Chapter One
Twister
I didn’t come to Madison to make friends.
I came to take over.
“Pull around back!”I shouted and waved off Magnum as he coasted past the front of the building on his Dyna.“More room back there.”
Magnum nodded and peeled around the block with Wheels and Gramps behind him.
I parked my own bike right out front.Centered, bold, and unapologetic.Let the neighborhood know the Saint’s Outlaws were here and didn’t give a shit who saw it.
The building looked like hell.Two-story brick and the kind that hadn’t been power-washed since the ‘90s.A busted neon “BAR” sign hung crooked in the window.The street over, State Street, was full of college kids, grad students, and tourists, but this street?It had dust.It had cracks.It had potential.
Perfect.
I shoved open the heavy steel door, and the smell hit like a punch to the face: dust, mildew, and stale beer.I grinned.“Home sweet fuckin’ home.”
Swift was already inside with his sleeves rolled up, and his eyes scanned the place like he was trying to figure out how many bottles of bleach it was going to take to clean the place.
“Main floor’s gutted,” he called out.“Upstairs needs work.Office in the back’s moldy as hell, but the bones are solid.”
“Good.We’ll gut it and rebuild.”I stepped through the doorway, and the creak of the warped floorboards echoed.“Start fresh.”
Wheels came in next, and he carried two toolboxes and a crowbar.“Got a stack of paint cans and a sledge in the truck.Hodge is unloading now.”
“You see the back alley?”I asked.
“Wider than expected,” Wheels said.“Clubhouse parking for ten bikes, easy.Maybe more if we squeeze.”
“I’m not squeezing shit,” I muttered.“I want every bike clean and lined.First impressions matter.”
Rev strolled in behind him, holding a rolled-up blueprint and a travel mug that probably wasn’t filled with coffee.“I mapped the street radius.We’ve got eight bars within a two-block radius.Plenty of options to get a drink if we don’t feel like being here.Though ours is the biggest property.”
“If only this place wasn’t a dump,” Podge grunted as he joined us.He flipped through a thick folder of permits and city forms.“But it’s ours now.Legal and clean.”
“About fucking time,” Swift added with a smirk.
The front door creaked again, and Gramps walked in, breathing hard like the stairs outside had insulted him personally.“You boys better not expect me to sweep this place.”
“You’re the treasurer, not the maid,” I said.
Gramps flipped me off without breaking stride.
I stepped up to the bar, leaned my palms on the dusty wood, and looked around the room.Pool table sagged in the middle.One ceiling fan spun half-assed.A flickering light in the back hallway.
“I want it stripped, cleaned, and decent by Friday night,” I said.
“For who?”Hodge asked as he entered with a box of locks and chains.“We don’t know anyone here.”
“We will,” I told him.“By the weekend, half this block will know who we are, and the other half will be wondering how the hell they missed us.”
Chewy came through the back door next, Nugget and Sully behind him with duffels and supplies.Cord and Plug were already stacking cases of beer in the tiny walk-in cooler that hadn’t worked in years.The clubhouse was coming alive fast.
We moved like a unit.Everyone had a job.Everyone had a purpose.That’s what made us dangerous.
“What’s the deal with the upstairs?”Wheels asked as he wiped sweat from his brow.
