Chapter 5 FOUR

Grim reapplied his colors once he was out of the heat and in the diner. There was bound to be a lot of heat on the Beat Machines after the brawl and shootout last night, and as much as he loved his club, he wasn't stupid enough to ask to be pulled over.

The vest's design was straightforward: a wrecking ball on a field of fire. On top is "Beat Machines," with "Binan" on the rocker.

He had intended to put it on as soon as he got off the road. When a brother walked around, he was expected to wear his colors at all times. He'd been distracted by the girl.

She was a classic beauty, for sure. His dick was still pulsing, threatening to get harder and harder as he remembered her tight curves and the white shirt she was wearing plastered against her breasts from sweat.

For all he knew, she was the cause of the day's oppressive heat.

He didn't care if she was single or not; he was going to make her his. Someone like her would never shack up with him for long—she was too clean-cut, too goody-goody. To hear her speak, she's probably a college girl.

But those legs, those legs. Standing over that steaming car, she was a vision. He'd struggled not to pounce on her right then and there.

The diner was the standard roadside fare. Vinyl seats, uncomfortable stools at a counter with their cushioning seeping through cracks, an A/C unit at each end blowing with small ribbons tied to the vent. It was not heavily populated: a few truckers sat at the counter, half of their thick butts hanging off the sides of the stool as they downed greasy burgers and fries.

In the back of the diner were the party he had come to meet. Four men, his brothers, all representatives from the Beat Machines.

The sight of them pushed the image of the enticing Rhian out of his mind and shifted his focus to more serious matters.

The Cyclone's name. Eagle. A conflict with the Black Pirates.

As much lust he felt in himself while building for Rhian—and in such a short period of time—that lust had a long way to go if it wanted to meet his desire to smash the Flags into the dirt and grind Eagle under his boot for days.

Before saying anything, his brothers at the booth waited for him to sit.

Doug is the Secretary for the Beat Machines. He handled the accounts and kept a clean record; he was the guy who called the cops and arranged bail when the brawls became too intense. He was a small man with a thick build and a long black and gray beard.

His sense of humour was more macabre than most of the other outlaws could tolerate. He had decorated his house with roadkill for Halloween last year to keep trick-or-treaters away.

Rude, their Spearhead or for some bikers, they call it Road Captain, sat next to him. A man nearly as tall as he was wide, but none the worse for wear. He swore by his bacon and whiskey diet and breathed every breath for the duration of the club's existence. The Beat Machines made four runs a year, two of which extended into other provinces and two of which crossed the length of Laguna, and it was Rude's job to keep everything running smoothly on the road.

All of the Beat Machines despised cops—cops harassed outlaw bikers constantly, looking for any reason to pull them over and issue citations—but Rude despised them the most.

He'd gotten into a fight with some cops when he first started biking, and they had confiscated his bike. They confiscated his old one as well when he earned enough scrap to buy a new one. He'd been running his own private guerrilla campaign against the cops ever since, using the internet to become well-versed in traffic and automotive law. Every citation he received, he took to court and usually fought it until it reached the county level, where it was inevitably thrown out because the county court was preoccupied with things like murder and grand larceny.

"Freedom will bejust a big bullshit if you're not fighting for it," Rude used to say.

And he had his pettiness as well. He sat with a small bottle of tobacco juice in his lap. The only reason he began chewing tobacco was so that when a cop pulled him over, he could spit heavily on his shoes.

Mitch was also there, having beaten Grim to the diner. Outside of a fresh shiner on his left eye, he didn't appear to be the worse for wear after the brawl last night. He was a good soldier. Mitch had been a patch wearer for a little more than three years. Grim took great pride in presenting him with the patch and presiding over the vote. Many thought Mitch wouldn't make it—nearly no one in the club came from a family as wealthy as his—but the man had carried himself as a righteous brother in far too many scrapes to deny him the patch.

Then there's Martin "Blade" De Leon, Grim's father and the Beat Machines' President. He sat in the far corner of the room, presiding over the table as if he were a lord at court. Thick forearms leathery from years of riding in the open air sprouted from his body like gorilla appendages. His hair was silver and thick, like Grim's, and he sported a heavy handlebar mustache.

Blade shared Rude's disdain for cops, but for very different reasons. He was a widower as a result of the cops, and Grim had no mother as a result of the cops.

When Grim was only five years old, there was a raid on Blade's house. Blade had been the President of the Beat Machines for ten years at the time, and the police considered him a high-risk target. When they arrived in the middle of the night, they kicked in the door, ready to fire—and Grim's mother was caught in the clash.

Mitch continued. “They’ve got access to every drug cartels on all provinces in Region IV and in Metro Manila. That would mean a lot of money flowing through here. We'd be making more than twice as much as we are now and still be at peace with them. But..." he said as he spread his hands. "Not any longer."

Grim's stomach churned as doubt and guilt crept in. He didn't give a damn about starting a war, and he wasn't afraid to fight. He secretly adored it.

But less money for the club, for his brothers, meant a harder life for them. There was no worse crime for a Machines member than to fuck up the spot of his brother.

Anger kicked in, pushing away the guilt.

“What the fuck?” said Grim. “You saw where I was going in the bar. Why didn't you stop anything?”

Mitch raised an eyebrow. “Sure,” he said. “And then, for the next trick, I'll stop this oncoming speed train with my pinky finger. And while I'm doing the rest of your chores for you, I'll pick up your laundry, and wash your dishes, how's that?”

