Iron Angel by Kay Perry

 
    IRON ANGEL
     
    There are days when you just have to ride.
     
    Sometimes you ride because your life has turned to shit and everything is going down in flames. So you rev up the Harley and it’s just you and the open road as you reflect on times past and consider your options for the future. Usually, life slowly gets better as miles of concrete pass beneath your wheels.
     
    Sometimes you ride because everything is golden. You are on top of the world, so you ride in glory. The sun on your face and the wind through your hair celebrate a glorious day with you as you scream down the highway and watch the mountains grow larger in the distance as the miles pass.
     
    Sometimes you ride because the club is riding. Then you ride whether you are happy or sad, whether you want to ride that day or not, whether you are getting anything out of it or not. You ride because the club is a living body, and you are a part of that body. When that long line of bikes snakes its way through the traffic on the open road or roars through the center of town, you are a body riding together as one.
     
    And sometimes you ride because you need a time and place to think. Sometimes, you need a place totally by yourself so you can sort out your thoughts and weigh your next moves very carefully. There’s no better place to be alone than on a Harley roaring down the road.
     
    Maddox Robinson was on the road today because he needed to think. The rumble of his engine and the whine of his tires were a background concert that drowned out everything but what was important. What was important right now was his next move to achieve presidency of the Iron Angels Motorcycle Club.
     
    There was a time when such a move was just a matter of power and nerve. Like lions on the savannah, when you thought the time was right, you challenged the president of the club, and the survivor of the fight was the new leader. Now, it was more like Survivor: Motorcycle Club Edition . You had to make the right alliances well in advance and carefully win the respect and loyalty of the members before you could even begin to act.
     
    Maddox knew how the game was played today. He had laid the groundwork carefully and had gained the respect, and probably the loyalty, of most of the club. He had also formed his alliances very carefully. His strength and personal power helped him make some of those alliances. His good looks, charm, and muscular body aided him in forming others– most importantly his close alliance with Carol Malone.
     
    Carol was the primary reason for his scheming and planning to begin with. She was everything he had ever wanted in a woman. She was smart and beautiful and her sexuality heated up a room just by her being present. Carol Malone was a very powerful woman and, if she had been a man, could very well have been president of the Iron Angels.
     
    But she was a woman. A powerful woman... but a woman. And she was a woman with a weakness. That weakness was power itself. She was girlfriend and chief advisor to the current Iron Angel’s president. The power that she could not claim for herself drew her close to him. That power, which she made her own as her influence grew, kept her close to him... until she betrayed him.
     
    Maddox knew that once he had that power, he would also have Carol. They had planned Burke’s downfall together. It was simple: set things up so that Burke would be carrying either a large quantity of drugs or illegal weapons, and then somehow let the cops know when and where. The rest would take care of itself.
     
    Everyone knew that Johnny, the bartender at the Wheel Horse Bar, was an informant. It was just a matter of saying something when he could hear it. Once Burke went to prison, his reign as president would end.
     
    Again, there had been a day when the president of a club could rule from inside a prison, but those days are also gone. Loyalty to a fallen leader is a thing of the past. Today, if you go down, you’re out. The club