Chapter 7
CASH
Icouldn’t concentrate.
As soon as the Halloween party wound down, I put Cara to bed, checked that Wilder had crashed, and came downstairs to my office to do some paperwork.
There weren’t enough hours in the day lately to get everything done that needed doing.
The Speed Demons’ businesses were forever expanding.
The construction company’s contracts covered most of southern Wyoming.
We had stakes in stores, restaurants, bars, and even charities, and I was finding it hard to keep up.
My eyes veered to the photo on my desk, and my mouth curved into a grin as I studied the image of my boy, Wilder, who sat on one side of me, Cara, my ol’ lady, who sat on the other, and me in the middle, an arm slung across each of their shoulders.
It had been taken that summer when we went to Virginia for a few days to visit our chapter there. Their prez, Hendrix, his ol’ lady, Anna, and their boy, JT, had joined us for a day out at the Potomac River.
Cara had styled Wilder’s hair in a mohawk, and he loved it because someone told him it made him look like a badass.
My boy was giving me some side-eye because I wouldn’t let him get a full-face tattoo for his birthday, which was coming up a couple of weeks later.
My eyes veered to Cara, who was laughing, and looking so carefree that she instantly reminded me of the eighteen-year-old girl I’d met when I caught a glimpse of her on Main Street years before.
I loved that Anna had captured us so off guard and happy, and I loved that after everything we’d been through as a couple and a family, we still had that.
My fingers reached out and touched the frame because just looking at that family snap made me feel grounded, and fuck me, did I need it.
My head turned slightly to look at the other photograph taking pride of place on my desk. An old, framed Polaroid of me, Dad, and Grandpa Bandit that someone had taken when I was about ten.
We were standing side by side, posing with rifles and cheesy grins.
I remembered it as if it were only yesterday.
Dad and Bandit had taken me shooting up in the woods.
Bandit had insisted that it was never too soon for the future prez of the Speed Demons (namely me) to learn how to be a crack shot.
I knew my way around a weapon by the age of eight, though it would have been even earlier if my mom hadn’t put her foot down and forbade it.
My grandpa taught me how to shoot, how to ride, and even arranged my first fuck.
Though every one of those milestones happened when I was way too young.
I’d struggled with it all my life because the pressure was immense, but Bandit had died before I could ever take it up with him, so I didn’t have a choice but to let sleeping dogs lie.
It wouldn’t happen with Wilder, though, and it wasn’t because if I taught him how to shoot, he’d probably fire a round into his most hated class teacher’s ass.
I wanted him to have the childhood I didn’t.
I wanted him to be a kid.
With a sigh, I grabbed my cell phone from my desk and checked the time.
3:01.
Tossing my pen on my desk, I buried my head in my hands. “Fuck,” I said quietly. “I need to sleep.”
My head jerked up when a familiar deep voice, husky from years of smoking far too many cigarettes, rasped, “Fuck that, boy. You can sleep when you’re dead.”
I launched out of my chair, fell flat on my ass, and scrambled backward until I hit the wall behind me. My blood pressure hit the fucking roof, and my entire body locked, all except my hands that began to shake with the force of the adrenaline shooting through me.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” I exclaimed.
“Nah,” Bandit crowed, one side of his weathered face hitching into a lopsided grin as he lounged back in the chair facing mine. “Just your old grandpa.”
“But you’re fucking dead,” I protested, my eyes bugging out on stalks.
Grandpa leaned toward me and raised his hands in the air. Then he wiggled his fingers and wailed, “Wooooo,” like a goddamned ghost, before dropping his hands and cackling out a laugh.
My heart jackhammered.
For a split second, my brain tried to tell me it was just an echo of the past, some weird, late-night hallucination brought on by lack of sleep. But the voice came again, low and gleeful and loving the fact he’d freaked me the fuck out.
“Calm down, kid. Ain’t gonna bite.”
I stared at him, my jaw on the damned floor.
Bandit looked the same as he had the day he died: long, grey hair slicked back into a low ponytail, unshaven, cocky, golden eyes knowing and watchful.
He even wore the same damned thing he always did.
Baggy jeans, black tee, and his Demons’ cut with the president’s patch sewn onto the lapel, boasting his name underneath.
“This is a dream,” I croaked.
He cackled again. “Pinch yourself, boy, and make it good and hard. Leave a mark and see if it’s still there tomorrow.”
