Chapter 5

A car was parked in your driveway during the night with keys located in the visor. Once you get in the car, plug in the GPS. Follow the directions, and it will tell you where to go. After the drop is made, someone from the club will pick you up. Further instructions await you at your destination.

Denise read the text message again to make sure she understood what it was saying. Last night before Liam left, he provided her with a pre-paid cell phone and told her to wait for someone to contact her. With stunning realization, the fact that she was about to break the law hit her. Never in her life had she broken the law.

"Why am I doing this?" she whispered as she glanced around her kitchen.

A stack of unpaid bills caught her attention where they lay on the counter. Beside them sat open house fliers for her kids. If she didn't do this job, there would be no clothes for school, no supplies. They would be forced once again to go to the resources office. Denise knew that the other kids made fun of those who needed financial help. The twins had already had to put up with that last year, she didn't want them to have to go through that again. The answer stared back at her. Squaring her shoulders, Denise realized there was no time like the present to make the change from law abiding citizen to biker gang lackey.

She hadn't been sure what to expect when she shut and locked the front door to her home, but the car in her driveway wasn't it. A late model Cutlass Supreme, avocado green in color, sat behind her little four door sedan. It reminded her of the cars that so many young people were beginning to fix up as classics from the early 1980s. Walking over, she got in and opened the visor. Sure enough, keys fell into her lap. A GPS was already mounted on the dashboard, and all she had to do was plug it into a modified cigarette lighter. Turning it on, she waited for it to find all its satellites and then listened as it instructed her to turn left out of the driveway. She took a deep breath and steeled herself. A car this old was bound to be loud and draw a lot of attention. When it started up, however, she couldn't even tell it was running until she gave it a little gas.

As she made her way out of her neighborhood, she wondered just exactly what was in this car. What kind of drugs was she transporting, and how much time could she get for it if she were to be caught?

* * *

A few minutes later, Denise was merging west onto the William Natcher Parkway in order to head north towards Owensboro. She had made this drive many times in the past. With Bowling Green being centrally located, she often took trips to Owensboro, Louisville, or Nashville. This time however, she was nervous. Even though this stretch of road wasn't usually monitored by the police, she found herself checking her side and rearview mirrors almost obsessively. Her hands gripped the steering wheel much harder than they had to, and she could feel the tension in her shoulders as the car ate up the miles.

The closer she got to Owensboro, the more her stomach churned. Listening intently, she waited to see where the GPS would tell her to go next. Following its instructions, she turned onto West Petit Road until she came across a set of train tracks with a house located in front of them. The driving directions seemed to end at the house. Her mind ran a million miles a minute with the many scenarios that could happen here. Was someone going to kidnap her? Hurt her? Hold her for ransom?

Awareness pricked on the back of her neck. Without seeing them, she knew that others watched her. Not sure what to do, she pulled next to the house and waited. Once the GPS registered that she had reached her destination, a message popped up on the GPS that told her to leave the car where it was and wait to be picked up. She didn't realize how hot she was until she got out of the car. Sweat clung to the nape of her neck, and she felt as if the world was closing in on her. Stepping further from the house, she sought out the breeze that would surely be blowing. If she wasn't mistaken, this land bordered a creek and perhaps the coolness would be flowing off of it.

It was at least 15 degrees cooler closer to the creek. For the first time she noticed her surroundings. She was out in the middle of nowhere, and had she needed help there would be no one who could do that. Just as she began to panic, she heard the steady hum of a motorcycle. With no place to hide, she stood out in in the open, hoping this was friend and not foe. As the bike got closer, she realized it was Liam. Her heart sped up when he came to a stop in front of her, killing the engine.

"I'm your ride. Did you have any issues getting out here?"

Her mouth went dry when he took off his helmet and hung it on the handlebars. There was something about this man on a bike. It was as if he were at home. The bike and he were made to fit one another. The jeans he wore hugged his thighs just so, and the white t-shirt under his cut showed off a tan that came from many hours of riding. To keep from having to stare into his eyes, she looked down, noticing the motorcycle boots that encased his feet. They looked like they could kick a hole in someone, and it made her shiver.

