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PROLOGUE
JENSEN GRIMES
Summer 2015
It was a slow time for criminal activity in this small California town, which does not differ from any other time. Most of the crimes we were called to were petty burglaries or wild boar tearing apart nicely kept lawns and such. Oh, let’s not forget my least favorite calls, domestic disturbances. It sickens me, abuse is abuse, no matter how you sum it up and as a Kern County Deputy Sheriff, I need to stay neutral.
My phone rang, and it was a welcome relief to see Raye, my wife’s, profile picture across the screen. I needed to take a break from the stack of old arrest reports that were crossing my eyes. They were all the same type of crime, only with different dates, times, and names. “Hey, baby…. oh, yeah,” I chuckled, “just another day at the office… no, no, nothing at all happened today.” She told me about little Andrew running a fever earlier but got it down after some Tylenol and a tepid bath. It’s so hard when the baby is sick, they can’t communicate what ails them. It was becoming the norm, Drew was a sickly baby when he was born. I only hope the one on the way, tentatively named Theodore, after my grandfather, will have a healthier set of lungs on him.
“Good, at least he’s feeling better. Did you make an appointment with the pediatrician?—Why not?—At least you can have the doc look at Drew’s lungs to make sure he doesn’t have pneumonia.” Raye cried over the phone. Her raging hormones were crazy, she’d be joking one moment, crying the next. “Raye, look… I’m sorry.” I couldn’t think of how to console her over the phone.
It was awkward for me to be empathetic to my super pregnant wife. I didn’t have sympathy cravings or pains that I heard men have during their wives' or girlfriends’ pregnancies. It was supposed to be pretty common during the third trimester. After not experiencing this myself, as well as other fathers I spoke to, I concluded it was a myth or rather, another wives’ tale added to the string of them Raye and I have heard already.
“I’ll tell you what. I’m off duty in an hour. How about I go by Frosty’s and get you a Butterscotch milkshake?” She interrupted me and finished my order. I chuckled, “Okay, I will get you a pastrami sandwich too. I will get myself one also, it sounds perfect. I will see you when I get home… I love you too, baby.”
No sooner had I disconnected the call with Raye, when Deputy Lawrence ‘Larry,’ McCrae sat on the edge of my desk and dropped a file on top of the one I was in the middle of combing through. “I know you’re almost off duty and eager to get home to Raye and Andrew, but this may be of some interest to you. Take it home and read the contents carefully. The chief needs a man to go undercover, and I recommended you.”
All I needed to see was the arrest report and mugshot of Levi Shields, president of the notorious Chrome Poppies Motorcycle Club, Central California chapter, and I slammed the file closed while shaking my head. “No, no way, nope. I’ve heard some hellish stories about this guy, and I made it a goal to steer as far away from that club as possible.”
Lawrence leaned over and reopened the file, pointing to a letter written on Mayor Charles Davis’s letterhead. “You read this, and you will see why we need a man to go undercover for us and finally bring this barbaric motorcycle club down.” Lawrence jumped off the desk and paced in circles, making me dizzy. “Apparently, the old Mayor Wilson accepted bribes from Shields to cover for him and bail him out when there was the need, which was often.” He chuckled and continued, “After Mayor Davis was elected, his first goal was to clean up the mess Wilson had made. He and his staff discovered boxes of documents, like receipts and correspondences from Shields and other members of his club. Dude, some were written confessions to murder, and they still got off.” I shrugged at Lawrence.
“Well, I don’t need to read it, since you told me everything.” I stood up and stretched my aching back, towering over the shorter Lawrence. “Why me though?”
“You’re the only biker in this department and you look the part. You’re grungy. You’re big. You’re pretty badass. But most importantly, you’re bored stiff and itching to go out on the field.” I shook my head again, trying to convince this green deputy I wasn’t interested.
“Find me another assignment. Anything but this.” I grumbled, smashing the file in Lawrence’s chest.
“GRIMES!” I heard my name from somewhere and wanted to knock Lawrence’s lights out when he held up his phone, showing me that he had the chief on speaker phone. “I am not giving you an option. You take the assignment or turn in your badge, that’s entirely up to you.”
“Yes, sir!” I responded, glaring at Lawrence as I removed the file from his grip. He disconnected the call. “You’re going to owe me big time for this, asshole.”
After my week off, I became a prospect of the Chrome Poppies Motorcycle Club, and the rest was history—a sad story of a man who lost everything after an assignment became an obsession and my way of life.
ONE
JENSEN GRIMES
Summer 2022
Honor thy Brothers.
Forgive those who’ve wronged us.
Never pull the trigger unless warranted.
Those were President Levi Shields’s established vows for all new prospects when they were indicted into the Chrome Poppies motorcycle club. However, over time I learned Levi Shields didn’t practice what he preached.
Granted, he honored his brothers, so long as they did his dirty work. Dirty work that started as maybe beating up a troublemaker or two, led to murdering rival club members without questions asked. Not to mention, the petty theft that turned into million-dollar heists and whatnot.
As much as I wanted to hang up my vest and leave the club, I couldn’t, or he’d hunt me down for an eternity until I was found and plugged with a hundred bullet holes. Here, the word forgive wasn’t in his vocabulary, and, neither was forgotten. This man was the king of holding grudges and doling out retribution like he was the master of revenge.
In Levi Shields's fantasy world, every neighboring motorcycle club was a threat, and the blood was on Levi’s hands after they committed what was construed as punishable crimes. He couldn’t care less about anyone else, so long as his brothers were not harmed, and he fattened his bank account.
Even his old lady couldn’t hack living with his violent tendencies and left him without a note. She took only a suitcase of clothes and the car. This was five years ago and not one soul had heard from her since. Most of the guys joked that Levi probably stalked her and murdered her. I didn’t see this as a laughing matter, and I seriously wouldn’t put it past Levi.
It was one drunken night, only a few weeks ago, to be exact. Levi felt comfortable enough to tell me his entire life story. This man barely spoke to me on any other given occasion, but this was proof that when one has too much poison in his system, everyone was his best friend. I found this to be an opportune time to press record on my phone. It was my job to report and figured it was high time I add more to the evidence I had already on him. Evidence I had to keep a secret for fear of being found out. If Levi Shields knew I was a Deputy Sheriff, I’d suffer a slow and painful death.
His story started as he reminisced about his father, Robert, the former president of the Chrome Poppies. I knew this much, since it was in Levi’s thick file. I was also aware an unnamed assailant gunned Robert down nearly twenty years ago.
