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My father’s eyes narrowed as if he were trying to work out what I’d said then his jaw tightened.
He didn’t reply for several seconds. Possibly minutes. His eyes finally left my face, wandering to the table as he relaxed in the chair.
“So, you’re the new president then?” His dull eyes peered up at me with hope.
My gut churned with shame. This was the other reason I was holding off on telling him.
I shook my head.
“What the fuck do you mean, no?” My dad looked around briskly, before leaning forward once more. “You were Vice President last I heard when Simon came to visit…what, two months ago?”
Two months ago, Simon had lost nearly twenty pounds and looked like he was sick. Had my dad asked him? Did he even care that his best friend had died?
“Wes Ryan.”
I could see the wheels churning in my father’s head as he tried to remember who Wes was. Dad was put away before Wes first came over to the house when he was that gangly fifteen-year-old. I had met him when he was younger, only thirteen and starry-eyed in love with Callie. I had been patched into the Stone Riders by then, doing deliveries. Dad had already been in prison for a few years.
“Wes who?”
I shook my head again, scuffing my blunt thumbnail over the surface of the table. “Been around for a few years. Simon picked him.”
That searing pain in my gut returned. I was embarrassed that Simon hadn’t chosen me; there wasn’t even a conversation about it. He was dying and just said in his last church meeting that it would be Wes and there would be no questions.
Fucking hurt like hell, but who was I to complain? Obviously, I was fucking no one if I had been passed over, and I was the goddamn Vice President.
Dad’s scoff brought my eyes back up, his lips twisted into a sneer.
“Fucking useless. Can’t even secure becoming president when you’re the VP. No wonder Simon skipped over you. You always were too weak for this life; you don’t belong in the club. You belong behind a desk, drawing rabbits and fuckin’ flowers.”
My heart burned in my chest. A familiar fire that raged on behalf of the monster my father had always been to me. The abusive words, the physical marks he’d left on my face that Simon noticed but never called him out for. He did offer me a place near his family block of the clubhouse, where Callie lived. But he didn’t banish my dad from the club.
Shortly after my mom left, my father went and killed a Sweetbutt. A girl who was nice to me, and honestly not much older than me, barely eighteen as far as I could remember. It was unforgivable, not only because hurting women in our club was outlawed, but Sweetbutts were especially offered special protection. Which was why Simon refused to offer his connections to help my dad get out earlier. He assumed I would help him if I’d been given the role.
“You’re loose gravel, Killian. Stone always needed someone like him, solid and formidable. You’re nothing but a tiny pebble in the shoe of a great leader.”
My heart rate spiked as I remembered back to my mother talking to me about pebbles and their power. How important they were, and I remembered my father slapping her for instilling such a weak thought into my head.
Shaking my head, I stood and peered down at my dad.
“Just owed you the truth about your president. Your new one is Wes Ryan, be faithful to him or leave. Choice is yours.”
I heard him screaming at my back about loyalty and me being a pussy, but the guard came and grabbed him. The last words I heard before the door clicked shut was, “Take Wes down, claim your spot in the club or so help me, I will do it for you.”
I shook off the remark, but something had dug under my skin after the visit.
I wasn’t done fighting for my place in the club; it might take longer, but I knew one day it would be mine. I knew this because Wes had a weakness, and she’d just reappeared after seven years.
I had none.
I’d made sure when it was time to step into my role and claim it, I’d be ready.
No person or situation would ever change that.
FIVE
LAURA
The file cabinet was jammed again.
