…
Remy
My last brother was dead.
As much as I wanted to hide in Star’s arms forever, I was drawn back to Top. I had to see him. I’d known him, in some capacity, my whole life. If I didn’t sit with him, or grab his hand, or fucking something, then I wouldn’t know for sure that it was real, and that he was really dead.
My knees struck the black pavement, which was slick with my brother’s blood. Bones’ last bullet caught him in the side of the skull, and blew out the front of his right eyebrow.
It was damn hard to look at.
Top kept a bandana tied to his belt. I unknotted it, opened it up, and laid it over his face. He looked ridiculous with his giant beard sticking out the bottom. In my head, I could almost hear him complain that a tiny red bandanna was all he got.
Lawrence was a hard man. I was at odds with him almost as much as I wasn’t. We’d been through a lot together and sometimes things got messy. Real messy. Like what he tried to do to Star. I never would’ve been able to fully forgive him for that.
But in his typically fucked up way, Top was just trying to protect me from her, from jail, from Deadeye.
“Goddammit.” I sharply drew in breath and fought back a sob that stuttered through my chest. In the end of it all, he did exactly that. Protected me. Protected us. I would never forget that. I looked over at Star, her sadness for me was also a painful sight.
“Goddammit, Lawrence,” I breathed the words to him. The asphalt beneath us was beaten to shit by bullets and time. Top’s blood had flowed into a little patch that was worn down to gravel. I ran my fingers across a shrinking dry spot, scooping up the pulverized bits of pavement into my fist, and crushing it.
I’d lost so much.
Tee keeled down beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t look at him just yet. I let the gravel slip between my fingers. Watched it fall.
Both my brothers were dead.
When the gun barrel was pushed into the back of my head, it wasn’t a surprise. I couldn’t find it in me to move.
“The fuck are you doing, Deadeye!” Tee slapped the gun away just as quick as I’d felt it then shoved the wounded president backwards.
Fortunately, I still had some friends here.
“Killing the traitorous shit that caused all this! Poet turned on us! He was working with the Lobos!” This statement by the national president turned every member’s head at us.
I still hadn’t stood up, but I could hear the unrest through the ranks. No one wanted to believe it, but they had to take it extra seriously because of who said it. I didn’t have a lot of close friends in the extended club, but for whatever reason, most of them respected me, even beyond the SV patch that was supposed to set us all on even footing.
“That’s bullshit!” Tee reflexively came to my defense.
“It’s ok, I got this.” I was in no shape to do this right now, this soon after everything had gone down. That’s the thing with the club lifestyle, it never slows down to let you be ready. When the pieces fall, you’re either ready or you’re not.
I could let Top’s death cripple me, or use it to give me the strength I needed. The thought of letting Deadeye kill me flashed as a moment of weakness, but I’d come too far to let Star face this world alone. Top didn’t let himself get shot just so I could give up when it counted.
If I didn’t fight now, none of it would’ve mattered.
“Deadeye’s right.” I squeezed my fallen brother’s shoulder, then stood up to face everyone. “I brought the Lobos here. I even opened my clubhouse door for them.”
“He admits it.” Deadeye raised his gun at me again.
“We don’t kill our own. Not like this!” Again, Tee slapped it down.
“And my son, Rio? He was a patch holder! Where’s his justice?”
“That was self-defense! I was there! I saw what happened!” Tee was a good friend. Even after I shot him, he was willing to lie for me.
“I don’t care. Killing brothers and helping our rivals to tear us apart is too far! I’m calling a vote for judgment. All in favor of killing Remy Daniels for crimes against the club?” Deadeye thundered.
Everyone was hesitant at the sudden call for a vote, especially one involving the life and death of a member, when we still had the wounded and dead Veins to take care of. No one wanted to be rushed for a decision like this.
Doing it this way was against the spirit of the club, and everyone knew it.
“Let the kid speak for himself first!” one of the older members in the crowd cried out.
Deadeye begrudgingly kept quiet and let me speak.
“Let’s tend to the dead and hurt first,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Star came over and we all helped the wounded into a few cars bound for the hospital. The dead Veins were laid along the side of the building; we’d lost five good men and four of Deadeye’s crew.
I took some time to mourn over my brother.
