Starting Over (3 page)

harmless bike clubs, and the infighting between the older established clubs, something

had to be decided soon. It was time to modernize the Breed, or they would be a

moldering blurb in history books.

The explosion that rocked the building had everyone hitting the deck. Ceiling tiles

and rock lath flew through the room, and Race caught a sharp piece of shingle on his

cheek. Electrical wires arced and a few moans could be heard. The old rotted timber

that supported the roof was burning, and shit was still falling on the men inside the

building. A secondary explosion caused the occupants to head for the exits. Some of

the men had guns drawn in case this ambush came complete with snipers stationed to

take them out one by one.

The crowd of bikers could do nothing but stare at the smoldering pile of iron and

melted tires that was kept at bay because the tanks kept exploding. That explained the

secondary explosion they’d heard. Men were doing their best to hose the burning bikes

and ignoring the building, until the fire caught the gas lines. The explosion from that

had several men running toward the five hundred gallon propane tank beside the

building to shut the gas off, before the tank exploded too.

They were too late, the sidewall had fallen over and flames that danced along the

painted wood burned a deeper blue, and both Race and War stopped and immediately

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Starting Over by Ryder Dane

reversed their tracks. They were shouting, trying to warn the men in front of the burning

building. “Get down, run, get the fuck away from the building,” was shouted and,

“Bomb,” was the only word that final y got most of their attention. Fetch, Slick, and Zero

were standing with Wolfman talking. War really hated to save the fuckers, and from the

way Race seemed to hesitate too they exchanged a long look and each man turned

aside to start grabbing men by the arm and yelling at them to get down, run and, “Move

your asses.”

Race saw the whores and club’s passarounds standing behind the fire, they were all

staring and not moving, unaware of the danger. “Fuckin’ women.” He started toward

them, yelling at them to, “Get the fuck away from the fire.” He tackled three of them,

and they screamed, but he told them to, “Shut the fuck up.” Gummy was still standing,

ignoring his demand that she, “Hit the dirt you dumb Bitch.”

War came up on her left side, and tackled her to the ground. “You women crawl

your asses behind the trailers, if you want to live to see another day, that propane tank

is going to blow and it wil be like the fires of hel hitting your skin. Move it.”

Billy, Pete, Mambo, and two other men he knew only by sight, were leading the

females away. Gummy turned to look at him with her one eye and smiled. He watched

her jerk her head to the side at him, “You should leave now.” She raised her hand, and

he could see that she held a small cheap cell phone. Her finger sat on a key, and he

understood exactly what was going on.

Okay, this was unexpected, he nodded at her and said, “Let’s do this, give me a

second to stand up, and I’ll get us to safety. When I say ‘now’, push the key, and be

ready to go. She looked puzzled, but nodded her head. He looked around them and

saw no one was paying any attention to them,
good
. He stood and hauled her over his

shoulder, beginning to run. “Now,” and he imagined her finger touching off the

detonation. It wouldn’t have mattered if him or Race had gotten to the tank to shut it off.

The tank must’ve been rigged before the first explosion, and as his boots ate up the

dusty ground with the woman hanging over his shoulder, he counted the seconds.

He could see that Race and the rest of the men had kept the women moving

instead of allowing them to take cover behind the fragile metal trailers, and headed their

way. The explosion behind them rolled the trailers, jerking them from the metal tie

downs and cement blocks. Screams and men with burning clothing could be seen and

heard from the distance the small party of survivors stood. The propane tank fell from

the sky and landed on men and iron.

Sirens could be heard in the distance, and War held Gummy until she stopped

shaking. “Are you alright?” Her nod was jerky, but physically he knew there wasn’t a

scratch on her. Her mental state, well, that was another thing. She kept watching the

flames and naming the men she recognized still standing by the light of the burning pile

of rubble.

“You don’t say anything to anybody, do you hear me? The place was a nest of

vipers and depraved motherfuckers, and you did what no one else had the guts to do.

Just shut it, and look like you’re scared.”

He sent her to sit with her friends then walked toward the burning pile of what used

to be the National Headquarters of Lucifer’s Breed MC, Bracket Hills, Ohio. Race

walked beside him. “What the fuck just happened here?” He shook his head and kept

going. He wasn’t certain why, but he was sure Gummy wasn’t working alone.

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Starting Over by Ryder Dane

The screams of pain and fright coming from under the rubble made every survivor

shiver. Those men and women, who’d been sleeping or fucking in the basement rooms,

were trapped with nowhere to go, and from the amount of choking, no way out alive.

Wolfman was barely alive, and Race knew the man wouldn’t last long, so he left the

silently screaming corpse lying with his three favorite henchmen who were incinerated

into ashes, they hadn’t moved when Race and War shouted their warnings, and they’d

paid the price. There might be enough of them to identify by DNA samples, but the men

left standing agreed it was their own stupidity and arrogance that had gotten them killed.

The hurried headcount including the injured, told them that fourteen men were

dead, or missing. Ten men were badly burned, and two of those would pray for death

when the pain overrode the endorphins. The remaining men stood shell-shocked to see

the burning pile of rubble that had been the National Headquarters for the Breed since

the club started.

