Chapter 7 Sons & Shields #2
I’m good at it. Better than I should be, honestly.
I grew up watching my father fight the system with a gun.
I fight it with a printer and a pen. Leases, zoning, contracts, and defense prep.
Half the time, I’m still wearing lecture hall ink on my palms, hunched over a table with three patched brothers breathing down my neck, asking if “eminent domain” means the city can take our lot.
Sometimes I think I’ve spent more time in city offices than any lawyer in town.
And the city knows me. Knows I don’t blink.
Rock eyes me across the table one afternoon while I talk down a city inspector trying to red-tag the garage. I keep my tone level. Facts only.
When the guy finally folds and leaves, Rock whistles low and mutters, “You don’t flinch, do you? Like you’re made of something harder.”
I shrug. But something about the way he says it lingers.
I’m midway through rewriting a bullshit tow-yard permit when Rock stumbles into the meeting room.
Blood’s crusted on his knuckles, his lip’s split open, and there’s a fresh tear in the sleeve of his hoodie. He looks like he walked through hell and didn’t bother to wipe his boots before coming in.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, tossing him the cleanest towel I can find. “Did a truck hit you or did you piss off the wrong saint?”
Rock catches the towel and dabs his lip like he’s done it a hundred times. “Kid at the bike shop was getting’ jumped,” he says, voice flat. “I handled it.”
“By yourself?”
He shrugs like it's no big deal. “They swung first.”
I blink. “How many?”
“Three. Maybe four.” He sits like his ribs hurt, but he doesn’t complain. “Didn’t count after the first one squealed.”
“Jesus,” I say again, but it’s quieter this time.
Dad walks in just as I’m finishing with Rock’s busted knuckles. Tama King doesn’t say a word for a minute, just eyes the kid like he’s measuring him for a grave or a cut. It's hard to tell with my old man.
Then he grunts and jerks his head. “With me.”
Rock follows without question, limping slightly. I hear the low rumble of their voices in the hall, too muffled to make out until Dad’s voice cuts sharp and clean: “You ever back down?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. You keep that heat, Mercer. Just learn to aim it.”
There’s a pause, then Dad nods toward the room I’m still sitting in. “Stick to him. He’s green too, but he’s smart. You two? You’ll catch fire together.”
Rock returns a moment later, quieter than before. Still bloodied, breathing like a storm in a cage, but there’s a weight behind his steps now. Like someone finally handed him a reason.
He looks at me and asks, dead serious. “So, what the hell’s a zoning variance?”
I hand him a pen and the paperwork. “Guess you’re about to find out.”
Some weeks, I barely leave the meeting room. I’ve become the Saints’ unofficial legal department, therapist, and janitor for the kind of messes bleach won’t touch.
I don’t wear a patch yet, but they talk to me like I do. Because when the IRS comes sniffing, when a landlord tries to break a lease, when a DA starts circling like a shark, it’s not my father they call. It’s me. Sometimes I think that scares my father more than any bullet ever could.
I’m still young, still wearing my tie too tight on the days I do court runs, but I know enough to cover our tracks. I bury receipts under new EINs. Move cash through half a dozen hands before it hits the books. I don’t ask where it comes from anymore.
My dad once told me, “Saints don’t lie. We just tell the truth slower than most.”
Now I know what he meant.
Late one night, I’m holed up at the long table in Church, redlining a stack of building permits. The clubhouse smells like oil and whiskey and burnt coffee, and the only sound is the low thump of music bleeding in from the garage.
Rock’s across from me, flipping through a thick zoning binder like it’s a training manual. Kid’s still rough, but he’s focused. Never asks for a break, just keeps grinding.
I glance over. “You know we’re not getting paid for this, right?”
He grins, split lip still healing. “You mean you’re not. I’m here for the free beer and a door that locks.”
Fair.
That’s when it starts to shift, quietly, steadily.
Word gets around that Isaiah Saint can make a cop’s warrant disappear in paperwork before it hits a judge’s desk. He can get your stolen bike back and make the insurance company thank you for it. That if you sit down with him, shut up, and sign where he says, you won’t go to prison.
Suddenly, I’m fielding more than just contracts. I’m reading people. Interpreting tone. Navigating egos. I learn who lies with a smile, who flinches at the word “court,” who breaks when you say subpoena.
It isn’t just about laws anymore. It’s about strategy. About protecting the Saints before they even know they need protecting.
Tama starts letting me into the heavier meetings. Shit that used to be handled in back rooms with whiskey and silence.
At first, I just sit and listen. Then they start asking what I think.
One night, after we dodge a land seizure with a forged easement and a very persuasive city clerk, Dad lights a cigarette and watches me like I’m a stranger.
