JON

 

I let the smoke linger in my lungs longer than I usually did. I gulped a shot of whiskey before finally sighing out all of the smoke in a slow, deep breath.

I wasn’t one for alcohol and tobacco in the middle of the day. I didn’t give a shit now though. Nothing anybody else could do or say could get me out of the funk I was in.

“Hey, there, Ghost!”

I didn’t pay attention to the slut that took a seat at the bar next to me.

“What you got goin’ on today? You busy?”

I could feel her eyes on me. Stephanie was eyeballing me like I was a piece of meat. A girl like her had intentions and didn’t hesitate to make them clear. That was if her skirt and top didn’t make it already obvious enough.

I took another puff of my cig and stared straight ahead at the bar in front of me.

“You look like you’re in a bad mood,” she whispered. “I could do something for you—”

She put a hand on my arm and I immediately pulled it back.

“That’s right,” I said, finally turning to her. “I am in a bad mood. So you’d best be on your way.”

That slutty smile on her lips disappeared.

“Okay…”

Stephanie rolled her eyes as she got up from her seat. As soon as Stephanie was gone, another voice I wasn’t interested in listening to replaced her.

“I’ve never seen someone blow Steph off like that,” the woman next to me said.

“That’s because she’s usually the one doing the blowing. She’ll land on her feet. Or her knees. Whatever it is she does.”

Michelle took a seat next to me. I stared ahead at my empty shot glass.

“I told you,” she said.

“Don’t start—”

“No. You need to hear this from me, Jon.”

I sighed knowing that there was no way I could stop Michelle from droning on like she always did. She always had to be the wisest person in the room. If you conceded it to her, she wouldn’t fucking shut up about it.

“Anna wasn’t built for this,” she said. “That’s why she left Ivory in the first place. To get away from the club. To get away from you.”

“That wasn’t what she wanted though.”

“Wasn’t it? She was gone for five whole years.”

“Five years… And now she’s back.”

I turned and looked at Michelle. Garnet’s old lady narrowed her eyes at me, a slight smirk on her face because she knew I could only see things my way.

“She left,” I said. “She left but she came back.”

“And you think it’s because of you? You think it’s because of the club?”

“It doesn’t matter why she’s back. All that matters is that she is.”

“It does matter. She’s here because Ivory is her home. I grew up in this town the same as her. I know what it’s like. This town has a hold on you. I haven’t been to the places she has but she would never be able to replace Ivory.”

I put my cigarette out in the ashtray in front of me and stared at it. I was through trying to reason with Michelle.

“I care about her,” I said.

“I know you do.”

“And she cares about me.”

“Sometimes that doesn’t matter. Sometimes you just have to let people go.”

Michelle put a hand on my shoulder.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” she said. “Being an old lady is the hardest thing in the world. It’s harder than wearing the patch itself. You might think you’ve got a tough job living up to the standards but I’ve got standards to live up to, too.”

“You think Anna’s not capable? You think she’s not strong enough to stand by my side?”

“If she was, she wouldn’t have left.”

I sipped on the empty shot glass just to distract myself.

“You two care about each other,” she said. “If you really care about each other, you’ll know that it’ll never work between you two. You’re the vice president of the Black Reapers. If she has to stand by your side, she has to face all of the responsibility that you do.”

“How do you do it? How does Katrina do it? How does Gina do it? Every patch in this club has an old lady. What makes you so special?”

I turned toward Michelle. She was still staring intently at me. It almost looked like she felt sorry for me.

“I see the way she looks at you,” she said. “I can see it in her eyes. She’s not just looking at you. She’s looking into you. She’s trying to see something that isn’t there.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“She thinks you can be some honest man living an ordinary life in this town. But wearing that patch means you’ll never be able to rest easy. There’ll always be a burden you’ll have to shoulder.”

She reached her hand forward and dug her finger into the patch on my chest.

“You have responsibilities,” she said. “Not just to you. Not just to the other members. You have a responsibility to everybody who came before you.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way. I don’t have to choose between her or the patch—”

“Where is she now? It’s barely been a week and she’s already trying to distance herself from you. She’s already gotten herself into trouble. Not because of anything she did but because of the club. All she had to do was be around you.”

Even though Michelle was right, I wasn’t interested in listening to her any longer. Maybe it was because she was telling me some shit that I just didn’t wanna hear.

Michelle knew how bothered I was by it though.

“Just give her some space,” she said. “From what Declan is telling me, you’ve got bigger problems than that.”

“What did Garnet say?”

“Why don’t you ask him yourself? I think he’s planning on calling a meeting pretty soon.”

I looked to the side and saw Garnet leaving his office.

“Speak of the devil,” she said.

I got up from my seat and marched over to Garnet.