I thought the guys would be more pissed at me from for all the things I’d done, but each and every one of them came up and gave me their condolences. I don’t know what Tee told them all before bringing them over, but there was nothing but support and understanding coming from them over Lawrence’s death.
All the Lobo bodies were tossed into a pile by the dumpster. As much as we’d have loved to leave them for the garbage truck, we’d have to call the cops and do it the right way. There were just too many bodies for anything else. Fortunately for us, this would be a clear case of us defending our house. We shouldn’t have any trouble selling it in court.
With wounded and dead tended to, soon we’d have to call the cops and go through everything that came with that. If I was going to address the club, it had to be now.
“Look around!” I spoke to the nearly ninety Steel Veins members that remained. “I look at you and I see a lot of new faces promoted to the big seats in your various chapters. Why is that? Where did the old timers go?”
I paused and looked all around.
“Guys that have been around since the club was formed. The men that made this club famous for the right reasons. The great men that opened Steel Veins chapters across the whole fucking world! They’re gone because their club is dead. The Steel Veins that I grew up with, that I’ve bled for, that I’ve killed for! It’s gone. The ideals that were our fucking foundation have been stolen from us. We all do things differently in our chapters, but I can go to any Veins clubhouse, anywhere in world, and there will be three words carved into the walls somewhere. Community. Loyalty. Honor. That is us! That is who we are! That’s the Steel Veins I remember! So why the fuck are we partnering up with the Knights, of all clubs, to cook doxa? Why are we opening channels through our communities for the H trade? So we can sell heroin to fucking high school kids? Jesus... Yeah, it’s not in our community, but so what? That doesn’t make it any less fucked up. Where’s the honor in that? When did the Veins become drug dealers?”
Members mumbled with some intelligible words and some looked away
“That’s why the originals are hanging up the colors, and I can’t fucking blame them! How’d this shift happen? From the Veins we were to the Veins we are now? Chig? Loose? I heard you guys put in for transfers from the parent chapter, that true?”
“Yeah,” Loose cleared his throat and spoke up. He crossed his arms, not wanting to be the one to start this conversation. “I’m headed to Longwood and Chig is about to go nomad. We were going to vote on both today at the annual.”
“Why leave the founding chapter to go fucking nomad?” I asked.
“Dunno, man.” Chig glanced at Deadeye and shook his head. A look passed between the two men that spoke volumes. They must’ve gotten into a few to many arguments about what I’d brought up. “Too many unfamiliar faces I guess.”
“Unfamiliar faces? You didn’t know the guys that got voted into your own chapter?” I knew the answer. The question wasn’t even really for Chig. It was for everyone else here.
This whole soapbox demonstration was only to hammer home a singular point.
“Loose and I didn’t vote for shit. We don’t know these fucking guys. They were Rio’s guys.” Chig pointed at the Veins bodies that were dragged out of my clubhouse. “We didn’t like ‘em and we sure as hell didn’t trust ‘em. That’s why we’re splitting.”
There were general grumblings from the other members as they started to really grasp how much the club had deviated from the original course set by Deadeye and Teach. The idea that patch holders were getting in without being vouched for didn’t sit well with anyone.
“I made some hard decisions I’ll admit, but it had to be like this!” Deadeye interrupted. “Times change. The Lobos. The Angels. In five years, they’ll have us outmanned and outgunned. The Steel Veins needed more manpower and we needed more money.”
I glared at him and went on, “I look around and I see brothers. Real brothers! Men I would give my fucking life for. Men like Tee and Top...” I spared my brother a hard glance and almost couldn’t finish. His body was growing cold on the ground. Had I not seen Star watching me, slowly nodding for me to continue, I’d have probably stopped right there.
The speech would’ve been over, and who knows what would’ve happened.
“Yeah, I brought the Lobos here. I set this whole thing up. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that the club we loved was dying, so I did something about it. I used the Lobos and as a result, we united and crushed that club! Good men died today because of me. They died so that we could be strong one last time! Look, I don’t care what you do to me. I’ll accept any judgment that comes my way, but I refuse to accept it from that man.” I pointed at Deadeye, then I turned my attention to everyone else and in a booming voice I added, “This is your chance to start making the Steel Veins whole again.”