“You’re not just doin’ paperwork, son,” he says finally.
“No, I’m doin’ cleanup.”
“No,” he says again, slower. “You’re building a wall around this family. That’s not just legal. That’s blood.” I don’t answer. Just nod and go back to my files. He doesn’t stop watching me. Not that night. Maybe not ever again.
The first time I meet Honor, it’s at a funeral. Shot in the back, leaving a drop. Wrong place, wrong hour. I help carry the casket. I don’t know why, but it feels heavier than it should.
The sun is beating down on the leather backs of Saints lined in formation, sweat and silence thick in the air. Burying one of the OG’s is never easy. I’m standing to the side, trying not to think about how many of these we’ve had this year. Too many black patches. Too many damn eulogies.
As the casket lowers into the ground, taking Bookie deep into its chasm, I hear it. Psalm 23. But not from the preacher. It’s this gangly white kid with long arms and wild curls, reciting like he’s in his own world.
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” He doesn’t stutter. Doesn’t falter. Just belts it, like the dead man is listening.
Later, Dad leans in. “That’s Kyle. The preacher’s kid. Odd one.”
“Why’s he here?”
“Boy said he wants to learn the difference between salvation and justice.” Tama glances sideways.
“No shit.”
“But he sees things. Knows things. Keep him close.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Because God told you?”
“No,” Dad says. “Because my gut did.”
I’m not patched yet, but the weight of one’s already on my back. Unspoken, but not invisible. It’s the kind of respect that unnerves my father more than a loaded barrel.
After I get one of the old garage deeds untangled and cleared, Ghost pipes up from a stool and says, “Steel Saint would’ve liked you.”
I don’t ask what he means. I already know. He means the weight. The grind. The refusal to bend.
I work two phones and three desks some nights. Paper stacks everywhere. One brother in county, one fighting a custody battle, another trying to register a body shop without raising suspicion. Everything runs through me.
I make enemies. Quiet ones. White-collar ones. And sometimes I feel them watching. Cops, city officials, and even old friends ask why I stick around.
But the club isn’t just motorcycles and mayhem anymore. Not if I can help it.
It’s the broken boys. It’s the rage that doesn’t know where else to go. It’s the ones like Rock and Jennings, and Crusher. Boys who got left behind, the same way I did.
So, I stay. And I build.
After a tense club meeting, guys arguing over a bad coke run upstate, I’m the last one left in the war room, reviewing paperwork with a half-drained coffee and a headache pounding behind my eyes.
Dad walks in and tosses a set of keys on the table. They skid across the grain, landing on the edge of my open folder.
“You’re driving tomorrow,” he says.
I blink. “To where?”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re ready.”
“Ready for what?”
He leans against the doorframe. Arms crossed. Looking at me like he’s trying to see something only he understands.
“You’ve been earning your place. Not just by keeping us out of jail, but by showing up. Watching. Learning.”
I close the folder. “Is this you saying you’re proud?”
He snorts. “Don’t get soft on me.”
I stand. “Then what is this?”
He reaches into his vest and pulls out a fresh patch. It’s heavy in his hands, black and green, the Saints skull gleaming under the fluorescents.
“This is yours,” he says. “But if you’re gonna wear it, you need a name.”
I swallow. “You sure?”
“Already got the vote. It was unanimous.”
“What is it?”
He smiles, just a flicker. “Steel.”
“…Steel?” I blink. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. Because you bend for no one, you hold us up. And because God help the man who thinks he can break you.”
I take the patch. It feels heavier than it should. Or maybe I do.
“You earned it, Isaiah,” he says, voice lower now. “Don’t ever forget where you came from. Or why we ride.”
I grip the patch tight, jaw set. “I won’t.”
He turns to leave but stops halfway. “And Isaiah?”
“Yeah?”
“You carry yourself differently now. Not just like a Saint.” He tilts his head, eyes dark. “You carry yourself like him. Like Steel Saint.”
A beat of silence passes between us, stretching long. “He wouldn’t want his name forgotten,” I say.
Dad nods once. “Then don’t forget to live up to it.”
I’m the last one at the bar that night. The place hums low, like it’s remembering. My father’s words still echo in the cracked glass of the back bar. “You’re Steel now.”
I find a Sharpie half-buried under an old coaster. Uncap it. I trace the Sharpie messages behind the bottles.
Saint’s Ghost Still Rides.
I scan the wall. Thousands of words. Declarations. Confessions. Final fuck-yous.
I find Bookie’s name with a date circled in black. Someone carved a crown beside it.
I lift the Sharpie. Hover. But put it back. Not yet. Not until I earn what he died for.
But I will.
This is just the start.