“So why you tellin’ me?” Kicks asked. “Why not Gunner? He’s the only one that’s gonna convince your brother.”
“I don’t need to convince him,” Rory said with a confidence Kicks wished he could have. “I’m telling you because I want you to ride with me when we get that first meeting.”
Kicks almost choked on his own tongue. He and Rory had gotten close over the years, but the kid spent more time with Gunner and Forge than anyone. “Why me?”
“Because you’re the second-best choice, and I know you won’t hesitate if shit goes wrong. I know Hawke would say yes if I asked him, but without knowing if these guys are gonna turn on us…” Rory’s tone was a little sharp, but he wasn’t wrong. Apart from Hawke, of all the men in the club, Smokey and Kicks were the two who would be least likely to hesitate. And their Enforcer was a better choice, but Rory also needed someone who could talk to him, and tactile sign took too damn long when they needed to move fast.
“As long as you can promise me your brother ain’t gonna castrate me,” Kicks said, and when Rory laughed, he let out a small scoff. “I’m not jokin’, kid. I’m already beat to hell, been shot, legs are all burnt. The last fuckin’ thing I need right now is to see my balls in a jar on your brother’s desk.”
Rory sobered. “Are you okay?”
Kicks rolled his eye. “I’m a survivor.”
“Aren’t we all?” Rory said from behind a sigh. “One of the guys is going to bring it up in church, and I already told Aaron I’d be streaming in for it. He hasn’t told me much about what he plans to do, but I know this whole thing lit a fire under his ass.”
Kicks dragged his tongue over his lip, then winced when it hit a scab he hadn’t realized was there. “That ain’t a bad thing.”
“No,” Rory said softly, “but I also know how bad Hydra is. I’ll never forget…” He stopped for a long moment. “There’s shit I’ll never forget from the Reapers, and he’s one of them. I don’t want any of us put in the ground because of this guy.”
“We’re not gonna let the cops take over, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Kicks warned. He grabbed his mug and took another drink before he spoke again. “That shit with Rat was a fluke.”
“I’m not saying that. I’m saying that my brother might be in over his head, and he’s going to need help. He never wanted this.”
Kicks frowned. “Never wanted what? This is club life, Rore. You know that he…”
“He never wanted to lead,” Rory interrupted, his voice softer than before. “He never wanted the weight of being President on his shoulders. He would have been happy spending the rest of his life doing bitch-work, fucking nameless guys in dirty bathrooms, and following me around to make sure I took my meds every morning.”
Kicks bowed his head and sighed. “And instead, he got us.”
At that, Rory laughed. “Hindsight, he’s happier than he’ll ever admit to being. But it’s not natural for him.”
“He’s still good at it,” Kicks said. “I wouldn’t follow a lot of people the way I follow him.”
“I know.” Rory sighed quietly. “I think that’s what scares the shit out of him most. And I’m not gonna ask you all to be patient with him. If he’s really going to do this, it’s time for him to get his head out of his ass. He knows how a real club needs to function, and he needs to get over this bullshit hang-up of not being good enough.”
“Sounds like he’s on his way,” Kicks said, and he meant that with every fiber of his being. He let out a groan as he straightened, then he started shuffling back to the couch. “You just tell me when and where, alright? You know you can count on me.”
“Yeah, that’s why I called,” Rory said, and Kicks could hear the grin in his voice. “We blind bros need to stick together.”
Kicks rolled his eye. “I’m only halfway there.”
“Which is why you’re driving,” Rory said, then laughed like he found his bad joke actually funny. “Talk soon, man.”
Kicks let him hang up, and he groaned again as he lifted his feet and set them on the table. The blisters stung, but they’d heal. Just like the gunshot. Just like his head and the road-rash on his face. They were just another set of scars to join the first ones, and maybe when everything settled down, he’d paint another image over the twists and turns of warped skin under Hawke’s clever machine.
By the time Kicks was back on his bike, he had a laundry list of shit to do for the club, and most of it was busy work, which irritated him. He didn’t wait for the all-clear to get back on his computer, and even though it ended with a killer headache that knocked him out for nine hours after, he managed to tap into a couple of the city’s security feeds. It might have been worth it in the end, but he found nothing.
The autopsy for the biker kid showed his cause of death was a gunshot wound. He was cremated and delivered to an address in Georgia, and that was the most Kicks was able to scrape together. Not that it mattered. He’d lost all ability to track Hydra since the guy was, so far, keeping the Devils off the grid as much as possible, and everyone Forge and Gunner had managed to reach out to said they’d gone quiet.
“None of the other clubs trust him though, and no one thinks he’s dead,” Gunner said at church the following week. “It’s just a matter of time before he shows up again.”
“Well, Eliah shot him point blank, close range,” Smokey said, and Kicks tried not to roll his eyes because they’d all been shot pretty much the same way once or twice, and all of them had walked away from it after a couple weeks. “He’s gonna need time.”
Hawke tapped on the desk, and everyone looked over as he lifted his hands. ‘You heard from the cop?’
Kicks was pretty damn sure that if Nate managed to work his way into the Chains, no one was gonna let him forget his past—but he supposed maybe that would be his penance. The guy was too much like Smokey, wallowing in pain because he felt like he deserved it. Kicks had only seen him once when he’d taken Rat in, and he hadn’t missed the haunted look in the dude’s eyes.
Everyone seemed happy Nate had stepped down as Sheriff, but Kicks lamented losing that source, and he was still pissed at Smokey for keeping it a secret. He didn’t care the way Gunner did. He fully acknowledged that Nate would have been a good man to have in their pockets, especially when he needed help with tracking.
Other clubs—long established empires with chapters spreading across North America—had everything they could want at their disposal. The Chains would take years to get there, if they ever did. And while Kicks wasn’t sure he wanted to be part of an empire, he needed more than a shady internet connection if he was going to be able to protect them.
“We don’t fuckin’ need that guy,” Gunner snapped. He stood up and raked a hand through his hair. “Anyway, I gotta go. Maddie’s getting out of school in a few, and I’m taking her to Logan’s studio before I head back to the shop.”
Smokey waved him off, and Hawke followed to take care of an appointment, which left Forge and Kicks waiting for orders. The door slammed behind them, and then Smokey piled on the errands, which Kicks wouldn’t have minded if he wasn’t still feeling unsettled.