Chapter 5 The Baby of the Club

SABLE 

“Who the fuck put a Santa hat on my motorcycle?”

I looked up from a box of stuffed animals to find a twenty-year-old prospect standing in the clubhouse doorway, holding a red hat with white trim. Somebody had embroidered MIJO across the front in crooked gold letters.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But if you don’t want it, I’ll give it to one of the kids.”

“It’s not funny.”

From behind the bar, Smitty nearly choked on his drink. “Sure it is, mijo.”

“My name is Kade.”

“That’s what your mama calls you,” another brother said. “Around here, you’re Mijo.”

Kade Ramos had been prospecting with the Black Daggers long enough to understand that complaining about a nickname was the fastest way to make it permanent. Apparently, that lesson hadn’t sunk in. The older brothers called him mijo because he was the youngest prospect, and his protests only encouraged them.

I took the hat from him and placed it on a stuffed dinosaur. “Congratulations. You’ve dressed our first donation.”

“Great. Can I go clean the bikes now?”

“Nope. I’ve got three hundred toys that need sorting, six businesses waiting for collection, and two prospects who somehow labeled a box of toddler puzzles as gifts for teenagers. You get to help me fix all that.”

He stared at the rows of cartons spread across the clubhouse. “All of it?”

“Depends how fast you work.”

The toy run had taken over half the common room. Donation bins stood by the entrance, and every spare table was piled with dolls, puzzles, trucks, art supplies, and stuffed animals. The brothers grumbled about losing space for their drinking games, but every year those same men turned up on delivery day with polished bikes and loaded trucks.

Kade bent to lift a carton, and I noticed he’d already been given a list of chores in somebody else’s handwriting. Bike washing, trash removal, beer inventory, sweeping the lot. All before lunch.

“Who gave you that?” I asked.

“Everybody.”

“Helpful. Which one takes priority?”

“Whichever patched brother asks me last?”

I laughed. “That’s one way to spend your entire prospect period running in circles.”

He grinned despite himself. Kade had the build of somebody who spent plenty of time working with his hands, and he was still young enough to think earning a patch mostly involved proving he could ride and take a punch. He was learning there was a lot more sweeping involved than the recruitment speeches suggested.

I remembered what it had felt like to be the one carrying boxes while everybody else sat around drinking. The work was annoying, and the hazing could drive a person insane, but the point was to find out whether you could be counted on when a job wasn’t glamorous. A man who wouldn’t show up to haul donations wasn’t somebody I’d want watching my back when things got ugly.

One of José’s companions from yesterday approached, keys swinging from his finger. “Mijo, my bike needs a wash. Now.”

Kade straightened immediately. “Yes, brother.”

“Hold up,” I said. “Jarek assigned the prospects to the toy run this morning. If you need him, you’ll have to clear it with the president.”

The brother looked at the scattered donations, then back at me. “Since when does Christmas outrank club business?”

“Since the president gave the order. You can go ask him yourself if you’d rather hear it in a deeper voice.”

Smitty laughed behind the bar. The brother didn’t. He pocketed his keys and walked away without another word, leaving Kade standing between us looking as though he’d narrowly avoided stepping on a land mine.

“Rule number one,” I told him, “don’t assume the last man who shouted is the man you’re supposed to obey. Learn who assigned you what, and ask when orders conflict. Nobody gets to make you responsible for a mess they created.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I narrowed my eyes.

He caught himself. “Sorry, Sable.”

“Better. Grab those bins.”

For the next hour, I put him to work separating donations by age group. He kept his mouth shut through most of it, although I caught him examining the Santa hat every time he carried another box past the dinosaur. Someone had also left a baby bottle full of sports drink beside his motorcycle helmet. By lunchtime, he’d stopped asking who was responsible and started quietly plotting revenge. I considered that progress.

When he finally found a box with a dozen identical stuffed bears, he held one up. “Do these all go to the same age group?”

“Yep.”

“Thank fuck. An easy one.”

Then Smitty called from the bar, “Make sure you give each one a name, Mijo!”

Kade looked at me in genuine horror. I kept my face straight for nearly three seconds before telling him Smitty was full of shit.

Marcus joined us carrying a fresh stack of shipping labels. He glanced at the baby bottle, then at Kade. “Hydrating, Mijo?”

“Everybody in this place is an asshole.”

“Careful,” Marcus said, but he was smiling. “Prospects don’t get to say that out loud.”

Kade opened his mouth, thought better of it, and returned to sorting. Marcus kissed my cheek and set the labels beside my clipboard.

“Jarek said the collection truck’s confirmed for Saturday,” he told me. “And the print shop’s doing the event banners at cost.”

“Finally, somebody around here gives me good news.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts.”

His expression changed when he glanced toward the hall. Through the office door I could hear Jarek speaking to someone, his voice low enough that I couldn’t make out the words. José had arrived half an hour earlier, and the two men hadn’t exchanged more than a greeting in front of everyone else.

“Still going on?” I asked.

“José thinks bringing a proposal to church will settle things.”

“Will it?”

“That depends on whether he can remember the difference between asking for a vote and deciding he doesn’t need one.”

Across the room, I saw two older brothers talking with the man who’d tried to pull Kade away from the toy run. They stopped when José emerged from the hallway, and all three turned toward him. None of them approached Jarek’s office.

I knew these men well enough to recognize when arguments were becoming something more serious. Nobody had thrown a punch. Nobody had openly challenged the president. But conversations stopped when the officers walked past, and brothers who normally sat together were finding reasons to occupy opposite ends of the room.

Kade set a box of coloring books on the table. “Did I do something wrong?”

I followed his gaze. He’d seen the same thing I had, without knowing what to make of it.

“No,” I said. “Keep working.”

A motorcycle rumbled into the parking lot, followed closely by another. Kade glanced toward the windows, clearly hoping whoever had arrived might rescue him from the mountain of donated toys.

Instead, the prospect guarding the front entrance opened the door and called across the room.

“Jarek! We’ve got visitors.”

Marcus looked toward the window. His smile vanished.

“Dust Devils,” he said.