Chapter 4 #2
"In," Cash says, without taking the toothpick out. He points it at me briefly. "Don't make me regret it."
"Ramsey."
"In." Ramsey's nod is small and definite.
"Shadow."
Shadow looks at me for a long moment. "In."
"Knuckles."
Knuckles unfolds his arms and leans forward on his elbows.
"You know what my job is in this club?" He doesn't wait for an answer.
"My job is enforcement. Which means my job is knowing who in this room I can trust to back me up when everything goes sideways.
You want to know if you've earned my vote?
" He holds my eyes. "Last month you were on gate duty when those Viper boys came through looking for trouble.
I watched you handle it without throwing a punch and without backing down.
That's the difference between discipline and cowardice. You've got it." He sits back. "In."
Something in my chest releases pressure I didn't know I'd been holding.
"Pops."
Pops looks at me and the warmth he's been containing comes through. "I've watched a lot of men come through this club. Some of them wore the patch and never really earned it. Some of them earned it before they ever got it. You earned it." He puts his palm flat on the table. "In."
"Braxton."
Brax leans forward. "In. And if you ever let the club down, I'll be the one to tell you about it." He says it without any heat, which makes it more meaningful. "That's what this club is. We hold each other accountable. Welcome to that."
One seat left.
Razor looks at Brick.
Brick lifts his head and he looks at me.
I've known Brick my entire life. I've seen him angry and quiet and occasionally wrecked and always hard, but I’ve never in my life seen the look on his face that's there right now.
His jaw is set and his eyes are dark like there's something moving through him that he's keeping very controlled.
"In," he says. His voice is low and completely level. "And I want it on record that whatever this man becomes in this club, he built it himself. I gave him the introduction. He did the rest."
Nobody says anything after that. The room is quiet with the particular weight of something being settled.
Razor stands.
"Unanimous," he says. "Austin Reed, the Black Saints MC have voted to patch you in. Tonight. Church dismissed."
The room moves and suddenly there's noise, chairs scraping back, voices, and Cash is the first one around the table and he hits me on the shoulder hard enough to make my teeth click. "Don't look so shocked, man, it was obvious."
"Wasn't obvious to me," I manage.
"That's because you were too busy trying not to look like you cared." Ramsey appears on my other side with the faint smile he gives when something goes the way it was supposed to. "You've got a few hours. Get your head straight."
The brothers filter out. Knuckles goes past me without stopping but he puts two fingers briefly to the back of my shoulder where the patch will sit, and that's Knuckles being as expressive as he gets and I feel it right through to my sternum.
Pops stops in front of me and grips my forearm the way older men in this club do when words aren't quite sufficient. "Your parents would've been proud," he says quietly. "I knew your dad before he moved the family north. Good man. You've got his chin."
I didn't know Pops knew my dad. I don't know what to do with that.
"Thank you," I say, and mean it more than I've meant those two words in a long time.
Then the room is empty except for me and Brick.
He's still at the table. He's still looking at it rather than me, and he's got his hands flat on the surface and he's breathing carefully through his nose in the way he does when he's managing something. I walk around to his side of the table and I stop about a foot away and I wait.
He looks up.
"I vouched for you because I believed in you," he says. "Not because you're my nephew. I need you to know that."
"I know that."
"And I need you to know that if you ever do anything to embarrass this club or compromise this brotherhood, I'll be the first one to vote you out. Blood doesn't cover that. It doesn't cover anything in here."
"I know that too."
He studies me for another second. Then he puts his hand on the back of my neck and pulls me forward and my forehead hits his shoulder, and he holds it there for about three seconds, which is the most demonstrative thing Brick has done in the entire time I've known him.
He lets go. Steps back. Smooths his cut down.
"Tonight," he says. "Don't be late."
He walks out while I stand in the empty church room for a moment and breathe.
The table is scarred from decades of fists and gavels and club rings.
The map on the wall has pins in it that I don't understand yet.
Somewhere outside I can hear the garage running and one of the prospects shouting something with another one shouting back.
