It took Gunner a few weeks to heal. It turned out that he had been shot, this time in the back. The bullet had gone into one of his kidneys and, thankfully, stayed there instead of passing through into Tammy. The shootout that day claimed four lives, and when Gunner realized Zack was the one that saved him, he was even more grateful that the other man hadn’t been one of them. Swinger was dead, however, and Gunner wasn’t sure how Zack was handling the knowledge that he was the one who killed him.

“Hey, you okay?” Gunner was sitting out behind the Southside Skulls clubhouse at a picnic table. The club was having a big celebration for two of the prospects that had gotten their patches. Tammy set down the plate she’d gone to fix for him, and then took her seat next to him.

“Yeah. I was just thinking about Zack.”

Gunner knew that she had been in touch with Zack since that day. He wasn’t jealous of Zack any longer. He was finally secure in the way that he and Tammy felt about each other. Dax was taking his petition to become a prospect to the table that week, and Tammy had already put in several applications at nearby hospitals. They were going to have a good life. He was going to make sure of it.

“I talked to him this morning,” she said. “He’s not angry with you, Gunner. He might have loved his father, but he hated him at the same time. He knew who and what Swinger was, and he knew it was kill or be killed that day.” Gunner nodded and she went on to tell him, “He called me this morning to let me know that the day after Swinger’s funeral, they held church and Zack was nominated, unanimously, to take Swinger’s place at the table.”

“Shit. Is he going to do it?”

“I don’t know. His mother won’t talk to him, and there are quite a few guys in the club that would still like to kill him, so I don’t think it would be wise. But you never know what Zack’s going to do. He wanted me to tell you that he did something that earned him the right to call you kid forever if he wants to.” She rolled her eyes.

Gunner laughed. “Fuck him,” he told her with a wink. He picked up the barbecue pork sandwich Tammy had brought him and was about to take a bite when his phone rang. He pulled it out and looked at the screen. It was Detective Samuels. He gave Tammy a kiss on the cheek and said, “I’ll be right back.” Carrying the phone around the far side of the big clubhouse building, far enough away from the rest of them that no one could hear, he answered it.

“Mr. Davis! I have great news.”

“Hello, detective.”

“I arrested Eddie Martini this morning. He’s being held without bail. He’s not going to be back out on the streets, for a very long time.”

“Damn, that’s great! What did you arrest him for?”

“Murder.”

“Who did he kill?”

“One of the Head Hunters. An enforcer by the name of Bobby-O. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it.”

Zack. “I don’t really keep in touch with those guys, detective. I’m not their favorite person.”

“Does it have anything to do with their leader going missing suddenly?”

“Their leader is missing?”

The detective sighed. “We could do this all day. I just wanted to let you know that Eddie’s going to have much bigger worries than chasing you down for a while. The body of this Bobby-O guy was found in the trunk of his personal car, and the gun that killed him was under the seat. We got an anonymous tip, and since there was blood on the trunk near the keyhole…well, that gave us probable cause. It was like a gift from God, actually. Almost too neat for me to believe it.”

“Sounds great to me,” Gunner said.

The detective chuckled and said, “I’ll just bet it does. I told myself I had a couple of choices. I could worry about who set up the biggest thug this city has ever known, or I could accept the gift.”

“Hmm, so what did you decide?”

He chuckled again and said, “Who doesn’t like presents? You be safe out there, Mr. Davis. I might be calling you in to testify someday.”

“Can’t wait,” Gunner told him before ending the call. He was smiling and couldn’t wait to tell Tammy. As he was headed back toward where she was sitting, he heard the sound of Cody’s voice coming out of one of the windows of the club. The blinds were closed and the window cracked, so Cody probably didn’t know anyone could hear him. Gunner would have kept walking except for the fact that he heard Cody say:

“He’s not taking my son.” Cody’s little boy was adorable. The club girls and the old ladies passed him around so much that Cody’s old lady, Harley, joked that the ten-month-old would never learn how to walk. Cody still didn’t seem to like Gunner much, so Gunner generally avoided him, but there was no way that anyone in the room when Cody was holding his baby could doubt the love and pride he had for the little red-haired boy. Gunner’s curiosity got the better of him and he stood still and listened.

“He wants a DNA test, Cody.”

“Fuck him. Why now, suddenly?”

Gunner could hear the catch in Harley’s throat as she said, “I don’t know. He seemed to accept that Ian wasn’t his until recently. Lately, every time I see him he’s been asking about Ian. I thought he was just trying to be friendly and make things less uncomfortable when we had to work together…and then this happened.”

“I hate that you see him all the time.”

She sighed so heavily that Gunner heard it through the window. “I didn’t know when I took the job at the law office that Kyle would decide to quit his job and become an investigator for the firm. He didn’t even know I worked there until afterwards.”

