Iron Disciples MC 2 Giving It All To The 1% (2 page)

My eyes flicked open, my lips still
flat against Johnny’s chest, and I saw behind him the door burst
open. Johnny spun off of me quickly, and reached out as if by
reflex for the loaded handgun that was sitting on the nightstand.
He had to pause mid-movement however, frozen there with his arm
outstretched, just barely missing the gun. SWAT officers had
flooded into the room, all decked out in military grade equipment –
full body armor & helmets, assault rifles, chock full utility
belts.

“Freeze! Don’t move!”

They didn’t have to tell us
twice.

“Ma’am, you can pull your pants back
on,” one of them directed me. They seemed to be a little bit more
sympathetic towards me, treated me a bit more softly. The officer
waited as I struggled to pull my jeans back up around my waist and
zip them up, and then he offered me a gloved hand to help me up off
of the bed and onto my feet. Johnny, on the other hand, didn’t
receive quite the same courtesies. One of the SWAT officers pounced
on him crudely and roughly jerked and wrangled his hands behind his
back, locking him into handcuffs, while another stood menacingly
just feet away with an assault rifle aimed square at his face. Once
they had him cuffed up and no longer perceived him to be a threat,
the guns weren’t pointed at him nearly so boldly, but they still
yanked him up to his feet and shoved him out of the room and out
into the main barroom without a shred of respect shown.

The one officer left turned to me and
motioned with a pair of handcuffs in his hands.

“I uh… I’m afraid I have to ma’am.
It’s just procedure.”

I nodded, trembling slightly from the
entire ordeal, still startled and half in shock from having armed
to the teeth police burst into the room on me. I let him place the
handcuffs on me – and he did so as gently as possible, again in
stark contrast to the way they had handled Johnny – and then he
followed me out through the hallway and into the main area of the
clubhouse.

The large main entrance door at been
blown off of its hinges, barstools were overturned. The most
curious thing to me was the pool cues and pool balls that were
scattered all over the floor. I examined them curiously as we
walked out, wondering how in the world those had ever ended up all
over the floor during a police raid. Skids must have seen me
staring at them inquisitively, and he wasn’t about to let me go on
wondering.

“I started chunking them at the cops
when they burst in.” I remember Johnny mentioning that Skids had
been a highly recruited college baseball player before he was
kicked out of the university for… legal troubles. I looked up to
see one of the SWAT officers nursing a busted lip… just about the
only part of their bodies that was exposed and not covered with
some sort of protective armor. The lip was already swollen to a
gruesome size, and there was still blooding running all down the
officer’s chin from it.

Skids turned his attention to the
officer as well. “Sorry, bro. Reflexes… you know.”

He had a devilish grin on his face
that spread from cheek to cheek.

He was the only one of the Iron
Disciples who was grinning, however. The police had gathered the
whole gang up in the main room. They were all handcuffed and on
their knees, left under the supervision of a handful of officers
who held their assault rifles at the ready, fingers just inches
away from the triggers, while the rest of the police ransacked the
clubhouse. I didn’t know what they were looking for, but they were
looking awfully hard.

Johnny had a grim look on his face –
like he was chewing shards of glass and just about ready to kill
someone – and his stare never left the eyes of the police officers.
It made some of them uncomfortable, as I noticed every now and then
they would look away, but when their gaze would eventually find its
way back to Johnny, that same hateful stare was still waiting there
to greet them.

“What’s this about anyway?” Big Sam
piped up. “We haven’t done anything wrong. We’re just motorcycle
enthusiasts, for fuck’s sake.”

None of the police officers said
anything. They just kept their silent watch over the
boys.

It wasn’t long before the rest of the
officers all reconvened in the main room, and it appeared that
their little scavenger hunt had left them empty handed. The police
chief, who was not dressed out in full military gear and had waited
behind until after the raid was finished, had come strolling into
the clubhouse now, accompanied by a few of his men. The leader of
the SWAT team came up to greet him.

“The building is clean, sir. There’s
nothing here. A little bit of marijuana, but not anything beyond
quantities for personal possession.”

“Shit. They must have been tipped off,
scrubbed the place beforehand.”

Big Sam gave the police chief a cheesy
smile. “Or maybe this is just a club for people who like to ride
motorcycles together. Shouldn’t you guys be out there catching
murderers and kiddy diddlers instead of harassing upstanding
citizens exercising their constitutional right to freely
gather?”

The chief shot him a cold
and dirty look. “Samuel Vines, Sr. You got a rap sheet the
size
of the U.S.
constitution. Do I need to pull it up and refresh your
memory?”

“The occasional trip down memory lane
is good for old bastards like us, Bill.”

“Sheesh,” the chief said, just shaking
his head. “Alright, let them go, boys. They haven’t done anything
wrong… this time.” He turned to Johnny. “Where’s Elliot
at?”

Johnny stood up and flexed his wrists
as one of the officers removed his handcuffs. “He’s on an extended
business trip to the east coast. I’m in charge for the time
being.”

“Alright. Well, I just need to go over
some paperwork with you and we’ll be out of your hair. We must have
had some bad intel or something. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s all it was.
Just a case of bad intel,” Johnny said, and went over to a secluded
corner with the chief to take care of their business.

One of the officers released my
handcuffs and apologized to me, and soon the rest of the guys were
all free and muttering amongst themselves. When Johnny was finished
speaking with the police chief he came over to me and caressed my
neck with his hand. I felt the cold metal of the rings around his
fingers, the rough calloused skin of his palm.

“Alright, babe. You’d better head on
home for a while. We’ve got some things to figure out around here.
Probably gonna be pretty busy for a while.”

