Page 30 of Bullet
“I knew you were the one. Our visions for the club are aligned and I think we’re gonna take things to the next level. I was prepared to offer the position to Bucky if you didn’t shape up, but that was a worst-case scenario. Not that Bucky would be bad, but he’s a bit too much of a yes man. You’ll call me out on my shit, and I need that. Tess was like that, too. Speaking of which…”
He stood up from the table and started over to the lockers lined against the back wall of the warehouse. He moved until he was standing in front of the one that Tess had occupied back when she was there, then he looked back at me and motioned me over. Reluctantly, I stood up from my chair and walked over to where he was standing. He grabbed a pair of bolt cutters down from the top of the lockers and handed them out to me.
“What?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Well, I’m not asking you to solve for X here, Harry. I think it’s pretty obvious what I want.”
“I’m not breaking into her locker. Even if it wasn’t a huge invasion of privacy, I’m the very last person she’d want going through her stuff.”
“I know, but I can’t do it, I told you,” Nick said. “All I had was her notebook and even that was difficult for me to flip through. Just seeing her handwriting makes me miss her like crazy. I know wherever she and Colin are, they’re happy and…” He shoved the bolt cutters against my chest. “They ain’t comin’ back. If those plans in Tess’ notebook were even half of what she had going on in her head, there’s probably a lot in this locker we need to see. First order of business as VP, I need you to go through everything in the old VP’s locker.”
Nick stared at me with a stone serious expression for long enough that I finally took the bolt cutters, and when I did, he turned and started to walk away.
“Wait,” I said, grabbing his arm. “You’re not staying.”
“Bullet, you and I both know this is gonna make me cry and I’m not about to be reduced to a blubbering mess when we’ve got so much going on today. I’m gonna go and chat with the prospects, and you’re going to go through Tess’ locker.” He slapped a hand on my shoulder. “Please?”
I wanted to protest, but the look on Nick’s face told me it would be fruitless. Desperation and determination were a terrible mix, and I simply didn’t have the arsenal to battle against it. With a roll of my eyes, I nodded, and Nick pulled himself away and walked out of the warehouse, leaving me alone.
Setting the bolt cutters to the lock on Tess’ locker, I took a breath to steel myself, and then I busted the lock and removed it from the loop. I’d have to go and buy a new one for when I was storing stuff in there, but for the time being, I set the bolt cutters and broken lock on top of the lockers and then opened the locker door.
The inside of the locker was oddly simple. Tess had a flair for the dramatic, not unlike her father and brother, so though I didn’t know what Iwasexpecting, it was a mostly empty locker with a jacket hanging inside, a few miscellaneous papers and journals, and a file box on the bottom. I pulled the jacket out and slung it over my arm, then pulled the file box out and carried them both over to the table. The jacket I wrapped around Nick’s regular chair, then I set the box down in front of my chair and returned to the locker. I pulled out what was left of the papers and journals and carried them back to my spot, then sat down to start going through it all.
First, I went through the journals. Nick had already given me the notebook he had of Tess’ back when I first agreed to take on VP, and the journals were more of the same. It was a detailed account of Tess’ work. She had research on some other motorcycle clubs that we considered allies like The Blazing Rebels and The Black Vipers, as well as our rival gang, the Unchained Dogs. All their hierarchical information led her to the final hierarchy she’d been planning on introducing for the Steel Knights.
It blew me away. It was meticulous and well thought out.
In her file box, she had a variety of things including quotes for several locations for the club to relocate to outside of Hoppa’s Taphouse. The bar had always been the home base of the Steel Knights, but with the club growing as it was, a bigger facility was definitely needed. Amongst these plans, were the detailed blueprints for a club to be built from the ground up. It included an office for each of the officers, a club room for the members and prospects, and even some secret rooms for when we were doing our less legal work. On top of all of this, there was a bar, not unlike Hoppa’s Taphouse, with pool tables, dartboards, a stage for live bands, and a circular bar that would sit in the middle. Next to this part of the blueprint, she had a Post-it Note stuck on that read “Regulars and Friendlies only” and I smiled. It was genius. Give non-members the feeling of membership by having an exclusive bar just for them. I could already imagine the hype when one of the Steel Knights invited someone from Hoppa’s Taphouse back to our exclusive bar.
She had plans for merch, plans to expand the underground business, and even a list of the pros and cons of each member for us to chart out the best way to use them all.
This went beyond Vice-President thinking; Tess was planning to be President one day.
The words of Seneca, Nick, and Avery filled my mind:
“Everyone followed your lead and you fucking ran her out of here.”
“I told Colin like three weeks in that I would never recommend her for President.”
“What do you want from us? Would you have listened?”
Yeah, I understood the role I played in Tess leaving. It wasn’t just me, but my part was larger than everyone else’s. I could sit there and say if I’d known what Tess had in her head, I might have been nicer to her, but the truth was, I never would have heard her out to begin with. Seeing everything she had up her sleeve was as enlightening as it was painful. Celia was changing me, not just because I liked her, but because she was my gateway to seeing that there had been women around me all along who weren’t as bad as the ones who ruined my life. Tess, Seneca. Even some of the older members were married and their wives had never been anything but respectful to me.
For the first time ever, I was realizing how badly I’d messed up.
“I’m sorry, Tess,” I said aloud. “I’m gonna do what you were not allowed to do.”
It was as good an apology as I could muster for the time being, until I hopefully got the chance to apologize to her face.
Chapter Eleven
Celia
It hadn’t occurred to me how much Harry’s sourpuss attitude changed the atmosphere around Hoppa’s Taphouse until I was walking in and it was totally gone. Everyone was laughing, people were dancing and exchanging loud stories over drinks, and the thing I most noticed:
There were many more women hanging around.
A few of the members of Harry’s motorcycle club whose names I didn’t know, had women on their arm and were enjoying their time with them present, and a few more biker girls were flirting their way around the younger, more eligible members. Harry didn’t seem as bothered by their presence, and unlike the way he was standing in the corner brooding the first time I’d ever met him, he was playing a game of pool with the club’s President, Nick, and a couple of other members, and he seemed totally relaxed and happy.
