Taking a Dare - A Hellion MC Novel (2 page)

"So they weren't real even though she said they
were?" Dare asked just to insure he fully understood what Huff's
Honey had explained.

"Fuck no, they weren't real and we've all been saying
that for fuckin' months, asshole," Bishop chided with a chortle,
reaching over to scrub his knuckles on the top of Dare's head.
"Think you need to take my 'Titties 101' class, brother."

The only response Dare could think to give back was
to hold his fist up to his mouth and act like he was blowing into
his thumb as his middle finger slowly rose. A action that caused
their little group to fall out laughing again.

"Oh, looky! A little council party and I wasn't
invited," Silo thundered coming from the back of the room. "What's
doin' that has you pussies in stitches?" The big, bald biker was
given a quick recap and quickly joined in with his brother's
renewed laughter. When it had died down and Carly had freshened his
drink, Si pulled up a barstool and leaned over to look at the other
men beside him. "Heard we're gonna have visitors."

"That's been decided? Last I knew it was still in the
talking stages," Huff shot back skeptically.

"Before he and Dallas left, Trey said Spokane will be
here on Saturday."

Spokane?

Where the fuck had he been when a visit was being
talked about? Dare finished the rest of his glass ice clinking
against his teeth as his heart took on a new rhythm at the
news.

Christ! It'd been years but just with the mention of
the other club, his mind pulled up the memory of the only female
that had stuck in both his head and heart.

But he wouldn't allow himself to even consider why.
Or to hope.

*.*.*.*.*

"We're fucking doing the run to Missoula and your ass
will be there!" Damn but my dad's voice was loud, so loud I didn't
need to have my cell up to my ear to hear him.

"Sorry, Pops. No can do. Have to get ready for the
next inspection," I explained trying for patience, as ever, when
dealing with any of my family.

"Calling bullshit, Ryley! You have staff that can do
that shit in their sleep. We've got eighteen going and you're a
part of that group, goddamn it!" Shit! His voice had drifted from
his pissed-off parent voice into the Hellion president one. So I
knew unless I was dying, my sweet cheeks would be on the back of a
bike or firmly planted in a club vehicle and on my way to the
Missoula compound come Saturday.

And he was right. As director, I did have other team
members who could prepare Honey Haven, the group home for kids that
either couldn't or wouldn't live with their parents. The inspection
was a big one though that would help the non-profit obtain approval
for federal monies to used in our next fiscal year.

But, damn. Missoula?

I sighed loud enough for him to hear in order make my
reluctance known before offering, "okay, Pops.". It didn't matter
how old I was, my father still treated me like a kid. With
reason.

"Great! We'll be there a fucking week so pack
accordingly," my dad growled before he hung up without a goodbye,
his typical way of ending phone conversations.

Another sigh escaped my lips as I slid the cellphone
into my back pocket, catching the large emerald cut solitaire on
the top edge of the denim. Shit! I hated wearing the gaudy thing
that seemed to not only weigh down my hand but got hung up in
stupid crap all day long. Glancing down at my left hand, I glared
at the diamond ring even though I knew I was more pissed off at
being ordered,
ordered
for god's sake, to attend a run to a
place I'd been avoiding for almost a decade, than the piece of
bling.

Get real, Ryley. It's not the other club you've
been avoiding
, my mind shouted.

Usually, the Spokane club did a minimum of four runs
a year and made sure that at least one of those runs was to meet
with another Hellion chapter. Something that helped to keep the
bonds of the brotherhood tight, but I'd been picky about the ones
I'd participated in. Last year, I'd done the one to Portland and
had made Vancouver the year before that. So it wasn't like I wasn't
doing my duty as one of the Honeys although my status as the pres's
daughter put me in a different place than the other single
girls.

Glancing at the ring again, I realized that this run
would probably be my last one as an unmarried woman.

The thought left me nauseous.

So why'd you accept the ring if you didn't want to
marry him
? my mind asked on a yell. It was always bellowing
about some shit or other, so like most other times, I ignored
it.

I felt the vibration in my back pocket again and took
my ring off in order to grab the quivering rectangle, wondering if
dad was calling back to give me his two damn cents on what clothes
to bring.