Grim was quieted by that, fuming to himself. A part of him knew Mitch had a point—that every man's actions were his own.But God forbid he admit it in front of these others, or even to himself.

There had to be a way to pin all of this on Eagle, and he'd find it. He'd nail that jerk's a$$ to the wall and make him pay for it. The war would be a good thing, they'd see. They'd double their territory and halve their enemies.

“You’re fucked, Grim,” growled Blade. “And you’ve been fucked for a while. The Pirates will shoot you dead next chance they get. Rumors are going around that the cops want to pin this on some Machines member, and you're the most high-profile member we got. No one wants to see you or be seen with you on the roads anymore. I hate to tell you this, but you need to take a long break."

Grim's tongue moved slowly inside his bottom lip, making a circle. "What the hell are you on about?"

"You fly off the handle every time you get a chance. You've fucked through half of the town's area. You've been in more fights in the last six months than I can count, and that's just the ones these lazy fucks will tell me about when they're not protecting you." He motioned to Rude and Doug with his hand. "I know you're keeping an eye on him, and I'm not deaf," he said as he leaned forward and shook his fist. "Do you think you lost the election to Gabe because everyone just wanted to 'give him a chance?'

Gabe had run for Sergeant-at-Arms—position—in Grim's the annual election six weeks before. He had won comfortably, but not unanimously. Grim had graciously accepted the change in position, getting Gabe drunk and dunking him in a nearby pond.

This was just custom. Any change in office had to be accompanied by some good-natured raucousness.

But to think that it had been arranged, that his father and Gabe had conspired...that was a blow. That was a deep blow. It would also explain a lot of things. Gabe had become distant recently, insisting on going out with Grim more often than not.

Are you keeping an eye on him? Keeping an eye on Grim to make sure he doesn't get out of hand?

But, if that's the case, why didn't Gabe get a handle on the situation last night? What sort of Sergeant-at-Arms was he back then? Why was Grim the only one to blame for everything going wrong?

Even his brothers conspired against him.

But he'd show them.

"It's not all that bad," Grim said. "We have the Flags. We can do it, you know. If you don't mind—"

“You. Started. It's a war. Do you understand what that means? Grim, actions have consequences. We're running low on men, and you want a war. How many more do you believe we can afford to lose? ”

Grim had to admit—though he would never admit it aloud—that was a good point. Over the previous six months, the police had taken several of their number off the road. The majority of the time on drug charges, which meant that those brothers were fucked for a long time unless they could get a re-trial. The Sheriff's Department has recently been on a vendetta against the Beat Machines.

Blade shook his head in disbelief. "You've taken a detour. Probation. Isn't this an executive action I'm taking as President? You can't do that," Grim said, his voice even-keeled. A heavy, hard temper throbbed at his brow, begging to be let loose, but he kept it at bay. "You can't do it."

"Because you're my son? That's a joke. I didn't bring you up to be such a jerk."

Grim bit down hard on the barrage of insults that threatened to erupt, mocking Blade's ability to "raise" anyone at all. Last he checked, raising children didn't entail delegating all of the work to your oldest daughter and then thrusting your son into the life of an outlaw motorcycle club at the age of thirteen.

Not that he cared all that much.

"No," Grim replied. "Because you cannot make such decisions on your own. We couldn't unless we agreed to hitch a dictatorship. Did we, lads? ”

Rude, Doug, and Mitch checked out one another. it had been clear that they, a minimum of Rude and Doug, were already on board with the concept of probation. But they were aware that Grim was correct.

"It must head to a vote," Mitch said. "That's the deal."

Blade's face was flushed, despite the actual fact that he knew it had to be this fashion. But the redness faded, and Grim was met with a chilly stare.

"That's very well," he said. "It won't be a controversy to place a loose bolt such as you on probation."

"It'll take every week close to to induce people in town," Rude predicted. There are lots of individuals traveling at once."

"Make the calls," Blade said. "Either he or i am going out."

He could tell Blade wasn't lying by the looks on Rude and Doug's faces. irrespective of what Grim did, this was visiting happen in a very week's time, give or take each day. Unless he could demonstrate his trustworthiness in how. Unless he could...could think about something.

"I'm better than you think that," he asserted.

Blade sighed, a glance of sadness in his eyes. "I wish you were there, kid. But something has changed in you. I'm unsure what it's. You're pursuing violence and pussy as if it were a variety of currency. If you're unleash for too long, this complete gang is doomed. I'm not visiting let that happen. I'm afraid I can't—"

"I'm better than you're thinking that," Grim said over again. "I'm capable of remaining calm. you wish me to be calm? You're talking about throwing me out. I'm the foremost composed motherfucker within the room. I've even—"

He stood at the opposite end of the diner, watching Rhian come in. an on the spot and unstoppable thought struck him. The words were out of his mouth before he could even consider them.

"—hell, I've even got a girl."

Mitch snorted on the coffee he was drinking. Silverware clattered before of him. None of the boys appeared like they believed Grim.

“You got an old lady?” said Rude. “One you ain’t been bringing around to the club?”

“Yeah. We wanted to stay it quiet. And you recognize me. I got a reputation. I don’t want to...you know, disappoint the fellas.”

The lies were coming more easily now. One beget the opposite, a clean chain of logic resting on one insane premise.

“There she is now,” he pointed to Rhian, who was rebuke the waitress at the counter. “Maybe you saw me reprehension her earlier outside. We saw one another, coincidence. i assume now’s pretty much as good of a time as any to possess her meet you. Hang on.”