I was actually going to marry this stranger, all for the good of the club.
I could barely believe it. As I followed Dad out to the main room, and he sat me down in his office while he went out and made the announcement, I felt numb. I’d never been claimed by a man before, and I’d never really wanted to be. But now I was Jetter’s, all because I didn’t speak up.
I was claimed by some piece of shit stranger, and I hated it, because the only man I wanted was the man I most couldn’t afford to have.
As I sat in that room, waiting for Dad to break the news and for the boys to calm down, I just wanted to see Clutch. It was irrational and stupid, but I wanted Clutch there in the room with me. I wanted to feel his rough hands, hear his deep voice, see his big, inked frame. I felt safe with him around.
I felt safe, even if that safety was oh so dangerous.
14
Clutch
“We’re patching over the Rebels.”
The boys went fucking nuts, yells of outrage, anger, some outright treasonous shit. It was about what I expected, but maybe a little more intense.
Larkin stood there staring back, totally impassive. I leaned back in my chair and glanced at Ford, who just shrugged.
Finally, Larkin held up his hands and the room slowly quieted down.
“You all know my daughter, Janine,” he said. There were murmurs in the group. “She has been claimed by Jetter, witnessed by me. To solidify our relationship, Janine and Jetter are getting married.”
There were more murmurs, some more intense grumbling.
“Does she even know him?” Noble called out.
“No, she doesn’t,” Larkin said.
The guys got louder at that.
I sat back and watched, a small smile on my face. It felt good to see the guys getting as annoyed as I was about this whole thing.
“I know some of you think this arranged marriage is something we stopped doing,” Larkin went on, “and you’d be right. But in this instance, it’s important that we bring these two clubs together the right way.”
“Fuck that,” Noble yelled out. “You’re selling your daughter off to that traitor fuck.”
Larkin stared down Noble and the crowd gently mumbled.
“This is not something I want to do,” Larkin said. “It’s something that must be done for the club to survive. Janine was asked if she would be willing to do this, not forced.”
I looked over at Ford.
“Like she could really say no,” I said.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Larkin loves that girl.”
“He does,” I conceded, “but he loves the club more.”
Ford gave me a look. “Don’t we all?”
I leaned back in my chair and didn’t answer.
What did I love more than my club? As far as I could see, the club was all I had. I’d never needed to think about this before, and I hoped I’d never need to again.
Because she was marrying another man, and that was that.
“The Rebels will start getting patched over as soon as possible,” Larkin called out. “I understand you don’t want that, but too fucking bad. They’re going to become our brothers, so lay down your grudges and deal with it.”
“The boys are not going to be okay with this,” Dow mumbled.
“Are you okay with it?” Ford asked him.
“Guess I don’t care,” he answered. “Blood is blood.”
“These are men that killed our brothers,” Ford said.
“That was a long time ago,” I said.
“Not that long.” Ford shook his head. “This isn’t going to go down easy.”
“I suspect they know that,” I said, “which is why they’re marrying Janine off.”
Ford nodded. “Yeah, guess so.”
“We can’t get caught up in our petty anger,” Larkin said over the general buzz of activity. “If we begin to fight within ourselves, we’ll lose the fight with the real enemy.”
“The fucking Snakes!” Stonewall hollered.
“And those fucking Mezcals!” Reggie added.
“That’s right,” Larkin yelled, getting the boys riled up. “We’ve got no love for the Rebels; that’s true. But they’re about to become our brothers, and with that added strength we’ll crush the Snakes and the Mezcals and end this fucking war.”
The boys all hooted, cheering.
“Now let’s fucking drink!” Stonewall yelled, and the place went fucking nuts.
I looked at Dow and he just shook his head. “Grunts will follow,” he said.
“What are we going to do?” I asked Ford.
“Nothing,” he said, “and you know it. We’ll follow the club. This might be bad for Janine, but it was her choice.”
“Yeah,” I said, “it was her choice.”
The place was buzzing with electricity and excitement. There was still an undercurrent of anger over the Rebels coming into our club, but for the most part everyone was excited to have some added strength coming.