Ride Steady(55)

Tack looked to him. “Know you, brother. Known you more than a year. You’re the kid at the fence.”

Joker said nothing but he felt that deep in his gut.

“He burned you,” Tack’s voice was tight. “And I let you stand at that f*ckin’ fence.”

The last person’s fault that shit was was Tack’s.

Joker started to tell him that. “Tack—”

Tack cut him off, “Your scars, your call, but we know him. We know where he lives. And we know how to put the hurt on him. You say it, your brothers roll out.”

Joker shook his head. “He isn’t worth your time.”

“You f*ck around with this girl, let her slip through your fingers, you’re wrong. ’Cause that’s not on you. That’s on him.”

“I’m doin’ right by her.”

“That’s where you’d be wrong.”

Joker closed his mouth.

Tack took another pull on his beer and looked to the back of the bar. “You’re not alone. We all got it in us. That seed we don’t wanna grow. The one we gotta stop ’cause if we don’t stop it, it’ll turn us into our old man.” He looked back to Joker. “Every brother you got that feared that seed killed it, Joke. They found Chaos, they broke the cycle.”

“Rush didn’t,” Joker pointed out. “Brother doesn’t have to.”

“Yes he does,” Tack stated firmly, a statement, in a way, that Joker got. Rush and his dad didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, mostly in regards to the direction of the Club. They also didn’t keep that a secret.

Tack kept going.

“You’re the next generation, Joker. Right now, the most important brothers in our Club are the ones who are layin’ down the path of where we’ll take the generation you recruit. A path, by that time, if you stay on the right one, will build a foundation that I hope like f*ck nothin’ ever shakes. The ones who been around, we picked careful. Now you gotta pick careful. Shy’ll lead that, and Rush has his ideas. But we’ll see what Rush brings to the table. Shy harnessed wind. If you harness butterflies, I’ll be a lot less uneasy.”

Joker didn’t get it. “Shy harnessed wind?”

Tack jerked up his chin. “My girl looked outside the family, coulda been gone on the wind. There’s the life she was headin’ for and then there’s the life we lead. The life we lead is important to me, and I didn’t like losin’ her from it. Shy brought her back.”

It was then, Joker got it. Tabby had been engaged to a physical therapist who did not come close to living the life. The man died in a car accident.

Then came Shy.

Tack didn’t wait for him to confirm, he kept talking.

“Figure your father didn’t give you this so I will. A man is defined many ways. One of those is the woman he picks to be at his side.”

“Says a lot,” Joker muttered, turning to his own beer, and before taking a sip, finishing, “Seein’ as my ma left my dad before I was old enough to focus.”

“More important than that is the woman who chooses to take a man’s side,” Tack stated on the heels of Joker’s words, and Joker looked back to him. “You wouldn’t have your cut if any one of your brothers thought you weren’t defined as Chaos. But your old man chose the kind of woman who would clear out on her kid, that defines him. Your ma cleared out on her kid, that defines her. You get your shit together and explore what’s on offer right now to you, you’ve already beat that ’cause you know what’s on offer does not have that shit in her.”

It was time to share.

So he did.

“It’s me protecting her, Tack.”

“Against what?”

He leaned toward his brother and hissed, “Demons.”

Tack held his gaze and whispered, “He beat you bad.”

“Wasn’t worth shit.”

“Him?”

“Me.”

“Brother,” Tack slid further his way. “He planted that seed.”

“I know. Doesn’t mean it didn’t take root.”

“You fear the dark.” It was a statement.

A correct one.

“She doesn’t need dark,” Joker told Tack something anyone knew just taking one look at Carissa. “She never shoulda had it and she’s had a lifetime of it. What I got in me gets loose, it’ll engulf her.”