Chapter 8
Cas
Sparky joins me as I light a cigarette, watching old ladies pack up their cars and brothers checking over their bikes before they set off.
“Shit is changin’” he murmurs.
“Yeah,” is all I can say.
“There’s no comin’ back from this. You see that, don’t you, Cas?”
All I can do is nod. I feel his words deep in my bones. Fuck, they’re in my soul.
Tack rolls to a stop by us. “This wouldn’t be happening if you were still our president.”
I keep my mouth shut, and stare at him, but it doesn’t deter him from continuing, “Some of us have been talking. We need you back at the head of the table, if there was a vote, you’d be…”
Straightening up, and squaring my shoulders, I cut him off.
“You’d do well to be on your fuckin’ way.
Your chapter has been weak for a long time, and you didn’t see you had a traitor in your own clubhouse.
If I still held the gavel, I would have shot you dead and let Slade deal with you on the other side. ”
He rides out with fuck all else to say. I might feel a certain way about Leo, but I’d never show it to other brothers.
“It might not be such a bad idea,” Sparky throws out.
I shake my head. “The club is Leo’s now.”
“How long will there be a club while he sits at the top?” he argues.
“A question I've been wondering myself,” Leo says from behind us. Sparky turns but I remain watching brothers ride out of the club. “If you’ve finished bitchin’ about me, I'm gonna go check on my sister.”
I hear his boots hit the gravel as he walks away. I don’t turn around. I don’t move a fucking muscle.
“I’m out, too,” Sparky tells me and walks over to his bike.
“Should you be riding after drinkin’ all day?”
“At this point, I don’t give a fuck.” He arches his brow and asks, “Since when have you been my mom?”
“Fuck you. I just don’t want you dyin’ on me too.”
His mouth opens and closes before he says, “Why, Cas, I do believe it’s taken you over thirty years to admit you need me.”
Rolling my eyes, I tell him, “Get home safe.”
Once the last brother has left, I wander home myself and find the place empty.
I grab Lana’s photo albums from the shelf and fall onto the couch. I open them up until I find photos from back in the day.
Pictures of me with Slade and Dex, with Ricky fresh out of prison, Pope before his hair went grey, and with Oak, sat at the bar with glasses of whiskey in our hands.
Him grinning, me with my usual scowl. Pictures of me with Sparky and Slade, proudly wearing our cuts and newly sewn on patches.
Weddings, parties, cookouts, so many moments captured and kept safe for years.
I've never felt my age more than I do now.
It used to bug me when Lana would constantly get her camera out, smile for this, smile for that.
Smile, smile, fucking smile. Now I'm grateful she did.
It's a privilege to be able to look back on life.
A shadow falls in the doorway. I look up and find Luca leaning against the doorframe.
“What the fuck are you doin’ here?”
“It’s so warm in here with your welcome,” the little fucker sasses. “I came to check in about the traitor.”
“Is Victoria and the baby with you?”
He shakes his head. “No, I rode out alone.”
“They good?”
“Wouldn’t have left them if they weren’t.”
I sigh. I can never get an answer from him without violence or sarcasm. It would drain me if I weren’t used to men like him my whole damn life. His mother would say he gets it from me, but I don’t think I'm that funny to carry off sarcasm.
“You missed the shit show. The traitor’s been dealt with.”
“Yeah, I saw the twins hauling his body out of the bar. A bar in which looks like a bomb’s hit it.”
“Ask ya brother.”
Glancing down at a group photo of the club before the days Alannah became my obsession, I see so many similarities between myself and my youngest son.
“You’re doing well in the city.”
“It comes naturally.” He shrugs.
I roll my eyes as his sarcasm wears thin.
“Regretting giving the wrong son the gavel to the kingdom?” Leo grunts from behind his brother.
Luca steps into the room and drops down on the arm of the chair.
I say nothing as Luca glances between us, noting the tension. “What’s going on here?”
Leo crosses his arms over his chest and glares down at me. “Dad blames me for Slade’s death.”
“That doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense. Slade’s gone cause we had a traitor.”
“He hasn’t come out and said it, but he’s made it very fuckin’ clear how he feels. Ain't ya, Dad.”
I stare down at Slade from over twenty years ago. We were so fucking young back then, it’s hard to know where the time has gone. My childhood dragged by painfully slow, but then I found a place where I belonged, and it’s passed in the blink of an eye.
“Dad?” Luca urges. “Tell Leo he’s got it wrong.”
Lifting my eyes to Luca, I can’t make my mouth move to form any words. I don’t know what hurts most, my oldest friend dying needlessly or my son’s presence, because he’s the reason the club got attacked.
Tears stream down my face, but I don’t care to wipe them away.
This shit hurts and I'm terrified of lashing out at my son. They both stare at me like they’ve never seen me before.
I'm a bad man, but I've never been a bad dad.
I've gone out of my way to make sure my sons haven’t known violence in the family home.
“Come out and say it, Dad, so we can move on,” Leo pleads.
