the reparations—if I really felt it was necessary, but that’d be my last resort. I trusted that Blade would be fair. Because with what the Liberty members had done, he had every right to kick us out of Hell’s Ankhor territory altogether, and I couldn’t let that happen.
“I was impressed with how easily you handled bringing those two under control at once at the Liberty clubhouse,” Blade said. “Gunnar and Jazz have been putting together a new training regimen for the enforcers. We want to expand the program and have every patched-in member participate so everyone has at least basic self-defense skills, in light of everything that’s happened. I’d like you to help out a few times a week, with the training as well as the sparring.”
“I’ve got some grappling skills,” Gunnar said. “And Jazz has what he picked up in the joint. But we want to offer a variety of techniques.”
“Tanner’s still with the club, correct?” Priest asked.
I nodded. Tanner—my best friend, a.k.a. Tru—was well-versed in Muay Thai, and I’d picked up quite a bit from him, as well as some grappling from my dad. We’d trained together since we were kids, and where Tru had stuck with Muay Thai, I’d expanded into different styles: boxing, jiu-jitsu, even a little judo. “Yep. He’s got his hands full as sergeant-at-arms right now, but I’d be happy to help.”
“Good,” Blade said. “We think it’d be a good way to tighten relationships between the two clubs, as well.”
“With everything that’s happened over the past few months,” Priest cut in, “we want to bring our two clubs a little closer. We want to be able to count on Liberty Crew for surveillance on our borders when we need it, and for your crew to feel comfortable calling on Hell’s Ankhor for backup when necessary. It’s something we should have done a lot sooner.”
I nodded. The ease of this reparative task surprised me—I would’ve been happy to help Hell’s Ankhor train their members without having to repay a debt. And I couldn’t deny that I’d feel a little more secure knowing I could call on Blade if we had any real trouble with Baxter, Ryder, and Trip. With their excommunication, our ranks were a mere dozen patched-in members. If shit really hit the fan, we might need to call in backup.
“Happy to agree to those terms,” I said. “Can’t say I disagree with your reasoning, either. Hell’s Ankhor has always been a friend to the Crew, and I think we’re past due on tightening that bond.”
Blade nodded and wrote something on his notepad. Priest raised his eyebrows expectantly. No one said a word.
“And the second task?” I prompted, a little awkwardly.
Blade sighed heavily and scrubbed his hand over his forehead. “Uh. Baking lessons.”
I blinked. Surely I misheard. “Excuse me?”
Gunnar snorted a laugh behind me.
“Yeah. Baking lessons.” Blade leaned back in his chair with a resigned sign. “Everyone won’t shut up about the cake you made when The Kid got patched in. And you saw how they descended on the muffins.” As if to punctuate, Blade took one from the box and began to peel the liner off. “No one here can bake. Barely anyone can cook.”
“Logan can cook,” Gunnar noted. “And Jonah.”
“And that’s about it,” Blade said. “But none of them can really bake—half of them can’t even make cake from a box.”
“I saw Raven bake the saddest carrot cake the world has ever seen,” Gunnar said morosely. “It melted into a pudding as soon as it came out of the oven.”
“A lot of our members are interested,” Blade said. “Can’t say I understand it, but it came up in church, and that’s what we decided on. So. Training and baking. Those are the terms of the reparations.”
I stifled my incredulous laugh—never in my entire tenure as vice president of the Liberty Crew had I encountered reparations like this. Just another quirk of Hell’s Ankhor, I supposed. I extended my hand to shake. “Consider it an agreement.”
Blade shook my hand with a broad grin on his face. “Excellent. Glad to have you on board.”
“As for the details…” Gunnar said.
“Right.” Blade nodded. “When you’re on the clubhouse premises, we’ll require you to have a chaperone with you.”
“A chaperone?” I asked, eyebrows raised. What exactly did they think I was going to do? Priest had known me since I was a kid, for God’s sake. Sure, a few of our guys had shown poor judgment recently, but there was no reason for Blade to distrust me.