Chapter Twenty-Five
TWENTY-FIVE
JINX
No matter how many times I hear the phrase, I always forget how true it is: life can change in an instant. I spent yesterday with Kyra because I naively believed we had weeks, if not months, yet, before everything fell to pieces.
But in the blink of an eye, it started.
The Devil’s Breed showed their hand, and now nothing will ever be the same.
Kyra nestles against me, snug between my bent legs, while we wait on the side of the road.
Her hair smells like sweet summer flowers when I lower my head to hers, tightening the arm looped around the front of her shoulders.
All I want to do is get her as far away from this reality as possible, but I can’t take her on the bike like this—not when she’s shaken up.
And Vanessa doesn’t have a car, choosing to walk the mile to work every day, which is why Theresa’s beat-up truck idles to the side of the road, ready to carry Kyra away from this hell.
“Sorry we took so long,” Ness says, spilling out of the passenger side. “We couldn’t find the sign for the door explaining we’re closed early, so I had to quickly write up a new one.”
“No trouble.”
Vanessa ducks behind us to greet Chaos, her gentle “How bad is it?” drifting back to where we sit.
He’ll lie. Tell her it’s under control. That it’s over before it begins. Do all the things a man hell bent on protecting his woman would do. All the things I wish I could do for Kyra.
But I can’t lie. Not when she was there, right in the goddamn middle of it all.
Theresa rounds the truck, mouth firm and eyes understanding. “We’ll take care of her.”
“I know you will.” I wish it were me. I don’t want to let Kyra go, but I’ve got a duty here to help clear the scene. I run my hand up her arm, leaning my head down to whisper beside her ear. “I’ll come by and check on you as soon as I’m done.”
Kyra nods, pressing a little harder against my chest. “You’ve got things to take care of here, Jinx. It’s okay.”
I run my hand over hers, where they rest in her lap. “You’re tough, baby girl. You’ll make sense of it soon enough.”
“I hope so.” She lifts my hand and kisses the back before reluctantly pulling free.
“Let’s make a cozy nest on the sofa,” Vanessa calls as she jogs back to help Kyra to her feet. “Watch movies, play Xbox, and gossip. It’ll be chill.”
I stand, focus locked on Kyra as she climbs into the center of the truck’s bench seat. Her head lifts after she settles, gaze finding mine. I don’t look away until Theresa pulls out from the curb and does a swift turn to head toward Vanessa’s house.
No sooner have they disappeared around the corner than Marty’s patrol car turns in from the opposite direction.
Fuck. I fully expected the asshole to be here sooner, the way Chaos’s shot echoed off the fucking alley.
But the delay was serendipity. At least we managed to get Kyra out of here and our stories straight.
Decided which brother drew the short straw on who takes the heat for the kill.
“Every goddamn time,” Marty erupts, not even fully out of the car yet. “If there’s a disturbance in Temperance, I can guarantee it involves you fuckers.”
“Hey, sweetheart,” Chaos calls, walking down to meet the Sheriff. “Where have you been? You make me worried when you’re late.”
The Sheriff’s face grows redder. “Sass me, boy, and I’ll assume this is your doing.” He glances at the legs of the dead Breed member, partially visible. “Are you fucking serious?” His booming voice grows to a roar with each word.
“Let me explain before you ground me for the weekend,” Chaos says, hands held up before him. “Actually. It’d be easier if I showed you.” He leads Marty down to the body, revealing the rival club patch.
Being a member of the Devil’s Breed doesn’t justify the killing, but it sure goes some way to explaining why and will surely reduce the charges put against Crow.
Two hours later, Marty has everyone’s official statement and warned the lot of us to ‘stay local’, and I’ve organized our lawyers to send a representative for Crow, who faces a few nights in the slammer until we can have him released on bail.
My first instinct is to ride to Vanessa’s. See how Kyra is.
But I hesitate at the intersection that’ll lead me home and turn my head the other way with a sigh.
