Chapter 3
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— Handful —
Church was at ten. Dutch’s standard was in your seat by nine-forty-five. I was through the door at nine-fifty — early for me by about ten minutes and five minutes too late for Dutch.
The church room was at the back of the clubhouse — heavy door, no windows, wooden table long enough for twelve. The gavel sat at Dutch’s end. Anchor’s cut hung on the far wall, gold stitching catching the overhead light. I looked at it on the way past, same as I always did. Didn’t stop.
Colt was already in his chair, arms crossed, coffee in front of him.
Holden beside him — upright, still, looking like he’d been there since dawn and had already organized the whole day inside his head.
Glitch was at the far end with a laptop open and a stack of printed pages he was sorting into what looked like three separate piles.
Target and Baxter across from each other. Fewin at the corner.
I crossed to my chair — same one I always took, two down from Dutch’s right — and looked around the table for Dutch.
Dutch was already looking at me. The cold stare — the look he gave brothers who walked in at meeting time. He’d never put it on me before. He shook his head and I heard him mutter always last.
I gave him a grin. Shrugged. Looked around the table again. Something at the head of the table moved and my head snapped back to Dutch.
Dutch was sitting at the head of the table with a baby strapped to his chest.
Maya. Six weeks old, or seven. Or something between — I’d given up keeping track around week four, but Dutch, Indira, Colt, Lilac — in fact, any of my brothers — could tell you exactly how many weeks old Maya was at any given time.
Why did people do that? I was twenty-eight.
I had never once in my life told anybody how many weeks old I was.
Maya was in some kind of fabric wrap thing that went over both of Dutch’s shoulders, holding her against his chest like a small, sleeping bomb.
Her face was pressed into the space below his collarbone, eyes shut, mouth open.
One fist had worked itself free of the wrap and was gripping the collar of his shirt.
Dutch had one hand on her back, holding her steady, and the other hand on the gavel.
The president of the Venom Riders MC was calling church with a newborn attached to him.
Nobody was laughing. That was the thing.
If I’d walked into church and seen this back when King was Prez, somebody would have made a crack.
Probably me. But Dutch had spent years rebuilding what this club looked like, and part of what it looked like now was a man who could run a meeting with his daughter asleep on his chest and nobody in the room thought it made him less.
It made him look funny but definitely not less.
“Sit down,” Dutch growled at me.
I sat.
“Indira’s sleeping,” he said, to the room. Not an explanation. Just a fact. “She’s been up with this one three nights running. I wasn’t going to wake her for church.”
Colt nodded. Holden didn’t move. Glitch kept sorting his pages.
Dutch hit the table with the gavel once, and set it down. “Right. Let’s go.”
The first twenty minutes were business. The kind of business that would have bored me six months ago and still mostly bored me now, except I was trying harder to care since Austen had made me re-evaluate my life.
Glitch stood — the only person who stood during church, because Glitch needed to pace when he talked — and walked through the numbers.
The Louisville security contract was running clean.
The Portland distribution facility had hired its third full-time guard from the club’s security pool.
Revenue was up. Expenses were down. The not-so-new wing was fully fitted out and the ops room was online.
“The gun running,” Dutch said when Glitch was finished. “It’s done.”
The table went still. Not surprised — everyone had seen this coming for a year. But hearing it said out loud at church was different from knowing it was coming.
“We’re clean on every line item. First full quarter. Glitch has confirmed, Indira’s confirmed, the books are confirmed.” He looked around the table. “This is what we said we’d do when King stepped down. That shit’s behind us now.”
Colt tapped the table once. Holden did the same. Around the table, the rest followed — tap, tap, tap. The club’s version of a vote that didn’t need a vote.
“Which means now we look forward.” Dutch tipped his chin at Glitch. “Keep going.”
“The exec-protection vertical,” Glitch said, pulling a page from one of his piles.
“Indira and I ran the numbers last week.” He slid copies down the table.
I took one. Columns, percentages, client names I didn’t recognize.
“Corporate protection. Higher margin than residential. Tech-heavy on my end — advance surveillance, comms, counter-intel. Field-heavy on the operational side.” He glanced at Dutch. “We need a field lead for this.”
Dutch was looking at me.
I looked back. Maya shifted against his chest, made a small sound, and settled. Dutch didn’t look down. His hand automatically adjusted on her back.
“Moving on,” Dutch said, still looking at me. He didn’t elaborate.
“The Portland storage property,” Glitch continued. “Owner’s ready to sell. Number’s fair. I’d buy it at that price.” He walked through the details — location, square footage, zoning. Dutch asked two questions. Colt asked one.
“The garage expansion,” Glitch said. “Three additional bays. Room for the fleet maintenance and the new detail rigs. I’ve got a contractor lined up. Indira vetted him.”
“How much?” Colt asked.
Glitch told him. Colt’s eyebrows went up about a quarter inch.
“It pays for itself in twelve months,” Glitch said. “If we land the Portland exec-protection contracts, six.”
“Vote,” Dutch said.
The table voted. Unanimous. Dutch hit the gavel.
Maya woke up.
She didn’t cry. She just opened her eyes — dark, like Indira’s — and stared at the room with the unfocused intensity of a newborn.
Her fist tightened on Dutch’s collar. He looked down at her and his whole face changed.
Not softer, exactly. Just, I don’t know, a look that I had never seen on his face before.
“You’re early,” he murmured. “We’re not done yet.”
She made a sound and Dutch’s hand moved in small circles on her back until she settled again.
The moment was interrupted by a knock on the door. Interrupting church was unheard of. The room looked at Dutch.
“Enter,” Dutch called.
