Vindication: A Motorcycle Club Romance (12 page)

“Like a pilot?” asked Toby.

“Sure,” said Ghost. “Takes two pilots
to fly a plane, right? Me and you.”

Toby beamed up at Ghost, a full tooth
smile. Bridget stood there in shock, watching them interact. She’d never seen
Toby so thoroughly jazzed to speak to an adult—let alone an adult male. She
suddenly realized how cold and upset his interactions with the male authority
figures in the school seemed compared to Ghost. Grown men of authority
frightened him, and for obvious reasons.

But Ghost didn’t. According to
Ghost—and Bridget believed him, if only because Ghost clearly loved trolling
people with the truth—Toby had made the first move that day last week, coming
up to start a conversation with him. Everything about his interaction with
Ghost was unprecedented, and she couldn’t unsee it once she saw it. What was it
about Ghost that Toby saw?

What was it that
she
saw?

Word of a big funny biker dude at the
fence quickly spread throughout the schoolyard, and soon other kids were
sprinting up, uniforms and hair mussed up, to meet this fascinating stranger.

“Have you ever crashed your bike?”
asked some small voice.

“Oh, yeah, tons of times. You
basically live the first year of owning a bike on the asphalt.”

“Why do you get to wear that leather
jacket all the time?” said another.

“Guys, he’s a
biker
,” said
Toby in a matter-of-fact voice to the other children. “Other bikers have to
know what gang he’s in, so he wears his vest.”

“Boom, nicely done, Toby,” said
Ghost. “And not that it’s important, but we are called a club, not a gang. Club
makes us sound way nicer than we are. Really, we’re a bunch of jerks. A jerk
club.”

The kids laughed, and Ghost laughed
with them. Bridget could only stand there in a stunned silence and watch. Never
in a million years did she think she’d see an interaction like this.

“Do you go to school?” asked a little
girl in front.

“Not for a really long time, but I
kind of liked it.”

“What did you like?”

“Science is pretty awesome. And
history is like one giant epic saga, it’s great.”

“I hate history!” yelled someone from
the back, and a bunch of kids joined him in a chorus of gross noises.

“Oh, that’s only because you haven’t
heard the
good stuff
that teachers like Miss Dawson won’t tell you.”
Ghost thumbed toward her with a mischievous smile and she glared at him
playfully as the kids made taunting noises.

“What good stuff?” asked Toby with a
little hop.

He leaned toward the fence like he
was sharing a conspiracy with them. “Have you ever heard of the Mongols?”

Bridget’s eyebrows went up. “Ghost…”

“I have!” said one little voice.
“They fought China!”

“They fought China and like, most of
Europe, too. They were really, really mean and brutal warriors who rode around
on horseback and tore down the cities of their enemies after they beat them,”
said Ghost in a dramatic voice, waving his hands around like a bard. “They were
the first army in history to invent biological warfare. Do you know what they’d
do?”

“No, tell us!”

“They had an enormous army full of
dudes, and it was easy for that many men to spread disease in the ranks. So
when they would lose soldiers to the plague, they would take their bodies, and
stuff them in a big siege catapult,” said Ghost. Bridget’s jaw fell open as he
actually made the stuffing motion with his hands. “And then
whoosh
—“ he
made like he was throwing a ball over the fence. “—they would send them flying
over the city walls, and everyone inside would catch the plague and die. Battle
over! Even dead Mongolians were useful.”

The kids erupted into a chaotic
chorus of
yucks
and
coooooool
and general gross-out noises. Toby
and a few of the boys up front just laughed and laughed, and Ghost laughed with
them.

“I can’t believe I just let that
story come out of your mouth,” said Bridget to him as she held a hand to her
forehead. But she couldn’t stop smiling, either.

“What?” said Ghost with innocent
eyes. “That’s history! That’s straight-up fact. I’m teaching, I’m just like you.”

“And I’m going to have a weekend full
of strange parental phone calls to answer,” she said, giving his shoulder a
playful shove.

Ghost came close and spoke near her
ear. “You take your phone calls; I’ll just eat you out while you deal with
them. It’s only fair.” He kissed the sensitive skin of her neck just behind her
ear with wet, soft lips, and Bridget shivered.

Bridget pulled back and looked him in
the eyes with a playful glare. The expression on his face said he was
delighting in her half-baked anger.

In the schoolyard, the bell to end
recess sounded, and the kids left at the fence all groaned like dramatic little
zombies. Bridget grinned and turned away from Ghost to talk to them. “Go on, my
little Golden Horde, go line yourselves up.”

