Page 31 of Walker

“You think you can take my club from me?” Sweet growled the words and looked like he was about to attack his best friend – the club’s Vice President. What in the hell was going on?

“I can,” Ghost said as he walked around the corner and made his presence known.

Sweet fumed as he glowered at Quickshot. “Looks like you already got him involved.”

“Yeah, and I wasn’t the one making those calls, asshole. I just wanted to see if you would change your tune knowing it was a possibility,” Quickshot threw back at him.

“I can’t believe you went behind my back.”

“And I never thought you’d be the downfall of this chapter, but here we are on the brink.”

“We are nowhere near on the brink,” Sweet argued.

“I’ve had six requests in the past thirty days for club brothers from Sierra High to transfer to another chapter,” Ghost stated. That number shocked me. Apparently, it shocked Sweet too because he took a seat, and we all watched as his shoulders slumped in defeat.

Ghost turned to me. “Walker, I have Chief and Smoke down here with me. That gonna be a problem for you?”

“Nope. Not unless they make it one.”

Ghost nodded. “What if I told you Poppy is here with them and so are the kids.”

“Hope they’re doing well, but still don’t see a problem. Listen, I have work to get to with Spike today. We’re testing a new paint method that might just give our custom work the boost and consumer appeal it needs to take off.”

“Good. I’ve been hearing a lot of great things about you lately.”

I gave him a look that said I didn’t believe that at all.

Ghost took a seat across from me and nodded his head. “I get why you’d doubt me, but I don’t make a habit of bullshitting people. I came here because so many of the club members from this chapter were sending me messages.” He glanced back at his son-in-law, as if to reiterate that it wasn’t just Quickshot who had called him there to handle business. “Every single one of them said we were in danger of losing a damn good club brother and that it wasn’t acceptable.”

“Me?” I asked, still not able to believe it.

“You. You’ve been working harder than most, staying clean, sober too – though there was no need for that. Not a single man in this club, outside of this chapter’s President had a negative thing to say about you. That lit a fire under my ass to get down here and find out what’s been going on. Sorry to say you got caught up in some drama that my daughter and son-in-law decided to take out on you. The club owes you an apology. Several, actually.”

“Why do I feel like I woke up in the freaking Twilight Zone?”

“The club, and MC life, is riddled with brothers who couldn’t keep it in their pants. Also full of a bunch of regretful assholes who do stupid shit when they realize what they lost as a result of their own actions. We should have let cooler heads prevail before saying you needed to be punished for checkin’ in on an ex who you still cared about. Not that it was the wisest decision you could have made, considering she had her brother and new old man at her back to do that, but I think we all get that you were coming from a place of regret and protection, not one of disruption.”

“Never wanted her back at that point,” I admitted. “Knew she was better off but I needed to prove that to myself. It would have killed me if I pushed her away and into a situation where she was treated worse. I needed to know she was happy – end of story.”

“Yeah, Walker, we understand that. All of us.” He emphasized. “The thing is, when I spoke to Sweet about things, we decided to make an example of you. Partly, it was to appease Chief and Smoke, who initially thought you were there to try to cause trouble in Poppy’s relationship. Additionally, it was because we didn’t want that kind of bullshit popping up with any other complicated romantic situations involving more than one brother. We dealt with that shit before with Iceman, Carol, and Hopper.”

Ghost stared off somewhere over my head and then blew out a breath. “You were only supposed to prospect for six months before earning your patch back.”

I sat there too stunned to speak, but Quickshot jumped up and looked as though he was about to fly across the room and take his frustration out on Sweet’s face. “What the fuck, man? Every three months for eighteen, we tried to take a vote to give the man back his patch and you always shot it down saying: ‘Leadership isn’t ready to give it back yet’. We all thought you meant that was Ghost’s orders.”

I threw a hard glare at Sweet then and stood. “If that motherfucker keeps his President’s patch, then I’m out. I don’t give a shit what he has going on in his personal life. He made me prospect again for eighteen fucking months under the most demoralizing conditions you can imagine. I’ve never seen a prospect treated the way that I was, and I grew up among the Tallahassee Chapter when they were run by a greedy maniac.”

“I understand and promise you that there is no reason for you to turn in your kutte.”

“What the fuck?” Sweet finally spoke up.

“I suggest you keep your mouth shut until I’m ready for you, Sweet.” Ghost turned back to me and his turquoise eyes looked worn and weary. “You have shit to do, head on out and take care of whatever is on your agenda today. Don’t worry about the run, someone else will be taking it.”

“There’s no one else ready because I had Walker scheduled.”

“Funny thing about that schedule of yours, you just informed me of the run a few minutes ago. If no notice is good enough for one brother, it should be good enough for another one.” I left those as my parting words and strolled out of the office.

11 - Back to the Clubhouse

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