Page 57 of Tyrant

Blake, one of our prospects, stands beside the other prospects near the back. The room is huge, so not the back of the room, but the back of the table and the action, behind the regular brothers. There are five of them now and they all have bugged out eyes as they prepare to hear what I’ve got to say. This is a first time, sacred experience for them.

It’s beyond sacred to me too, no matter how many times I do this.

Blake clears his throat nervously, but his voice is rough as racking out on gravel. “Just wanted to say, Tyrant, that we’re glad you’re back. Also, there probably isn’t a man in this room including us prospects who want to be a part of this club more than anything because you’re all family to us and some of us weren’t raised with much of anything at all, let alone people who gave a fuck about us, who don’t want to see Zale Grand dead.”

An ominous silence fills the room. No one mutters assent to that, but I can tell that if we took a vote now, my brothers would be in favor of war to a man.

“I failed you all,” I start. I sound like a beaten down, broken man, but with every word I say, my voice gets stronger. “I didn’t kill my father. You knew that if we failed to cut off the head of the beast, it would rise again. I’m solely to blame for this. I’m humbled and honored that you’d accept me back hereas your president and brother, knowing full well that I’ve made so many mistakes.”

Some heavy throat clearing goes on around the table.

Raiden is still standing at the head of the table. He sets a hand on my shoulder. “Like I said, you’ve been punished more than any man ever should. You’ve bled for this club. You’d live and die for it. We’re a family, not a bunch of ruthless pricks all wearing the same patches. It might be fucking cheesy to say that you have a good heart, but you do. Ever since you were a kid, people looked at you and saw trash. They saw this no-good outlaw biker scum that you’d become because of who your dad and granddad were, but you proved them all wrong. You made people love you because they couldn’t help themselves. It’s not charisma that draws them in. It’s your loyalty. Your intelligence. You’re not afraid to use your fists, but you’re not scared to use your brain either.”

He pauses and I want to interrupt but I can’t think of a single thing to say. Instead, my eyes are fixed on the table feeling all kinds of awkward and emotional hearing my best friend talk about me this way.

“No one would call you weak. Even the best men make mistakes. We did as a club, asking you to take on our burden as a collective. You might have asked to be the one to see your father out, but there isn’t a man in this room who should have let you. Zale was a problem for all of us back then, and he’s still our problem. We might be a small club when it comes down to it, with no reinforcements, butthatis the difference between his club and ours. We don’t bleed for ourselves. We bleed for each other. But…” Raiden snaps a wrinkled, bloodstained piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolds it. “Maybe there doesn’t have to be blood.”

He sets the note down in front of me. It’s all I can do not to reach up and rub the wounds on my forehead where those staples sunk into my skin.

A heavy pause and then the room erupts into chaos.

After a few minutes of the overwhelming shouting, Scythe bangs his fist on the table and shoots out of his chair. Beads of sweat glisten on his shaved, tattooed head. He’s not a tall man, but he’s got a lot of power in his lean, muscled frame. He appeared in Hart out of nowhere and started hanging around the club years ago, when my dad was still running the place. From what I’ve gathered, he used to be into cage fighting and not the legal, above ground kind either. He hasn’t had to maintain order in church for years. We’re not the kind of club that is constantly at each other’s throats, giving our sergeant-at-arms a workout.

“Here are the options, as far as I’ve heard from the shouting.” The acoustics in here are similar to a real church and his voice carries through the open space, reverberating off the brick walls and the unfinished ceilings. “We don’t bring war to Hart. We take it to them. It’s understandable that some of you shouted that down. We’d be going into unfamiliar territory, and we’d be far outnumbered. The second option is, we let them come to us, but that means collateral damage and casualties. I don’t mind giving my life for this club, but I don’t have a family to think about. The third is we listen to their demands and see what we can do for each other, could be that new allies are made. Upside of that is that we protect our town and things don’t turn into a bloodbath. Downside is that we could all meet our end with a knife in the back. Final option, we go straight for the top and finish what we started with Zale, we don’t know how high he ranks in the Berserkers, and that could lead to all-out war. Anyone else got anything to say that I missed?” The room isutterly silent. “Good.” He sits back down, handing it back over to me.

