12. Bram
twelve
Bram
Corcoran State Prison squatted on the edge of the valley like a fever dream, all razor wire and gray concrete under a sky so wide it made you feel like an ant with delusions of significance.
There were no trees out here, nothing to soften the perimeter—just the road, cracked and patched and sunburnt, circling the compound like a dried-up river.
The heat hit different here, not just hot but wet, crawling under the leather and sticking to your bones.
I’d spent my time in county and a few stints in bigger holes, but I’d never set foot in Corcoran. There was a first for everything.
I pulled the bike up to the shoulder, killed the engine, and let the silence creep in.
Just the ticking of metal cooling, the distant hum of electrical transformers, and the taste of old sweat collecting at the corners of my mouth.
The gates were another hundred yards up, topped with cameras, motion sensors, and a guard shack so bulletproof it looked like a bank vault with a view.
Out front, a black limousine idled, engine throbbing at exactly the right pitch to let you know it was paid for in cash.
The windows were so dark they turned the sun into a rumor.
The driver was out of central casting: dark suit, aviators, haircut you could set your watch by. He stood by the rear door, face unreadable, one hand folded over the other at the wrist. I set both boots down and waited, hands loose on the bars. No reason to look nervous. I could wait all afternoon.
The gate buzzed open with the sound of a giant mosquito, and out walked the reason for the whole production: Gerald Marsh, known to this valley and half the state as the Colonel, but to me just a bastard in a better suit.
He looked good for a man who’d done twenty in the can—hair silver but still thick, skin tight to the jaw, posture straight enough to make the guards look like slouches.
The suit was charcoal, custom, with a shirt so white it made his tan look carved.
Even the shoes—handmade, I’d bet a thousand—caught the light just so.
He wasn’t your typical club president. He wore suits instead of kuttes; he rode around in expensive cars instead of a bike.
I wasn’t exactly sure where his money came from; maybe it was old money, maybe the politicians were lining his pockets.
It didn’t matter. He’d be dead soon enough.
That’s why, at the last minute, I’d decided to uninvite Sniper and Trace.
They would have killed the man the minute the prison gate opened.
I didn’t want to see my sons dragged away.
The Colonel scanned the road, the lot, the gate, the fields past the fence. Didn’t look right at me at first, but when his eyes landed, he let the smile come slow, like a man savoring the first drag on a fresh cigar. He walked over, no hurry, stopping about three feet from my front tire.
He didn’t speak at first, just adjusted a cufflink and watched the sun glint off my bike’s headlamp. The driver opened the limo door, but the Colonel ignored it, taking a long look at the horizon. I let him have it.
“Mr. Jackson,” he said, his voice pure Riverside County: sandpaper and bourbon, but with enough polish that you’d let him close a deal before you realized he’d gutted you. “I wasn’t expecting you here. But I suppose I should have been.”
I kept my hands on the bars. “It’s a free country.”
He smiled wider. “Sometimes it feels like that, doesn’t it? But then the mail comes, and there’s another summons, another notice, another piece of paper that says: ‘No, Gerald, you’re still a guest in someone else’s house.’” He gave a little laugh, just for himself. “You look well. Considering.”
“I’m over the anger, Gerald. I’ve made peace with Millie’s death.”
“But you haven’t made peace with me,” he said, smug as some Hollywood asshole. It was California, after all.
“I’m going to make my peace with you, Gerald. I give you my word.”
“That a threat? Are you threatening me outside a federal prison?” He held out his hands and looked around.
He took a step closer, looked at the road behind me, the stretch of valley that led back to the interstate.
“You know, Bram, I’ve thought about this moment a long time.
The day I’d walk out and see the world had kept spinning.
You were always going to be here. The stubborn ones, the survivors.
I suppose I should thank you for keeping things interesting. ”
“I’m coming for you, asshole.” I showed him my hands. “These are all I need. I’m going to right all the wrongs you did to people.”
He checked his watch. It was the kind that cost more than a working man’s car. “I hear you’ve been busy. Making friends with the District Attorney. How is she?”
I let the silence answer for me.
He studied my face, the scar on my right jaw, the way the wind kept trying to pull my hair out of its tie. He didn’t find what he was looking for, so he let it drop. “You came to see if I’d changed.” His voice went soft, almost grandfatherly. “I assure you: I haven’t. And neither have you.”
I spoke up, flat as I could. “Where are they?”
His eyes went hard. “Where’s who, Bram?”
“You know who.”
He gave a theatrical sigh, then turned to the driver and said, “Give us a moment.” The man nodded, stepped around the hood, and pretended to check his phone.
The Colonel leaned in, just a shade, not enough to be a threat, but enough to let me smell the cologne and see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes.
“Julie always was a complicated girl,” he said, almost tender.
“Very clever, very driven. Her mother made her that way. All the brains, none of the brakes.” He chuckled.
“It’s a shame she didn’t trust me. I could have protected her. ”
“You hurt her,” I said, and it wasn’t a question.
He considered it. “No,” he said finally. “I don’t hurt what’s mine. I only correct it.”
I felt my jaw go tight, but my hands stayed loose. “And Emma?”
He shook his head. “Such a sweet child. But weak. Soft, like her mother.” He looked at me, the smile gone now. “Julie will be fine. She just needs to be reminded what side she’s on.”
I didn’t blink. “I’m going to kill you,” I said.
He laughed again, this time with real pleasure.
“I’ve heard that before, Bram. You know how many men have told me they’d end my life?
At least five that are still alive. Three more that aren’t.
” He adjusted his suit jacket, gave me a look like a principal addressing a rowdy student. “You’re not the man for the job.”