This is my life now. All of it.
I think about Savannah for exactly thirty seconds before I make myself stop.
She's out there starting her life. I'm in here starting mine.
Tonight I get my patch.
The ceremony happens in the main room of the clubhouse and it happens the way everything in the Black Saints happens. Without ceremony that isn't earned and without warmth that isn't genuine.
The room is full. Every patched brother in the chapter, the old ladies who are in the inner circle, Cam behind the bar with a look on her face that she'd never admit to.
Seb is there, standing off to the side with his arms folded and his chin up, and when I clock him he gives me a slow nod that means I'm proud of you, but I'll never say those words out loud.
Razor stands in the middle of the room with my cut in his hands.
I've seen it before, the vest itself, because they showed it to me before they added the patches.
Black leather, the Saints colors on the back, the rocker that says our town underneath, the chapter name on the side.
They're sewn on properly, not temporary, and seeing them on the leather in Razor's hands does something to my vision that I'm going to blame on the lights.
The room goes quiet when Razor raises his voice, not loud, just enough to carry.
"This club has been in this town for thirty years.
We've buried brothers. We've welcomed new ones.
We've protected people who needed protecting and handled things that needed handling and we've held this territory through things that would've destroyed a lesser organization.
" He looks around the room. "We do that because we're family.
Not because we were born into it but because we chose it. Every one of you chose this."
He looks at me.
"Austin Reed chose it six months ago. He's been proving that choice every day since. And today this club has decided, unanimously, that he's earned the right to stop proving it and just live it."
He holds up the cut.
"Get over here."
I walk to him. My pulse is doing something my face isn't doing, which is exactly the right way around. I stop in front of him and he holds the cut open and I turn and put my arms back and he slides it onto my shoulders.
The leather settles. It's heavier than I expected and warmer, like it's already been lived in, and maybe it has. Maybe all cuts carry some weight from every man who put one on before you. My hands come forward and I grip the front lapels for a second and feel the stitching under my fingers.
Razor comes around to face me. He looks at me the way he looks at everything: steady, assessing, and underneath that, genuine.
"You're a Black Saint now," he says. "That means this club's business is your business.
These men's problems are your problems. Their families are your family.
You ride for them, you bleed for them, you lie for them if you have to and you tell them the truth when they need it.
You protect the people in this town who can't protect themselves.
And you never, not once, put your own pride above the good of this club. "
He puts his hand out.
I shake it.
The room erupts.
It's not genteel. It's bikers, which means it's loud and physical and immediately someone has a bottle of whiskey while someone else has their arm around my neck.
Cash is yelling something in my ear that I can't make out and Ramsey is laughing at whatever it is.
Knuckles gets to me through the crowd. He grips my hand and pulls me into a shoulder and says, right in my ear so I can actually hear it, "Don't waste it," and then releases me into the next wave.
Pops hands me a beer and grabs my shoulder. "Welcome to the family, son. Officially." He raises his bottle and I raise mine and we drink. Around us the room is alive with it, this particular energy that comes from a good thing happening to someone who deserved it.
I work my way through the room and I'm aware of the cut on my back with every movement. The weight of it. The meaning of it.
Seb finds me near the bar. He's got a beer in each hand and he passes me one even though I've still got most of mine. "You look like you're going to cry," he says.
"I'm not going to cry."
"Good, because Knuckles would never let you live it down."
"I'm not going to cry."
"I know, I said that." He clinks his bottle against mine. "Congratulations, man. Genuinely. You've earned this more than anyone I've seen come through here." He takes a drink. "Your uncle is about to burst something, by the way. He keeps looking at you and then looking away."
I glance over to where Brick is standing with Prez, talking about something else, definitely not watching me.
Except his eyes flick over once while I'm looking and then flick away, and Seb's right, there's something in his face that Brick works very hard to keep out of his face, and it's there anyway.
"Buy him a drink later," Seb says. "Not now. Give him a minute to get it together."
I look back at Seb. "How long have you been this wise?"