“We need to take a vote and it has to be unanimous. I’m not leading this club to war or settling on peace if there is anyone not in agreement. I think we need to vote on war or attempting to make an alliance and then figure out how we do that and vote on that.” My face is hot with guilt over us being here at all, but the nods of my brothers reassure me. This isn’t something I’ll forget about. Ever. I hope that will only make me a better leader. These men have far more faith in me than I do myself, and that means more than the entire goddamn world.

We don’t do a closed voting system. In the past, we’ve hashed it out. Voting isn’t designed to divide the club. Men can change their minds without fault and often they do, after hearing others raise their voice.

“Every opinion is valid here,” Raiden says, picking up where I left off. “Those in favor of an alliance and not going to war?”

A few hands go up. It’s clear that most want to end this, but those with families and loved ones in Hart are hesitant. When I raise my hand for an alliance, a few of my brothers start muttering and then a few more hands are raised. Eventually, a few more go up and then the rest follow.

“This isn’t a question of not giving your life for the cause.” Raiden’s voice booms out. “It’s about fighting for the man beside you, for this club, and for this town, and sometimes the best way to do that is without spilling blood. This isn’t to say that it won’t eventually come down to it or that Zale Grand won’t eventually get what he’s due. We all know that real power comes from the body of the club caring for each man and not just himself andhis own greed.” He unfolds that creased, stained piece of paper and takes out his phone. He raises a brow at me, and I nod. “This is a negotiation we’re all present for, yes?” I nod again. He dials the number, puts the phone on speaker, and sets it down on the table.

We’re all tense as it rings.

We’re expecting a rough biker, so when a woman’s voice purrs on the other end, every man in the room is stunned. “Raiden Gardiner.”

I want to vomit at the fact that they have Raiden’s number. Maybe it was just a lucky guess, but I think not. What else do these people know about us? There should be a limit to my father’s knowledge and foresight only goes so far. Unless they have a tech genius, or multiple people like Wizard working with them, this is chilling.

Whoever she is, she doesn’t waste time. “You’re calling because you want to know what our demands are. You’ve done the sensible thing. You’ve realized you’re outmanned and outmaneuvered. We want an unshakable alliance. Blood tied to blood, plus five of our men in your club. Don’t worry…” Her laugh is bitter, a wounded animal howling to the moon. It sits in my stomach like ice. “They’d be the nomadic sort, but most of their allegiance lies with us. We know you wouldn’t agree to our officers joining your ranks. Of course, since business has never been better, we’d expect a cut of your profits, paid directly to our mother chapter. We’d like to be neighborly and extend the offer, but we know you wouldn’t take us up on it. You’re not going to like it, but it’s this, or we take everything you have by force. We’ve already proved how easily we can maim you. Don’t make us prove the full extent of our power. We wouldn’t stop until every single one of you and all those connected to you is dead.”

Fists curl and oaths are muttered around the room, but not a single man loses control outright. I’m sure my color was off to begin with, but now I feel like a ghost.

There’s no mistaking the murderous fire burning in Raiden’s eyes. They look so much like Lark’s. She had the same expression at Archer’s clinic.

His control slips just for a second. “Who the fuck do we have the displeasure of addressing?”

That laugh again, ice shards on a winter morning. “Widow Grand, Zale Grand’s daughter. Princess in my own right.”

“Widow fucking Grand,” Raiden mocks. “Your daddy not there to answer the phone?”

“Oh, he’s here. He just thought it would be a sweet fucking irony for me to tell you myself the terms of peace. We know that’s why you’re calling. My brother’s not running an MC. He’s running a little boys’ club made up of pussies who don’t want to spill blood or get their fists bruised.”

That definitely works the room up, but Scythe is there, ready and waiting to knock skulls together if a single brother speaks out of turn.

“Anyway,” she drawls, sounding bored. “You want peace? You’ll make room for five of our members to join your club. We’d take some of yours, but you don’t have any to spare, and your dicks aren’t big enough to stand up to a measuring down here in a real club. We have one more condition. I’ll send you my CV…” She laughs like all of this, our lives and futures and families, are a joke. “You can decide who you’d like me to marry to solidify thealliance through blood. My dad suggests Raiden. Gray fucked your sister, so you might as well fuck his, no?”

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