*****I am constantly editing - I apologize. Please vote and comment so I know whether to continue this story. Constructive criticism with suggestion and examples for improvement IS strongly encouraged.

Happy reading - I do hope you will enjoy it...******

Mike

"Jace! I told you not to do this! I knew it was dirty money – the fucking cops are all over us!" I yell. He's my right-hand man. We always have each other's six when shit hits the fan, but he can be so stupid sometimes. He wanted to take a drug job, but he can't read people as well as I can and ended up dealing with an undercover detective. Now the whole damn cavalry is outside our motorcycle club house ready to shoot every single one of us over some dirty traced cocaine. 

"I know man! I'm sorry!" he cries out. His blue eyes are wide while grabbing some guns from behind the counter of our house kitchen. He tosses me a Glock .45 – I have 10 rounds; I'm sure of it. Holding the familiar cold steel in my hands, I notice that the doors are beginning to fold in. Jace, me, and the rest of the brothers are barricaded, armed, and ready to fight. They could take us, but we aren't ones to simply roll over and become their bitches. We're waiting until they come bursting in to retaliate; in the meantime, they are just shooting the place up.

Diving to hide from gunfire on the floor behind one of the couches, I peek around to make sure my brothers aren't getting shot; so far they're all okay, just hiding, waiting. There's a pounding in my chest; I should be use to this sort of thing. I get shot at a lot; it's the price I pay being president. Some tough decisions have to be made and sometimes that means playing God. There's not a lot of pride with the choices I have made, but they have been made, nonetheless. I live with the consequences.

Speaking of consequences, I want to hand Jace over to the cops out of spite to put a stop to this maddening raid, God knows he needs to undergo some consequences for being so fucking stupid. I glare at Jace as he hides behind the end of the counter in the kitchen. He is shaking like a rattlesnake; his blond hair is flipping off little beads of sweat onto his pale face. I don't turn my men in, they are loyal to me; I am loyal to them.

More shots are fired, the sounds vibrate throughout the building, peppering all out belongings with holes, the gunpowder and lead fills my lungs. There goes my nice couch, coffee pot, wine bottles, and shit – my flat screen 62" television. Damn cops!

The firing stops. They must be reloading, it's our turn. I start to signal, but then there is one shot. The sound is deafening. Immediately, I know something is wrong. Up until today, I have managed to keep all my brothers alive. It isn't often that police would have a reason to come to our house like this. They mostly drop by unannounced to see if they can trap us in anything illegal. Though, we did do quite a bit of unlawful acts, we've been able to keep it under wraps...until today, stupid Jace. If he just waited for me to do the transaction, we wouldn't be in this mess. 

Searching the floor from the ground behind a tattered couch, I see Paul. The organ in my chest stops. Paul is shot. He's the newest member. He is 19, barely out of high school, had a tough childhood, and was looking for brotherhood. We accepted him with open arms, now he's shot. I stare at his long lean body -it is limp on the floor which is covered with bullet fragments and shattered glass. Screaming out his name, I rush over to him. He's still breathing, but blood is pooling in the center of his chest. I scream for our medic, but then realize that the cops have entered and are tackling each of my men. Taking off my shirt, I press it down hard on Paul's wound, letting the thick warm blood soak into my shirt and into my hands. 

"You're gonna be ok! You hear me, Paul! Stay with me!" I feel hands grab me, all I see is red. Whipping myself around, I straddle and beat the man with a badge. The feeling of his cheek bone, nose crunching, watching as a couple of teeth leave his mouth, seeing the blood smear his face gives me tremendous satisfaction. Two sets of hands grab me to pull me off the fool. When they stand me up, I fight to get out of their hold, I need to attend to Paul. I yell at them to check on my brother, but they just ignore me. He was just a kid, had his whole life ahead of him. When they snap hard cold metal around my wrists, they force me to walk out. The organ in my chest leaps a bit when I see paramedics enter the house. 

Before I know it, I'm placed in a jail cell, picking at the skin around my busted bleeding knuckles. I've been in jail cells before. The iron bars, the hard cold benches, and the smell of stale sweat is nothing new to me - except they could never hold me before. They would arrest me because of a hunch, they hardly had much evidence. My crew and I work hard to make sure that our auto repair business is raking in clean money.

Anything that we did illegally, we made sure that it was severely hush hush. If we had a tiny prick of an inkling that something was off, we'd pull the plug. Assaulting and officer though – yeah, I won't be leaving here for a while. Damn pigs. Stupid Jace.

