"This club has been in this town for thirty years. We've buried brothers. We've welcomed new ones. We've protected people who needed protecting and handled things that needed handling and we've held this territory through things that would've destroyed a lesser organization." He looks around the room. "We do that because we're family. Not because we were born into it but because we chose it. Every one of you chose this."
He looks at me.
"Austin Reed chose it six months ago. He's been proving that choice every day since. And today this club has decided, unanimously, that he's earned the right to stop proving it and just live it."
He holds up the cut.
"Get over here."
I walk to him. My pulse is doing something my face isn't doing, which is exactly the right way around. I stop in front of him and he holds the cut open and I turn and put my arms back and he slides it onto my shoulders.
The leather settles. It's heavier than I expected and warmer, like it's already been lived in, and maybe it has. Maybe all cuts carry some weight from every man who put one on before you. My hands come forward and I grip the front lapels for a second and feel the stitching under my fingers.
Razor comes around to face me. He looks at me the way he looks at everything: steady, assessing, and underneath that, genuine.
"You're a Black Saint now," he says. "That means this club's business is your business. These men's problems are your problems. Their families are your family. You ride for them, you bleed for them, you lie for them if you have to and you tell them the truth when they need it. You protect the people in this town who can't protect themselves. And you never, not once, put your own pride above the good of this club."
He puts his hand out.
I shake it.
The room erupts.
It's not genteel. It's bikers, which means it's loud and physical and immediately someone has a bottle of whiskey while someone else has their arm around my neck. Cash is yelling something in my ear that I can't make out and Ramsey is laughing at whatever it is. Knuckles gets to me through the crowd. He grips my hand and pulls me into a shoulder and says, right in my ear so I can actually hear it, "Don't waste it," and then releases me into the next wave.
Pops hands me a beer and grabs my shoulder. "Welcome to the family, son. Officially." He raises his bottle and I raise mine and we drink. Around us the room is alive with it, this particular energy that comes from a good thing happening to someone who deserved it.
I work my way through the room and I'm aware of the cut on my back with every movement. The weight of it. The meaning of it.
Seb finds me near the bar. He's got a beer in each hand and he passes me one even though I've still got most of mine. "You look like you're going to cry," he says.
"I'm not going to cry."
"Good, because Knuckles would never let you live it down."
"I'm not going to cry."
"I know, I said that." He clinks his bottle against mine. "Congratulations, man. Genuinely. You've earned this more than anyone I've seen come through here." He takes a drink. "Your uncle is about to burst something, by the way. He keeps looking at you and then looking away."
I glance over to where Brick is standing with Prez, talking about something else, definitely not watching me. Except his eyes flick over once while I'm looking and then flick away, and Seb's right, there's something in his face that Brick works very hard to keep out of his face, and it's there anyway.
"Buy him a drink later," Seb says. "Not now. Give him a minute to get it together."
I look back at Seb. "How long have you been this wise?"
"Since always. You just weren't paying attention." He grins. "So, when's my vote?"
"Ask Razor."
"I did. He said three more months."
"Then three more months."
Seb sighs dramatically. "Fine. But I'm billing you for tonight's gate duty."
It'spast midnight when the road name happens, and I'll be honest with you, I'm on my third whiskey. I'm leaning on the bar talking to Cam about something I can't entirely remember, when Cash sidles up on my left looking like a man who's had an excellent idea.
"We need to talk about what we're going to call him," Cash announces to no one in particular, which means to everyone, because Cash is the kind of man who can make a room listen to him without raising his voice.