The kids began to reluctantly drift
away. Toby was the last to hang out, and Ghost kneeled at the fence to give him
another fist bump. “Good to see you, T-Dog. Let’s do it again soon.”

“It was good to see you too,” said
Toby in a careful mimicking of Ghost’s words. It made Bridget’s heart hurt to
watch how quickly the little boy was bonding with him.

“Be good for Miss Dawson, okay? She
cares a lot about you.”

Toby’s eyes wandered up to meet
Bridget’s, and for a moment she could see all the sadness and fear behind them,
like he momentarily opened a door to let her peek inside. But it was only a
moment. Then he nodded and told Ghost he would before he ran off to join the
other kids.

Ghost stood up from the fence and
wrapped his arms around Bridget’s waist, pulling her in for a gentle kiss.
“He’s going to be okay,” said Ghost, as if he could read her mind.

“He’s taken to you so quickly,” said
Bridget. “I can’t get him to open up to me no matter what I do. He called me
for help but he wouldn’t let me help him, and he won’t let me help him now.”

“He’s just a kid,” said Ghost. “And if
he’s going through what you think he’s going through, he has no idea what the
fuck he’s doing. He’s probably just trying to get through every day on its own.
He called you because he trusts you, baby. That’s huge.”

“Why won’t he talk to me now?” asked Bridget
helplessly.

Ghost shrugged and brushed her hair
aside. “I don’t know. He’s scared. And maybe school is the only place he still
gets to have some happiness and fun. Maybe he thinks if he talks about what’s
happening at home, he’ll ruin the last safe place he has.”

His words made Bridget feel sick,
like she got punched in the gut. She audibly groaned and her face twisted up so
bad that Ghost gripped the side of her face and said, “Hey, hey… we’re going to
make it okay. Not today, but we will.”

“It’s like I can feel his fear,”
admitted Bridget. “I can imagine sitting there in that dark closet with him,
afraid and alone. I don’t want him to feel that way, Ghost. He doesn’t deserve
it.”

“Fuck no, he doesn’t. And we’re going
to get him out of it, we’ll find a way.” He leaned down and kissed her deeply.
The final bell to end recess sounded over the din of chattering kids.

“I have to go,” said Bridget against
his lips.

“Go make this country smarter for
once, baby.”

Ghost straddled his bike as Bridget headed
back down the white walkway toward the wooden doors of the school. She looked
back when she heard the engine rev up and saw Ghost staring at her with a
smile, helmet in his hands. He made a kissy face at her. She smiled and waved
before she headed into the school.

~
TWELVE ~

Ghost

“How is this not a punishment?” Ghost huffed as he
fell into one of the chairs in the clubhouse den. “Haven’t even been convicted
yet, and already I’m sentenced.”

“Christ, Ghost, you’re not even the
one on trial in the first place,” said Jase with a tired sigh. He sat across
from Ghost at the table and rubbed his face with his hands. “Lucero and
Eagleton are on trial.”

“Yeah, but I’m the one who has to
help prove it, and has to put up with being around him in my goddamn clubhouse
while it happens.”

“If that’s a punishment, then you’re
a pussy.”

“Fuck off.”

“Just keep away from him,” said Jase.
“This is already a minefield. Don’t need you lobbing more grenades into it.”

“You know me so well.”

Before Jase could retort, the
clubhouse door swung open down the hall, and a crowd of voices came barging in.
Ghost hadn’t heard any bikes pull up, so they must have been hanging out on the
side of the building. It was the four Eagleton Dogs they were familiar with,
plus two more that hadn’t been around during the run.

Ghost and Jase stared at them
quietly, and the men came to a silent halt. Lucero stood in the middle of his
MC brothers, and he narrowed his eyes at Ghost from across the room.

Once the first responders had shown up
to the scene of the accident, there had been no time for butting heads. EMT
buses carted away Tommy and Lucero, who was still passed out, and a third had
to be called for Will. Both Ghost and Jase had to taste the bitter bile of
leaving their friends alone and hurt as they stood on the edge of the highway
and watched the buses pull away without them. Lucero was the first one out of
the hospital; he escaped the crash with minimal cuts and scrapes. Happened all
the time when drunk drivers passed out, Ghost knew. Their relaxed muscles acted
like a shield against broken bones and punctured organs. It only fueled the
fire he held inside that blamed Lucero for all of this.

