by Brook Wilder
The rest of the prospects, five in all not counting the one who would be on his way home after he woke up, shook their heads quickly. Good. I really didn’t feel like punching anyone else. “Get back to work. I want those guns emptied.”
There was not even a grumble as they all turned back to the range, ignoring their partner who still slept at my feet. Shit. Chains was gonna kill me for this. I think this was the tenth guy I had thrown out of the club in a month, but if I couldn’t trust them to have my back out there in the thick of things, then I didn’t want them in the club.
I was the sergeant at arms for the bike club, the Rough Jesters, and had been for nearly five years. My club name was Machine Gun, mainly because I was in charge of weapons and training new prospects, vetting them to see if they were up to snuff on what the club needed.
Maybe I took my job too literally, but hell, I didn’t want to get shot in the back by my own guy.
My former prospect started to move around and I sighed, motioning for one of the other guys to help me get him to his feet.
“What happened?” he asked, touching his jaw.
“I knocked you the fuck out,” I answered, stepping back once he was steady on his feet. “You’re done, man.”
He glared at me but thankfully didn’t say anything as he moved toward the door. The last thing I wanted to deal with today was a foul-mouthed kid trying to prove himself.
After a few minutes of target practice, I called off the rest of the prospects and inspected their targets. Most looked pretty good so I sent them to the main room to get a drink. Another week of torturing them and then I would be putting them on bikes to weed out the men from the boys.
I fucking loved my job.
“Machine Gun.”
I turned to see our newest recruit, Sabrina, standing in the doorway. Sabrina was a genius when it came to computers and she had come on board recently after hooking up with another bike member, Crankshaft.
They were disgustingly all over each other, but I was glad to see Crankshaft happy for once. “Yeah?”
“You’re in charge, right?”
I gave her a quick nod. The rest of the council, including Chains, Ironsides, and Crankshaft, were at a roundtable meeting with Hell’s Bitches - a woman’s bike club, and the local police chief. Normally MCs and the police didn’t mix, but the police chief just happened to be married to a former Jester member and she was willing to attempt to make a mutually beneficial arrangement work.
So when the others were out, I was the low man on the totem pole. “Why?”
“There’s a girl here,” she answered, fidgeting. “She says she needs to talk to the leader and, well, Chains isn’t here.”
“I got it,” I answered. It was likely just some chick lodging a complaint about her significant other’s time at the club. Surprisingly, we got that shit a lot. The MC wasn’t a pastime. It was a full-time job most couldn’t understand.
She nodded and walked away, leaving me to tug at the long sleeves of my shirt and slide my vest back on. Normally, I didn’t like to do this kind of shit. I was more of a grunt work type of guy, dealing with the prospects and handling other transactions.
I followed after Sabrina who waited for me near the door.
“I put her in the conference room,” she said. “Just in case.”
I gave her a flash of a smile. “Thanks. If I scream come running, okay?”
Sabrina rolled her eyes. “Yeah okay. Like you need help with anything.”
“Yeah you’re right,” I winked then sauntered down the hall to the meeting room. With Chains married to the president of the Hell’s Bitches, Widow Maker, we used the room far more than we used to, attempting to keep both clubs on the same page.
That was far more important these days since we were on the brink of a war with the Mexican cartel.
Walking into the room, I forced myself to smile. I didn’t smile much these days and I imagined I looked like I was fucking constipated more than warm and welcoming. “You wanted to talk to someone?”
The woman, whose back was to me, turned and I was struck by a ghost from my past. “Elisa?”
“Damian,” she said in a rush, surprise evident in her voice. “Oh my god. Is that really you?”
I fought through the searing pain in my chest, a pain I hadn’t felt in a long time. “Yeah, it’s me. What are you doing here?”
She suddenly looked nervous, which gave me a chance to take a good look at her. What was she? Like twenty-four? Twenty-five? Her long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her classic features and sharp gaze reminding me of someone else, someone I thought about every single damn day. “Are you the president of this club?”
“The president is out,” I said, my voice harsher than I intended. “You got me.”
“I’m sorry,” she answered. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just… I don’t even know where to start really.”
Hell, I didn’t either. God this was Elisa. I hadn’t seen her in ten years. “Why don’t you sit down and just let it all out.”
Elisa did as I asked, and I chose to stay upright, not even wanting to get close to her right now. Dammit, why her? Why now? I wanted to walk out of the room, feeling as if the walls were closing in on me and I couldn’t breathe.
My reaction, well warranted, wasn’t because I had slept with her and then left.
I’d never touched Elisa in any way other than, well, I had kissed her once. That memory was still seared into my brain.
Along with a million other reasons I shouldn’t even be in the same damn room as she was. I had failed her on all levels a guy could fail a girl.
Not only Elisa, though. I had failed her parents, her grandparents, the entire family that had treated me like a son nearly all my life.
***
I walked off the plane and into the cold rain, not caring that it was soaking through my fatigues. The sky was dreary as it had been the entire ride back to the base and while the other officers offered me a seat in the cockpit, I had stayed in the back.
With Will.
Pain flared in my body as I stood there, waiting for them to roll out the flag-draped coffin containing the remains of my best friend, my own tears mingling with the rain. I had cursed, screamed, and cried over the last two weeks so my body was numb to anything right now. I had no feelings, no emotions even with the tears running unchecked down my cheeks. None of this mattered. Will wasn’t gonna come back. He was gone and that was his body in that coffin.
I hated it. It should have been me. He should be standing there, receiving my body now.
A black car pulled up and I swore under my breath when the door opened and Will’s parents stepped out, dressed in black. His mom ran to the coffin at the edge of the plane and threw her arms over the flag, her sobs filling the air. His dad, a big strapping man who was a veteran himself, seemed to collapse on the ground next to the car, unable to hold up his own weight.
I knew who was next and I couldn’t watch her come out of that car. I couldn’t see the pain etched on her face, knowing I had put it there.
So I kept my eyes straight ahead, saluting the coffin as Elisa joined her mom at the coffin, her sobs filling the air.
Not once did I move, not even allowing them to know I was there; not until I was sure they had gotten back into the car. Only then did I help the crew load Will’s body into the back of the hearse and shut the door, watching it drive away with my best friend in the back.
The pain. There were no words.
***
I shook out of the memory, realizing Elisa was eyeing me warily. Dammit, she probably thought I was strung out on drugs or something the way I was treating her. “Sorry,” I forced out. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
Just when she opened her mouth to speak, one of the prospects burst into the room, skidding to a stop when he saw me. “Machine Gun, there’s a fight in the front.”
“Dammit,” I swore, striding to the door angrily before realizing I wasn’t alone
in the room. Turning back, I tried not to focus on her face. “I’ll be back. I… just don’t move.”
“Okay,” Elisa answered in a small voice.
I gave her a curt nod and headed out of the room, growing angrier by the minute that I was even dealing with this shit.
Not Elisa, but the prospects. I was getting too old for this.
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