I raised a shaking hand and pointed at him. “You’re a ghost!”
“Jesus, fuck,” he drawled. “Should’a given you the road name bullet, you’re that quick off the mark. Dunno why you’re so damned surprised; I always told you assholes I’d come back and haunt your asses.”
“What the hell do you want?” I rubbed the pain shooting through my chest. The old bastard would be the damned death of me. Though knowing this old fucker, killing me off would probably fill him with glee.
“Can’t say I want anythin’,” he replied, looking around the room.
“Ya know, I never had an office. Your pop moved everythin’ here from the old barn we used as a clubhouse when I was prez and took the reins pretty much the same day.
” His expression turned reflective, and he admitted, “The boy did good.”
My eyes rounded. I couldn’t quite believe Grandpa Bandit admitted that shit, especially since I never heard him do it when he was alive.
He waved a nonchalant hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know. But you gotta understand that I’ve had a bit of time to reflect. A man learns more lessons in death than life, especially when he’s got your grandma Connie on his case.”
My heart squeezed. “You’re with Grandma?”
“Let’s just say I’m allowed to visit. Never quite made it through the pearly gates, but like I say, I’m reflecting on some shit, so it’s looking good for the future.
The thing about me, boy, was that I did some bad shit, but I wasn’t bad to the bone like some other fuckers I could mention.
As long as lessons are learned and you repent for your wrongdoings, there’s hope for everyone.
” He shot me a grin and waggled his eyebrows.
“Even mean old fuckers like me.” He leaned forward, staring at my face, which was no doubt completely devoid of any color. “Knock knock. Anyone there?”
“I’m still stuck on the fact I’m talking to a dead man,” I bit out.
“Have I hurt ya?” he asked.
I kept my lips pressed together because no, he hadn’t, and now that I was getting over the initial shock of seeing my dead grandpa, I had to admit, I was intrigued.
Bandit’s eyes lowered to the paperwork on my desk, and he smirked.
“I remember the days when all I needed to track club money was a battered old desk calculator, a sharp pencil, a ledger, and a strong safe. Now you’ve got computers and those spreadsheet things, and I gotta say.
I think you make it more complicated than it has to be.
You’re wastin’ your life doin’ that shit.
You should be out on the road, fillin’ your soul with the roar of an engine and the wind whistlin’ through your ears. ”
I stood from my spot on the floor and slowly made my way back to my desk before sprawling out in my seat. “I get what you’re sayin’, Gramps, but we don’t deal in bags stuffed with cash anymore. We have legitimate businesses that need our attention.”
“Your family needs your attention, too,” he pointed out. “And so do your brothers. Pass on the accounts to that pretty little bookkeeper of yours. She can handle it.”
A bad feeling slid through me. “Can you see something I need to know about?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “But the club’s gonna be fine.
You’re all doin’ a fine job of keepin’ the family line strong.
Gotta say, Cash, I fuckin’ love your boy.
I would’ve got a real kick outta him if I was alive.
The boy’s a fuckin’ lunatic.” His mouth stretched into a self-satisfied smirk.
“He’s got a lot of his great-grandpa in him. ”
I laughed despite myself because my dad said the same thing, and I thought it at least fifty times a day. Bandit hit the nail on the head when he called himself a mean old fucker, but he was also right when he said he wasn’t bad to the bone.
My grandpa had done a lot of bad shit in his life, and a lot of it close to home, but he’d done good shit too.
Bandit doted on my grandma when she was alive and treated her like a queen.
He donated to the Church, and if people in town found themselves needing medical treatment and struggled to afford it, they’d often receive an envelope of cash stuffed through their mailboxes.
All anonymous of course.
Something I’d learned through my therapist, Mitch, was that we were all products of our environment, and Bandit was no different.
From the stories Dad told us, Bandit had a rough childhood and was never the same after serving in Vietnam.
I mean, he was hardly an angel before, but the proverbial screw worked its way even looser during the war.
Grandpa leaned further forward and rasped, “You should see his girl.”
My eyebrows pulled together. “Huh?”
“His girl.” He shook his head wryly. “She’s somethin’ alright. Weird ‘cause he’s like me in so many ways, but I was never partial to blondes, and neither are you.”
“Blonde?” I murmured. “What the fuck are you on about, old man?”