31. Vandal #2
“I want it to look like a haircut, and I don’t care how short it has to go to make that happen.” I stare at myself in the mirror, at the scar carving through my brow, at the puckered skin near my temple. “I want it short enough that it doesn’t look like I’m hiding anymore.”
The barber meets my eyes in the mirror, then nods once. “I’ll give you my best.”
Twenty minutes later, with dark hair all over the floor, the scars are right there for everyone to see, and somehow I look less like a man who’s been trying not to be looked at and more like the terrifying enforcer I used to be.
More, I look like a man I recognize.
The clubhouse is already loud when I pull in.
Bikes are lined up out front, trucks are parked crooked, and music pulses through the walls.
Classic old rock, which tells me Sunny is in charge of the playlist today.
The building looks the same as always, squat and sun beaten, but I’m entering it a changed man.
I’ve walked through the door a thousand times, maybe more, but I still pause before I step into it today. Havoc sees me and jumps from his stool by the bar to join me by the step.
“This isn’t the first day of school, you don’t have to hold my hand,” I joke.
He rubs his hand over my short hair, rougher than he would’ve done two days ago. “I wouldn’t want to make Daisy jealous.”
Home is a strange thing. For years, this was the only home I trusted outside my mom’s.
Then, after the attack, it became impossible to walk into it without feeling the echoes of what happened.
Not because my brothers did anything wrong.
Because Alvarez and his men took something from me, and every time I saw the club, I’d remember what it cost to belong.
But in spite of all that, it was my sanctuary when I felt like I couldn’t go home. When I was too scared to be on my own.
“I’m ready,” I say without further explanation.
“Then let’s get you inside and give everyone something new to be annoying about.”
The second I walk into the clubhouse, the room changes. The noise shifts and conversations catch. Someone near the pool table says my name, and then everyone turns at once. For an ugly heartbeat, my skin goes tight.
There are too many eyes on me, too much attention. Then Sunny sees my hair, and his entire face lights up.
“Oh, thank fuck you got it cut,” he says. “I thought we were going to have to stage an intervention.”
The room bursts into laughter, and just like that, the pressure and tension break.
Sunny comes around from the bar with a dish towel over his shoulder. “No, brother, I mean it. That weird half-grown thing you had going on was upsetting the women and confusing small children.”
Ridge leans back in his chair. “I thought it had charm.”
“You also wore snakeskin boots to a funeral once,” Sunny says. “So, nobody is asking you for fashion advice.”
Ridge looks offended. “They were expensive.”
“They were criminally ugly,” Reaper says.
Laughter rolls through the room, and I take it in.
The sound. The faces. The coffee that’s been left too long on the warmer. The smell of oil and leather and fried food.
Nothing has changed and yet everything has changed.
Knox steps out from behind the hall that leads to church, his expression steady as usual. His gaze tracks over my face, my hair, then back to my eyes. Then he smiles. “About fucking time.”
That means more to me than any welcome-home bullshit. I cross the room, and when Knox pulls me into a hard, brief hug, I let him thump my back once.
“You got there,” he says.
“Getting there. But I can be here, like fully here, while I do.”
“Church, now, for patched-in titled brothers only,” Knox says. “Van, stand by the door and greet ‘em in.”
I do as he says, and one by one, my brothers come at me.
Reaper’s first, gripping my hand before hauling me against him with a force to test the eye doctor’s no-fighting rule. Ridge grabs my shoulders and plants a playful kiss on my forehead.
North gives me one of his silent nods and a slap to the bicep.
“You’re all making it fucking weird,” Sunny shouts from the back of the line.
And that makes everyone laugh and move a little faster.
“Jesus,” he says when he finally reaches me. “That was going to be more morbid than the whole ‘we should say our goodbyes’ bullshit that happened before you went into surgery.”
Havoc goes last. He opens his mouth as if he’s going to say something, then simply shuts it, shakes his head, and walks by.
I’d feel the same if I’d watched him nearly die too.
And sometimes, you don’t need words to let someone know exactly what you mean to them.