The fire trucks rushed through the gate and set up camp, but by then the damage

had been done, there were no more screams or human noises coming from beneath the

burning pile. There were cops everywhere, every agency in the state was represented

within the first five hours, and if Race guessed right, there was a Fed or two there too.

There wasn’t a bike that had been saved from the mess, including Race’s stripped

down Indian Chief. It was an older model, but still a classic, and he was pissed about

the waste of a beautiful machine. War was cussing a blue streak when he tried to touch

the handlebars of his Chopper, and Race could relate to the man’s outrage.

They all stood in the warm sunshine and waited to be grilled by the various agents

and detectives. No one knew anything, and the women were almost given a free pass.

Gummy was one that was given more pitiful looks than demands for answers, and she

glanced at War with a small smile.

Race began organizing the bikers as soon as they were let go from the

interrogations, and emergency shelters were found. Luckily several of the members

lived in houses in the town and the rural area surrounding the town, so many of them

found places to sleep that night. A couple of travel trailers and a pop-up tent camper

sat out of the perimeter of the fire scene, and both Race and War set up a command

post in the pop-up. Neither man wanted to relinquish any ground to the other.

The second day of hearing themselves speaking the same words at the same time

made them aware that there had to be a better way to rebuild the Breed. Two Bosses

wouldn’t cut it, and there hadn’t even been a hasty vote to decide who would

temporarily lead them until the National vote happened.

They were eating dinner at Double D’s when War decided they needed to talk, and

the little barmaid with the chin length hair and beautiful blue eyes was summoned to

bring a pitcher, two glasses, and four shots of Jack. “Darlin’, tell the bartender that if he

tries to substitute the Jack for that rotgut shit he tried to give me yesterday, I’l pull his

nuts off and hand them to you.” She nodded and grinned, before turning away to get

their order.

He eyed Race, who was eyeing him. “We need to talk, and I don’t see any other

way around it. The suits will be at the property in the morning, and we will need to have

a plan before they get here. I have a plan, if you don’t like it say so, and I’l listen to

your ideas. Fair enough?”

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Starting Over by Ryder Dane

He got the nod from the other man, and waited to continue until the curvy little gal

had poured them each a beer from the pitcher and set two shots next to the glasses

each. “Is there anything else I can get for you boys?” The tandem no’s answered her

question and she burst out laughing.

The men shared only their hair color in looks, reddish brown, while one had brown

eyes, the other had blue. The one with the blue eyes had a scruffy looking beard, and

the other one had a sculpted beard. Both were handsome enough to make a girl

drench her panties if she was wearing any, and their size was a pretty even match. She

wasn’t immune to their appeal, but she didn’t want to get tangled up with a biker. She

would be leaving town soon, and going back to her life in the betwixt and between of

Kansas and Missouri. Her mission here had been accomplished, even if she hadn’t

personally dealt the death blows, from what she’d gleaned from the bikers that came in

and the cops that frequented the place. Wolfman and his favorite henchmen were

dead, incinerated by a gas explosion. She was still smiling when she went back to the

bar and began cleaning out the service tubs that had accumulated during the dinner

hours.

Race was doing his share of watching the plump cheeks of her ass sway away from

their table and knew that War was watching just as avidly as he was. He poured the

first shot down his throat and swallowed the beer in his glass, while War did the same.

War started talking. “Okay, this is the way I see it, both of us are capable of running

the club, no dispute there. Both of us obviously want the club to be steered in different

directions from the old ways, because we think going legit in several areas will be

beneficial to the club. The one thing we don’t seem to agree on is that I am no threat to

you becoming the prez. I don’t particularly want the spotlight, and I don’t want the

headache. I’m used to being a chapter prez and now I’m in limbo. There’s a new

leader back home and he’s doing a great job. I can go home, but there isn’t anyone

waiting for me and seeing as how you’l need help, I’ll settle for being the VP. If you

have someone else in mind for the job, talk to me, if you don’t think we can work

together, tell me now, I get up, I walk away, and I start campaigning. I’m not good at

taking orders, so I’m without options unless I want to be a fuckin’ grunt.” He shook his

head. He hoped Race would agree to the terms he’d set, if not, this was going to be a

bloody fight outside and inside the MC Group. War would have the Southern chapters’

votes, and Race would probably sway the Northern vote.

Both men wouldn’t hesitate to play dirty, no matter if they did, they would probably

be playing the same tricks on each other. This synced thought thing or whatever it was

called, was a pain in the ass. It was uncanny how much the men thought alike.

The offer was better than he’d hoped for, if they presented a united front, any

opposition to their reign would be squashed. Race nodded thoughtful y, “Why? You

and I are pretty evenly matched. Why are you so willing to take second place when the

grand prize is up for grabs?” He didn’t like the look that came over War’s face.

“You want to know why? Wel , I guess I should tel you, a warning such as it is.

You fucking start taking the Breed down the same shitty drugged out road that Wolfman

did, I’ll be right there to drop your ass where you stand. The job goes to your head, and

I will be there to either knock some sense into it, or cut it off at the neck. Checks and