Chapter 7
Austin
Three Weeks Later
"Come on, EJ, you're going to be late again."
I hate shouting at him in the mornings. He's nine years old and he moves through the early hours like time is a concept that applies to other people, which I've been told is genetic and if so the irony is not lost on me.
I remember my own mother's voice from the bottom of the stairs, the particular pitch it had when she'd been calling me for the third time and I still hadn't moved. I smile at the kitchen table and wait.
He appears in the doorway with his backpack on, his helmet under his arm and his hair going three different directions.
His birthday is in two weeks, and he's already told me he wants his friends to come to the clubhouse for the party. I know I should say no. The clubhouse isn’t exactly a child's party venue.
But the other brothers' kids have had parties there over the years and the old ladies always make it work, and EJ's face when he asked me was the face he uses when he already knows the answer but he's making absolutely certain, so I'm going to give in and he knows it.
"Ready," he says.
"You've got your backpack."
"Yes, Dad."
"Lunch?"
"In the bag."
"Math homework?"
He pauses. "In the bag."
"EJ."
"In the bag now," he says, and ducks back into the kitchen and I hear the rustling of the homework folder being relocated from the table to the backpack. He reappears. "Done."
"Good man. Helmet on."
We live in one of the houses on the compound.
Razor sorted them out years back for the brothers with families, far enough from the main clubhouse to give the old ladies some separation from the club's daily noise, close enough that everyone's inside the gate.
EJ has grown up with the other club kids as his closest neighbours, which means he's been riding bikes since before he was steady on his feet and he knows what a Church meeting is and he calls patched members by their road names and once used the word sweetbutt in front of his teacher, which was a conversation I'd rather not repeat.
He climbs on behind me and grabs the handles at the side, helmet on, chin down, exactly the way I've taught him, and we pull out of the compound and ride the ten minutes to school.
When we get there he climbs off himself, no help required.
He informed me of this about a year ago and he was extremely clear about it.
"Dad." He stands next to the bike and squints up at me in the morning sun.
"Yeah."
"Can I have the party at the clubhouse?"
I look at him. "I thought your homework was in the bag."
"It is. Can I have the party at the clubhouse?"
"I'll think about it."
He nods like this means yes, because for him it does mean yes and we both know it.
He walks toward his friends and is absorbed into a group of eight-year-olds before he's crossed the yard, and I lean against the bike and watch him go and feel the particular mix of things I always feel watching EJ walk away from me.
Pride, worry and something that's just love, specific and unglamorous but still a permanent fixture in my chest.
I drive back through town slowly.
I know Savannah's back. Brick told me three weeks ago, delivery kept deliberately flat, watching my face while he did it.
The new doctor on the corner of Lincoln and Lexington.
The building she's been setting up. I've driven past it twice without meaning to and both times I've sped up when I got close enough to see the lights on inside.
The town is small enough that I could have run into her already.
I haven't. Either she's been lucky or she's been careful, and knowing Savannah it's both.
She'll have clocked that the garage is on this side of town and she'll have her routes planned accordingly.
She was always practical like that, always three steps ahead of the logistics of a situation.
It was one of the things that made her good at medicine before she even started training for it.
I don't know what I'm afraid of.
That's a lie.
I know exactly what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid of seeing her and finding out that ten years hasn't done what I need it to have done, and all the things I've built since she left are going to look smaller somehow, measured against what I walked away from.
I'm afraid she won't look at me at all.
I'm afraid she will.
I drive past the corner of Lincoln and Lexington without slowing down and head back to the garage.
"Is it your turn for Ruby's?" I ask Brick at noon.
He tries the face that means he's got something else to do, which he always tries and which never works on me because I've known that face since I was eleven years old. "Yeah, alright. Your usual?"
"Club sandwich and a strawberry milkshake."
He gives me the finger without looking up from the engine he's working on and heads out. He's been going to Ruby's more than usual since Savannah opened her practice. I haven't said anything about this because saying something would make it a thing and I don't want it to be a thing.