“What’s up?” I said with a shrug.

He looked at me for a second. There was a strange look in his eyes. I didn’t think much of it though.

“Call a meeting,” he said.

I gave him a nod. I interrupted the rest of the club’s poker game and we all gathered in the chapel. I shut the door and took a seat right next to Garnet.

“I suppose you wanna know what went down last night,” he said as he looked at me.

I looked around the table and everybody had their eyes on me.

“What went down?” I said.

“Oh, shit, man!” Needle exclaimed. “Can you believe this? The motherfucker doesn’t even remember…”

“Remember…”

I only had to think about it for a second to realize what I’d forgotten.

“Shit. I—”

“It’s all right,” Garnet said. “The deal went off without a hitch. Sully took your place and did just fine.”

“Thanks,” Sully said to me.

“His lady comes back into town and the motherfucker can’t think of anything else,” Needle said. “Lovestruck…”

“Shut the fuck up,” I said. “You act like I planned on Anna getting kidnapped.”

“Take it easy, take it easy,” Garnet said.

He raised his hands up and calmed everybody down before tensions could rise.

“The deal went smooth,” he said. “The Chinese are happy with how quickly it went down. They’ll have another shipment for us. But… We’ve got some bigger problems on our hands.”

Everybody in the room had turned their attention back to the president.

“Anna’s kidnapping was the distraction we needed to get the shipment up north,” he said. “Cops were too busy trying to track her down instead of keeping their eyes on us.”

“Now the problem is dealing with the rest of those motherfuckers who took Anna,” I said.

“Exactly.”

Garnet got up from his seat.

“I spoke with Lin,” he said. “He told me that they call themselves the Corps.”

“The Corps?” Sully said.

“A group of disgruntled vets. They don’t feel they got the compensation they deserve, so they have other means of making ends meet.”

“Like making deals with the Chinese,” I said.

“They’re a dangerous group of guys. Wouldn’t expect anything less from ex-military. The Triads liked working with them because they got the job done. But their prices got too high. That’s when Lin started renegotiating with me.”

“And now they’re out for blood,” Brawn chimed in.

Needle sighed and leaned back in his seat, his arms crossed.

“This is just fucking great,” he said. “Fucking ex-military. The best deal the club has ever had and we have to deal with a bunch of bloodthirsty grunts.”

“There’s no telling what they’re capable of,” Garnet said. “But they’ve got a target on us now that we took their deal with the Chinese.”

Garnet leaned forward and pressed his palms on the table. He eyeballed each and every one of us.

“Until the Corps are dealt with, we’re gonna have to watch our backs,” he said. “Of course, we can just cut the deal off with the Chinese. Anybody interested in doing that?”

Sully. Needle. Brawn. Petey.

Everybody remained silent.

When Garnet looked at me, I swallowed and looked down at the ground.

“Something wrong, Ghost?”

I took a deep breath and shook my head at him.

“No,” I said. “Nothing’s wrong—”

“You wanna back out.”

“I said nothing’s wrong.”

Garnet shifted his eyes up and down, examining me for a second before nodding.

“I’m talking to Lin,” he said. “The Triads aren’t any more fond of the Corps than any of us are. He’s working on a way to deal with them. Until then, lay low. The Chinese will talk to me when the next shipment is ready. Meeting adjourned.”

Garnet snapped his fingers.

The club members got up and started leaving. I remained in my seat until all of them were gone. The door closed and Garnet took a seat back down in front of me.

I didn’t have to say anything. We both knew what I was thinking.

“It’s tough,” he said. “Being in love… Anna was a sweet girl. Shit, there’s no girl quite like the first.”

“Was Michelle your first?”

Garnet scoffed and shook his head.

“She wasn’t my first but I knew she was special,” he said. “I knew she was the one. I knew it right from the start and she’s still with me now.”

“Shit…”

I sighed a deep breath.

“…I’m sorry for letting this shit interfere with club business. No woman, not even Anna, should fuck things up for everybody else. Needle’s right… I sound like some stupid fucking lovestruck teenager…”

“Let me give you some advice. If there’s any reason to fuck up club business, a woman is it. I can’t imagine what it would be like without Michelle. None of this shit would be as sweet without her.”

Garnet got up from his seat.

“Give her some time,” he said. “If she’s an old lady, she won’t be able to fight it. If not, then it was never meant to be. Her heart will eventually decide for her.”

“From the sound of things, it doesn’t sound like we have much time. But I can’t worry about that now. Right now, we gotta deal with the fucking Corps. I have to pay ‘em back for what they did.”

“They’ll get what’s coming to ‘em.”

He put a hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye.

“You with me, brother?” he said.

I nodded without hesitating.

“Let’s go take care of business.”