Break Free

by Jackson Kane

  “Yeah,” Loose cleared his throat and spoke up. He crossed his arms, not wanting to be the one to start this conversation. “I’m headed to Longwood and Chig is about to go nomad. We were going to vote on both today at the annual.”

  “Why leave the founding chapter to go fucking nomad?” I asked.

  “Dunno, man.” Chig glanced at Deadeye and shook his head. A look passed between the two men that spoke volumes. They must’ve gotten into a few to many arguments about what I’d brought up. “Too many unfamiliar faces I guess.”

  “Unfamiliar faces? You didn’t know the guys that got voted into your own chapter?” I knew the answer. The question wasn’t even really for Chig. It was for everyone else here.

  This whole soapbox demonstration was only to hammer home a singular point.

  “Loose and I didn’t vote for shit. We don’t know these fucking guys. They were Rio’s guys.” Chig pointed at the Veins bodies that were dragged out of my clubhouse. “We didn’t like ‘em and we sure as hell didn’t trust ‘em. That’s why we’re splitting.”

  There were general grumblings from the other members as they started to really grasp how much the club had deviated from the original course set by Deadeye and Teach. The idea that patch holders were getting in without being vouched for didn’t sit well with anyone.

  “I made some hard decisions I’ll admit, but it had to be like this!” Deadeye interrupted. “Times change. The Lobos. The Angels. In five years, they’ll have us outmanned and outgunned. The Steel Veins needed more manpower and we needed more money.”

  I glared at him and went on, “I look around and I see brothers. Real brothers! Men I would give my fucking life for. Men like Tee and Top...” I spared my brother a hard glance and almost couldn’t finish. His body was growing cold on the ground. Had I not seen Star watching me, slowly nodding for me to continue, I’d have probably stopped right there.

  The speech would’ve been over, and who knows what would’ve happened.

  “Yeah, I brought the Lobos here. I set this whole thing up. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that the club we loved was dying, so I did something about it. I used the Lobos and as a result, we united and crushed that club! Good men died today because of me. They died so that we could be strong one last time! Look, I don’t care what you do to me. I’ll accept any judgment that comes my way, but I refuse to accept it from that man.” I pointed at Deadeye, then I turned my attention to everyone else and in a booming voice I added, “This is your chance to start making the Steel Veins whole again.”

  “That’s fucking bullshit! If you love this MC so damn much then where are your colors? Never trust a man who can’t keep his fucking vest.” Deadeye was making his play. I had lost my vest when the kill teams were after me. It wasn’t something any member should ever lose.

  Under any situation.

  I tore off my hoodie and shirt. The words were prominently tattooed across my chest in big bold letters for the whole world to see.

  STEEL VEINS.

  “I may have lost the vest, but I never lost my colors,” I spat defiantly. “Every letter was paid for in blood, and love, and sacrifice. Doesn’t matter what I wear, or what happens to me. No one can ever take them from me! These colors don’t come off! Can you say the same, Deadeye?”

  Deadeye’s lone eye flared at me. He blustered at the question, angry spittle flying through the air. But he couldn’t get any actual words out. For whatever reason he couldn’t lie to these men, he was a founding member. He helped create the Steel Veins and it was because of him that they were all falling apart. Somewhere in his deepest self, I think he knew that.

  I think that was why he couldn’t offer anything else up in his defense.

  “Dishonoring the spirit of the club, running drugs, and bringing in untrustworthy men without a vote, Deadeye is the real traitor to the Steel Veins.” I was done talking. I had said my piece.

  Our fates were up to the club now.

  Tee spoke up now, “Remy was working with me and Top. When I briefed you all on the situation at the meet before we rode over here, it was Remy that put his ass on the line to get us that info. Without Remy, the Lobos would’ve caught us with our pants down. Even if we somehow beat them back today, they’d have fucking decimated us! We sure as hell wouldn’t have killed Bones, and it’d only be a matter of time until they picked us off one by one. Especially—” Tee paused for full effect. “—under Deadeye’s ‘leadership.’ ”

  Deadeye lowered his head a hair. Me fight back against him was one thing, but hearing other people saying similar things cut him deeply. I think in the back of his mind, he knew it would eventually go this way. It was only a matter of time.