While they had waited for tow trucks
to clean up Tommy’s bike and figured out the vehicle situation, Ghost finally
lost his shit and raged at Shaun about Lucero’s heroin addiction. Shaun had
only stared at Ghost in quiet surprise as Jase pulled him back and ordered him
to clean up Tommy’s saddle bag gear with angry tears in his eyes. Ghost hadn’t
spoken another word to the Eagleton Dogs after that, and he didn’t want to
speak to them now. Truth be told, he wished he could take a break from speaking
to Jase, too. The memory of their conversation at the Eagleton clubhouse before
the run stung furiously now.

Jase had literally just told him to
keep his shit together, but already it was taking every ounce of self-control
Ghost had to do it. He stared at Lucero with a hard face and soothingly felt
for the handle of one of his hidden blades. It made him feel better.

“Jase,” said Shaun with a nod.
“Ghost.”

“Gents,” said Jase in return. “Does
Henry know you’re here yet?”

Shaun nodded and thumbed behind him.
“He’s still finishing his smoke.”

Jase cleared his throat uncomfortably
and gestured toward the unmanned bar. “Well, help yourselves to whatever.”

“I think we’re good,” said Scott with
black fire in his voice.

Jase exhaled heavily, as if he had
been hoping no one would escalate the already brutally tense mood in the room.
“Suit yourself,” he said as he yanked the chair across from Ghost out and sat
down.

They didn’t speak to each other again
until the clubhouse door opened and the rest of the gathered men made their way
inside, led by Henry. The den began to fill up with voices as most of the
LeBeau members arrived, staggered over the next ten minutes. All of Eagleton’s
available men were already present, and they sat huddled at their own table
near the stairs, uncomfortable and speaking quietly only to each other.

Once Henry was settled with the
attendance, he and Douglas walked upstairs to overlook the den from the second
floor banister. He reminded Ghost of a poorer, much less powerful Roman
emperor.

“Thank you for being here today,
men,” said Henry. “Gatherings like this are never convenient, and we all have
other places we want to be, so thank you for stepping up to answer the call.
This is a very serious matter. Shaun?” He gestured downstairs at the table full
of Eagleton Dogs.

Shaun exchanged glances with his men
and stood up. All eyes in the room followed him as he took the stairs up to
stand next to Henry.

“This is Shaun Lee. He runs things in
Eagleton. For those who don’t know me, I’m Henry Oliver, president of the
LeBeau chapter. Our two charters have something very serious to work out here.
I’m sure most of you have heard by now, but there was a problem on a run for
the Eagleton charter which included some of my men. An accident happened and
put two of my guys in the hospital, and there’s been some accusations as to why
this occurred.”

“How are they?” called out Bones to
Henry.

“Improving,” said Henry. “Will had a
busted arm and a bump on the head. He’s already been released home to his wife
and might return to some light duties in the next week, if the docs clear him
to my satisfaction. Tommy…” He stopped and took a deep breath. It was as
unsettling as watching your dad tear up. “Tommy’s in worse shape. The docs
don’t think he’s going to die, but that boy has a lot of healing ahead of him.
He’s woken up and talked a few times, and that’s a great thing. He’s going to
need all of our support to get back on his feet.”

Douglas stepped forward. “We also
need some Dogs to volunteer to fill in for Tommy around his home, for his
abuela
and sisters. Shifts will rotate, everyone should take a few.” The men
downstairs all nodded to each other.

“Now,” said Henry, “we need to
discuss what’s going to happen. This is a complicated situation, and Shaun and
I know it’s already causing some grief between the charters.”

Ghost couldn’t help himself. He
looked over to the table of Eagleton Dogs. Lucero was already staring back at
him with hate in his eyes.

“Ghost?” said Henry. “Join us,
please.”

Ghost tore his eyes away from Lucero,
surprised. Suddenly everyone in the room was looking at him. He cleared his
throat and got to his feet, shuffling around the tables. “I didn’t even prepare
a speech,” he said with a phony laugh.

No one chuckled.

He tromped up the stairs and stood
behind Henry, uncomfortable. He had no idea what he was doing, so he just
waited and tried to keep his mouth shut.

“Ghost, I need you to tell the men
here in your own words what accusations you’re bringing forward today,” said
Henry. He gestured for Ghost to step up toward the railing, and he obeyed after
only a moment’s hesitation. “Tell us what happened.”