“That’s fucking bullshit! If you love this MC so damn much then where are your colors? Never trust a man who can’t keep his fucking vest.” Deadeye was making his play. I had lost my vest when the kill teams were after me. It wasn’t something any member should ever lose.
Under any situation.
I tore off my hoodie and shirt. The words were prominently tattooed across my chest in big bold letters for the whole world to see.
STEEL VEINS.
“I may have lost the vest, but I never lost my colors,” I spat defiantly. “Every letter was paid for in blood, and love, and sacrifice. Doesn’t matter what I wear, or what happens to me. No one can ever take them from me! These colors don’t come off! Can you say the same, Deadeye?”
Deadeye’s lone eye flared at me. He blustered at the question, angry spittle flying through the air. But he couldn’t get any actual words out. For whatever reason he couldn’t lie to these men, he was a founding member. He helped create the Steel Veins and it was because of him that they were all falling apart. Somewhere in his deepest self, I think he knew that.
I think that was why he couldn’t offer anything else up in his defense.
“Dishonoring the spirit of the club, running drugs, and bringing in untrustworthy men without a vote, Deadeye is the real traitor to the Steel Veins.” I was done talking. I had said my piece.
Our fates were up to the club now.
Tee spoke up now, “Remy was working with me and Top. When I briefed you all on the situation at the meet before we rode over here, it was Remy that put his ass on the line to get us that info. Without Remy, the Lobos would’ve caught us with our pants down. Even if we somehow beat them back today, they’d have fucking decimated us! We sure as hell wouldn’t have killed Bones, and it’d only be a matter of time until they picked us off one by one. Especially—” Tee paused for full effect. “—under Deadeye’s ‘leadership.’ ”
Deadeye lowered his head a hair. Me fight back against him was one thing, but hearing other people saying similar things cut him deeply. I think in the back of his mind, he knew it would eventually go this way. It was only a matter of time.
“Call a vote,” Tee told Chig. “You’re still in as VP, right?”
“Till we eventually hold the annual, yeah,” Chig answered.
“Then call a vote. Kick that son of a bitch out of our club!” Tee pointed at Deadeye.
“You can’t do this, I’m the national president!” Deadeye found a final reserve and protested, hoping a loophole might save him.
“Not in my chapter,” Loose interjected. “In my chapter you’re just a regular president. And I don’t find you fit for your position. I’m calling a chapter vote. Kick this piece of shit out. All in favor?”
Both Chig and Loose raised their hands.
“Opposed?” Chig turned and asked the lined up bodies that were all that was left of Deadeyes’ new guys.
To vote someone into the club it had to be unanimous by all members, but to kick someone out, it only had to be a majority. Deadeye saw that there was only the three of them left in his chapter and knew he was done. He didn’t even bother raising his hand and he was too proud to whine or beg.
It was over for him.
The parking lot was deathly silent as they stripped the vest off the former national president. Deadeye looked only at me the whole time. I was expecting venomous anger, but all I saw in his face was weariness. Disgraced and stunned, he stood there for a moment and took it all in. Decades of his life were ripped away. What would his life be without the club he founded?
When he walked to his bike, the crowd parted for him. Without his colors, Deadeye just looked like a weathered old man, a broken war vet that needed to go home and rest. The old man started his bike and left. The old guard was officially out; it was a new beginning for the Steel Veins.
It was the end of an era.
“The fuck do we do now? Can’t have a chapter with only two members,” someone in the crowd said, breaking the silence. They all looked to Chig and Loose, the two remaining members of the parent chapter.
“I’m still putting in for Longwood either way. My wife got a good job up there. So I guess the clubhouse is going dark,” Loose offered with a shrug. “Maybe we should designate a new mother chapter? Leslie’s been kickin’ around a while, right?”
“Hell, we have reps from all the other chapters here, I say we put it to a vote!” Chig shouted to make sure everyone could hear him. “Leslie chapter is one of the oldest the Veins have. All in favor of making it the new parent chapter?”
I had never heard of anything like this happening in any MC. Usually, the parent chapter was the last one to fall in a dying MC. We had the opposite problem. Most of our other chapters were strong. If the Steel Veins as an institution was to survive, we’d have to adapt.
