Train
"Are you sure you’ll be okay?" I asked for the tenth ti, pulling the two cases of beer from the trunk of our rental car.
"Would you stop it. I’ll be fine," lody said. "You keep forgetting, I know half of the people in there. Doom is literally family."
"It’s not so much the family part of family night I’m concerned about. What if there are people there we don’t know?"
"Then we’ll et them," she pointed out.
"And what if they freak out when they see you?"
"You think I haven’t been in that situation a million tis before? Jesus, Nash you’re starting to sound like ."
"I know, but I just don’t want you to feel like you have to be lody Morgan tonight. We ca to Savannah so you can be yourself and heal in quiet seclusion."
lody stopped as we reached the front porch of the clubhouse. "I love you, and I love that you’re so concerned about , but I promise you, no one here is going to bat an eyelash over ," she said. "Now kiss , then we can go inside where you’ll see I’m right."
I did as I was instructed and leaned down for a deep kiss. "We could also get back in the car and drive back to your place," I said.
lody smiled and opened the front door, stepping inside to an imdiate barrage of
"Hey, there rock star!" and "Oh, my God. I can’t believe it’s you!" The clubhouse was a cacophony of applause, cheers, and whistles.
I grabbed lody’s arm and pulled her back through the door and back onto the porch.
"See!" I hollered. "I fucking told you," I said, pointing wildly at the door.
lody laughed. It was the first real laugh I’d heard from her since Puddin’s death.
"What’s so funny?"
"They were cheering for you, dummy," she replied with her million-kilowatt smile.
"What?"
lody opened the door again, and the crowd went wild as she pushed back inside. Plastered on the walls were banners and signs of congratulations with my na on them, complete with captions above them like, "Guitar God" and "Born to Ride, Born to Play."
"We’re all proud of you, Train," Doom said, coming forward to shake my hand. "On behalf of your brothers back in Portland, and everyone here in your new second ho, we all want to congratulate you for kicking ass out there on the road and sohow managing to snag the second hottest Morgan sister," he said with a wink to his wife, Lyric.
"Hey!" both lody and Harmony protested in unison.
Harmony and Jaxon had flown in early so that Harmony could spend ti practicing for the Savannah shows, but also so that the family could spend so much needed ti together.
"Thanks, everyone. I don’t really know what to say. There’s been so much sadness lately, it’s nice to see so many smiling faces. Thanks for the warm welco, we appreciate it," I said, pulling lody tightly to .
"We got used to her bein’ around here a long ti ago," Alamo, the Chapter ’s Sergeant at Arms said, tipping his beer bottle to lody. "We need a new celebrity to make a fuss about."
"See?" lody said with a chuckle. Patting my chest. She was then spirited away by her sisters for family ti of her own.
After the roar of the party had died down a bit, a group of us including Doc and Doom, the Chapter ’s President and Vice-President, along with Alamo, Rabbit, Shadow, and Caspar made our way outside to the firepit to enjoy so cigars from Doom’s personal humidor.
"Lem get that for you," Rabbit said to Caspar, as he tried to assist him in cutting the tip off his stogie. Caspar had recently lost his right hand during so unfortunate club business with a rising cri syndicate calling themselves the Beast.
"Fuck off, Rabbit," Caspar growled. "You know I can do more with this fucker than my other hand."
Caspar’s nurse, Andi, was able to hook him up with her brother-in-law who owned one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world, and he built Caspar a ’bionic’ hand.
"Sorry, man, just tryin’ to help," Rabbit said with a grin.
"All of us in Portland were really sorry to hear about what happened," I said.
"Thanks, brother," Caspar replied. "My doc’s workin’ on gettin’ fixed up with an even better robotic prosthetic. Apparently, I’m an excellent candidate since it was such a clean cut that took it off. The technology just keeps gettin’ better."
The words clean cut made my sack shrivel.
"I’m gonna be like Luke fuckin’ Skywalker, man," Caspar said with a smile.
I admired his sense of optimism and feared I wouldn’t handle losing a hand quite so well. The thought of never playing guitar again was enough to raise my anxiety level a notch.
"You guys run into any more trouble lately?" I asked Doc.
"We’ve managed to lay low, but I don’t know for how much longer. The Beast is growing in numbers with every passing month. And it’s only a matter of ti before the pot starts boiling over. Caspar’s hand was a clear ssage, but we don’t plan on backing down."
"But we’re not looking to start a war either," Doom said.
"We didn’t start jack shit," Caspar said. "It was that psycho bitch, Daphne."
"Are you still working with the Feds?" I asked Rabbit.
He nodded. "I do so work with Taxi from ti to ti," he replied casually. "When he needs ."
"Anything you can tell us?"
"The Beast isn’t going away any ti soon. They’re well-funded, highly organized, motivated, and they are targeting small and dium sized dealers, traffickers, and thieves. Gobbling up vulnerable operations either by way of force or financial incentives. The Beast is offering protection and up-front capitol for any crew who throws in with them voluntarily. Several MCs across the country, including your old pals the Spiders are already in bed with them."
"The Howlers, Jokers, and Predators have all reported feeling the Beast’s squeeze," Doc said.
"Taxi and his team are working hard to shut the Beast down, but he’s fighting an uphill battle," Rabbit continued. "His bosses view what’s happening as nothing more than a bunch of gangs fighting over the sa street corner."
"Why does the Beast give a shit about us?" I asked. "We’re not even one-percenters. We don’t run any grifts."
"Not according to the intel the Spiders have given them," Rabbit said. "They’ve got Daphne convinced that we’re secretly moving heavy weight."
"Drugs?"
"Yup."
"What a load of shit," I said.
"The Spiders told Daphne we tried to run them out of Portland so the Dogs could control the th trade in the area."
"We ran them out to keep th out of Portland," I said.
"Sundance is dealing with them dealin’ in the skin trade and he’s had enough of it," Doc said.
"These fuckers are trafficking?"
"Yeah. It ca to a head when they tried to traffic one of their mber’s kids."
"Fuck ," I breathed out.
"Yeah," Doc seethed. "All I know is this shit’s gonna co to a head sooner than later."
"It always does," Alamo said.
"Until then, I suggest we enjoy these cigars, and raise our glasses to Train’s pal Puddin’," Doc said. "The Beast’s ti is comin’."
The rest of the evening was spent catching up with old friends and swapping stories. After so much ti on the road, it was nice being back on club soil, even if it wasn’t my ho turf.
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