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Scar waved at the bartender. “This is my bro, Josh, and this sexy fucker—” He wrapped his arm around one of the men sitting on the stools. He didn’t have a drink in front of him, but he’d been bullshitting with another guy when Scar interrupted him. “—is my man, Charley. Fish, this is Leo’s bro. You never met Leo, but I told you about him.”
Charley spun on the stool and stared at me with a genuine smile curving his full lips. He had short dark hair and big brown eyes. “Nice to meet you.” He held out his hand, and I shook it. “Colton told me about Leo when we heard about him.... You know. He was a good guy.”
I frowned for a moment before I put together the pieces of information. Scar was Colton. Fuck, it was easy to forget that these kinds of guys had real names. They went by fake names so often that sometimes they didn’t even know each other’s real identity.
“Right. Your boyfriend hasn’t even told me what he wants.” I took my hand back and crossed my arms. “I’m only here ’cause he gave me five hundred to come. I really don’t give a shit what he has to say.”
“Well, don’t you have a perky attitude?” Josh winked at me. “I like him. He’s spunky.”
Scar leaned around Charley and grabbed a shot glass in front of another King, who hadn’t bothered to turn around.
The King threw his hands up when Scar tossed the shot into his mouth. “What the fuck, Scar? Asshole. That was mine.”
Scar slammed the glass back on the bar and smirked. “Drink faster, Barber.”
“Fuck you.” Barber went to move around Charley, but Charley shoved him back against the bar and pointed a finger at him.
“Just because Quain’s mad at you and you’re sulking, doesn’t mean you can start a fight with Scar.”
Barber pouted. “I’m not sulking.”
Scar grunted. “Could’ve fooled me.” He nodded at Jonas, who stood nervously beside me, then patted the stool next to Charley. “Come sit here for a while, kid. I want to have a talk with your boyfriend.”
Jonas glanced at me, and I tilted my head toward the stool, leading him over to it. I pushed on his shoulders, and he plopped his cute ass down.
“I’ll be right back, okay? Then we can go on our date with this loser’s money.” I wasn’t quite sure what to do, but everyone was watching me, even Barber, so I laid a quick kiss on his cheek. The hoots I got for my action made my cheeks scald, and I glared around at them as they cheered some more.
They were all dicks.
Scar chuckled and grabbed my arm, but I shrugged away from his touch. He rolled his eyes and gestured for me to follow with a tilt of his head, so I let him lead me out of the barroom and down a small hallway.
He opened a door, and we entered a room that made me pause for a moment so I could appreciate it. I’d heard a lot of rumors about biker clubs, and I knew one of the things they did was hold church, which was what they called a meeting. This was clearly where they did it because not only was the room massive, but in the center was a thick, cherrywood table with the Kings of Men logo—a skull and crown—carved in the middle, and a bunch of leather chairs were around it. A half-empty bottle of rum sat in front of the spot at one end. At the head of the table, hanging on a lime green wall, was a photo of four men, and I recognized one of them as a much younger Scar. The man on the left looked slightly older, and I’d heard enough talk around the city to figure out that he wastheKing.
Scar pulled back a chair and gestured at it. “Sit.”
I crossed my arms. “I’ll stand.”
He stared at me for a long minute before chuckling again. “Leo said you fight against authority. He said you have an attitude, but once someone’s gained your trust, you’re loyal.”
Grief hit me hard, and my breath caught, but I didn’t wince like I was tempted to. Leo’s death had caught me by surprise, but I’d gotten nothing more than a phone call to let me know he’d died in the prison hospital from getting his neck slashed. I was his only family, and a month later, they’d sent me his belongings and told me they’d buried him in the local cemetery without a tombstone. Nothing broke me more than that day when they’d told me what they’d done. Leo had been laid to rest in a strange place with nothing to honor who he was, and I’d failed him.
I fell into the seat and rested my elbows on my knees, rubbing my face. “I don’t know what you want. Leo’s gone. You don’t need to keep any promises. I’m nineteen.”
Scar slid into the chair beside me and moved it closer. He patted me on the knee, and I glanced up at him. “Like I said, I promised Leo I would look after you. He would’ve hated you being part of this Dutch guy’s gang. He asked me to give you a chance to be a King when you were old enough.”
I frowned. “What?”
“You heard me.” Scar gave me a lopsided grin. “A King. Well, a prospect. You have to work hard like everyone else. You gotta prove you have the balls.”
“I don’t have a bike,” I murmured, not quite sure I was hearing him right.
“We can give you one of our old ones. One of the guys has a son, kinda, who fixes up bikes, so we’ve had him refurb a couple just to give him some work. The one I’m thinking about isn’t pretty, bit scratched up, but if you do what you’re supposed to, King will pay you well. After you get a few paydays, you can do her up. I’m a mechanic, so I’ll fix what I can for you and give you discounts, but again, she’ll need some work on her thatyouwill need to pay for when you’ve done some jobs for us as a prospect.”
I blinked at him. Fuck, I’d never thought about joining a motorcycle club.
Scar laughed. “Prospects don’t get paid as much for doing jobs as a full member, and there’ll be a lot of grinding and shit chores. Literally. You’ll be cleaning the shit house when it’s your turn, but like I said, it’ll get you cash when we go on jobs, and if you prove your worth and loyalty, you’ll get more money on the bigger stuff we pull off. After you do your time as a prospect and know a thing or two, you and me will go get the fucker who killed Leo.”
I swallowed, waiting for the catch, but when he didn’t speak anymore, I forced out, “Okay.”
