“I’m dying for coffee.”
“We’ll get coffee too.”
I followed him inside and we found the great room packed.
“Orion, my boy!” a large, bearded biker bellowed, jogging toward us. “How was your trip?”
“It was good, Wrath,” he said. “The threat’s been taken care of.”
Wrath squeezed Orion’s shoulder. “Next time you take off without warning, I’m gonna fuckin’ brain you.”
“Right. Sorry, brother.”
“Ori?” Sundance called from the mouth of one of the hallways. “A word?”
Orion gave him a chin lift. “Be right there.” He turned to me and smiled. “Be right back. Make yourself at home.”
I nodded. “Just remind me where the kitchen is, and I’ll make coffee.”
He pointed to my right. “Through that door.”
I made my way to the kitchen while Orion went to talk to his father.
* * *
Orion
“What the fuck is going through your head, boy?” my father bellowed the second his office door was shut.
“Good morning to you, too, Pops,” I said, preparing myself for the torrent of criticism that was about to come.
“Why the hell did you take off without checking out?”
“Wrath already read me the riot act, okay? So, if all you’re gonna do is chew my ass out about safety protocols, I really don’t have time,” I said, pointing a thumb to the door.
Wrath was barely five years older than me, but he was my road captain, so I should have checked in with him at the very least.
“What the hell did you say to me, boy?”
“Enough with calling me ‘boy,’ already,” I said, dragging my hand down my face. “Jesus Christ, Dad, I’m twenty-six years old.”
“Listen here, you disrespectful little shit. I’ve been calling you boy since you were in your mother’s belly,” he fumed. “Before we even knew youwerea boy. Hell, as far as I know, you were a girl until Iwilledyou into becoming a boy.”
Dad was clearly in no mood for my backtalk, and I knew him well enough to detect something else had already been bothering him since before I’d even walked into the room.
“I’m sorry,” I ground out. “It’s just that I’ve told you over and over that you have to start treating me like a man.”
“I will when—”
“You start acting like one,” I mimicked.
“See? That’s the kind of snot-nosed shit I’m talking about right there. You’ve been in here for less than two minutes and all you’ve done is run your mouth and sass me.”
“As soon as I walked in, you started laying into me about not checking out, and I told you Wrath already talked to me about it. What the hell more do you want from me?”
My father’s face fell. “A hell of a lot more than you’re giving me, Ori. But I guess both of us are gonna be disappointed today.”
He was right. I was being disrespectful to him, both as a father and as the club’s president, and I felt like shit for that. On the other hand, I was pissed at him for the lack of respect he constantly showed me. “Look, I’m sorry for not checking out,” I said.
