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He looked up. “Come on, man. Keep up. Stella and Switch. Stwitch.”
“Did you start huffing paint down in the shop after I left?”
“We wish it was paint.” Gunner rolled his eyes. “Some girl he was fucking showed him this name combiner app and now Trisha and me are Trinner, Hunter and Brandy are Handy, and Valentina and Ryder are Vader. We’re worried this girl might actually be a teenager.”
“Fuck off, she was twenty-one,” Tweak huffed. “Beast will vouch for me.”
Beast chuckled. “She did have a drink in her hand when he met her, but I’d like to state for the record that I did not personally check this girl’s ID.”
Hunter sighed and added, “I don’t care how he got this annoying new habit. Only that he won’t stop using these ridiculous names, even when I threatened to cut off his finger.”
Knowing Hunter, he was dead serious about the finger thing.
“If some girl ever clips my balls, you fuckers better give us a cool nickname.”
Ryder pointed at his cousin. “I hope her name is some shit like Boomquifa so we can call you Tweamquif.”
Everyone started cracking up, and by the time Ryder banged his gavel I was wiping moisture from underneath my eye with my thumb. Damn, I’d missed these assholes.
“We’ve had our fun, and now it’s time to get down to business. Switch, I asked you here because the fellas wanted to vote on a matter that concerns you.”
What the fuck could he be talking about? The only thing that concerned me was Stel. Was she still in danger? Had we missed something?
“All in favor of Switch being reinstated as a member of the San Antonio charter, raise your hands.”
As I looked around the table, one man after another started to raise their hand. By the time I’d gotten all the way around to Ryder, he had his hand in the air too. Damn. Every single one of them had voted for me to be a member. They were going to give me another chance, just like Stel. I couldn’t believe it.
Ryder banged the gavel again and stood, his eyes meeting mine. “I didn’t think I could ever forgive you for putting the club in danger, but I put my feelings aside for Stella. We all did. It wasn’t until you saved my life that I finally realized what Pops had been trying to tell me. You’ve always had love for me and this club, but Stella was the one thing you couldn’t stand to live without. Now that I have a wife of my own, I get it.”
His lips tipped up in the corner. “So, what do you say? We could certainly use a man like you down in the shop.”
“I’d love to, man. You have no idea how much having a home with you guys means to me.”
And they really didn’t. It wasn’t until after Stel was safe that I realized a part of my being lost had nothing to do with her. She would always come first in my life, but I needed the purpose and strength these men gave me.
When I belonged to the Tucson charter, I did my part and pushed their drugs, but it wasn’t the same. They didn’t have the camaraderie and fellowship these men did. They didn’t look out for each other or give a fuck when one of ’em was dying more and more each day. I wanted to take care of them the way I wanted to take care of Stel, knowing that they would do the same for me.
“Glad to have you back, buddy.” He raised the gavel, preparing to bring it down. Now was my chance to do right by Stel, even if it meant giving up what I’d just gotten back. “If there’s nothing else…”
“Yeah, actually there is.” Ryder nodded for me to continue, and I stood. “I move that Stella be allowed to prospect. She loves this club every bit as much as any of us and she’s proven her worth time and time again. Should she want the chance, I think she deserves it.”
All the men were silent, none of them even looking around the table. This didn’t bode well for my motion. Then Beast stroked a hand down his dark beard and cleared his throat.
“With all due respect, I don’t think Stella should prospect.”
This motherfucker. I took a step forward, and he held up his hand.
“Let me finish. You’re right. The girl could barely stand and had to be carried out by Hunter, yet she still cut a man’s dick off. If that doesn’t embody what a Devil is, then I’m in the wrong place. I think it’s high time we unleash her on our enemies and let them feel her wrath. I move to consider her prospecting period complete and proceed with her membership.”
It was an unprecedented move. Everyone prospected for the club for a year, even Ryder. Female Devil’s weren’tunheard of, but they weren’t exactly commonplace either. I’d only heard of the club having one female officer, and she was a legend, but if anyone could best her, it would be Stel.
Tweak raised his hand. “I have something I’d like to add.”
Ryder inclined his head, giving Tweak the floor. Which was a little baffling to me because Tweak never asked permission for anything. He got by with talking out of turn ’cause he was charming and Ryder’s cousin. Not that what he had to say wasn’t worthwhile. You just sometimes had to wade through a little bullshit to get to it.
“Last night I caught Stella standing there, staring into an empty cell. She told me she had a nail in her hand when she arrived at the warehouse. When she saw Delilah, she knew if they could take a man like Jules’s family, then they could get to ours. She imagined Cherry in Delilah’s place, watching the light being sucked from her eyes until there was nothing left, and she dropped the nail.”
His dark eyes scanned the room. “She was ashamed that she’d been too weak to tell Hunter to leave her there, so she made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t rest until the last cell sat empty.”
