Chapter 4: LAW

I guess you can call my place a compound now as much as it's a ranch. The men had turned a few of the old bunkhouses into supply sheds. The old barn, the one that hadn't been in use in years, had been turned into the clubhouse after an extensive build-on.

There were about thirty of us here. Five stayed at the clubhouse at any given time on some sort of rotation schedule that they'd made up.

They all had homes, but I knew they stayed close for Kyle's and my protection, even though I'd told them time and time again that it wasn't needed.

I showed the mother to the little guest cottage that was a little ways away from the main house.

I remember the day ma and dad had had one of their loud discussions about the building of that particular structure. That's what she called their arguments.

She never said they were arguing or fighting; it was always a loud discussion or an intense debate. And always ended with dad dragging her off to their room for hours. I miss the fuck out of those two people.

The place hadn't been used in a while and needed airing out. I left the mother there and took the girl with me to the clubhouse a couple hundred yards away.

I didn't see eighteen. Even beat to shit, I could tell she was a beauty, but she looked green as fuck.

She was shaking like a fucking leaf by the time we made it to the door. The guys had started cleaning up their shit, but they weren't quick enough.

She'd crawled into the yard early in the morning while most of my guys, who'd been partying the night before after another raid on one of Royce's places, were still sleeping it off.

"Sit over here, and don't move until I come back out that door. Do you want something to drink?" She shook her head no, and I looked around the room to make sure there weren't any undesirables around.

There were always new men showing up here looking for work or a way into the club.

I wasn't the most trusting motherfucker around, so most of them never made it, but the few I decided to try were still under suspicion until they proved themselves.

Between Royce and the sheriff, I can't catch a fucking break since they're always sending some fuck over here to try to infiltrate my space.

What they don't know, in fact, what no one except Kyle, Brand, and Clay knows, is that my place is wired from top to fucking bottom. Why? Because I don't trust a fucking thing that breathes except for those three.

Because of this, I've learned a lot about the other man's dealings, and that's how I've been able to fuck with his businesses for the past three years.

How the fuck he's still standing after my shit is a mystery, but then again, he's got deep pockets. What no one knew, including me at the time, was that at the time of dad's murder, he was fucking loaded. I could outlast Royce if all that was needed were finances.

Brandon Hale and Clay Platt were my best friends growing up. Both men had joined the sheriff's office right out of college while I'd gone off to the army.

Both my dad and granddad had served, and I wanted to follow in their footsteps. Now I don't really give a fuck.

A halfway decent shrink might say I have anger issues and harbor resentment against a government that I believe had failed me after I'd put my fucking life on the line. That fuck would be halfway right.

Brand and Clay had grown disillusioned with the law in these parts when they realized that the office they served wasn't fighting crime, but more like facilitating it in the form of protecting and turning a blind eye where one Royce Davis and his shady dealings were concerned.

They both claim to have been on the brink of walking, but the murder of my parents was the straw that broke the camel's back. Now they were lieutenants in my army.

The men filed into the inner room and waited for me to join them. After one last look over my shoulder to make sure that she was okay, I closed the door. "Okay, who the fuck is this Carl Saks fuck?"