"No problems at all. I was just a little lost when I got here until I noticed the GPS had flashed to another screen."

"Good," he smiled and she noticed just how straight and white his teeth were. She wondered if all young bikers looked like this or if he was special. "We need to be movin'. The pick-up crew should be here in a few minutes, and we don't wanna be around to see them."

"You want me to ride that?" she asked, looking around. Maybe he would produce a car out of thin air.

He grinned, cocking an eyebrow. "I do own a truck, maybe I shoulda drove that? This is easier to maneuver though."

"You think we're gonna have to maneuver?"

"When dealin' with us, you never know." She appreciated that he was honest, but it didn't make her feel any better about this situation.

At that moment they heard the roar of motorcycles, lots of them. "That's not our contact here in Owensboro, we need to get outta here."

"How do you know?" she asked. To her it was amazing that someone could differentiate motorcycles based on sound alone.

"Those are European bikes. You can tell by the volume of the rumble. It's probably the Vojnik."

"The who?" she asked, hopping on behind him and grabbing him securely around the waist.

"Bosnian for soldier. They are the local Bosnian biker gang, we ain't exactly friendly. They're probably trying to steal the shipment," he flashed her what could only described as a bad boy smile. "We stole one of theirs last week."

He peeled out, gravel spitting behind them as he took to the main road. Denise had been on a motorcycle maybe two times in her life, but it had never been like this.

"Hold on tight," he yelled behind him.

She gripped her fingers into the leather he wore around his waist and held on for dear life. Behind her, she could hear the bikes gaining on them. Apparently though, Liam was familiar with this section of road. He turned onto a path that she hadn't even seen and proceeded to drive them across a field. Few of the other bikers made the hairpin turn and by the time they did, she and Liam were far ahead. Shots were fired. She screamed as they buzzed her head.

A few miles down the road, they came to a complete stop and he shut the bike off. "You okay?"

Adrenaline and fear bubbled up in her throat, building on everything she had been through, before she took a swing at him, connecting with his chin. "Are you fucking crazy? You got me shot at!"

He blocked her next punches and held her arms at her sides. "If I let you go, are you gonna take another swing at me?" Damn, but she had a wicked hook. He had to shake his head momentarily because she had knocked him loopy.

She sagged in his arms, the rush leaving her. To her horror she started shaking, and her teeth chattered. "I won't swing at you again. You have my word."

Letting her go, he pulled her into his arms, rubbing the shakes out of her body. "Just let it flow through you. It's the adrenaline."

"Why do people want to do this?" she asked, her voice wobbly, showing her true feelings about her new endeavor. She wasn't cut out for this, that much was apparent.

"It's all some people know. Some of us were born into this, whether we wanted to be or not." His voice was low and raw with emotion.

That made her sad. It was obvious that Liam had never had another option. She wanted to give her children a different option. To not live hand to mouth and to not live worrying about how they would pay their electric bill. Seeing the empty feeling in his eyes convinced her that she was doing this for all the right reasons.

* * *

Hours later, Denise sat at the dinner table with her children. For the first time in months, she'd had money to go out and get steak. Her son, Andrew, grilled them while her daughter, Amanda, baked potatoes. Denise put the fear of her earlier brush with death behind her and made a salad. Talk at the table had been animated, much like any conversation with thirteen-year-old twins would be. She realized watching them make dinner how much older they acted now. It was obvious they'd had to take care of themselves much more than she would have liked.

"This is good, Mom," Andrew praised, wiping his mouth with a napkin. His table manners made her proud.

"Thanks, but it was you at the grill who did most of the work," she smiled at him.

Each day, he made the move further into manhood. His face had already lost the boyish features of innocence. A small mustache was beginning to form on his upper lip. Would she be able to move him into young adulthood? Those fears plagued her at night just as much as her money situation did. Somehow, she knew that she had to make things right. Her family counted on it.