Page 50 of Vandal Unbound

Maybe keeping them separated will be enough of a pause if I ever feel like this again.

On unsteady legs, I wander back to the bar. The clubhouse is a cornucopia of everything I want. There’s more alcohol than there is water in the Bay of Biscayne. The medical room is a buffet of pills, and if I could get my limp whiskey dick to pay attention, I could fuck any number of women.

In other words, it’s everything I need and more right now. I tap the bar top and order a beer from the prospect behind it.

“Motherfucking cunts,” Knox swears as he storms into the clubhouse followed by the rest of the club. North marches in behind him, face like thunder. Sunny’s hands are shoved deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched.

Everything says the pick-up of the weapons went wrong.

And even though the clubhouse is swimming in alcohol, there isn’t enough to fill the pit inside my soul that says something went wrong and I wasn’t there to help.

Because I’m this club’s protector. I have their backs. I take the falls.

And now I can’t.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why I thought a bullet to the temple was the answer tonight.

“What happened, Prez?” I say.

Knox ignores me as he storms by, heads into church, tugs out his chair, then picks it up, and throws it against the wall.

“Fucking Alvarez,” Havoc says, glumly, as he squeezes my shoulder.

Alvarez.

Tell me what you know, Vandal. No one in your club is coming for you. Haven’t even noticed you’re missing.

That guy’s slimy voice is ingrained in my brain forever. Even now, I roll my neck, bringing my shoulder to my ear to try to block the sound of it.

“He was there?” I ask.

Havoc shakes his head. “They got there before us and took everything. Let’s go.”

I get up from my seat at the bar and follow him into church. We follow Lock, who has equally slumped shoulders. And Sunny, who isn’t smiling or joking.

Ridge gets to Knox’s chair first and rights it. It’s left dents in the wall. Suppose if I’m no good for a ride out, I can take up fixing shit in the clubhouse.

Reaper slaps Lock’s back when he folds his arms on the table and drops his head to them. Lock knows better than any of us what losing that delivery means. He’s already thinking in terms of profit and loss and payouts that many of the guys were waiting for.

“How the fuck did they know?” Knox asks. The man looks close to popping a vein. It pulses on the side of his forehead as his jaw grinds. It’s rare that a raw fury gets the better of him. He’s usually measured, even in the roughest of situations.

“It must be a rat,” Reaper says.

“Again?” Sunny asks. “We only just got rid of one.”

“Can someone fill me in?” I ask. I hate drawing attention to the fact I wasn’t there, but maybe if I knew a little more, I could be part of the solution.

North looks to Knox, who tips his chin to give him the go-ahead. “When we got there, the boat was still tied up, and the two guys were having a cigarette. They’d gotten in an hour earlier and were met by the Outlaws. Men dressed in our fucking leather cuts. With our names on them. They said they shook Knox’s hand. They said that was the name on the guy’s cut.”

“Fuck,” I mutter. Ballsy move wearing patches that don’t belong to you. Bikers will enforce the meaning of their patches with a passion and violence most people don’t understand. You don’t get to wear colors you didn’t earn. You don’t get to pretend to be a brother if you didn’t prove your worth. It’s the biker equivalent of stolen valor.

“They took the whole shipment?” I ask.

Knox looks up at me, eyes narrowed. “Yeah. They took the whole fucking shipment…along with our fucking credibility.”

I hear the undertone, whether he means it or not. Which is, Shut the fuck up, Vandal. You weren’t there. You didn’t do shit. You have no opinion on what happened tonight, so stop fucking questioning what went down.

I look around the table, at my brothers’ desolate faces. There is none of the usual gallows humor. But somehow I can’t stop myself from asking more. “Did you try to follow them or get a lead on them? Maybe you could have caught up with them?”