We had to make up the new rules on the spot.
Hands slowly started going up all across the parking lot. For something this big, it had to be unanimous, and it looked like it was. It was history being written right in front of me and I was damn proud to see everyone come together for the good of the club.
For the real good of the club.
Then everyone looked at me.
“Raise your hand, you stupid fuck. You’re killing the moment,” Tee said to me with a sly smile. Seeing the utter confusion on my face, he explained why I needed to vote, “We never kicked you out. You were just, y’know, dead. Nothing in the charter says the dead can’t vote.”
I shook my head disbelievingly and raised my hand.
“It’s official. Leslie chapter is the new host club.” Tee clasped me on the back and pulled me in for one of those one armed, side-by-side hugs. “The Steel Veins live to see another day!”
There was hooting and cheering, and a sense of relief that was like stumbling out of a burning building and finally breathing fresh air. For damn near all of us, this club was all we had, and today it was nearly destroyed. Without a unifying parent chapter, the individual chapters would’ve eventually split off, be invaded, patched over, closed, or wiped out.
Watching a big club fall was a chaotic time and some scary shit. No one ever made it out unscathed.
I started walking over to Star when I felt Tee’s strong, brown hand clamp onto my shoulder.
“C’mon, man... What now?” I asked, finally feeling the exhaustion of the fight…and the six months before it.
It was on them to elect someone. All I’d wanted to do was save my club and that was done. The club was stronger in that moment than it had been in the last ten years. I was even allowed back into my home chapter. Granted, officially, I was never even kicked out, but they’d still have to remove me as “deceased” from the books.
Better yet, I had my girl. I looked over at Star who was beaming with pride at everything we’d accomplished together. It was all thanks to her support and her being the one person I could count on that made this happen. It also didn’t hurt that she was a natural with a gun. For the first time in my life, everything felt right.
As far as I was concerned, we had won.
“Everyone listen up!” Tee shouted. “As one of the motherfuckers in charge now, I’m calling one last club-wide vote. With the passing of our brother, Top, the Leslie chapter doesn’t have a president. Which means that the whole US branch of the Veins doesn’t have a fucking president.”
Shit, Tee was right. In all the chaos, I was so balls-deep in this crazy plan with the Lobos and Deadeye, and watching Top get killed, that I didn’t stop and think about what that meant for the club. We were leaderless.
“I nominate, Remy Daniels for national president,” Tee called out.
Tee had caught me off guard with that. I brushed it off as him fucking with me. That was until other members started seconding him, and it looked like the motion was gaining momentum.
Me as president? I’d never given it any thought before. What the hell did I know about running a club with thousands of members and affiliates?
“All in favor?” Tee shouted.
Throughout the parking lot, hands went up a lot faster for this vote. Jesus, an hour ago I was “dead.” Several weeks before that I was in a rough way with kill teams all over me, and now…
“Always fucking waiting on you, Rem.” Tee elbowed me, snapping me out of my retrospection. Everyone’s hand was up. “What do you say? It’s gotta be unanimous.”
“I don’t know, man. This is a big deal. I never wanted to run shit,” I spoke softly to Tee. “Give me a gun and a bike and I could kill the moon, but a soapbox and real responsibility... fuck, man. I don’t know if I can do this.”
Of all the fucking things that should’ve made me nervous, I didn’t see this one coming. I looked around at all the raised arms and felt surprisingly apprehensive.
“Rem, you’re the only one that can do this. These guys see what you’ve done already. They trust you. You want to save the club? Then don’t bitch out at the fucking finish line, man.” Tee elbowed me hard in the ribs.
“You know he’s right. No one is a better fit for this than you. They need you, Remy.” Star squeezed my hand and kissed my cheek. Then she whispered into my ear, “Besides ‘First Old Lady’ has a nice ring to it. Or would it be ‘Old First Lady’?”
For a long time I felt like it was the danger and violence that defined me, that without it, I was nothing. I was always worried that I was just a hammer or a gun, a tool or weapon to be pointed and used, then discarded. I stayed distracted because I knew when I stopped moving, the way I was living would catch up.
Looking out at all the support was heartening. My club believed in me. After the longest ride of my life, and with the love of my life…I was finally home.
I raised my hand.