhouse every night. Since Zero was the National President and I the VP, we made sure all our chapter brothers felt welcome.

The first nights, the clubhouse was packed with Merciless Few brothers and their ole ladies. I was going on twenty-four hours with no sleep, and Zero planned to hold church with the officials from other chapters the following night.

The West Virginia Chapter’s enforcer, Sampson, approached, asking if I’d walk outside with him to talk in private. Tall and slender, with long dark hair and a long beard, he was covered in ink like most club members.

We walked past the rows of parked motorcycles in the parking lot, stopping beside a big oak tree about twenty yards away.

By that time, I was halfway through my bottle of whiskey.

“What’s so top secret that you have to tell me out here?” I asked.

“You know how the West Virginia Chapter helped the Black Dagger MC wipe out the Soulless Bastards and took in their women to give them protection and a new start in life?”

“Yeah. I hope you made those sons a bitches suffer first.”

“We did and gave them no fucking mercy for what they did to the women they kidnapped and abused. It’s why I wanted to talk to you first before letting your Prez know.”

“Let Zero know what?”

Sampson combed a hand through his long hair, looked dead serious, and sighed.

“One of the women we helped escape the Soulless Bastards’ compound says her name is Wren Hughes. She claims to be Zero’s sister.”

He handed me his phone, and I looked at a picture of a thin woman with long blond hair. She was smiling, but it looked forced. Zero had shown me photos of Wren as a teenager, with the face of an angel, but I couldn’t tell if the image on Sampson’s phone was really her.

“It could be her, but I can’t tell just by looking at this pic. I should meet her in person before we say anything to Zero,”

I said, then lifted the bottle of whiskey to my mouth and swallowed.

“She’s got a kid too, a little girl. But she hasn’t told us who the father is.”

That was a game-changer. If the woman was who she said she was, then Zero was an uncle.

I handed Sampson back his phone.

“Where are you staying?”

“I’ve got her and the kid a hotel room in Berlin, away from all the noise.”