“Move on?” I whisper. “Fuckin’ move on?” I repeat. The albums are thrown across the room and I’m on my feet before my brain catches up. I don’t recall moving but a vase smashes against the wall, shattering to the floor. The water drenching the carpet and the flowers lying limply.
“Move on!” I roar, pointing my finger at him. “How fuckin’ dare you!”
The lamp is next to fly across the room, shrouding the room in darkness until Leo slams the main light on.
“You’ll have to face Mom if you keep breaking her shit,” Luca grunts.
Ignoring him, I stare down my eldest son.
“You wanna move on, yeah?”
“Dad...”
“Nah, you wanna move on after you got brothers killed in our fuckin’ club. What the fuck does that look like, son? Tell me!” Tears flow and I couldn’t give a shit, but fuck me, it feels good to unload the thoughts taking root in my head.
“You wanna know the truth, I do blame you. I blame you because their deaths were because you went on the attack! I warned you but you knew better!”
“Fuck you!”
“No, fuck you! Traitors are one thing, but you gave him the opportunity to take something to our enemy!”
“That’s not fair, Dad,” Luca snaps.
“Fair? Nothing's fuckin’ fair, ain’t I always taught you that?”
“Yeah, but...”
“There are no buts!”
Grabbing the coffee table, I flip it over and square up to Leo.
“This is something you have to live with, but you don’t even care, do ya?”
His brows pinch together as he asks, “Is that what you think?”
“What’s going on?” Lana cries rushing in to stand between us.
“It’s my fault Slade is dead, Dad is finally getting it off of his chest,” Leo tells her.
She frowns and looks to me to tell her he’s got it wrong, but I can’t.
“I warned him what the fall out could be, but he still went ahead thinkin’ he knew best!”
“It’s my fuckin’ job to do what I think is best for this club, that’s what you passed down to me!” Leo yells.
“He’s got a point, old man,” Luca chimes in and I narrow my eyes.
Alannah turns on him and tells him, “Stay out of this, Luc.”
Rolling his eyes, he sits back down and rolls a cigarette between his fingers.
“Cas, you know Leo is right. What happened to Slade could have happened at any point when you were president.”
“It didn’t though, did it,” I say coldly.
“You know what?” Leo huffs. “I ain’t gonna keep repeating myself, my plan was good, and you know it!”
Alannah turns to Leo, and instructs, “Go home.” She whips around and tells Luca, “You, too. Go home. We'll talk in the morning and sort this out.”
I lose the fight and my shoulders sag. “I thought you having my name, my blood, made you me, but I see now how wrong I’ve been.”
“Cas...” Lana whispers.
Usually her pain wounds me, but tonight, I feel nothing.
“Fuck this, I’m out.”
Brushing past Leo, I grab my keys and slam the door on my way out.
There's no one to ignore on the walk to my bike.
Slade, Dex, and Shane are dead. Sparky went home.
The sons are nowhere to be seen. It's like a fucking desert around here and the silence has never been so fucking loud.
I've been at odds with the brothers over the years, but never my son. I don’t know how we come back from this.
I ride out of the club and push the speed as much as I can before the needle wobbles on max. I thought having my family within the club was the perfect life for me, turns out, I lose the club, I lose my family. They are one in the same.
Breaking too hard, my bike skids out, and I hit the road and tumble repeatedly until I come to a stop.
I lay on the road until I get my breath back and take inventory of my body head to toe.
Nothing is broken. I look down at the road burn on my arm, and it reminds me of the years where I learned to live through pain.
Climbing up onto my feet, I walk over to my bike and it’s still intact, just a few scuffs and scratches.
Either life is laughing at me, keeping me in this shit show for another segment, or Slade protected me.
Fuck. I don’t think like that or believe in the afterlife. Slade isn’t protecting me anymore than he’s breathing.
My eyes water and I finally lash out. I kick at my back tire and stomp onto it until I’m breathless. I drop down onto my knees and punch at my seat. I can’t do this. I can’t keep living with my head seeing my own blood as my enemy.
The skin over my knuckles breaks and flecks of blood spatter the leather. The air hits it and I relish in the pain. I used to know where I stood with pain. It was easier to deal with than people. It came, and it went.
A quick flash of a siren has me wiping my face and rising to my feet. The sheriff whore pulls up and lowers her window.
“Do you need assistance?”
“Did I fuckin’ call for assistance?”
“Not that I know of, but it sure looks like you need it.”
My top lip curls in disgust. “I don’t need fuck all from you. Fuck off.”
Ignoring me, she continues, “I was sorry to hear about your brothers.”
I laugh but it’s anything but funny.
“Were you?” I snort.
“I do have a heart, you know.”
“I don’t think you do, why are you still here?”
She puts her cruiser in gear and pulls away. Fucking bitch. I pick my bike up and kick out the stand. I give it the once over and then climb on.
I turn the key and sigh with relief when it comes on. Tomorrow I'll fix it up, but tonight, I’ll put it to the back of my mind and find myself a drink. I've made a point not to get drunk in town for years, but I no longer care.