By the time I make it to the big table, my chest aches. It’s not from the ribs that have long since healed. It’s probably the joyful agony of being knitted back together.
I look at my chair waiting for me, tip my head back, and sing about being on my way home.
Sunny puts his hands over his ears. Reaper mocks slamming his head into the table.
“Jesus Christ,” Lock says. “We said welcome back, not assault us with Motley Crüe.”
I grin at that. “I want to say something before we start if that’s okay, Knox.”
He gestures to me that I have the floor.
“I disappeared, not literally…but I withdrew from you all. I know I had reasons, and I know every man here would tell me they were good ones. But you were dealing with club shit while I was buried under my own, and that left weight on your shoulders that you shouldn’t have had to carry for me.”
Havoc shifts next to me but doesn’t interrupt.
“I’m not apologizing for being fucked up,” I continue, “but I am apologizing for not trusting you enough to let you all see it. To see how bad it had become.”
Knox leans back in his chair and nods.
“Are we supposed to hug again?” Sunny says. “Because I feel like I already used my emotional capacity for the quarter.”
A laugh breaks from Ridge, then me, and the others follow.
Knox lets the levity ride for a minute, then he looks at me. “Apology heard. But don’t do it again.”
“I’ll try not to get abducted and tortured next time,” I say, but I smile.
“See,” Sunny says. “Everyone has room for growth.”
Havoc throws an empty cigarette pack at him.
“Since you’re back,” Knox says. “You need to be caught up.”
“Caught up?”
Knox lays out what the brothers have been doing in my absence. I saw them all yesterday, but this is different. I was getting sober and detoxed, and then I went to New Jersey, and then since I got back, we moved Daisy and Elsie in.
I suppose there’s a lot I missed.
They’ve been following down leads given to them by Christian. They’ve been leaning on contacts, tracking money, watching roads, protecting everyone close to it. Even wrestling down the shop that made the embroidered cuts while I’ve been getting well.
And they’ve been doing it all without me.
Havoc notices my reaction before anyone else, and his boot knocks slightly against mine under the table.
“I should have been here.”
Knox shrugs. “Maybe. But you’re here now. So, if you think I’m gonna waste your time making you feel better or worse about something none of us can change, you’re dumber than Sunny looks.”
“Hey,” Sunny says, throwing up his hands. “Uncalled for.”
“Accurate,” Lock mutters.
“Careful, lover boy,” Sunny says. “I have a whole separate folder for you. You sometimes smile at your phone so hard, it makes me wonder if it’s legal for someone with federal clearance to send nudes.”
The room erupts in laughter. Everyone is curious about his FBI friend who helps him out when required.
But then Knox scrubs a hand over his mouth. “Before Sunny derails this whole meeting with whatever deeply disturbing thing he’s about to say next, we need to talk about Alvarez.”
The mention of his name no longer has the hold on me that it used to have. I take a breath.
“I’m gonna meet him,” Knox says, and the room settles fast. “Face-to-face. We’ll hand back Christian with an ultimatum.”
“That’s a terrible idea, Prez,” Havoc says.
“I’m going,” I say. I need to prove to myself that I’m no longer scared. And I need to show Alvarez that he can do whatever he wants to the Outlaws, but he won’t keep us down.
“No,” Knox says.
“I wasn’t asking,” I reply.
“I know. But I answered anyway.”
The room goes quiet.
I drag in a slow breath. “He came at me. He came near Daisy. Near Elsie. If you’re sitting down with him, I’m right there with you.
Because there’s more you need to know. Elsie’s father was one of Alvarez’s right-hand men.
The whole story is Daisy’s to tell, not mine, but the reason the two of them are here is because they were trying to get away from him.
I need to do it for them as much as I need to do it for the club. ”
Knox studies me for longer than is comfortable.
Then he nods. “You go,” he says finally, “and you follow my lead. You don’t speak unless I tell you to.
You don’t move unless I tell you to. You so much as twitch like you’re about to turn this into a bloodbath, and I’ll have Havoc drag you out by your cut. Best friend or no best friend.”
“Understood.”
“Good. Then I’m gonna set it up now.”