Chapter 11 #2
"Last night, Doom's father visited his mother at her workplace in the Vegas suburbs.
The Vegas charter confirms Kodiak surveillance on her home address yesterday.
Ramiro brought word an hour ago that the Kodiak MC has been making inquiries to a crew called Los Truenos out toward Aldama.
Small outfit. Cash-light. Hungry. The pitch from Kodiak is the one we've all seen before.
Territory, weapons, protection. In exchange for intel on us and on Alejandro's network. "
She looks down the table.
"Doom is going to walk us through what we're dealing with."
I stand up.
I clock the room without trying.
Python at Amara's left, Zorro at her right. Dante standing against the wall. Boulder and Brick across from each other. Razor with his arms crossed and his attention sharp.
Axel and Rooster on the second tier. The prospects against the back wall, with Compass standing very still by the door.
I walk to the map. I tap Montana with two fingers.
"Five years ago. The Kodiak MC made a play for a smaller club out of Bozeman. Twelve patched members. Cash-strapped because their president had been skimming."
I tap again.
"The Kodiaks came in with the same offer they're making to Los Truenos. Weapons and territory. A path to bigger business they'd never get on their own."
The room is quiet.
"They didn't go to the president. They went to the VP and the Enforcer. Two men who already felt like they were doing the president's work and not getting the cut."
Python writes something on his pad.
"Six months later, that club was absorbed. Their patch is in a glass case in the Kodiak clubhouse in Idaho. Three of the men who said no got hit on a run through Wyoming and never came home."
Nobody moves.
"Kodiak doesn't recruit clubs. They infect them. They find the men inside who feel underpaid or under-recognized, and they make those men an offer. Then they wait. They sit until the target unravels from the inside."
I move to the wall and tap the Vegas mark.
"My father runs the same play on people. He did it to my mother thirty years ago. Doing it to my sister now. The visit to her car last night wasn't a threat. It was a hello. The next one is the threat."
My voice doesn't sound the way it usually does. I'm aware of that and I keep talking anyway.
"Same play here. Surveillance to rattle us, a presence in Vegas to spread us thin across two charters. Pressure, not warfare. They want us reacting to ghosts until we're sloppy or scared or both."
I tap Los Truenos.
"Hungry crews listen. But hungry crews also have leverage points. We get there first and offer something better than what Kodiak is offering. Flip the recruitment, feed Kodiak bad intel through Los Truenos."
I sit down.
Nobody speaks for a long moment.
Then Razor uncrosses his arms.
"How do the Kodiaks handle a target that says no? It’s been a while since I’ve heard anything about these fuckers."
His voice is level. Not cold, not warm. Just level.
He's looking at me directly for the first time in two weeks. I hold the look.
"They don't accept no. They take it as a delay. They go quiet for a while, then they come back at a different angle. New offer, new way in. They'll cycle for months. What they don't have is creativity. Every play is a variation of the same play. If we know the playbook, we can stay ahead of it."
Razor nods once. Slow.
"Good."
He goes back to his arms-crossed position. The freeze breaks.
Boulder leans forward and Python writes something on the pad in front of him.
Zorro and Brick exchange a look I can read at twenty paces. Huh.
Amara stands.
"We move on three fronts. Damon handles Vegas.
Surveillance on Carmen's place and a presence at her hospital.
Ramiro and Ismael work the Los Truenos angle through Alejandro.
I want a meeting set with their leadership inside the week.
Doom, you sit on that meeting. You read the room.
You tell me what their leader wants more than what Kodiak is offering. "
I nod.
Amara slams her gavel on the table. "Adjourned."
The brothers file out.
Most of them clap me on the shoulder on the way past.
Brick, Compass, Boulder, even Python.
Razor walks past without a word, but he glances at me for a half-second and tips his chin.
* * *
I find myself back on the rooftop after church.
I don't remember climbing the ladder. I guess I’m in a daze.
The sun is fully up now, cutting hot light across the concrete, the lawn chair already warming. My phone is in my hand. The envelope from last night is in my other hand.
Ten digits.
I sit in the chair and stare at the number.
I have nothing to say to her.
I've had nothing to say to her for ten years.
The last time I saw her face was through the windshield of a motel parking lot in California while I was getting gas, and when I came back she was gone.
I never heard from her again.
Not on birthdays. Not when our grandmother died in Cartagena two years ago.
Silence.
But Hatchet is in her life now. Showing up. Letting her see him.
And she'll talk to him, but not to me. How fucked is that?
I type the number into my phone and let it sit on the screen.
The call button is right there.
I don't press it.
I hear her boots on the ladder before I see her.
Nova climbs onto the roof and walks across to me.
She's barefoot under her jeans, her hair loose, holding a mug of coffee in each hand. She passes me one and sits on the milk crate.
"Ruby figured you'd be up here," she says.
I take the coffee. It's exactly the way I make it, which means Ruby asked her.
"Church went long," she says.
"Yeah."
She doesn't ask what happened. She knows I'll tell her if I want to.
We sit. The compound is starting to come alive below us. Kids' voices from inside the kitchen, Compass already in the garage.
She watches me with the phone in my lap.
"Is that her?" she asks.
"Yeah."
She doesn't say anything for a long time. She drinks her coffee. She watches the city.
"What's stopping you from calling?" she asks finally.
I don't know how to answer that.
The silence stretches. The sun gets brighter. The lawn chair is hot under my legs now, and I feel it the way I didn't feel the cold last night.
"She doesn't want to hear from me," I tell her eventually.
"Yeah, probably not."
I look at her.
"My mom and all my fathers have a rule," Nova says, looking at her coffee.
"If someone you love is in trouble, you show up.
You don't wait for them to invite you. You don't wait for them to make it easy.
You show up, you say what you came to say, and you go.
They get to decide what to do with it. But you don't get to skip the showing up part. "
I let her words sit.
She turns the mug in her hands.
"The call isn't for her, amor. It's for you. You don't get to live the rest of your life not having made it. She gets to decide whether to listen. You get to decide whether you reach out."
I look at the phone.
I look at her.
She doesn't smile. She doesn't reach for me. She sits there in the morning light with her coffee and her bare feet and the certainty of a woman raised by three men who showed up every day.
I press the call button.
I lift the phone to my ear.
It rings. Once. Twice. Three times. Four.
The voicemail picks up. No name. Just the carrier's generic woman's voice telling me to leave a message after the tone.
I wait for the beep.
Then I talk.
"Wren. It's Emiliano. I know you don't want to hear from me, so I'll be quick."
A breath.
"The man visiting you in Canada, Curtis, isn't who he's telling you he is. He wants something from me, and he's using you to get it. He'll keep coming. He doesn't stop until you stop letting him in."
Another breath.
"I'm not going to call again. You don't owe me anything. But I love you. I'm always going to be your brother, even when you don't want me to be."
A pause.
"If you ever need me, call this number back and let it ring. I'll know."
I end the call.
The phone goes dark.
I sit with it in my lap.
Nova doesn't say anything. She reaches over and puts her hand flat on my forearm. She doesn't squeeze. She doesn't rub. She just lets her palm rest there, warm and present.
I let her.
The desert stretches past the compound walls.
The city is fully awake now.
Bikes on the main road.
The radio from the tienda on the corner playing something with horns.
Wren is in Canada. She didn't pick up, but I called. At least I did my part.
I press my thumb against my palm, hard, and let it go.
That's all I had.