Page 20 of Savage Grace

Of course, that doesn’t mean it didn’t continue the moment we cut the bikes and there was just enough quiet for him to open his big fucking mouth again.

“Man, Henny,” he breathed intentionally, wiping a tear from his eye after his last laughing fit. “You reallyfucked,” he emphasized the word, poking me in the chest, “this one.”

His own joke sent him into another bout of hysterics, and I grumbled as I pushed open the heavy wooden door to the clubhouse.

I thought about asking Shag not to say anything, but I knew it would be useless. Plus, I had already ran out of time, because as soon as Shag spotted Freddie and Charmer sitting at a table, he hurried his old ass over to laugh about it some more.

“Oi,” he wheezed, gripping the edge of the table and doubling over. “You will never guess who Henny fucked on the weekend.”

“That chick,” Charmer clicked his fingers, trying to think of the name. “Hope? Hazel? Helen? Fuckin’... Henrietta?”

“It’s Holly, you ass,” I snapped. “But no, of course not.”

I slid into the booth next to him, snatching the beer from his hands and taking a long drink.

“That redhead from the rally,” Freddie threw out his guess, looking wholly uninterested but participating anyway.

Shag wheezed with laughter still.

He was one of the three remaining founding fellas that still rode with us. Most had retired by now, or walked away under the last president’s rule.

Even though I had patched in while King was still running the chapter, I couldn’t say that I or many of the other members were too sad to see him go. Of course, we were loyal when he was president and we followed orders—even if we didn’t necessarily like them.

It was either that or get a bullet to the brain.

But I wasn’t the only one who had felt that weight lift when he died. Him being gone was the only reason I accepted the sergeant at arms rank. Because even though it had been offered to me while he was president, I wasn’t willing to be under the thumb of someone as dangerously reckless as King.

Charmer whistled. “Yeah, I bet it was her too. She gave you her number, right?”

“To organise the next rally,” I snapped again.

“Did you‘organise’it, Hen?” Charmer wiggled his eyebrows and I rolled my eyes.

“No!” Shag banged his fist on the table, practically trembling from the excitement of getting to say the words out loud and be the one who spread the news.

“Zarina Santino,” I said under my breath, taking another drink of Charmer’s beer.

Shag scowled and snatched the schooner from my hands, cranky that I had ruined his dramatic plans to make the announcement.

“Damn it, Henny! Can’t an old guy have any fuckingfunaround here?”

I chuckled, looking down and shaking my head. No one else said a word. Charmer smirked at me, but his eyes were blank and guarded. Freddie still just looked bored, though he too, stared straight at me.

“Does Princey know?” Freddie asked eventually.

Prince was, ironically, the new president, and took over after King died.

While King had giftedhimselfthe nickname of King, HarlenPrincewas actually just the dude’s name.

It was some kind of fucked up string of fate that no one knew how to explain.

King had even tried to strip Harlen of his name, insisting that we all called his little brotherPrinceinstead, even though Harlen had already carried the title for decades.

It was some weird power play that had put a bad taste in everyone’s mouths. We all knew he was trying to put Prince in his place. But it was just another brick in the wall that King built around himself, separating him from his club.

But now he was dead. And so was his brother Joseph. And neither of the self-proclaimed MC royalty fuckin’ mattered anymore. There was no honorable legacy left behind. No respect from their father who had helped build the Redliners from the ground up and still outlived them both.

Harlen earned the respect of the oldies quickly once he finally took the president’s patch, and the rest of us just as fast. He was on a mission to do things differently, to do things better—if only we could get the fucking Santinos off our backs.

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