The door opened. Indira. Hair pulled back, no makeup, one of Dutch’s flannels hanging off her shoulders over a tank top. She looked past the table — past Colt, past Holden, past me — and found Dutch at the head with Maya on his chest.
“You didn’t wake me,” she said.
“You needed sleep. Maya came to church.” He said it with a straight face. “Learning about the democratic process.”
Indira walked to the head of the table. Dutch lifted Maya out of the sling with both hands and passed her across. Indira settled her against her shoulder. Maya made a gurgling sound, and pressed her face into Indira’s neck.
“She’s been good,” Dutch said. His voice had dropped to the register he kept just for her. “Slept through the first half. Woke up for the vote.”
“She’s her father’s daughter.”
“Then we’re in trouble.”
Indira grinned at him in acknowledgment, then turned toward the door.
Dutch turned back to the table. “Back to business. Anyone got any other new revenue plays?”
Here was the thing. I’d been sitting through forty-five minutes of revenue projections, property acquisitions and security verticals, and my brain had been running a parallel track the entire time.
The way it always did during church when the business got dense and my attention started looking for side doors.
“That place on Route 9,” I said, looking at Dutch. “The strip club. The Dollhouse.”
Every head in the room turned to look at me.
“The owner wants to retire. Building’s in good shape, licenses are clean. Decent location. If we’re looking for cash-flow businesses, it could work. We could rename it. Call it Riders’ Rally House, Handful’s Honeys, Denim Dolls, Bunnies in Stilettos—”
“We are not buying a strip club,” Indira said firmly. No give in her voice. Maya stirred against her shoulder and made a sound. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought she was seconding a motion. First church and the kid had opinions.
“Just a thought,” I said. It wasn’t a serious suggestion. It was the kind of thing I said to make the room laugh, because making the room laugh was what I did. That was my contribution.
“It was.” She looked at Dutch. “Make sure that’s all it is. An idea. A very bad idea.”
Dutch was looking at the table. His mouth was doing something that wasn’t quite a smile.
“I’ll be in the kitchen.” Indira left. The door closed behind her.
The table was quiet for about three seconds. Then everyone burst into laughter. It kept going until Dutch banged the gavel.
Church ran another twenty minutes. Louisville rotation assignments — Baxter had it next month, then Target.
The Portland pilot staffing. A fence dispute with a property line neighbor that Colt was handling.
Formation training Saturday — Holden had two prospects he wanted ride-ready before the next run.
Prospect reports. Dutch worked through it with the sling still hanging empty from his shoulders, which he either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care about.
Dutch banged the gavel. Pointed at me. “You. Stay. The rest of you, get out.”
My brothers filed out, Colt squeezing my shoulder on the way past.
Dutch hadn’t moved from his chair. He had pulled the sling over his head and was folding it in neat thirds. He set it on the table next to the gavel and looked at me.
“Close the door.”
I closed it and sat back down.
“I named a role at this table today,” he said. “You heard it.”
“Glitch said field lead for exec protection. He didn’t say my name.”
“He looked at you. I looked at you. Everyone at this table knows what that means.”
I didn’t say anything because, yeah, I did know what it meant.
“Sergeant-at-Arms,” Dutch said. “That title’s been vacant since King retired and the old guard went with him.” He let it sit. “You know why I never filled it?”
I didn’t answer. Two reasons. One, I knew his question was rhetorical. Two, I didn’t know the answer.
“Because I wanted you in it.”
I rocked back in my chair. “You’re shitting me.”
He wasn’t. I knew he wasn’t the second I said it, and got hit with that hard stare for the second time today.
“I gave you the work. All of it. Door security, run security, enforcement when it’s needed. The armory. Backstop for me when I need one. You’ve been doing it for years.”
“I’ve been—”
“Doing exactly what I asked. No more. No less.” He didn’t raise his voice.
He didn’t need to. “I gave you time to grow into the role, Handful, and you’re still doing the bare minimum.
I don’t need an officer who does the job.
I need one who does more than I ask. Who walks into church with something I haven’t thought of yet.
Who sees the gap before I do. Who’s already moving on it by the time I notice. ”
Hey, I gave you the strip club idea today, my clown brain offered up. I shut it down. Even I knew that wasn’t going to help.
“You want the SAA patch, you earn it. Not by showing up. Not by running the door. By being the man this club needs at this table.” He uncrossed his arms. “The exec-protection vertical needs a field lead. That’s yours if you want it.
Louisville, Portland, wherever the contracts go.
Glitch handles tech, you handle people. You’re good with people when you’re not being a fucking clown. ”
I almost laughed. Held it. No way was I risking a bump back to prospect for disrespecting the Prez. Seen it happen once or twice — mostly in King’s day, but Dutch wouldn’t blink if he thought it was due.
“I’m not asking you to be someone you’re not,” Dutch said. “I’m asking you to be someone you haven’t been yet.” He picked up the sling from the table. “You’ve got one chance to show me it’s in there. Don’t make me wait.”
He walked past me. Stopped at the door. “Let me make one more thing clear. We are not buying a strip club.” He left.
The common room was half full by the time I came out of the room. Target had the pool table going. Somebody had put the jukebox on.
I went to the bar and poured myself a beer. Set it on the wood. Sat with it. Didn’t drink it.
After a while I pushed the glass away — still full — and went upstairs.
The Austen book was on the nightstand. I’d been chipping away at it for weeks. Couldn’t tell yet if I liked it. Not sure I even understood most of it.
I opened it. Mr. Darcy was being an asshole at a dance and Elizabeth Bennet was seeing through him in about four seconds.
Felt familiar.