Man Of Steel by Jordan Silver Page A

are strange fucking
creatures that way, they can meet and strike up conversations like long lost
friends. Men not so much, especially not this bunch .
    “They’re cool.” Long-winded fucker.
    We walked over to get things
moving since the guys were all sectioned off in their own groups. “Shamus,
Jared, Slash.” I greeted each man with a pound and stood back to see who was gonna set shit off.
    “”Blade.”
Shamus was the eldest one here, as head of the Hellraisers he’s been doing this shit for a minute and he looked it. He was a true
throwback to the bikers of old. With the foot long greying beard and the beer
gut to go with it. He was getting up there in age but word was he was still the
wrong motherfucker to mess with.
    Jared probably
had a few years on me. He led the Outlaws and though he was tatted up from head
to toe with bulging muscles, he didn’t have that hard look to him yet. I think
he used to be an attorney or some shit in his past life. It was left to be seen
what, if anything he could bring to the table. That was whole purpose of this
little get together after all ; to pool our resources.
    Slash, the
head of the Invaders was in his late twenties and with his white blonde hair
shaved close and his tats and piercings on full display, he was a cross between
the other two. From my quick once over of the men they’d brought with them it
seemed each crew had a theme. Wish the fuck I could get my boys to be this uniformed.
Deke would probably kill me in my sleep if I tried to get him to wear anything
other then leather and Stryder was a GQ model wanna be. So not happening.
    “We doing this now or you guys need
some time?”
    “Nah I think we’re all ready.”
Shamus spoke for the others and Jake nodded his head in the direction of the
far side of the backyard where he had a table set up. I shook my head no when
Deke and Stryder started to follow me. The others
could have their shadows follow if they liked but this was my turf. I didn’t
feel the need to flex my muscles, not yet anyway.
    The boys
weren’t too pleased but they stood down, though they stayed close. What the
fuck am I? Their grandfather or some shit? I ignored them and headed over to the
table where the others waited. I was the picture of relaxed, but I was ready
for anything; just because these fuckers claimed they came in peace that didn’t
mean I was about to let my guard down. The U.N. has been holding peace talks
for fucking ever before two factions and that shit was in Nowheres land.
    I sat back and
waited for one of them to talk, after all they were the ones that needed to
sell me on the idea of letting them in. My deal here today was to make sure
that they understood what it would mean if we accepted them. I wasn’t power
boating but I wasn’t about to play fast and loose with this shit either. Too
much was at stake for me to be anything but hard with this shit.
    Once again Shamus took the lead.
“So what is it that you guys do anyway?”
    “A lot.” What the fuck?
    “I mean what exactly is it that
you do on a day to day. We’ve only got the bare bones of the operation and if
we’re gonna be getting on board we need to know just what it is that we’d be
getting into.”
    “Here’s the
deal, this shit is serious. What we do is offer protection where it’s needed
but there’s a lot more to it than that. We have our hands full with a whole
slew of shit from security detail to relocation etc. etc. etc. Now the only
reason I’m even contemplating letting you guys in the door is because we’re
stretched thin. This thing has taken off and become huge. We’re getting request
from states all over the map not to mention internationally. We try not to turn
anyone away.
    Sometimes
there’s more than one complaint at a time and since I don’t believe in short
changing one to take care of another, we could use the extra help. We don’t
need it but we could use it. The other thing that you guys need to know.” Here
I looked at