  “Call a vote,” Tee told Chig. “You’re still in as VP, right?”

  “Till we eventually hold the annual, yeah,” Chig answered.

  “Then call a vote. Kick that son of a bitch out of our club!” Tee pointed at Deadeye.

  “You can’t do this, I’m the national president!” Deadeye found a final reserve and protested, hoping a loophole might save him.

  “Not in my chapter,” Loose interjected. “In my chapter you’re just a regular president. And I don’t find you fit for your position. I’m calling a chapter vote. Kick this piece of shit out. All in favor?”

  Both Chig and Loose raised their hands.

  “Opposed?” Chig turned and asked the lined up bodies that were all that was left of Deadeyes’ new guys.

  To vote someone into the club it had to be unanimous by all members, but to kick someone out, it only had to be a majority. Deadeye saw that there was only the three of them left in his chapter and knew he was done. He didn’t even bother raising his hand and he was too proud to whine or beg.

  It was over for him.

  The parking lot was deathly silent as they stripped the vest off the former national president. Deadeye looked only at me the whole time. I was expecting venomous anger, but all I saw in his face was weariness. Disgraced and stunned, he stood there for a moment and took it all in. Decades of his life were ripped away. What would his life be without the club he founded?

  When he walked to his bike, the crowd parted for him. Without his colors, Deadeye just looked like a weathered old man, a broken war vet that needed to go home and rest. The old man started his bike and left. The old guard was officially out; it was a new beginning for the Steel Veins.

  It was the end of an era.

  “The fuck do we do now? Can’t have a chapter with only two members,” someone in the crowd said, breaking the silence. They all looked to Chig and Loose, the two remaining members of the parent chapter.

  “I’m still putting in for Longwood either way. My wife got a good job up there. So I guess the clubhouse is going dark,” Loose offered with a shrug. “Maybe we should designate a new mother chapter? Leslie’s been kickin’ around a while, right?”

  “Hell, we have reps from all the other chapters here, I say we put it to a vote!” Chig shouted to make sure everyone could hear him. “Leslie chapter is one of the oldest the Veins have. All in favor of making it the new parent chapter?”

  I had never heard of anything like this happening in any MC. Usually, the parent chapter was the last one to fall in a dying MC. We had the opposite problem. Most of our other chapters were strong. If the Steel Veins as an institution was to survive, we’d have to adapt.

  We had to make up the new rules on the spot.

  Hands slowly started going up all across the parking lot. For something this big, it had to be unanimous, and it looked like it was. It was history being written right in front of me and I was damn proud to see everyone come together for the good of the club.

  For the real good of the club.

  Then everyone looked at me.

  “Raise your hand, you stupid fuck. You’re killing the moment,” Tee said to me with a sly smile. Seeing the utter confusion on my face, he explained why I needed to vote, “We never kicked you out. You were just, y’know, dead. Nothing
in the charter says the dead can’t vote.”

  I shook my head disbelievingly and raised my hand.

  “It’s official. Leslie chapter is the new host club.” Tee clasped me on the back and pulled me in for one of those one armed, side-by-side hugs. “The Steel Veins live to see another day!”

  There was hooting and cheering, and a sense of relief that was like stumbling out of a burning building and finally breathing fresh air. For damn near all of us, this club was all we had, and today it was nearly destroyed. Without a unifying parent chapter, the individual chapters would’ve eventually split off, be invaded, patched over, closed, or wiped out.

  Watching a big club fall was a chaotic time and some scary shit. No one ever made it out unscathed.

  I started walking over to Star when I felt Tee’s strong, brown hand clamp onto my shoulder.