He comes back forty minutes later with the food, which is twenty minutes longer than it takes to walk to Ruby's and back, and he sits down across from me and hands over the sandwich without making eye contact.
"Anything interesting at Ruby's?" I ask.
"No, not really."
"Brick."
He chews his sandwich. "She might have mentioned that the new doctor is almost open. End of the week apparently."
"Good," I say. "I'm sick of customers telling me they can't get into Dr. Foster."
"Yeah." He takes a drink. "We'll still use Foster though. He's looked after us in the worst situations. Our loyalty stays there."
He says it looking right at me. I hear what he means underneath what he says, which is something about not going to the new doctor's office on the corner of Lincoln and Lexington. For any reason whatsoever until I've got my head sorted. I nod and eat my sandwich and say nothing.
Brick stands and goes back to work. I finish my lunch and do the same.
I think about Savannah exactly once more for the rest of the afternoon, and then I get under a truck so I won't think about anything except what's wrong with the exhaust manifold.
Three weeks later, Prez calls Church.
The word goes around the compound at eight in the morning. By nine we're all in the room, phones in the box by the door, chairs pulled out, the table filling up with men who know something's coming by the particular tone of Razor's voice when he called it. He doesn't do that voice unless it's real.
Razor stands at the head of the table. He doesn't sit for this one. He picks up a sheet of paper from the table and reads it once more to himself before he looks up.
"The High Stakes MC delivered this yesterday." He sets it down and reads it flat. "'We need more room to grow. We’ve decided to settle in this town. Get ready for the fight of your life for your territory.'”
The room absorbs this.
Cash leans back in his chair and folds his arms and his gaze turns inward, already running routes, contingencies and options. Ramsey, sitting at his shoulder the way Ramsey always sits at Cash's shoulder, says, "They'll come in from the north side first. That's the softest entry."
Cash points at him without looking over. "North side. Two roads in, both visible from the Hennessey ridge."
"I was about to say that," Cash replies.
"I know," Ramsey says.
The brothers who've been around long enough to know them exchange looks.
This is Cash and Ramsey, always has been.
Two men operating on one frequency, finishing thoughts before they're spoken.
Meg used to find it unsettling until she was part of it.
Now she says it's the most efficient thing she's ever seen.
Shadow, at the far end of the table, hasn't moved.
He does this in Church; goes very still the way he goes still when he's listening to the subtext of what's being said.
"What do they want specifically?" he asks.
"Territory is a reason but it's not a reason.
Do we know if it's the routes? Distribution?
Do they want us out or do they want a piece of what we run? "
Razor nods slowly. "That's the right questions. Braxton, I want you and Meg on their digital footprint today. We can't fight what we can't name and Shadow's right, the message tells us intent but not objective. We need to know what they're actually after before we decide how to respond."
Braxton nods once.
Knuckles, who has been sitting with his elbows on the table and his jaw set since the message was read out, cracks his knuckles.
The sound is loud enough in the quiet room to make Seb flinch.
Cash grins. Two of the other brothers laugh, and it breaks enough of the tension that everyone breathes slightly differently for the next ten seconds.
"Any time you're ready, Knuckles," Cash says.
"I've been ready," Knuckles says. "I'm just waiting for someone to tell me where to point it."
Pops, who is always quiet and steady, leans forward. "Jules is at the bakery today. Main street, full visibility. If these people are already moving around our territory, she's exposed."
"I know," Razor says. And the way he says it means he knew before Pops asked, that he's already thought about it.
"We're not locking the old ladies down until we know more.
That'll cause more panic than it prevents.
But I want eyes on the main street today and I want Jules to know without being told why. Keep it casual."
Pops nods. He's not entirely satisfied with that answer but he understands it, and understanding it is enough for now.
Shadow's old lady runs a florist two streets over. He doesn't say anything about her. He doesn't need to. Razor looks at him and he looks back and that's the conversation handled.
"What do we know about them?" Braxton asks. "Numbers, leadership, how long they've been watching us?"