Page 23 of Kick

“What club did you belong to?”

“I didn’t—”

Prez holds up a hand and the denial I have always at the ready falls away from my lips. “Don’t fucking bullshit me now, kid. I know an MC brat when I see one, and you had club runnin’ in your veins since you was a boy. I knew it the second I first saw you.”

I stare at my prez, the man I pledged loyalty to, the man I agreed to die for if push came to shove. I meant that pledge when I took it. If I had to take it again today, I’d still mean it. I take a deep, slow inhalation and let my answer rush out with my breath, as if that could somehow lessen the betrayal I’m about to admit to. “Angels. Hells Angels.”

“Sydney chapter?”

I nod.

Prez whistles low, quietly. It forces my head to snap up and glare at him. “Then you know there’s still a pretty price on your head from the other chapters.”

“I know it,” I agree, still uncertain about my next move. In the time that’s passed since I showed up on Tank’s doorstep begging him to kill me, I haven’t told a single living soul that I gunned down my entire club.

He grins. “You’re just full of surprises aren’t ya, kid?”

I shrug.

“You gonna tell me how your whole club wound up dead inside a little farm house in the country? ’Cause I know the Angels and the Banditos have been waging war on one another for several years, but from the look on your face, I’m guessing club rivalry had nothing to do with it.”

“No, it didn’t. But they made a good scape goat.” I don’t bother telling him that I wasn’t the only one to survive. Or that the shit that went down with the Banditos was done and dusted long before I gunned down my club. Word was the cops had tried to cover everything up to save the big bad Bs and the Angels from an all-out war, and I wasn’t about to correct anyone on that front. I’d done enough damage to Ethan and his Ana. And though I knew in my gut that the president of the Savage Saints was a good man—as good a man as any criminal can be—that was a chapter of my life I wanted to remain closed. I’d made my peace with it, and one day, if I ever crossed paths with Ethan again, how that meeting would go would depend on him. If he wanted me dead, I wouldn’t stop him. It was what I deserved. It was my debt to pay for what I had done to them.

“I’ll bet,” Prez says, locking his hands together and cracking his knuckles. “You know how much that pretty head of yours is worth?”

“Nope.”

“Fifty large. Word was that they knew someone had survived, and that the Angels were on their way to that hospital to conduct a little investigation of their own.”

“I thought as much. I checked myself out early and went to Tank, hoping to check out entirely.”

“And he saved your life?”

“Still can’t get a straight answer out of him as to why the hell he’d do something like that.”

“The Angels didn’t take their change of presidency well. Tank knew that. Why do you think he turned nomad? He knew the club was on a different path, and it wasn’t the one he wanted to be on. Way I see it, you did him a favour, and he brought you to me.”

“What are you gonna do, Prez?”

“What else you got to tell me, kid?”

“Nothing.”

He chuckles. “I believe that about as much as I believe that you’re trying to rescue that girl there because of the goodness in your heart.”

I glance down at Indie. I’m covered in her vomit, sitting here, chatting with my prez as though she were my drunken girlfriend who lost her guts before submitting to an alcoholic coma. I don’t know what it is about her that makes me so fiercely protective and yet so completely fucking at a loss when it comes to what to do with her. It would be so easy just to wrap my hands around her slim throat and squeeze, but I don’t want to, and judging by the way Prez is staring at me, he knows this as well as I do.

Prez nods toward Indie. He gives me another of his wry smiles, and I kinda wanna shoot him the nut-sack for being such a cocky fuck, ’cause I’m sure I’m not gonna like what he’s about to say. “That’s a lot to take on, kid.”

“So is a brother who shot down his prior club members.”

“But here we are.”

“You gonna turn me into the Angels? Collect a big wad of cash?”

“You got some issues with trust, huh?” Prez frowns. “Guess I’m not surprised. I knew your old man, and that fucker was meaner than a hornet without a nest.”

“And how do you know who my old man is?”

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