But the screen read 'Lock' and I smiled. "Yo, girlie.
What's shaking?"

"Nothing that shouldn't be," the voice on the phone
giggled. "Heard you're gonna be here on Saturday."

Damn, word spread fast through the club in spite of
the distance! "With bells on at least according to dear ol'
Gus."

"Your dad's still pulling that control shit? Damn,
Rye," Lock breathed. "So where are you staying? With March and the
others?"

Oh, god! I hadn't even gone down that road yet.
Shit!

"By your silence, I'm getting you're not too fuckin'
enthused about sharing a pillow with your new fiancé, huh?" Lock
and I had been best friends for years, bonding as two of the girls
born into the Hellion club. So I wasn't surprised that my girl
could read me even over the phone, even when I hadn't yet said
anything. "I was going to invite you guys to stay in my guest room
but I'll amend that, Rye. You need a place for yourself, and
just
yourself, my casa is your casa."

Jesus, sweet relief! "I'll take you up on it but you
know Blaze is coming too, right?"

"Yeah, I do. And yeah, I'll be working that man over
but good." Lock's voice held a hungry note thinking about the
Spokane biker who'd gotten his name due to his long dark-red curls.
"I didn't say you'd get any sleep. I just said you were welcome to
stay with me."

I laughed out loud at my friend's addendum to her
offer. "Slut."

"Better a slut than a mutt, I always say," came the
giggled reply. "So I'll see you Saturday and I'll get a key made so
we're not fuckin' joined at the hip."

"Great! Looking forward to seeing you again,
girlie."

"Who are you kidding? I know who you really want to
see," Lock teased and my heart started knocking around in my chest.
"You aren't fooling me, girlfriend. It's been what? Ten years since
you two last laid eyes on each other?"

Damn. My bestie had hit it in one. "Yeah, there
'bouts," I hedged. Actually it had been nine years, seven months, 2
weeks and 5 days. But I wasn't gonna correct her. "Sorry to make
this short but I've got lots to do before we leave."

Liar!
my mind screamed.

"Yeah, I'll bet," came the soft spoken reply as if my
girl somehow knew she'd gone too far with her joking. "Can't wait
for you to get here."

I tried to inject some enthusiasm into my goodbye but
I hunched my head between my shoulders as soon as Lock was off the
phone. As I did, my eyes caught on the ring sitting front and
center on my desk.

Goddamn. What the
hell
was I going to do?

Chapter Three

Dare was just hanging up the phone when he heard
boots running on the floor of the warehouse and heard Brand's voice
roar, "Trey's office now!" Jumping up from his desk, Dare almost
crashed into Bish as he barreled out his office door and turned to
the president's office on the other side of the huge hall.

Neither one of the big men said a word as they jogged
the few yards, finding they were the last ones to enter.

"Catch the door, Dare, yeah?" Trey asked before
sliding his brown gaze around the room. "Donny just reported seeing
four Czars entering the Big Bear Café."

"Da fuck?" Bishop questioned, straightening from his
slumped position against the wall next to Trey's desk. The other
men's faces held just as much confusion as the IT manager's
although he'd been the only one to voice it.

"No prior approval was asked nor given for them to be
on Hellion acreage," Trey continued, his lowered eyebrows giving
emphasis to his hard tone. "I placed a call to Ham Bank's phone,
the shithead who holds the Czar gavel, but it went to fucking
voicemail."

Dare looked at his brothers and wondered how this was
going to play out. They'd had a couple of run-ins with the club who
thought they controlled Livingston, Bozeman and Belgrade which
included a thirty-six mile stretch of the 90 freeway. And had made
it pretty fuckin' clear that Hellions were not welcomed to even
blow through unless they had prior approval to do so.

For the Czars to show up in Missoula unannounced was
a motherfuckin' bitch-slap of the worst kind.

"Thoughts?" Trey asked, his eyes again roaming around
his men, his inner circle, in the room.

"Kick ass and take fuckin' names later," Huff
immediately responded. The big blonde's face was red with rage.

