Chapter Nine
Damon
I rarely talk about my past, so it surprised me when I brought it up with Corey yesterday. The last thing I want is her thinking I’m just some poor little orphan boy with a dead mother and an unknown father, but I guess that’s the truth, isn’t it?
I know she has her own family problems and would never judge me, and maybe that’s why I opened up to her so easily. Most people know the fun, smart-ass, easygoing Damon, but that’s just what I show everyone. No one needs to know the story of my broken childhood. I’m a man now, and I’ve come so far since then. And when I finally have a child one day, I’ll make sure they have a wonderful childhood.
That’s all I can do. Stop the cycle.
“Good morning,” I say when Julianna walks into the new clubhouse’s kitchen, holding Julian.
“Morning,” she replies in a singsong voice, handing me the baby. “Can you hold him for a minute?”
“Of course I can. Hello there,” I say, smiling down at the next in line to this MC empire. He yawns, and I grin at just how damn cute he is. With his big brown eyes and mop of dark hair, he’s actually the most adorable baby I’ve ever seen.
“You look good with a baby,” Julianna says with raised brows. She tucks her hair back away from her face with the back of her palm, and then dries her hands on a tea towel. Once she has his bottle sorted, she takes him back.
“He makes anyone look good,” I reply, grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge. “You coming to the Devils clubhouse today?”
She nods. “Yes, I want to be there when we choose the new prospects, especially because they’ll be here. It will be a little weird having strangers around here, I have to admit. It’s been a while since we brought in anyone who wasn’t family...”
“Yes, it has. Twelve years in fact,” I say. I was the last person who was brought in.
Her eyes widen, realizing what she said. “Shit, Damon. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine,” I tell her, smiling so she knows I’m not upset. “It’s the truth. We haven’t had any new people in here since your dad brought me in when I was eighteen.”
But since we lost Victor and the men loyal to him when they betrayed us, we need some fresh meat. And making the club bigger and stronger will only benefit us in the end. We just need to make sure that we find good, loyal men, and I think that’s going to be the hard part.
Corey steps into the kitchen with a smile, her red hair pushed off her face with a black headband. She really is a natural beauty, her hazel eyes the color of a fucking amber crystal.
“Good morning,” she greets, her eyes going straight to the baby. “And look at you in your little onesie.”
Julianna hands him over and Corey sits down and feeds Julian his bottle, without a word passed between them. She’s good with kids, and Julian looks up at her like the sun shines from her eyes. I can’t blame him. And I try to push away the warm feelings I don’t fucking need right now, seeing her holding him.
“I’m heading off soon,” Julianna says, watching her son happily drink away. “Damon, you coming with?”
In my new role as sergeant at arms, these are the things that I need to take part in. It’s a bit of an adjustment, being included in these big club decisions. “Yup, let’s roll.”
“We are going to meet with the new prospects. If you need anything, give us a shout,” Julianna says.
“I’ll be fine,” Corey replies, smiling. “I’ll be painting all day, and Jag is going to drop in and bring me some lunch.”
“Surely Jag has other important things to do,” I say in a dry tone, the words escaping me before I can stop them.
Both women turn and look at me with varying expressions. Amusement from Julianna, and annoyance from Corey.
“Well, you take that up with your president,” she fires back, pursing those plump lips.
“Come on, Damon, we better get going,” Julianna says, lifting her denim jacket off the back of the chair and sliding it on. “Sorry to steal the baby back.”
Corey hands him over and stands up. “I wonder if there’ll be any new hotties prospecting.”
I grit my teeth but ignore her comment. She truly knows how to get way under my skin.
“Yes, I wonder,” Julianna replies, grabbing my arm and pulling me out of there. “Call us if you need anything!”
She loads Julian into the back of the car while I get into the driver’s seat, and then she gets into the passenger side. “I swear you can cut the tension in the room with a knife every time you two are around each other. Did you tell her you dumped Melinda?”
“No.”
“Oh my god,” she mutters under her breath, shaking her head. “She’s not going to wait around forever, Damon.”
I don’t say anything back, because there’s nothing to say. I know the situation.
Once we’re at the Devils clubhouse, we have to go to our club meeting, aka church, all of us sitting around the big wooden table to have our meeting. The prospects are waiting outside.
Julianna is the only woman present, and she’s left Julian with Bella. I know she wants to push for the other women to be made official members, but she said she’s going to wait until this Lions situation has been dealt with.
“I thought I’d start off with us discussing the Lost Lions MC, which doesn’t seem to get the hint that they aren’t welcome here. I want everyone to be on alert, and be prepared for anything,” Romeo starts. “Damon, what is the update on them? Anything new?”
“We’ve been trailing them, and other than causing a disruption at a few of the bars, they haven’t been doing much.”
“Where do they go when they leave? Is it all of them that go or just a few?” River asks.
“They never go to the same place. Sometimes they go to the bar, other times on the open road. Usually to different casinos. And it’s usually just Gio and two other guys. They’re different each time.”
“I don’t like this,” Romeo says, rubbing his chin. “We need to decide how long we’re going to let them be here until we step in.”
The room collectively agrees.
“And secondly, as you all know we’ve been wanting to bring in some prospects for a while now, and you were all able to nominate men that you thought would both fit in here and have the character and loyalty that the Devils and Angels MC represents,” Romeo says, glancing around the table to acknowledge us all individually. “Last week we met with all of the men, and today we’re going to vote on which three we want as our new prospects.”
Julianna hands out a piece of paper to each of us, which is not something we’d normally do, but bringing a woman in as a leader brings a whole new level of organization we never anticipated.
“The final vote will be made by Romeo and me if there aren’t any clear winners,” she announces, smiling. “This is fun, don’t you think?”
Romeo stays quiet, but amusement flashes in his eyes.
We all make our votes, then hand them in.
We didn’t get to spend much time with each of the men, but I read their vibes, so I’m going off that. The fact that they know someone in the club too makes me trust them a little more, but I still won’t be able to trust them until we get to know them properly.
There are a lot of snakes out there, more so than good people, so we need to be careful. I didn’t nominate anyone, because I don’t really have any friends outside of the club.
“Are they all outside waiting to be voted off the island?” Jag asks, smirking.
“No, we didn’t want any fights to break out,” Julianna responds in a dry tone. She lines up all of the votes, her pink-tipped nails making it look like some ASMR thing on TikTok. “We’ll just let them know individually. This is the first time we’ve ever done something like this, so it’s all trial and error at this point.”
We wait as she counts them.
“Okay, so it looks like our new members are going to be, Diamond, Leif, and Blaze,” she announces.
We all clap.
I’m happy with the choices.
Diamond is ex-military turned professional stripper. He’s a friend of Jag’s.
Leif looks like a fucking Viking and is extremely tall and built. He’s new to town and wants a change from the construction job he’s been working.
And Blaze is an ex-boxer. He’s covered in tattoos from head to toe and has a pornstache, which he somehow makes look good.
Fresh meat.
This ought to be interesting.
And as long as they stay away from Corey, I think we’re all going to get along great.