Page 39 of The Devil's Scars

“Oh, you know. Mostly looking for ways to run the bar better.”

Sam nodded. “You ready to maybe take some of those skills and run something besides a biker bar?”

Scars had to fight not to roll his eyes, but it wasn’t easy to stop himself from doing it, even at his kid brother. This was a conversation that they’d had many times in the past, and he was sure that they’d be having it many times in the future.

“C’mon, Sam,” Scars said, keeping his tone measured. “You know I’m not leaving the bar, not ever. It’d be like leaving my family, and I’m not doing that unless I’m kicked out – and I’m never going to do anything to have that happen. I’m at Satan’s and in the clubhouse, and that’s where I’m staying.”

“Vic, look… plenty of the guys are in the MC but hold down jobs elsewhere. Not everyone works at the bar or the tattoo parlor or the garage. Moving on to a new workplace doesn’t mean walking away from Wolf and the others. You can do both.”

“Not as Veep, I can’t. That position means being on the ground as much as possible, in case something happens, or a decision needs to be made, or my Prez needs some back-up or even just an ear. If I’m worrying about earning a living from a full-time job in some other place, then I’m not gonna be able to give the boys and the club my attention.”

“Well…” Sam shifted a bit, looking uncomfortable. “Maybe – maybe you can step down?”

“Maybe I can –” Scars stared at his brother, dumbfounded. “Maybe I can fucking what?”

“Step down,” Sam said, starting to speak in a rush, like he wanted to say what was on his mind before his courage failed him, or Scars walked out. “Stay in the club, of course, but just as a general member, not the Vice-President. That way you’d be able to take all the hospitality management skills that you have, and find work somewhere else –maybe in a bar or restaurant, maybe even a hotel. You could still be part of things, but not so much… part of things.”

Scars blinked. “I don’t – where the fuck’s all this coming from?”

“Seriously?” Sam said, and now his voice rose a bit. “You think I haven’t always felt this way, Vic, right from the beginning, for you to not be totally involved and immersed?”

“Well… yeah. But –”

“No ‘buts’, OK? Look…” Sam took a deep breath and visibly calmed himself. “Look. I know why you joined the MC, and I understood and God knows, I benefitted – but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t hated it from the time I got old enough to properly understand what it all meant. When I was at college and med school, all paid for by your risky and illegal Road Devils work and I knew that, I spent years worrying that you’d come home dead after some out-of-state drug run for Kirk Jensen, or some raid on your clubhouse by a rival MC. When I started working at the hospital, I looked for you in every ambulance, on every gurney, on every operating table. I kept waiting for you to die right in front of me, Vic, just like Mom and Dad – and that I’d be just as helpless to save you as I was to save them.”

“Hey, Sam –”

“It’s been years and years of it, and I get it. I do. I get that these guys are your brothers, just as much as I am. Maybe more than I am in some ways, because I know that you’ve done some sketchy shit, some awful things, and you’ve had each other’s backs. You keep each other’s secrets. You’re a closed group, bound together by blood and history, and I don’t want you to lose any of that.”

“No?”

“No.” Sam was emphatic. “When Wolf took the club legit last year and cut off all ties to Jensen and his operation, it was the best news that I’d heard in my life. I thought that it was over, that the MC was now just like any other group owning a dive bar, and a tattoo place, and a garage. I could breathe again, Vic. I thought you were safe.”

“It is. I am.”

“It’s not.” Sam shook his head. “You’re not.”

“Hey,” Scars began, but Sam made an impatient motion with his hand, as if cutting the words off in the air. It came to Scars now that these were things that his brother had wanted to say to him for a long time, maybe since almost the beginning, and so Scars just shut up. Let Sam have his air time.

“I thought you were safe,” Sam repeated softly. “I thought you were out of the one-percenter life. All of you. But Kirk Jensen was killed by Ace Cuddy, then Ace was taken by The Fallen Angels, and Matt Kingston swept in to save his informant. And who did King call for help and back-up when the shit hit the fan, and he was putting together an operation to rescue Ace? Your President. He called Wolf, and dragged you guys into his mess, one that King created by blackmailing Ace into ratting out Kirk.”

“King didn’t force us,” Scars said. “He asked for help with a rival MC, and we chose to give it. Hell, Wolf told me that I could stay out of it, if I wanted to. Told me to stay in the clubhouse and keep an eye out, if that’s what I felt better doing.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, because those boys were fucking monsters, Sam. You know about The Fallen Angels from what you read in the papers and see in the E.R., but Wolf and me? We know them. We knew what King and his people were walking into, and no way we weren’t going to be there to have his six. We’ll always be there if a friend needs help, and King is a friend of the club. Always has been.”

Sam sighed. “And there it is.”

“What is?” Scars snapped. “What’s the goddamn problem with helping a friend?”

“Nothing… if the help that friend needs is to move house. Or fix his car. Or go for a drunken boys’ night out because his girlfriend just dumped his ass. But your friends? They don’t ask for that kind of help. No. They ask you to load up your guns and bring extra ammo, and storm a warehouse full of MC criminals, and shoot every living thing that moves. Those are your friends, Vic, after two decades of MC life.”

“Shut the hell up, Sam.”

“No. I’ve shut up for years.”

“Then you should have no problem going right back to doing it again.” Scars got to his feet, all thoughts of talking to Sam about Zoe long gone. “Thanks for the coffee and awesome conversation. Say goodbye to Annie and Cindy for me.”

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