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“Depends, I guess. When we opened Golden Glades, West, one of the brothers, went down there for a while. But with Shady Valley, three of the guys had spent so much time here that Fallon didn’t feel like we needed to babysit them as they started their operation.
“I’m not sure what’s gonna happen with the Texas chapter. Sutton has been here a long time, but his men all stayed back. He has a ranch there,” Finn explained as we stood outside of a closed door to, I imagined, his bedroom. “So I guess he needed them to oversee all that.”
“Why would a rancher need to become a biker?” I asked.
“Dunno if he needs to. But he wants to. He’s located in a good position for imports and exports. And almost a halfway point between the sister clubs, so the brothers who are traveling between them have a place to rest for a few days before getting back on the road.”
“Was Sutton a, you know, criminal before this?”
“From what I hear… there were some, you know, youthful indiscretions. And some family history of crime. Guess he’s comfortable with it.”
“Interesting,” I said. And it was. “Now, are you going to show me your room, or not?”
I had plenty of time to ask him about how outlaw biker clubs worked. I really wanted to see his room.
“Don’t get too excited,” he said, grimacing a little as he turned the knob. “Nothing exciting to be found in here.”
He was right about that.
If anything, the room was almost kind of bleak. Plain white walls. A full-sized black framed bed. A matching dresser and nightstand set. No art on the walls. No carpet.
This was a frat guy’s room.
It had none of the cozy vibes of his house.
“No wonder you don’t spend much time here,” I said, moving through to the bathroom.
“Yeah. Kinda never noticed before how depressing it is in here.”
“The lack of windows doesn’t help,” I said.
“Yeah, but some of the other guys actually put some work into their rooms. Guess shit went kinda dark for me before I even thought about doing it. Then…”
“You didn’t have the motivation,” I filled in, recalling that feeling. “So, what else do you have to show me?” I asked.
“The basement.”
“That sounded unnecessarily ominous,” I said, pleased.
I followed him back down the hall before going down the stairs to the basement.
There we found another barracks-style setup. A bunch of bunk beds, food storage, what looked like a giant safe door. And, odder than all of that, a ladder leading up.
“Back before the addition, the prospects used to sleep down here,” Finn told me. “But we also sometimes used it as a sort of safe room. That’s the purpose of it now, too,” he admitted.
That made sense, what with the food storage and all.
“Is there a bathroom?” I asked, glancing around.
“Over there,” he said, pointing to a very narrow door. “You can barely turn around in there, but it’s a bathroom.”
“And what’s the ladder for?” I asked.
“How’re your feet?” he asked instead of answering.
“I mean… they’re… okay,” I said. The cuts hadn’t been that big to begin with, and I was a relatively fast healer. They were kind of red and angry-looking still, but seemed to have grown together already. Sure, they kind of hurt with all this walking, but not enough to keep me from going up that ladder.
“You sure?”
“Shut up and take me up the ladder,” I demanded, getting a smile out of him before he moved in that direction, and started up.
“You coming?” he called when he neared the top, and pushed open a trap-style door.
“Was enjoying the view,” I said, shooting him a flirtatious smirk before grabbing hold of the rungs, and making slow progress up.
It was a lot taller than it looked from the floor, and my belly felt like it was bottoming out as my palms went a little sweaty.
But by then, I was about to poke my head through the open door.
“Oh!” I said, smile spreading as I realized why the ladder had been so steep.
Because we’d just gone from the basement… to the roof. The glass room on the roof, in particular.
“So, like, if something happened and you were in the safe room, you could see what is going on,” I guessed, looking around at the lights of Navesink Bank.
“Exactly. This is DARPA glass.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Government glass, I guess you could call it. Strong enough to withstand pretty much any kind of bullet,” he said, knocking on it.
Now that he mentioned it, it really did look crazy thick.
“How often have you needed to, you know, lock down?”
“Not as often now as when I was a kid,” Finn said. “But most of the moms took us up to Hailstorm instead of staying here.”
Hailstorm. If I recalled correctly, that was the paramilitary camp up on the hill that I’d seen a hundred times, but I guess I figured it was some actual military base or something. What with the fences, dogs, and armed guards.
