Ryker by Jeneveir Evans
Chapter 10
I’ll never stop dreaming that one day we can be a real family, together, all of us laughing and talking, loving and understanding, not looking at the past but only to the future.
~LaToya Jackson~
Ryker
October 14th, 1999
South Dakota
I looked at the time on my phone and sighed. I’m not known for my patience, at least not when it comes to things I want.
And right now, I wanted to make a phone call.
It was fifteen till five. I knew the fucker usually got up early. I couldn’t wait any longer. I punched a button on my phone and heard it ring.
“Long time, fucker,” he said as he answered the phone.
I grinned at hearing the familiar voice of someone I knew I could trust. Someone I considered a friend.
“That it has. You doing good?”
“Ry, I can honestly say this is the best I’ve ever been.”
“Damn, Vip. That’s good to hear.”
“I can hear in your voice that it’s not the same way for you. Talk to me, Brother.”
“I was wondering if you can find out a couple things for me.”
“I’m listening.”
“I want to bring my family to visit with Bane, his woman and my new grandson. Do you think you can ask if we’ll be allowed into the compound to visit with them? I’ll be bringing Trina as well. If you know of a good hotel, let me know and I’ll rent us a few rooms.”
“How long you planning on staying?”
“Hopefully a week.”
“What’s the other thing?”
“Vip, I need to talk to you and your Prez. You think you can arrange a meeting?”
“I’m sure I can. What’s going on, Ry?”
I sighed. “Vip, I’d rather talk to you about this in person. Bane has no clue that we’re coming down or that I’ve asked for a meeting. I’m going to let him know in a little while that we are leaving in the morning headed your direction. I don’t want him to know anything about the meeting just in case it doesn’t go well.”
“You’ve got me curious, Ry. I’m sure you’ll be allowed on the compound to visit. I’ll vouch for you and your family. As for a meeting with Dog, consider it a done deal. I’ll also check into hotels for you.”
“Thanks, Vip. I’ll let you know when we roll into town.”
“Alright, Ry. We’ll see you soon.”
Well, that was one thing out of the way. Now to talk to my kids. I knew this might not go as easy. I got up, went inside, and started breakfast. Between the smell of coffee and bacon, I soon heard my crew stirring. Next, I heard the thumping of feet as they came down the stairs. As all the kids came into the kitchen, surprise lit their faces.
“You cooked breakfast?” Bronte asked in disbelief.
“Hey now, you know I cook breakfast sometimes,” I muttered, trying to sound offended while struggling to keep a smile off my face.
“Dad, the last time you cooked I was still in school,” she spouted.
I tilted my head as I thought about that. Damn, she was right. The last time I cooked breakfast was when she asked me to make her breakfast on the first day of her senior year. It had been a bittersweet morning knowing my baby girl was almost grown. Trina walked into the room and arched a brow at me.
“Don’t say a word or I’ll eat all the damn food by myself,” I growled.
“If I wasn’t starving, I’d almost say something because I’d like to see you try to eat everything,” Raiden said with a half-assed cocky smirk on his face.
“Something going on?” Taron asked.
I glanced at him then Tor, both had the same concerned expression on their faces.
“Get your plates fixed and we’ll talk,” I told my crew.
Everyone quietly made their plates then sat at the dining room table. I cut up my eggs then reached for the salt and pepper. No one else had made a move. I sighed.
“Eat first, then we’ll talk.”
Breakfast was a silent affair which wasn’t normal for us. My kids tended to be loud and rowdy. They liked to pick at each other and they were all good at it too. I watched as my children finished their food and turned their gazes in my direction.
“Spill,” Bronte demanded.
“We’re going to leave either today or tomorrow and head toward Arkansas. I want to see my grandson.”
While smiles crossed the faces of my kids, they knew me well enough to know I had a bigger plan in play.
“Dad,” Raiden spoke up, “What aren’t you telling us?”
“Today is going to be a long day. We’ve got a shit ton of things to do. Most of it will be driving. I told you all to pack everything into the box truck that you want to take with you when we move to Arkansas. Trina said that you each have everything in there that you want to keep. As soon as we finish talking, I want you to carry out my instructions.
“Tor, I already have Trina’s car on the trailer and hitched to the box truck. I want you to take the truck and head toward Ma’s place. I want the rest of you to follow him. Trina, you drive the Suburban and the rest of you take your vehicles. Trina, you bring everyone back in the SUV.
“Then on the second trip, I want all four of you to take your motorcycles and head back to Ma’s place. Trina will again follow you there. Bronte and Raiden, I want you both to stay at Ma’s this trip. Bronte, I need you to rent four bike trailers. You and Raiden take your trucks and pick up two of the trailers, then go back and pick up the other two. Then load your bikes plus Taron’s on three of them.