You know it’s the right thing to do. I change direction and make the forty-minute ride to his place, my shoulders growing tenser with every mile that passes.
The sun hangs low by the time I turn in the short driveway and stop the bike outside his single garage.
My father eyes me from his fold-out chair inside, beer in hand, while he watches the world go by.
“Must be serious if you’re showing your face here,” he barks, barely waiting for me to dismount.
I hang my helmet and then shake out my hair, rubbing the tension in my forearm. “Good to see you too.”
“Quit the bullshit.” His voice is raspier since I last saw him, age and a constant stream of nicotine wearing out his vocal cords. “You’d rather not be here, and I’d rather not have to pretend I give a shit about whatever you’ve got to say.”
No change to his attitude, then.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t offer me a seat or a drink. So I take my own, helping myself to a soda from his fridge and then flick out a matching camp chair to his.
“Make yourself at home, why don’t you?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
His street is a mixture of older folk like him and families, the latter’s kids running riot on an empty lot across the street and two doors down. He flinches every so often at the squeals they make, grumbling in the back of his throat before he takes a swig of his beer.
Yeah. Growing up with Mongrel was a real hoot.
“I’m here for a little insight,” I say, fidgeting with the pull tab on my can. “Got a couple of questions.”
“Like you’d listen to my answer anyway.”
“How did the war with the Blood Eagles start back in ’97?”
He pins me with a disparaging stare. “You know that.”
“I know they provoked it. I know there were several vehicles firebombed. That it was to do with them poaching turf to peddle their shit. But what made it escalate from a dispute to an all-out war?”
Mongrel stares at the road with a heavy sigh. “I thought you knew your history, boy. You get around that goddamn club with cotton in your ears?”
“I was a fucking child when it happened.” Blessedly young enough to still retain naive ignorance to the severity of the environment I was raised in.
“They ignored our warnings to stay the fuck away, so we set up a roadblock,” Mongrel grumbles. He hesitates, rolling his wrinkled lips together. “They ran straight through the darn thing. Didn’t slow down. Fuckin’ sped up if anything. Killed two of our men, and injured three others.”
I’d often heard about the brothers lost over the years, the ones who paid the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives for the club.
But the casualties of the turf war in the nineties were rolled into one roll call of names, forever honored on the wall of the clubhouse.
It wasn’t often that the stories of their individual deaths came out, just that they died at the hands of the Blood Eagles before the Kings of Anarchy managed to regain control of the situation and drive them out.
“Why do you ask?” My father eyes me with suspicion.
I draw a deep breath. Do I tell him? Nope. Still prefer to keep him the fuck out of it for now. “No reason really.”
“You just thought you’d ride out here late one afternoon to ask me about a specific time in the club’s history, yeah?” He coughs, smacking his chest with a closed fist before reaching for his tobacco.
I can’t remember a lot of what he was like before Mom went missing, but I’ve always had the impression he was never much different. That it wasn’t her disappearance that changed him; he was always an asshole.
I sometimes think that if it weren’t for the club’s legacy, he never would have had kids. Never would have had me. Never would have had my sister. Not that he mourns the loss of either of us. Me, emotionally. Her, physically.
“It helps to understand the details,” I grumble.
“Are the Blood Eagles back?” He peeks at me in his periphery while he rolls a cigarette.
“Naw. We’re okay.”
“Then why ask about them?”
“Why not?”
His face sours, a rush of blood warming his cheeks as his anger rises.
“I may not have my colors on now, boy, but I’m still twice the fucking King of Anarchy you’ll ever be.
” He hastily finishes the cigarette, tobacco hanging out the tail.
“Don’t you dare come to my fucking house and treat me like a civilian.
I have more of a right to know what the fuck’s going on up there in Temperance than anyone. ”
You can take the man out of the club, but you can’t take the enforcer out of the man.
“Nothing’s going on,” I assure him. “Yet.”
“But you prepare for something.”