"I'm with you, brother," Bishop threw out as he
crossed his arms and widened his stance. "Send them home with a
message that can't be misunderstood."

"Hold up," Silo offered with a raised palm. "I get
that we need to do something 'cause this shit's too stupid for
words but…hmm. When we were told to get out of Livingston, it was
done respectful-like. True, they kept us fuckin' waitin' for damn
hours on the ride back for approval to go through their territory.
But…"

"I am with Si," Brand said with a head nod. "If we
use force, how will it read going forward?"

"Should we pick them up? Hold 'em or some shit?" Dare
asked. He got what Silo and Brand were suggesting and why but in
his mind, the Czar's play was an insult. "How about we hold their
motherfuckin' hands and sing 'kum-bah-ya' as we escort the fuckers
to our city limits?"

Even Trey's face creased into a smile at the youngest
council member's sarcastic idea. "How about we do both? Let's get a
team of four down to the café and keep them there for awhile or
until I can chew Ham a new asshole. Since I have two that want
blood and two that want to play nice-nice, I use one from each.
That'll be Huff and Silo. Choose two other brothers that have their
CC's and hold the fucking Czar's asses at the Big Bear until you
hear from me."

It made Dare feel a little better to know that the
Hellions who were going to be babysitting the other club's members
would be carrying concealed weapons and wouldn't hesitate to use
them if things went south.

"Can we all live with that?" Trey asked, looking
around the room. One of the best aspects of Trey's leadership was
that his rule was not of the dictator kind. It allowed for the free
exchange of ideas and suggestions within both his council and the
whole of his club. A practice that hadn't been carried out by very
many of the previous presidents of the Missoula chapter. At the all
the 'yeps, okays and sures', Trey nodded. "Just keep me in the
loop."

"You left that Ham asshole a voicemail, right?" Dare
asked, his mind mulling over the next step in the best way to build
a fire under the other pres's ass. At Trey's nod, Dare continued.
"Send him a fuckin' text. A strong one that hints at goddamn
retaliation without fuckin' spelling anything out."

"And has a lot of cuss words that the predictive text
shit don't like," Silo added with a laugh that cut a lot of the
tension in the room.

Trey handed Si his cell with a, "have at it,
brother."

As his man thumbed the phone, Trey spoke again.
"Everyone knows Spokane's coming, yeah? Before they get here, think
we need to work out where the next Hellion branch is going to
land."

It had been an ongoing conversation between the six
of them. With the Missoula club now at sixty-five members, which
included four recruits, the club was too big and needed to split.
The biggest decision had been trying to figure out which direction
to go although they'd all agreed that they'd keep it in Montana.
"Dare, use your truck and hit Billings with Burleson and Pagan.
Brand, Bish want you two to hit Great Falls with Maury. This is a
turn-around trip, boys, so no fucking around. Scope it out and
report back. You know what we're looking for and what the club
needs."

"When do you want us to leave?" Brand asked.

"As soon as the Czar's doing is resolved," Trey
rumbled, accepting his phone back from Silo and reading before
throwing back his head with a laugh. "Fucking perfect, amigo!" He
turned his face to the rest of the group and read aloud from the
small screen. "
Hell 2 pay if Czars dont get food shit 2 go &
get gone from Hellion terrain. Quid pro quo, mothrfuckr,
dig
?"

*.*.*.*.*

There was no way around it, I needed to stop by the
clubhouse before going home in order to see which other Honeys were
going to be rolling into Montana. I only hoped March wasn't there.
Otherwise, my little quick trip was going to turn into a lot longer
stay.

I pushed my little sporty Ford Fusion through her
paces, happy that I'd made the decision to make my car the ride of
choice that morning. Otherwise, it would've been another setback
and a much longer trip.

I pulled into the driveway of the Hellion compound
and followed it around towards the back. Spokane's place was laid
out differently than Missoula's in that Hellion Construction was in
the front of the property and blocked the street's view of the
clubhouse that was tucked up behind it. And because the whole of it
was in the middle of what essentially a 9 to 5 business park, we
could play our music as loud as we wanted to—and frequently
did—without any complaints.