"Well, Brother?" There was a smirk on Demon's face. "You gonna answer sometime today?" Snorts followed his question, but no one else had the guts to question my hesitation. "This shouldn't come as a surprise. You make a good VP, Brother, but I need you in Vegas as the president."
Any time that Demon and my club needed me, my answer would always be yes. Now that we had a construction office in Vegas and a huge presence there, it made sense to start up a new chapter. Demon had mentioned the idea before. One clubhouse was the same as another, as far as I was concerned, there would just be different members and club sluts. And living in Vegas would cut down on all the fucking time I spent on the road.
"Don't know why you're asking. I'd do anything for the club." It was the truth. I'd spent a good portion of my life in the Desert Rebels. They were family, and we had each other's backs. One of the reasons we were so successful was that we decided shit as a whole and worked the club together.
If one brother failed, we all failed. I tried not to think about the three fucking traitors that we'd put in the ground the year before--Junior, Fisher, and Riggs. Three brothers who'd betrayed us by trying to take over the MC, hurting our old ladies, Raven, Holly, and Bobbie in the process. Junior had also been behind the attack and destruction of our old clubhouse, which had killed our then acting VP, Tooly, as well as several other brothers.
No one had seen that kind of treason coming our way. As the former club president's son, Junior had instigated it all, even going as far as hiring mercenaries to do his dirty work for him. He'd thought the presidency should go to him when cancer had taken his dad, Killer, but Demon had been voted into the position instead.
Junior had caused so much fucking death and destruction, and we were still feeling the fallout. Holly had broken things off with Sax, and I knew in my gut that the root cause emanated from what had happened to her. The conflict between them regarding having kids had been going on long before she'd been raped and brutalized by Junior's hired killers, so it did not make sense that this alone had been the thing that had pushed Holly to leave.
"I'd like to go with him, Prez," Bull said, drawing Demon's gaze. "I'm moving my uncle from Wells to a nursing home there. I'd like to be close to him." He looked in my direction, as if seeking my approval.
I gave him a chin lift, indicating that I was good with that. Bull was a good brother. "I'm going to need a good enforcer."
Bull was a big man. He looked like a giant teddy bear with his long, blonde hair and bushy beard, but that couldn't be further from the truth. I'd seen his brown eyes turn black right before he laid into someone, his meaty fists lethal weapons. A deep scar ran the length of his left cheek into his beard, uneven and a kind of disfigurement that most people would have fixed with plastic surgery. It gave him an edge that civilians feared.
He would have been laughed out of the club if he'd had surgery. Battle scars were proof of the kind of life we lived and survived, and we wore them like badges that we were proud of. Besides, Bull was still a handsome bastard, even with the scar, and it was a chic magnet that drew the women in like fucking honey. Because my scar had damaged my vocal cords, it usually sent women--and some men--running the other way, because when I spoke my voice sounded like a menacing growl. People reacted to the sound before listening to the words that always came out low and gravelly.
When my gaze returned to Demon he was shaking his head with an expression that revealed that he liked the idea. "You're going to need a VP and Road Captain, too, but fuck, I'm not giving you all my best men." Humor gleamed in his one good eye. The other he'd lost in prison, where he'd been working as a guard. "The first thing we need to do is find a clubhouse."
Sax snorted. "Found." His gaze encompassed the room before he shrugged. "The back of the construction office will work, temporarily. We're just using a small portion of the front for an office. The back is pretty fucking big, and there's a door that leads to an ally. Wouldn't even have to go through the office to get there."
"There enough room to park our bikes in the back?" Demon questioned.
"Even if there isn't, there's a big fucking lot across the street," Loco cut in. "It's already being used for additional parking. We can park our bikes there and walk our asses around the back of the building to the door."
"That'd work." I'd seen the size of the lot, and whoever owned it didn't seem to mind it being used for parking. I swung my eyes to Sax. "You planning on staying in Vegas?" He and Holly had moved there to set up the office, but he'd been staying at the clubhouse since she'd gone away.
His jaw tightened. "Lease will be up on my apartment in two months. Not renewing it. You can use it until then."
"Not why I was asking, Brother."
"Know that," he returned. "Not going back to Vegas unless I have to."
It grew quiet for a minute. I rubbed the bottom half of my jaw, hearing the scrape of my whiskers against my palm, and then moved my hand down to the jagged scar on my throat. I'd received that scar in the same incident that had taken my wife and son from me. I'd been left for dead, but the Grim Reaper hadn't been ready for my ass. He'd taken my life by way of brutally ending the people I'd loved most.
Leaving me a bitter, heartless survivor.
"Shit, you already have a full club, Brother," Reid grinned. "What with a lot of our soldiers working construction there already."
That was true. I was already running through my head which of my brothers would make a good VP and Road Captain. The problem was that those were positions a brother earned by working his way toward it, and I didn't know our soldiers well enough. A lot of them were only involved in the club when there was trouble and we needed the numbers. They didn't work for the MC full time, and the members who'd relocated to Vegas for work hadn't had civilian jobs at the time.
I pinned my gaze on Oz. He handled anything that had to do with a computer and surveillance. He also ran the background checks on all the members. "You have a list of the brothers who went to Vegas. Think you can weed through them for the best candidates for VP and Road Captain?"
He acknowledged my question with a chin lift.
"Compile a list." I trusted Oz to know exactly what qualities I'd be looking for. "I also need a secretary and security position filled.
Demon laughed knowingly. "Don't envy you, Brother."
"You're the one who put me in this fucking position." I pressed my lips.
"Not going to desert you."
I wasn't worried about it. It wasn't as if I'd be starting the club from the ground up, and as a chapter of Desert Rebels, it would still carry the name. The only difference would be that the bottom rocker would say Las Vegas instead of Nevada, indicating it was a part of the original MC. Demon would still be my president, which was fine with me. I liked and respected him.
"We'll have to be careful using the back of the office as a clubhouse."
All eyes went to Chewy, who was leaning back in his chair with a piece of black licorice sticking out of the corner of his mouth. The man was addicted to them. "I doubt the other businesses will like seeing a bunch of bikers coming and going all the time, and you know we can get loud and rowdy."