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Blood iseverywhere. It coats the three men’s boots and stains the floors. Johnny’s hands are covered in it. When I look down, there’s a spot by my boot. I cringe.
“You okay, Lee?” Johnny asks. He’s looking at me with concern.
I nod and try to smile, but I can’t seem to form the movement on my face. “I’m fine,” I say, my voice wavering. Bile burns my throat as it forces its way to the surface.
Johnny comes over and claps a bloody hand on my shoulder. I groan and turn my head away from it so it’s not so close to my face.
“I warned you, son,” he says quietly. “I asked if you were ready and you said you were. Were you lyin’?”
I shake my head. “No sir. I’m fine,” I say again, more to convince myself that I actually am fine.
“I’m proud of you, boy,” he says tenderly, gripping my shoulder lovingly. I turn to look up at him. “Not many can stomach what you just saw. These are the kinds of things you’ll have to do to survive this life. If you don’t want bastards like Brandon messing with you and yours, you have to prove yourself.”
I nod again. “I know.”
“You may feel sick now, but later on you’ll realize that this is what you signed up for, and one day you’ll be the best Pres the Grove Hill MC has ever seen. You’ll bear the title of President with pride until your last breath. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” I say a bit weakly. My head is spinning, and all I want to do is go to my room in the Clubhouse and sleep off this day.
“That knife, by the way,” he says, looking down at the blade tightly grasped in my hand, “belonged to Brandon.”
Sensing my discomfort, Johnny gives me one more affectionate clap on the shoulder before dismissing me and returning to his task: Brandon.
“What should we do with him, Pres?” Dusty asks.
“Put the pole into the ground in the back. I want everyone we bring back here to see what happens when they cross Johnny fucking Holloway.”
His voice is cold and unwavering, and it’s then that I realize Johnny hates as fiercely as he loves.
* * *
Twenty-two years old
The gunshots are always followed by screams of pain.
The Lords of Grove Hill are hiding behind parked cars in the empty parking lot of the bar, taking cover from the onslaught of bullets from the Diablos MC. Dead bodies of the men from both sides lie on the ground between us, a reminder that neither side will be giving up until the other is dead.
I wipe at my forehead with the back of my arm, wiping away the sweat beading there.
“Were any of you smart enough to bring more rounds?” I grit out when my gun is completely empty. Of course, the one night I actually need more ammo, I forgot to bring it with me.
“Here, Pres.” Dusty tosses me a magazine.
Pres. It’s a title I’m still getting used to and don’t think I ever will. Since Johnny died unexpectedly, I’ve had to step into this new title and act like I know what the hell I’m doing. I should know, because I’ve been training under Johnny for so long that this should just be second nature to me, but I feel like a fucking failure. Every single day, one of the guys says or does something that proves I’m just not ready for this position.
It should have gone to Dusty. He’s the Vice President, and the bylaws state that in the absence or death of the current President, the VP would automatically become Pres. I was fine with that, because Dusty’s been Johnny’s best friend and second-hand for over twenty years, and he would have made a hell of a President.
But he didn’t want it. He was content with being VP for as long as he or Johnny were alive. He never considered that Johnny’s life would end anytime soon.
None of us did.
So, when the time came for us to appoint him as the President, we were shocked as all get out when he declined. How does someone in his position decline that?
“I was never meant to be Pres,” he’d told me the day I was appointed. “It was always meant to be you.”
At first, I thought he was taking a jab at me, that he was jealous, but when I thought back to all the stories Johnny told me about his childhood, it made sense. Dusty was more than happy to follow behind Johnny, because that was what he’d always done. He’d been his right-hand man, his second-in-command since they were running around the playground.
More gunshots fire from both sides, snapping me out of my thoughts. My boys are peeking from around the parked cars, trying not to aim at the bar where innocent people are watching in horror.
