Everyone rises and surprisingly, he reaches out to shake my hand. When we finish shaking hands, he doesn’t pull back his hand. Instead he turns it palm up and wiggles his fingers in a gimme motion. My stomach sinks because I know what he means with that gesture. I just effectively quit the club. They ain’t gonna let me walk outta here wearing a Sons cut.
With a heavy heart, I pull off my cut and hand it over to him.
He murmurs, “Sorry Mica. I’m the VP and you know the rules.”
I slap him good naturedly on the shoulder and reply, “I sure as fuck do. Now that we’re not club brothers anymore, we’ll have to settle for just being blood brothers.”
I can almost swear that I see Slate tear up. And when I turn, the rest of my family are there to shake my hand as well. There isn’t a truly dry eye in the entire room, including myself. But somehow, we get through it.
For a minute we just stand there one last time, five men connected by bonds of family, blood, and a history spanning years. No patch is ever gonna break what we have. I’ll see to that personally.
The minute we step out of the back, and my ma sees I’m no longer wearing my cut, she searches Rock’s face and then the faces of my brothers. She knows without us having to say that I’m no longer a Rager. Her knees buckle out from under her. Silver and Tessa catch her before she hits the ground, Rock curses under his breath and takes off running towards his wife. We are hot on his heels.
In my wildest nightmares, I didn’t foresee her reacting like this, like I was dead or something. Rock picks her up and takes her upstairs, elbowing us out of the way.
Onyx murmurs, “She’ll be okay once he talks to her about it. You should stay and the four of us will split a bottle of whiskey.”
“Sorry, I gotta get moving. I’ve got a club to build, and you know better than most that there’s no rest for the wicked.”
Onyx laughs but it’s Jasper who surprises me by bringing me a bottle of Macallan that’s been aged for twenty years. He hands it to me and says, “A little something to share with each new brother.”
“This is from your private stock, isn’t it?”
Jasper shrugs, “Yeah, I want to send you off with something nice.”
I give him a quick, one armed hug and whisper, “Thanks for understanding, bro.”
***
Now that the trucking company is located at my building, popping in to see Nova and Mac has never been easier. Of course, there’s always some kind of commotion going on in my back parking lot because of the trucks but that’s a small price to pay to have them close.
When I arrive without my cut, Nova immediately takes off hers, folds it up and respectfully places it in her bottom desk drawer. Then she pads over to me and slips her arms around my waist. That’s the thing about having an old lady that grew up in the biker community. She understands how hard shit like this is. I wrap my arms around her, and we stand like that for a long moment, confusing the hell out of Rachel.
Mac pokes his head into the office, waving a manifest in the air. When he sees me without my cut, his face goes white. He doesn’t ask but I know he’s wondering what went wrong. Nova pulls back and I motion for him to come in.
“Did you finish the meat run?” I ask, trying to sound casual.
“I sure as fuck did,” he replies.
“If you have a minute, I want to talk to you privately in my office.”
He straightens up and hands off the manifest to Nova. Giving me his full attention, he says, “Lead the way, son.”
Once we’re in my office with the door shut, I pull out the bottle of twenty-year-old whiskey and grab a couple of glasses from my sidebar. When I sit down, Mac has the bottle in his hand.
He slides the bottle over to me and asks, “What in the fuck is going on that requires this kind of high-class octane, son?”
I pour us both a generous portion of this two-thousand-dollar liquor, take a drink and let it slide down my throat. Then I lean forward and tell him, “I don’t want you to ever call me that again.”
Shock and hurt register on Mac’s face for an instant before he murmurs, “I didn’t mean no disrespect.”
“I never took it as disrespect. I have a new title I’d like you to use. I want you to call me prez, and I want to call you VP of Raging Vultures.”
Mac chokes on the whiskey he just tried to swallow. “What the fuck, Mica. Are you seriously gonna make Vulture’s old club some kind of affiliate for the Sons of Rage?”
I point to him with one of the fingers holding my glass. “You’re almost right. I want Raging Vultures to be an independent club, allied with both Cray’s club and the Sons. Cray already gave me his seal of approval. Rock did the same. Nova’s on board with the idea too. It’s already been decided. Right now, I’m looking for founding members, and you were the first man I approached about joining my club.”
Mac freezes with whiskey dripping down his chin. One hand comes up to slowly wipe it away as his eyes search my face. “You put Vulture’s name in the title. Why?”