“Your arrogance is the very thing that’s going to allow me to end your life.” I took a couple of steps forward, fists balling.
He started for the car, then paused, glancing at the prison.
“You ever notice how a place changes after you leave it?” He looked at me, like he was weighing me for parts.
“Nothing’s ever as you left it. The rules, the loyalties, even the air.
That’s how you know it’s time to move on.
” He pointed at me. “You should really move on.”
“She belongs to me now, asshole,” I said.
“I’m her Daddy, Bram, in more ways than you can imagine.” He leaned in a little closer. “You couldn’t save your wife; what makes you think you can save Julie?”
I ignored the dripping from my palms, where my nails had broken skin. I glanced at the prison, seeing four guards watching us. “Be sure to say goodbye to your daughters.”
He chuckled, eyes on the guards. “Daughter, Bram. One Daughter.”
He saw my surprise and continued. “Do the math, genius. Emma couldn’t possibly be mine.”
“You’re a dead man, Gerald,” I said, and from the way his eye twitched, I knew he hated his name.
He smiled, got in the limo, and the door thumped shut with a vacuum seal.
The driver waited for the Colonel to signal, then pulled out, the tires barely making a sound on the old blacktop. I watched it go, memorizing the plate, the way the rear window caught the sunlight, the dust kicked up on the shoulder. The limo hit the junction, turned north, and was gone.
I sat there for a minute, the heat pressing down so hard it felt like my lungs were shrinking. I wanted to tear the bars off the bike or chase the limo and rip the man’s tongue out through his teeth. But I didn’t. I just waited, counted to sixty, and then pulled out my phone.
I called Sniper first.
He answered on the first ring. “Yeah.”
“Get the chapters ready,” I said. “Tell everyone: war footing, no exceptions. I want a headcount in one hour.”
He was silent, then: “What’s changed?”
“He’s out,” I said. “And he’s already moving.”
Sniper exhaled. “Copy.”
I ended the call, then dialed Trace. Same deal.
He picked up with a grunt, like he’d been napping. “You want something, or you just miss my voice?”
“Call the Santa Fe crew. Tell them to lock it down. No one in or out unless it’s blood.”
He was quiet, then said, “You got it.”
I pocketed the phone, kicked the bike to life, and let the engine drown out the rest of the world.
The sun was still up, but the day felt over. I rode back to Barstow, the wind cutting all the way to the stitches in my side.
I knew what came next.
I’d always known.
***
The cemetery at the edge of Barstow was the only place in town that stayed the same year after year.
No strip malls, no for-sale signs, just the plain concrete wall and the dead grass inside.
The gate was aluminum, painted to look like something it wasn’t, with a latch that screeched when you opened it.
I parked the bike on the dirt shoulder and walked in on foot.
Gravel crunched under my boots, sharp and loud, even with the wind blowing the way it was.
It wasn’t a big plot—forty, fifty graves, most of them old enough that the stones had gone smooth.
The new ones stood out, granite that still had a shine.
Millie’s was back left, just past the row of cottonwoods the city planted in a fit of optimism.
The trees hadn’t made it, but the stumps did a good job of marking the boundary.
Her stone was simple: name, two dates, a line underneath that I picked out of spite because she would have hated anything flowery.
I didn’t crouch or kneel. I never did. I stood the way I always did, back straight, hands at my sides, the cut on my vest catching what was left of the sun.
The wound in my side had started leaking again, not enough to show through the shirt, but enough that I could feel every heartbeat behind the stitches.
I looked at her name, traced the years with my eyes, then let my gaze drift to the line below: NOTHING GOOD BURNS FOREVER.
It was a joke, a kind of joke, the way we used to talk about the world before we thought it would end with one of us in the ground.
Millie liked to say that everything ended, but if you were careful you could drag out the good parts.
I thought about her every day, but here, it was different.
I talked, voice just above a whisper, enough that the words landed on the stone and not much further. “It’s almost done, Mill. He’s out.” I didn’t say his name. “He’s out, and I’m still here. You believe that?”
There was no answer, not even from the wind.
“I let it go too long,” I said. “I should have burned it down when I had the chance. You knew that. You always knew.”
The light was going fast now, oranges rolling over the hills, turning the shadows long and blue. I watched the edge of it crawl up her stone, the way the darkness settled in around the letters, making them sharper.
“I fucked up,” I said, letting it hang there, because she’d always wanted honesty and this was the only place I could manage it.
“I didn’t expect to meet anyone. Didn’t expect her.
” I thought about the way Julie looked at me—never with pity, never with anything but raw expectation, like she thought I could actually fix what was broken.
“I’m sorry, Millie. I didn’t think I’d feel anything again, not after you. But I do.”
I closed my eyes for a second, just enough to hear my own breath over the wind. It rattled, a little. Age, or the hole in my side, or both.
“I’m going to finish this,” I said, lower now. “I’m going to put him down for good, and then I’ll… I don’t know.” I smiled or tried to. “Guess we’ll see.”
The first stars were out, barely visible through the haze, and the town was starting to glow on the horizon. I wanted to stand there until the cold got to my bones, but I’d never been good at sitting still.
I took one last look at the stone. The words didn’t change. Nothing ever did. I turned, walked back to the gate, and let it clang behind me. The bike was right where I left it. I wiped my hands on my jeans, started the engine, and listened to the idle settle.
Barstow was waiting. The war was waiting. I twisted the throttle and let the machine do what it was built to do: go fast, and never look back.
I aimed for the highway, and the night swallowed everything behind me.