“Trina, when you bring Tor and Taron back, we’ll all head out. I will ride one of my bikes and Tor is riding the second one. Taron, you’ll drive Tor’s truck. When we arrive at Ma’s, I’m switching the trailer hauling Trina’s car to the Suburban. I don’t want to take the chance of the box truck overheating on our trip. Then I’ll load my second bike on the last motorcycle trailer and Tor can pull it behind his truck. We’re going to leave Tor’s and my main bike at Ma’s place.
“Everyone will be driving a vehicle to Arkansas.
“It will probably be better if we spend the night at Ma’s and head out tomorrow morning. After driving three rounds trips of two hundred and fifty miles each, I know you will be exhausted.
“Dad, now tell us what you aren’t saying,” Bronte pressed.
Taron’s expression was grim. He was the deep thinker of my family. All my children were smart and knew the score, but Taron saw all the nuances of any given situation. I knew he had already figured out what I was going to ask of them.
“I need you all to listen to me. You’re not going to like what you’re about to hear and I get it, I do. But you have got to do this for me. I need you to do this for me. I need to be able to concentrate on the storm that’s brewing with King.”
I took a deep breath then let my kids know what was going to happen.
“After our visit is over, Tor and I will be the only ones coming home. I need the rest of you to stay there.”
Bronte, Taron and Raiden opened their mouths in protest.
“Listen, dammit,” I ordered gruffly before they could speak. “I need to know you’re safe. If I don’t know that, I will be distracted and I can’t afford to have my attention split between you kids and what I need to concentrate on with the club. It’s going to take everything I have to get Tor and whoever else wants to come with us away from here alive.
“If I’m worried about you, I may fuck something up and if I do that then, well…” I didn’t finish my sentence, my kids knew what I meant. They knew if I fucked something up that someone was probably going to die.
All three of my youngest kids slumped in their seats. No matter how bad they wanted to argue against my plans, they knew in the long run that I was right.
“What’s the plan when we get there, Dad?” Tor inquired.
“I’ve asked Viper to recommend a good hotel, I’ll call him once we get close and we’ll rent three hotel rooms. We’ll then visit with Bane’s family over the weekend. During the week we’ll find a place to rent for now. We’ll need to buy some furniture, but I think we can easily get that done in a week’s time.”
“Dad, I don’t want to leave my bike at a hotel while we aren’t there,” Raiden stated.
I knew all my kids felt that way. Each one of their bikes were classics and they’d worked hard with me to restore them.
“I’ll ask Vip if he knows of a safe place we can leave them when I call him about the hotel.”
They all tipped their heads toward me at my response.
“I really want to argue with you, Dad, I really do,” Bronte murmured. “But I know you’re right. It’s just the thought of you and Tor being up here by yourselves scares me spitless.”
I stood up and my daughter flew into my arms. “I have backup, baby girl. All of you can call or text me anytime you want. If I don’t answer you right away, then I will as soon as possible.”
“Promise?” she whispered.
“I promise, Bronte.”
~*~
While they were busy doing vehicle runs, I went to the garage like normal. If anyone drove by, I wanted them to see my bike out front. If anyone stopped and wanted to know where the boys were, I’d simply tell them that they were on a parts run. Since I didn’t have anything scheduled to work on today, I started getting my tools squared away. I was still going to have to work until I figured out how the fuck I was going to get us away from King and the club. But some of them I could get packed away.
I didn’t plan on letting King know about our trip until right before we left Ma’s in the morning. I’d decided to present this to him as a done deal. He could get pissed if he wanted to, I didn’t really give a fuck. I knew I was pushing it, but I couldn’t give him the chance to try to thwart my plans. My family came first. It always would.
After working for a few hours, I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Brawn.
Me: Garage
Brawn: Omw
When I heard his Harley pull into the lot, I walked outside.
“Hey, brother. Want something to drink?” I asked as I stopped by the soda machine.
“Yeah, grab me a Dr. Pepper,” he replied.
I shook my head, smiling the entire time I dug change out of my pocket. We always had the same damn conversation when it concerned our choice of soft drinks.
“You know this shit tastes like nasty black licorice. I don’t know how you drink it,” I uttered as I dropped the money into the slot and got his drink then I added more money and punched the button for a Coke.
“I don’t know how you drink that sugary acid,” he replied.
We grinned at each other as I handed him his drink and we headed to the picnic table I had sitting under a tree beside the shop. Once we were seated, he looked at me with a brow arched.
“What’s going on?”
“Going to visit Bane in the morning. We’ll be gone for a week. Leaving Trina and the kids down there. Tor will be riding back with me.”
