Wild Riders

And the truth

This wasn't how I imagined this day going. It had already started s**t, with Axels bullshit flirtation or whatever the hell that was supposed to be, then he wanted to kill us both by driving, and now I'm at the HQ, which turned out to be an old warehouse. They made some improvements to it, but it was far from being a good stay. I was looking around the warehouse, the walls seemed damp, and a few bikes were lining the back, all of them put on kickstands, probably because they were getting repaired. With one ear, I was listening to an angry Willy about how someone smashed up the bar, a bit amazed at how proper he sounded for someone who runs a bike club. "Bet it was the Serpents!" a buff guy standing a few feet behind me yelled out while everyone else was still kinda mumbling around, trying to figure out what's happening. "No s**t, Sherlock ..." Axel's voice came out booming yet low, obviously unimpressed with the buff guys' deduction. He was seemingly annoyed, angry, like he was on the edge of losing control, and his mood was rubbing off on the other men, who were getting louder and more aggressive by the second. "Calm down everyone, the last thing we need is a fight to ignite between our own people." Willy obviously had enough of the bickering that was now almost in full motion. He stepped forward into the crowd, his hands making a calming gesture while he spoke: "To answer earlier allegations, I don't think it was the Serpents," as the last S left his lips, everyone went quiet. A guy with long jet black hair, pulled back into a ponytail, who was standing on Willy's right, bent down to his leader's ear, whispering something that obviously sparked anger in Willy's eyes. "I'm not sure who is to blame, but when we get to the bottom of it, there will be hell to pay." there was an uproar from the crowd, but after a second doubt washed back over them. "Hope it ain't gonna be like last time when s**t like this happened," some old dude who was standing in the corner of the room was definitely not amused by the situation, but he sparked my interest with what he said. Willy's jaw tightened at his words, grinding his teeth. He then looked at him: "It fuckin' won't," The old dude just snorted at the answer and spat on the floor, took out his cigarettes from the chest pocket of his jacket and went out the door. "I would like to speak alone now with Axel, Arabelle, Storm, Granger and Knuckles. Everyone else can leave, but you five get into my office." The tension in the room was almost too much to handle. It seemed like everyone's mood just got ten times worse after the old dude's comment.

It seems like the Wild Riders had this kind of problem before.

As the crowd was slowly leaving the building, I made my way towards the back, following Axel's blond head, so I wouldn't get lost. We entered a badly lit hallway. Some doors were lining the left and right walls, all of them seemed to be made out of heavy metal. The door at the end of the hall was already open. Inside, Willy was pacing around while two other guys awkwardly stood at the side, not really knowing what to do or say. I quickly stepped into the room after Axel, already reaching for the handle of the door, when a large warm hand covered mine. I quickly retracted my hand, startled by the sudden touch, and turned my body to look behind me. A tall man, with slicked back brunette hair that still seemed messy, greeted me with a smile. His brown eyes turned the color of golden honey as the sunlight shone through the skylight on his face. "Great, Granger, step in and close the fuckin' door," Willy was not in the mood for games, but thanks to him, I now knew the name of the man standing behind me. "Imma put things as I see them boss, I think you know who did this." a guy with flaming red hair spoke first. He was towering over everybody in the room, which one would think would be impossible, but this guy was at least seven feet tall. Willy stopped pacing, he pressed his palms down against the window sill, his back turned to us. He took a deep shaky breath, like he wanted to expel some of the pent-up anger out of his system. "They left a goddamn note, the little fuckers," his voice was clipped, there was little control left in him. No one wanted to be the first to ask who it was then. A few glances were thrown around the room, before Axel rolled his eyes: "What did it say, boss?"

"The Bone Clan."

Everyone was shaking their heads, looking around the room confused, but I recognized the name. A few years ago, when I was still with my dad, I was curious, and just a teen. There were so many times that I had caught dad sneaking the black book around, hiding it whenever I'd entered the room. When he once went out for the night, it seemed like a great opportunity to see why exactly he was hiding it. Looking back on it all now, I was just a dumb kid, not knowing what was really going on, but it's been a long time since then, and I know better now.