“Right. You know how I feel about that shit. He knew, Harley. He doesn’t just want my son; he wants you too.” She started to say something and he said, “I know we’ve been through that. I trust you. But him I don’t trust. He went behind our backs like a snake and filed this court order for a DNA test. How the hell did he get them to agree to that? My name is on Ian’s birth certificate. His name is Ian Miller. He’s my son. I don’t care what his DNA says.”

“We should have told him and had a DNA test when Ian was first born, I suppose. This is my fault. You wanted to tell him. If not for me…”

“If not for you, I wouldn’t have the best two things that ever happened to me. I planned on having a DNA test…but as soon as I saw him, Harley, I felt like he was mine and I didn’t care what any fucking test said. Kyle Brady is not taking my son. I’ll kill him first.”

“Gunner?” He startled at the sound of Tammy’s voice and spun around. “What are you doing?”

Gunner pasted a smile on his face as Cody’s words reverberated through his head. Kyle Brady was Angel’s brother, Dax’s brother-in-law, and he was a former cop. It would be suicide for Cody to go after him. Gunner wished that he hadn’t heard any of that. He tried to push it out of his head as Tammy took his arm and they walked back around to where the party was happening. “I was just in shock a little,” he told her. “Detective Samuels has Eddie in custody, for murder.”

* * *

Two days after the party, Gunner was called in front of the executive board. He’d been a nervous wreck all week, knowing that the business of whether or not to allow him to become a prospect had been brought to the table. Gunner knew Dax was pulling for him, but Cody and Jimmy, and even Handsome, didn’t seem to like him at all, so he did worry a little that their vote would outweigh his. Gunner took the same seat he’d sat in months before to answer why he thought he had a right to wear a kutte with their patches on it. It almost seemed like a lifetime ago.

“So, little brother, how are you feeling?”

“Great,” Gunner said. “I’m a fast healer.”

“Damned good thing,” Jimmy said, “considering how often you get shot.”

Cody laughed and said, “Is it, Jimmy? Is it really a good thing?”

Gunner rolled his eyes, but forced himself to sit and wait. Dax waited for the two men to stop cackling like old hens and said, “We voted to make you a prospect.”

Gunner was ecstatic. He wanted to jump up and hug Dax. Hell, he wanted to hug them all. With a huge grin, he said, “Thank you, you won’t be sorry.”

“Wait,” Handsome said. “There was a condition.”

Some of Gunner’s excitement waned. “A condition?”

“Yep,” Cody said and smirked. Gunner wondered if he was having so much fun at his expense to keep from having to think about his own problems. “You have to tell us how you got that name.”

Gunner’s blue eyes found Dax’s. Dax nodded and Gunner sucked in a breath and said, “I got beat up in juvie. The kid that beat me up was someone I knew from the streets. He worked at a chop shop for his uncle, running parts and who knows what else. Anyways, he worked me over good and they stripped me down and he put his foot right on my crotch. I’m not sure what he would have done if the officers hadn’t shown up then, but as they pushed him into the wall, he said, ‘Hey kid, when you get out you should go see my uncle. He sells a lot of Gunner parts.’ I had no idea what he was talking about. I was taken to the infirmary and cleaned up and patched up, and the officer that came to escort me back to my cell said, ‘Hey, Gunner, you ready?’ I just asked him what the fuck that meant. The officer laughed and said that ‘Gunner’ was a company that sold motorcycle parts, in particular…”

Cody and Jimmy were already laughing. Dax and Handsome both had the decency to look like they were trying to keep a straight face. Old Hawk was the one that yelled out, “Extenders! They make extenders. You got a small dick, boy?” Gunner knew being a prospect was the start of at least a year of their torment. He sucked up his embarrassment and let them have their laugh at his expense. When the laughter died down he said:

“They all started calling me that, and I couldn’t get rid of the name, so I just rolled with it. And for the record, it’s not small.” The guys cracked up again, and it took Dax’s telling them all the meeting was adjourned and to get out to end it. Once they were gone Dax said:

“I’m glad to see you have that impulse control in check.”

Gunner smiled. “Being a prospect for this club means a lot to me. I’m not going to screw that up. I just imagine killing them all in my head.”

Dax laughed. “Whatever works, I guess.”

“Are we finished?”

“No,” Dax said, “there’s one more thing.” He reached under the table and pulled out a blue canvas bag and handed it to Gunner. “This is yours. You can display it in your house or save it for your kid. The only thing you can’t do is wear it.” Gunner looked into the bag at the vest that had meant so much to him as a kid. As he looked at it, he realized it still meant just as much. Doc may have been a shitty father, but if not for him and that vest, Gunner wouldn’t have Dax, or Tammy, or any of the other good people who had recently come into his life. He looked up at Dax and smiled.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, brother. I hope you’re ready for one hell of a year.”