He released a deep breath. “I hate to say it but, damn, that takes off some of the pressure. I’ve been worried as fuck about them being here during all the shit I know is going to bombard us.”
“I haven’t talked to the fucker since our last Church. He hasn’t officially said anything yet has he?”
“Nah, Ry. I have a feeling once he knows you’re gone that something will come up about it.”
I nodded. “Brawn, need you to watch out for the boys. Let them know I’ll be out of pocket for a week. Tell them if they need me to give me a call.”
“You know you don’t have to ask me to do that. You know I will.”
“I know, still…”
“I getcha, Ry. You’ve always taken too much on your shoulders, you know?”
“You saying you wouldn’t do the same thing if I wasn’t the one doing it?”
“Hell, you know I would. I care about them too.”
“Need to ask you something, Brawn.”
“What’s that?”
“Would you leave here? Move somewhere else?”
“Like Arkansas?”
“Yeah, bro. You think Little Bit would be willing to leave her school?” I asked him, referring to his thirteen-year-old daughter. I’d called her that since the day she was born.
“She wouldn’t have a choice if I decided to move.”
I jerked my chin at him.
“Asking you to think about it.”
“Alright.”
We were silent for a few minutes. I could tell something was weighing on him. I gave him time to decide if he wanted to talk about it or not.
“Ry, if King was dead, along with all his flunkeys, would you still want to move?”
I sighed. “Yeah, Brawn. I would.”
“You don’t want to be president of the club?”
“Hell, no. It wouldn’t matter what we do, HRMC will always have a negative reputation associated with it. For all we know, everyone that King deals with could expect us to uphold whatever arrangement he had with them. Brother, I’m being serious here. I don’t want Tor going to jail or, worse, ending up dead. Taron and Raiden both want to join a MC and I sure as fuck don’t want my younger sons in the club. Christ, I don’t want to go to jail either and I damn sure want to be alive to enjoy my family.”
He tipped his head in my direction. “Didn’t think about having to possibly uphold King’s crooked deals.”
“Brawn, keep a close eye on Little Bit. I don’t trust King as far as I can throw him.”
“That bastard touches my daughter and there won’t be anything left of him to find.”
“I have a bad feeling about this shit, Brawn. We both know the man doesn’t care about anyone but himself. If he thinks he can make money off someone, the fucker’s going to do it.”
He glanced at his watch then stood up. “Time for me to go get my girl from school. Let me know when you make it down there, Ry.”
“Will do.”
After he pulled out of the parking lot, I pulled my phone out of its case and hit the tab for Bane’s number.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, son. How’s things going with my grandson?”
“It’s going great,” he said enthusiastically.
I laughed.
“What? Was it too much?”
“On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst, Bane, how tired are you?”
He grunted. “I’m at an eight. I think Kenzie is at a twelve.”
“The joys of a newborn.”
“It seems like we no more get him fed, burped, and his diaper changed than we have to start all over again.”
“Yeah, it will be that way for another month or so.”
He groaned. “Christ. I don’t know if I can survive that long. I’ve been trying to get up with Dane every other feeding so Kenz can sleep but, hell, we are both so damn tired that we just lie there and can’t sleep.”
“You gone back to work yet?”
“Nah. Dog told me to take a few weeks off. I’m taking him up on it. I don’t know how the fuck Viper, Mia and Jennie does it.”
“Does what?”
“I thought I told you about his twins when I was there.”
“No, you didn’t. Vip has twins?”
I shook my head just thinking about having a baby at my age. There is no way in hell I could now handle everything that went with a newborn.
“Dad, last October both Mia and Jennie had twins.”
“Christ. They were dealing with four babies?”
“Yeah, they were all born on the same day. Viper walked around like a zombie for months.”
“I bet. I guess it’s better now that they are getting older.”
“They’re all walking now. It’s a good thing that Vip’s mom is living with him. That at least gives them an extra pair of hands. Just the thought of two makes me shudder, I think I would go crazy with four.”
“I agree with you on that one.” I took a sip of my drink as I listened to Bane.
“Dad, when you gonna come for a visit?”
“How does tomorrow sound?”
“Seriously?” his voice became raspy with emotion.
“Yeah. We’re all heading that way in the morning. I’ve waited as long as I could, Bane. We’ll try not to cause too much added stress, but need to see you, son. I’ve missed you. Getting to meet my grandson is a bonus.”
“God, Dad. That fucking rocks. I can’t wait to see you again. You said everyone is coming?”
“Yeah, son, even Trina.”
“Dad,” he said huskily. “This just made my day.”
I swallowed hard. “Mine too, Bane. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, son.”
“Alright. I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too, son.”
~***~