“I understand.”

“I’ll give you a call later,
okay?”

I nodded and kissed him lightly on the
cheek, then headed towards the entrance – towards what was left of
the door after the police busted it down.

“See ya, Hannah,” Skids
said.

I nodded. “Yeah. Later, guys. Stay out
of trouble, will you?”

*

I was at my new apartment later that
day, pulling dishes from the dishwasher and placing them into the
cabinets, when I heard my cell phone buzzing on the table behind
me.

“Hello?”

“Hannah, it’s Johnny. Can you come on
down to the clubhouse?”

“Sure. I’m just cleaning up a bit. I
can leave in an hour or so.”

“No. I need you to come down here
now.”

“Um…. okay. Yeah, I can do
that.”

“Alright. Bye.”

I stood there for a moment with the
phone in my hand, wondering what that was all about, then I slipped
some shoes on, gathered up my purse, and headed out the
door.

When I arrived at the clubhouse, most
of the guys were seated around the bar, including Johnny. He
offered me a seat and I sat down.

“What’s this all about?” I
said.

Johnny had a grim look on his
face.

Terry tapped his fingers anxiously on
the counter top. “So… after the raid this morning I started doing
some digging. The police had no reason to raid the clubhouse that I
can think of. Something made them go through all the trouble of
getting a warrant for that shit. I looked into a few things, tapped
a few friends at the police department to get my hands on personnel
files and came up with something interesting.” His fingers
continued rapping away on the counter. The rest of the crew sat in
silence, their eyes on me. My stomach started turning. I didn’t
feel very safe, suddenly. Something was wrong.

Terry continued. “Detective James
Patrick Reilly. In charge of a number of investigations, including
instances of ‘organized criminal activity’ by ‘outlaw motorcycle
gangs’… whatever that’s supposed to mean. Immediate family, wife
Elizabeth Mills Reilly, deceased, and one daughter… Hannah Marie
Reilly.”

Shit,
I thought.
Dad
.

“What the hell is that all about,
Hannah?” Johnny finally spoke, though he sat still as a
statue.

I was sweating now, and my hands were
trembling nervously. “It doesn’t mean anything! The raid wasn’t my
fault, I swear. I haven’t spoken with him in twelve years. Not
since mom…”

Johnny didn’t move. He didn’t even
blink. The only visible movement was the very slight chewing of his
lip. I didn’t know what to expect. I’m not even sure the rest of
the club knew what to expect. They were all on the edge of their
seats.

And then he exploded with a kind of
rage I had never seen before. His face was red, spittle misting
from his lips. “How could you not tell me something like that!?
Don’t you think that’s something I might have wanted to
know!?”

I jumped back, frightened
now. “I… I’m sorry! He’s not a part of my life, I swear. I haven’t
so much as
seen
him in twelve years.”

Johnny tried to contain his rage.
Everyone could see it quite visibly. He seethed and clutched his
fists tightly over and over, not knowing what to do with the
bottled up anger, and then slammed his fist down hard onto the
counter top, causing me to jump. “FUCK!” And then he slammed it
down again, and again, and again, each time yelling in unison,
“FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!”

I was terrified. I didn’t know what he
was going to do, what any of them were going to do.

“Get out of here. You don’t
belong here. You never did. It was a mistake bringing you around
here in the first place. You
and
that goddamned writer.”

“But…”

“Go!”

I picked up my purse, slid off the
barstool and walked out into the parking lot. I was in tears at
this point, and for the longest time I just sat in my car
fruitlessly trying to wipe tears away from my eyes with the sleeve
of my jacket.

*

I spent the next few weeks in a state
of introspective disbelief. I kept questioning myself, wondering if
I should have played it any differently. I was telling them the
truth, of course. I hadn’t spoken to my father in nearly twelve
years, and had no intentions of changing that either. He wasn’t
even a detective the last time I had seen him. Just some two-bit
cop way down the law enforcement food chain. I really did have
nothing to do with that raid.

If I had been honest with Johnny from
the start, I wondered if he would have even let me get as close as
I did. I made a decision not to tell him, thinking that it wasn’t
that big of a deal. I knew better though. If I really thought it
wasn’t that big of a deal, I would have just told him. But I
didn’t. I was afraid he would push me away. And look what happened…
I got pushed out anyway.

I had felt lucky that Johnny came into
my life when he did. Because of him, that whole mess with David
really never bothered me at all. I didn’t have much time to think
about it, to be honest. If he hadn’t been there, I’m pretty sure
that whole ordeal would have torn me apart. I considered it a
blessing then. Now I was left wondering if that’s really what it
was. It was starting to look like just another setup for another
heartbreak. Another one completely out of my control.

Fucking bimbos. Fucking
dad.

I snatched a ceramic coaster off the
table next to me and threw it angrily against the wall, where it
left a small indentation. I had just started to get up to pick up
the coaster when I heard my cell phone buzzing from inside of my
purse. I fished it out and held it up to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Hannah. It’s Johnny. Look… can you
come up to the clubhouse?”

“I thought you didn’t want me there. I
don’t belong there. Remember?”

“Jesus, Hannah, don’t give me that
shit now. Look, just come up to the clubhouse, will you? We need to
talk about some things.”

I held the phone down at my side for a
moment, chewing on my bottom lip, and then finally raised it back
up to my ear.

“Fine. I’ll be there in thirty
minutes.”

When I got to the club, the whole gang
was there waiting. Johnny was leaned over the bar countertop,
finishing off a pint of beer when I made my way over and sat down
on the empty stool next to him.