Ghost had stared down the barrels of
every make and model of firearm that existed on this godforsaken rock. He knew
a Bowie knife felt different pressed up against his jugular than a kitchen
cleaver. He knew exactly how many milliseconds it took a body to hit the floor
after a bullet to the brain. But in that moment, the most awful, upsetting
thing in his fucked-up mind was standing there under the gaze of all his MC
brothers as they waited for him to throw one of them under the bus.

Fucking Lucero
,
thought Ghost. Shaun and the Eagleton Dogs told the first responders that the
van had been run off the road, and Ghost suspected there may have also been
some sort of payoff involved to keep anyone from testing Lucero for impaired
driving. He didn’t blame them for that; this was club business and that was
standard routine. But Lucero was too cowardly to admit the truth of his
addiction. He was putting Ghost, and all the brothers, through this sideshow,
while Tommy lay in the hospital rebuilding like a goddamn shattered egg.

His fear fell away into a hot volcano
of anger. Suddenly the eyes on him didn’t matter one bit.

“This motherfucker,” he said, and
pointed straight down at Lucero’s bitter face, “is a heroin addict. And he took
his fix before we headed out on that goddamn run, blacked out, and then swerved
right into Tommy and me.”

“Bullshit!” yelled Lucero as he
jumped to his feet. “You’re a goddamn liar, you fucking clown!” Rick and Scott
both stood and tried to calm him as rumbles broke out through the gathered men.

“Stand down!” said Shaun firmly at
his men.

“Ghost, for the love of Christ,” said
Henry in frustration.

“You asked for my own fucking words,”
said Ghost. “So you’ll get them. I came into the bathroom after Lucero and I
saw the balloons myself. He was volatile for no fucking reason. And I was right
next to the van, looking at his ugly face in the side mirror when he passed out
and swerved. I braked hard, and Tommy tried to accelerate, but it wasn’t enough.
The van clipped his tire and they both swerved off the road.” He pointed at
Lucero again. “This is all his fucking fault. He shouldn’t have been on that
run.”

“I’m gonna beat the motherfucking
shit out of you!” said Lucero, standing again from the table and charging up
the stairs before his brothers could stop him. A few voices in the room
hollered out in warning.

But Ghost just smiled a brutal, dark
smile that didn’t reach his eyes and stepped out to meet him. Lucero drilled
his gaze into Ghost’s and stood inches from his face, shoving his chest into
Ghost’s in the basest form of intimidation known to primates. He was pathetic.
Ghost took it and stared back, his darkest heart hoping Lucero would give him a
reason to throw a punch.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re
talking about,” said Lucero to Ghost’s face. Men were gathering around them,
coming up the stairs, trying to talk down the fight, but Ghost couldn’t hear
any of their words.

“You put my brother in the fucking
hospital,” said Ghost. “And all because you’re a useless junkie coward. You
don’t deserve to wear the cut, and you wouldn’t deserve the beautiful beating I
would serve if you
ever
try to fucking step up on me again.”

“You’re a fucking dead man,” said
Lucero in a desperate, adrenaline-soaked whisper. His dilated pupils betrayed a
raging fury.

“You first,” Ghost whispered back to
him. Then he reared back and delivered a crushing head-butt to Lucero. Lucero’s
nose broke and gushed blood as he stumbled backwards against the wall.

Any order left in the room melted
into chaos. Ghost just stared at Lucero’s pain-filled, irate eyes as Henry and
Douglas dragged him backwards toward the conference room and away from the
fight, yelling in his ear.

It took twenty minutes for the
presidents to get the room calmed down, and that was only after Bones and Jase
passed out beers and whiskey bottles. Scott dragged a raging Lucero out of the
den and to the men’s room to clean up his nose.

“Just stand right the fuck here and
keep your mouth shut,” said Henry as he pushed Ghost against the wall near the
conference room door. “Why do you have to make everything more complicated?”

“
Me
make things more
complicated? He’s the one who came up here like a running bull to fight me. I’m
not going to sit here and take the piss from some hick coward that almost
killed Tommy,” said Ghost with his hand outstretched. “Is that what you’re
asking me to do, Henry?”

“I’m asking you to act like a fucking
civilized adult long enough for me to fix this mess!” Henry’s voice was darker
and firmer than Ghost had ever heard it. Something deep inside his mind cracked
with shame.

Ghost didn’t reply. He blinked at
Henry and clenched his jaw. “I know what I saw,” he said. “Lucero was jacked
up. He shouldn’t have been driving.”

Shaun finally joined the
conversation, impatient, his bottled anger finally coming to boil. “Lucero
isn’t fucking shooting up! You think we wouldn’t have noticed track marks on
his arms by now?”