  “C’mon, man... What now?” I asked, finally feeling the exhaustion of the fight…and the six months before it.

  It was on them to elect someone. All I’d wanted to do was save my club and that was done. The club was stronger in that moment than it had been in the last ten years. I was even allowed back into my home chapter. Granted, officially, I was never even kicked out, but they’d still have to remove me as “deceased” from the books.

  Better yet, I had my girl. I looked over at Star who was beaming with pride at everything we’d accomplished together. It was all thanks to her support and her being the one person I could count on that made this happen. It also didn’t hurt that she was a natural with a gun. For the first time in my life, everything felt right.

  As far as I was concerned, we had won.

  “Everyone listen up!” Tee shouted. “As one of the motherfuckers in charge now, I’m calling one last club-wide vote. With the passing of our brother, Top, the Leslie chapter doesn’t have a president. Which means that the whole US branch of the Veins doesn’t have a fucking president.”

  Shit, Tee was right. In all the chaos, I was so balls-deep in this crazy plan with the Lobos and Deadeye, and watching Top get killed, that I didn’t stop and think about what that meant for the club. We were leaderless.

  “I nominate, Remy Daniels for national president,” Tee called out.

  Tee had caught me off guard with that. I brushed it off as him fucking with me. That was until other members started seconding him, and it looked like the motion was gaining momentum.

  Me as president? I’d never given it any thought before. What the hell did I know about running a club with thousands of members and affiliates?

  “All in favor?” Tee shouted.

  Throughout the parking lot, hands went up a lot faster for this vote. Jesus, an hour ago I was “dead.” Several weeks before that I was in a rough way with kill teams all over me, and now…

  “Always fucking waiting on you, Rem.” Tee elbowed me, snapping me out of my retrospection. Everyone’s hand was up. “What do you say? It’s gotta be unanimous.”

  “I don’t know, man. This is a big deal. I never wanted to run shit,” I spoke softly to Tee. “Give me a gun and a bike and I could kill the moon, but a soapbox and real responsibility... fuck, man. I don’t know if I can do this.”

  Of all the fucking things that should’ve made me nervous, I didn’t see this one coming. I looked around at all the raised arms and felt surprisingly apprehensive.

  “Rem, you’re the only one that can do this. These guys see what you’ve done already. They trust you. You want to save the club? Then don’t bitch out at the fucking finish line, man.” Tee elbowed me hard in the ribs.

  “You know he’s right. No one is a better fit for this than you. They need you, Remy.” Star squeezed my hand and kissed my cheek. Then she whispered into my ear, “Besides ‘First Old Lady’ has a nice ring to it. Or would it be ‘Old First Lady’?”

  For a long time I felt like it was the danger and violence that defined me, that without it, I was nothing. I was always worried that I was just a hammer or a gun, a tool or weapon to be pointed and used, then discarded. I stayed distracted because I knew when I stopped moving, the way I was living would catch up.

  Looking out at all the support was heartening. My club believed in me. After the longest ride of my life, and with the love of my life…I was finally home.

  I raised my hand.

  Epilogue

  …

  Star

  The yellow, orange, and brown leaves gently dusted across the long, curvy rural road. Remy eased off the throttle to take in the multicolored overhang of fall tree branches above us. The forest was still and traffic was sparse on this sleepy Sunday morning. The country road was peacefully quiet, save the loud, dull roar of Remy’s new motorcycle.

  Remy had found and restored a nineteen-eighty-four Kawasaki Ninja that was the same year and model of the one that was destroyed and this was its maiden voyage.

  We’d just gotten off the highway and were taking the back roads through New Hampshire. I smiled when I caught Remy’s head snapping around like a tourist. I really couldn’t blame him. The uneven and chaotic New England landscape was bursting with color, life and beauty.

  While I lived here, I’d always poked fun at the “Leaf Peepers” the people that would fly in just to hang out in an Airbnb which were temporary rented homes just for the season while they gawked at the trees in autumn. But seeing it again after so long, made me understand why those camera-clad tourists came back year after year.

