Page 26 of Speed

Chapter Eleven

Speed

The door to the clubhousehit the wall and bounced back to close on its own as I walked in. The brothers that sat in the room looked at me, but not a word was said, which told me my face must have reflected my intentions.

I’d already went to my home and put the food away, not because I was afraid it would spoil, more to calm my ass down some before my head exploded. As I’d driven back from town, every emotion had flowed through me. Pain from the betrayal and deceit of my brothers, which quickly turned into anger toward them and against the woman who had kept my daughter from me. When I stepped out of the truck at my home, my head was ready to explode, so I took that small amount time to do something normal before going to the club.

As I walked down the hallway toward the office, the stop by the cabin had been a waste as my fists clenched at my sides. I didn’t stop to knock, I grabbed the knob and threw the door open and walked straight into the office, catching Stroker, Flyboy, Preacher, Cruz, and Romeo off guard. Stroker sat behind his desk, and the other men sat in chairs in front of him, each with their head turned toward the door I just barreled through.

“How fucking long have you known, all of you?” No way everyone who happened to be in the clubhouse hadn’t heard me yell, but I would have had to care to give a shit.

“Close the door and take a seat, Speed,” Stroker said and motioned to a chair to the side of the desk. His voice calm and normal considering I about took his office door off its hinges.

“Answer me?” I said as I turned and shut the door.

“Sit, now. I can tell you are upset but don’t forget I am the president of this club and you will have respect for the fucking position whether you don’t have respect for the man. Take. A. Fucking. Seat. Now.” He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest and waited. The others hadn’t said a word but held identical poses.

“I will stand here until someone answers me because if I get closer and don’t like the answer, I could easily crack a few heads.” I held up my hand when Cruz’s mouth opened to speak, cutting him off, “Before you go spewing club rules and shit as the Enforcer for Black Hawk, save it. I will kick ass and take names if I don’t like the fucking answers,” I looked directly at Stroker, “and I say it with all respect to this club and the position you hold, I’ll let you know if I have respect for the man when you’re done speaking.” My heart felt like it was going to come through my chest as I looked at them and waited. I didn’t get the immediate answers I wanted, what I got was five men looking back with smiles spreading across their faces.

“What the fuck are you smiling about? I just said I would kick your asses if I didn’t like your answers.”

The door flew open and in piled Crusher, Flirt, Jag, Coast, and Devil bringing up the rear. They came to a halt when they surveyed the standoff in the room.

“Has everyone in this club lost their fucking minds on whose office this is? I don’t want an answer to that question because I’m going to answer it for you.” Stroker stood, smile was gone and the mask he wore was the one I remembered from our youth when we’d sat in chairs in this office and had our collective asses chewed off for some shit we’d done.

Finger pointed at me, Stroker motioned toward the chair by his desk again. “You, there, now if you want your goddamn answers,” then he pointed at the others and motioned toward the couches pushed against the wall. “Plant your asses there, and if one of you opens your damn mouth without one of the other officers or me speaking to you, you’ll get a lesson on how we still hold this club and why other clubs don’t fuck with us.” He stood, waiting, as we each moved to sit. Once we’d sat, Stroker took his seat once again.

“Now, nice to see you aren’t going to have an issue questioning Crusher when he takes over as president. I worried, we all did,” his arm stretched and waved to encompass the other officers, “about you boys being too close and just going with the flow instead of asking questions or holding each other responsible for the jobs you will hold in this club. That being said, let us get to what brought you barreling into this office ready to mow down each of us.

“I’m assuming you ran into your daughter today, Speed?” I felt without turning in their direction, my friends’ eyes on me. “Hear me out before anyone speaks,” Stroker’s hand raised palm out, halting me and probably the others too from talking. “We didn’t know at first. Right before your father’s accident, we were contacted by Haven MC’s president. I’d known Wild Bill before he took over when his dad was killed, he’d just come back from the military, the same battalion I was attached to, he was married when he came back too. Haven had always been rivals of Black Hawk because his old man was a mean sonofabitch. The Haven club are one percenters, which you boys know. But while dealing with moving drugs, some of the members started using more of their product. When your members are drugged up that is when the clubs become vulnerable. Wild Bill called and wanted to know if we would let two of Haven’s women come into our territory while he figured out what was going on in his club. It seems his VP along with a couple others in the club didn’t like Wild Bill taking over for his dad, nor when the club got worse with the drug use, the fact he was going to clean that up. They planned a little coup per se, but Wild Bill caught wind. That’s why he asked to put the women here. He didn’t want them used as pawns while he figured out exactly who was involved. One is his daughter, the other the VP’s.” Stroker paused and looked around the room.

“What the fuck does this have to do with my goddamn daughter?” Then it clicked, and I raised my hand to stop Stroker. “Are you saying Sami is Wild Bill Borelli’s daughter? My daughter’s grandfather?” Stroker looked as if he was trying to hold back a laugh and when I looked at the others they too were biting the insides of their mouths, their eyes gleaming with humor. My friends’ expressions would have been comical if I wasn’t shocked at my fucking luck. “Fuck me, it’s all true. And you bastards want to laugh. There is not a damn thing funny about this situation. I have a four-plus-year-old daughter that I have just met because I happened upon her in the fucking grocery store. A baby’s momma that I just remembered this morning I fucked—one night might I add—with a goddamn condom on my dick—and she’s the fucking daughter of a rival club—their damn princess of all things.” I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath.

Preacher’s laugh brought my head back up, and my eyes narrowed when the others joined in. Cruz was the one to gather himself enough to speak.

“Speed, we aren’t laughing at you,” he wiped his eyes, “we had to be thinking the same thing, though, this moment would have been damn near perfect if Cutter had been here. It just brought back the time when you boys spent more time in this office to the point your asses left prints in the chairs.”

I smiled as did the others, remembering but it was short lived because I wasn’t finished with what the hell was going on and why they hadn’t told me.

“It doesn’t answer why you haven’t told me about my daughter, don’t say you had no clue because that little girl looks just like me.”

“And did you say two women came into our territory? Who is the other?” Crusher spoke for the first time since entering. We looked toward Stroker again.

“The deputy, she—” Stroker was cut off by Crusher.

“Deputy Bitch is from the Haven MC? Are you shitting me? You didn’t think this was important to tell us when we got back or after she and I—”

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