Shaking my head, I woke up from the slip back into the past and slowly started to speak: "I've heard of them. Most of their members are from North Africa and Russia. They're little fuckers who supposedly use voodoo and what not to help them gain power over other MC's. They like to play mind tricks, manipulate so that members inside a club turn against each other. When they deem a club weak enough, they raid it, steal bikes, money, drugs, guns, anything really, that could have any value to them." Willy turned his head to the side while listening to me. "Voodoo? What bullshit are you talking about?" The guy who seemed to have naturally snow-white hair spoke now. "That's some made-up crap girl," he found all of this amusing, basically laughing while talking. "It's a tactic they use goddamn. No one believes them, of course, and then they pull some s**t, everything goes crumbling down, now everybody believes they have voodoo and that's how they f**k clubs up." Willy turned back to us, rubbing his eyes while talking to us. "They don't expect anyone to believe them, that's their advantage."

"They seek power, then what do they want with us?" the guy, who looked Irish but didn't have the accent to match, was visibly confused, and to be fair, so was I. The Wild Riders were middle ground in terms of power. They meddled around with some party drugs, they modified bikes and sold them, organized underground fights and rallies, but they didn't meddle with guns, and that's where most power comes from. "In the last few years, I've had to get creative to get some more money in. I needed some more money for the club, we got more members, needed new spaces, and the sales of the modifies were basically zero, since the cops were investigating where the illegal bikes were coming from and who was driving them." He was leaning against the window sill, now fully facing us, his hands crossed over his chess, just like ours. "I opened the nightclub as a front for a brothel, which I was totally open about to all of you. But I also got into buying and selling some harder drugs; the party drugs just weren't cutting it anymore. But hell, I didn't expect the money flow to come back tenfold what we've made before, so what I'm trying to say is, we moved leagues."

Well hell, who would've thought William was such a businessman? I was holding back a chuckle, a bit amused by the whole situation, although I shouldn't have been because this didn't necessarily mean anything good for my situation, but my current weird mood was not shared by the surrounding guys. "Why the f**k would you keep this from us?" Granger took a step forward. "We got around the nightclub because nobody is forcing the girls to do anything, and they have protection. But drugs kill people. The weed, coke and s**t was no big deal; see some rainbows and sleep it off, but this harder s**t can kill you after one hit," I was now standing between two very angry men, but Knuckles and Storm, who were standing more to the side, didn't seem any happier about the situation. "I did what I had to. Same branch, different products. It's not that big a deal, but we are better off," Willy straightened, sensing the weird energy that flooded the room. "Yeah, at the price of now being seen as pray by an MC filled with crazy people," Snow White spoke again. "Eh, wait, some old guy out there said, this happened before, what was that about?" I remember I made a mental note before to ask this, and now seemed like the time to do that, I was just hoping, I wouldn't make the situation even more tense than it already was. "That s**t was nothing compared to this. Back then, we tried to settle down in Albany. There was another MC there, we held the same level of power, and they wanted a war, to take back their city. They trashed most of our bikes while we were having a drink, and burned down our HQ and housing building. s**t didn't even start and things were getting out of hand. I didn't think s**t was worth it, so we moved on, always on the road until a few years ago when we settled down here," Willy was oddly calm while explaining. Every now and again, he took a deep breath, but it seemed he moved on from what had happened.

"The HQ and housing were investments you never got back. That's why the "new products"," I understood where he was coming from now, but I was confused about how I didn't come across all this while doing my research on them. "I still want to punch a hole in your face," it was Irish who spoke now. "I'm with Knuckles. We're family, and you just kept us out of the loop," Axel moved to Irish, who I now understood was actually Knuckles, and slapped him on his back in a brotherly manner, while maintaining a stern face. "Get off your high f*****g horse, Axel, the thousand times I've saved your ass doesn't count for s**t, huh? Same goes for you Granger. The lot of you can go f**k yourselves for speaking to me like that. I did what I had to, to keep the MC from falling apart. No MC, no family. So don't try and paint me as the bad guy," Will was up in Axels face. No fear was showing, his nostrils were flared while Axel was looking back at him from underneath his furrowed dark eyebrows. Snow White, well, Storm, was standing behind Wills' shoulder. He had a haunted look on his face, the same look was shared by Granger. It seemed they were talking about something I wasn't a part of, and I would bet all my money it has something to do with Axels f****d up state from yesterday night.