Broken - LS Silverii Page 0,13

a biker who looked to be in his sixties. The group muttered as the cordial tone shifted.

“He made himself dead. Red ratted us out to a mobster, and helped him set up the rip off. Confessed it was for the money.”

The old biker scoffed, “How we know it’s true?”

Justice’s blood ran cold, sinister fury bubbled beneath the surface. “Because I said so. You don’t trust your president, then drop your colors at the door,” he snarled. “It’s fuckers like you who took a shit on the black and blue decades ago. Instead of handling your business like men, you pretended to be bikers and ran from the conflict. It’s posers like you and Red who keep trying to sabotage the Savage Nation because you’re afraid of what it’s become—the real fucking deal.”

A chair scratched across the linoleum floor. It toppled and bounced. An older man groaned to stand straight. The former cafeteria hall echoed with the chair’s noise and his aching moans. Everyone else was silent—this shit was set to erupt sooner or later. The old guards weren’t happy with the power grab—they just didn’t know how to stop it.

Tommy Cloud stomped down the aisle. Shadows disappeared from his round face as he entered the lit area of the arena. Justice had to readjust his thinking, as he’d bet the old timer would’ve never walked out. Cloud’s eyes showed it was pride that drove him. Justice slid his right boot back to balance himself. His hammer-sized fist readied at his side. No need telegraphing it, but in case Cloud was unable to keep his shit in check, Justice would drop him.

“With all due disrespect, fuck you.” Cloud kept his distance but ripped the leather vest from his shoulders. It smacked to the ground.

“Thank you. I want everything belonging to the Nation,” Justice said.

Fury, the club’s treasurer, opened the door for Cloud. He also nodded to six other Savages who followed close behind the Cloud. Unfortunately, you didn’t just get to quit the club—it’d take a jumping out. Some didn’t survive the beating, but that was the risk of quitting.

Justice handed one of the six men his KA-BAR knife. “Take anything with our emblem on it.” The biker’s eyes were glazed with adrenaline. He nodded.

“Lets go, Jorge,” Fury yelled.

“Even tattoos,” Justice said.

Jorge nodded.

Justice raised his naturally low voice to speak above Cloud’s screams. Justice ground his teeth at the image of Jorge carving the tattoos out of Cloud’s skin. He’d been assigned to do it twice while a prospect in Chicago. One guy was a newbie who’d thrown himself into the outlaw life before realizing it wasn’t for him. Quitting wasn’t that easy. The other guy was an asshole, and that skinning wasn’t bad—he’d deserved it.

“Anyone else want to turn in their colors?” Justice glared across the sea of men.

Each menacing man was clad in black leather cuts adorned with patches that traced their time with the OMC like a wicked roadmap of deviance. The back of every full-patch member displayed a top rocker patch that read Savage Souls MC. The bottom rocker patch read Colorado, and the iconic passion cross, representing the cross of suffering centered in back of each cut. Everyone also wore the diamond shaped patch with the 1%’er displayed to show they were outlaws. They’d fought for these colors. Brothers had died defending them—the Savage Souls would never surrender their rights to roam.

“Can I ask a question?”

Justice spun to his left at the surprise of a question dared. The fingers on his right hand waved the biker on to continue. Tendons rippled in his flexed jaw as memories of removing the last biker’s tattooed skin swamped his mind.

“Go ahead.”

“I just came up from the South, so I don’t know shit, but why the rift between blood brothers and old guard?” The newbie was built like a Mr. Olympia, but he dropped his eyes and sat down.

Surprised by the legitimacy of his inquiry, Justice grinned. “Good question. When I pledged, the club sold me a false bill of goods. I wanted the same freedoms I had as a covert operative,” he recounted. “By the time I’d earned my patch, I’d become close enough to the leaders to understand they were bullshit artists that talked a great game but had no constitution about them. They’d become outcasts, not outlaws.”

“Then what, sir?” The brother was relentless, but respectful.

“I’d had enough, but I wasn’t quitting. Gave them a chance to retire—they said fuck me. I retired them.” Justice explained in an