  I didn’t realize how much I missed it too.

  It’d been about a year since the “changing of the guard,” as it was now referred to. Remy’s first act as national president was a majority vote to drop all members with less than three years in the club back down to prospects. It was an extremely close vote, but Remy won. A lot of the new members outright quit rather than have to prove themselves as prospects again, but the ones that stuck it out were the ones the club deserved.

  Everyone started trusting the people they surrounded themselves with and the Steel Veins thrived because of it.

  My life had again changed dramatically. I helped Remy vet the prospects in our Leslie chapter, and took over the clubs bookkeeping. Deadeye had left it in a fucking mess, but I really didn’t mind going through it all. It was actually kind of a nice change of pace and it turned out I was really good at it. I got the chance to use some of that college training to solidify the club with the government, and to restore faith in the eyes of the people of Leslie. I helped keep our town happy and prosperous by donating to events on behalf of the club, and organizing fundraisers.

  Remy kept the town safe by doing other things we didn’t tell the government or the town about. The club still had its enemies, but Remy was very aggressive when it came to squashing any trouble that came up. The Steel Veins stopped running drugs and started investing in infrastructure jobs and unions.

  I hadn’t had to kill anyone again, which I was glad for. Still, I knew I was capable of it, if I had to, and that was a very empowering feeling. I had come to accept my dark side; it made me strong enough to never back down. It made me feel like I belonged by Remy’s side.

  Everyone else saw that too. They all started calling me “Star Fire.” I’d never been more respected in my life and I felt worthy of every damn second of it.

  A sign for the Merrimack River blurred by. We were getting close to my childhood home now. For weeks, Remy had been insisting that I contact my parents, and when I finally picked up that phone, I think my mom and I cried for an hour straight.

  They understandably thought I was dead... It was a very long and difficult call, but one I was still glad I made. All the calls after that had been much easier.

  Over the months, I told them what happened, well mostly. A few things I needed to leave out if I didn’t want them to have heart attacks. I eventually eased their fears about the club and introduced them to Remy over Skype. My mom thought he looked handsome and said the bullet scar on his cheek was distinguishing. She now referred to him as my “Pirate King.”
>
  I liked it, and Remy even chuckled at that when he found out.

  I was on the fence when they even invited us back home to finally meet Remy in person. I’d changed so much and couldn’t help feeling a little apprehensive about going back to the place I’d originally run from. The concept of family meant a lot to Remy, so he was very encouraging about the whole thing and helped me get past my hang ups. I also think part of that was him looking for an excuse to pay my old college professor, Jonathan a visit.

  Remy did have two requests before we left on this cross country road trip to New Hampshire. One was that we planned it for early autumn, so he could see the leaves change, and the second was that I…accepted his marriage proposal!

  I was going to tell my parents that we were getting married! I was beyond excited!

  It was crazy to think that I was just a scared, wounded girl when Remy showed up at that gas station a year and a half ago. Now, after all that blood, horror and heartache, I had become so much more. We both had.

  The road ahead of us was bumpy and full of sharp, unexpected turns, but we embraced our path. Every hazard only strengthened what Remy and I had become.

  Our love was stronger than steel.

  END

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jackson Kane is a professional stuntman, athlete, romance author, and above all else, a hopeless romantic. From American Ninja Warrior, to some of your favorite films, Jackson brings a unique writing style forged from countless harrowing adventures.

  He’s a lover of travel, his fans, his romance author peers, dulce de leche, and all things beautifully weird and interesting. He invites you to relax, have a whiskey sour and let him thrill and excite you in a way no other author can. Jackson will show you what the world looks like through the eyes of a genuine Bad Boy. Come with him, and…

  DARE TO READ DANGEROUSLY

  Become one of Jackson’s Nerdy Rebel Readers

  In my fan group, you’ll have access to contests, cover reveals, exclusive content, and secret videos.