**********

"Michael Gilbert aka Red." The smugness oozes out of the damn officer as he strolls up to my cell. Still studying my blood-stained hands – Paul's blood, I say a silent prayer for him. I'm not sure why I pray. My Mother is the main reason why I still pray from time to time; she would always drag my ass to church while I was growing up. Lord knows, she still prays for me on her knees. She most likely cries every night because of what her son has turned into. A small pang erupts in my chest at the thought of her, it has been a while since I've seen my Mother. Slowly, I lift my head and rest it on the concrete wall behind me and glare at the shithead. 

"Someone wants to have a little chat with you." The pig sings. He motions for me to come up to the door, opening it, cuffs are snapped on my wrists. The guy is shorter than me, rounded, probably from eating out every day, I debate on whether to pummel him and run for it. Something tells me that it won't end well, seeing as how a few more cops enter the jail area. 

The cop grabs my arm to lead me towards the interrogation room that I know all too well. He opens the door to a room that has the same black tile floors, three white walls, and a large mirror which takes up the fourth wall. I notice they added a camera in the far corner -that's new. The douche walks me to the center of the room where there is an aluminum table and matching chair. On the other side is second chair, but it has some padding on it.

The cop takes me to the aluminum chair without the padding and forces me to sit. My back is bitten by the ice-cold temperature of the chair – suddenly I miss my shirt; I left it with Paul. My hands are kept up as the cop attaches my cuffs to a metal bar on top of the table. I sit there in silence as he leaves, staring into the mirror in front of me. I know it's a two-way mirror and someone is standing on the other side, watching me like a damn pervert. Lifting my middle finger up, I flip whoever is on the other side the bird. 

Minutes later, a decent size man walks in wearing a uniform with a golden badge signifying that he's an investigative detective. Great. He's in decent shape, no beer belly or much fat around the gut like the others around here. Gripping a manila folder in his hand, I see strained brown eyes with dark circles under them. Dark hair with some grey that has sprinkled their way in, with a thick dark mustache. In hesitation he pulls out the seat in front of me, letting the obnoxious scraping of the aluminum scratch the tile floor before he sits. After staring at me like he knows all my dirty secrets, he throws the folder down and opens it. Looking, I know it's my folder; the first thing he pulls out is a document with my name on it.

"Red." My eyes dart back up to him at the mention of my nickname. "You have quite the folder here. Quite the reputation –" The detective has a faint southern accent. Odd. Before he continues, I cut him off.

"Aw, you know my nickname and I don't even know who you are. I'm flattered." I state coolly with a smile.

Without missing a beat, he introduces himself as Elijah Cochran, Detective Cochran. I just nod my head. He removes a picture from my file and places it in front of me, I didn't look at it. My eyes remain on his.

"Do you know who this is?" He motions towards the polaroid.

Not looking, "No," keeping my eyes on him. My fingers find themselves picking at the ripped skin around my knuckles again. My mind reverts back to the cop that I nearly killed and Paul...

"You didn't even look." Irritation and frustration are clear. "Please," he pleads, seeming desperate. 

Looking down at the black and white photo. Shit. I know exactly who the man is. Marcus. I give my best poker face while repeating my answer.

"No." Marcus is the devil incarnate. He is more ruthless than I am. I once heard a rumor that he sold his own wife into slavery because she just didn't "do it" for him anymore. Marcus sold her after beating her to a pulp. He has two sons, one is Paul's age, he's training him to take over his drug business. That son of a bitch is a drug lord. The drug lord, also buys and sells women on the side. The devil's prodigy has killed three of his men for just looking at him the wrong way.

I have dealt with him, not by choice. I wasn't in a position to say 'no' because he threatened my Mom. Working for him once was enough. Annoying as he is, he keeps trying to get me to do little things for him here and there, but I constantly decline. Moving my Mom away from this God-forsaken town, he hasn't been able to dangle her life in front of me anymore. 

Fantasies of murdering him a few times have commonly filled my imagination because of how he treats women -it makes my skin crawl. He is a sick bastard. I don't think his mother ever loved him. Demented as he is, I know better than to cross him. There is no hesitation at all for him when it comes to taking someone's life – whether it's a man, woman, or child. 

Detective Cochran slams his fists on the table, it barely makes me flinch out of the memory of Marcus. He takes out more pictures, photos of me with Marcus scatter between us. They are of the side of my head, but anyone can still tell it's me. A picture in particular is of us, shaking hands. I recall that day. I scrubbed my hands in the sink with scalding hot water, ridding my first layer of skin cells from his touch. "You lie!" he screams, nostrils flaring.