We do, but I don’t want to say who with. Not when the Breed were always suspected of being the reason my mother vanished.
“We’ve got a club sniffing around the fence,” I say simply. “Just want to be sure my hunch about how far we can push things before it’s terminal is right.”
“The disrespect of death is the clearest line you’ll ever have.” He sparks his smoke. “Kick ’em while they’re down. Push them around. But as soon as you take a life, you’d best be ready to back up your choice with action. As long as you don’t shoot anyone, you’ll be fine.”
“That’s what I thought.” We’re fucked.
“What are the numbers now?” He eyes me through the trail of smoke.
“Forty-five fully-patched.”
“Is that all?” Mongrel shakes his head. “You pansies have fucking let it go to rot. I always knew your stupid ideas would take the beef out of our presence, undo everything my generation did to make sure everyone knew who we fucking were and that we’re not to be messed with.”
The bullet ripping through Pits flashes to mind. “They still know not to mess with us.”
“But they are,” he says, pointing his cigarette at me. “From what you just said, you’ve got trespassers, and they wouldn’t do that if they feared for their life by merely stepping over county lines.”
Maybe he has a point.
“What do you propose we’d have done?” I ask. “Start a war every two to three years for funsies to keep everyone on their toes?”
He shrugs. “I would have. Hurricane would have. It wouldn’t have been a question at our table.”
“Casualties have been next to none since we took over.”
“Even more proof you’re not doing enough.”
Proof that our viewpoints differ. For me, members’ lives are things to protect. For him, they’re currency to be paid in the name of staying feared on the road.
“How many were on the books in ’97?”
He sits for a moment, head lolling side to side while he thinks. “A little over two hundred, I think. Maybe a fraction more.”
The whole damn reason why Temperance hates the Kings; they used to be like flies on the road, constantly in your face and coming from every direction.
“Times aren’t the same, but the threats are,” I muse.
“The world’s changing its attitude toward clubs like ours, but death is still death, and crime is still crime.
The general population wants to feel protected in their homes, but they don’t want to look upon the face of those willing to do what it takes.
” I huff through my nose. “Pretty soon, they’ll have to accept change whether they want it to or not.
The way things are now isn’t sustainable. ”
My father studies me a moment, absently tapping his cigarette over the side of his chair.
“Best you boys decide what you’re going to do to remedy that, then.
” He makes a grumbling noise in his throat.
“You need to boost your numbers, sure. But that’s not as important as what you just talked about: the face you show the world.
Your enemies won’t give two shits how many men face them down if they’re too concerned with what you might do next.
You can’t play nice,” he grouses. “You fuckers like to be all heartfelt and soft, talking shit out before you have to raise arms. Well, I say fuck that.” He jerks forward in his chair with the passion behind his words.
“You need to take your goddamn hoity-toity morals, your conscience, and your deal with God, and set them all aside. Shove them in a box under your bed to collect later, and let that dark part of you free. Show those fuckers who’s in control and make them rethink ever looking your way. ”
Give the man a younger body, and he’d be out there now, hunting down his rivals with a mad smile on his face, wind in his hair. It’s the most passionate I’ve seen him in a long time.
It shows where his heart is.
“Never mind who gets caught in the crossfire, huh?”
He eases back into his chair, slowly turning his head toward me.
Yeah, he knows what I mean. The families: children and women, old ladies and bunnies alike. The people who have no say and no choice in what happens to their world.
“They chose the life as much as you did,” he says, low and level. “Don’t go thinkin’ they’re innocent in all of this.”
Maybe not. But they have limited control over the outcome.
“I know you want to think of yourself as a good man, Matthew.” He takes me by surprise by using my birth name. “But as long as you wear that patch, you never will be. The sooner you make peace with that, the easier your life will be.”
Easier? Or like his? Alone. Bitter.
“Thanks for the chat.” I rise and toss the empty can in the trash and then put the chair away. “When did you last go see the doc to get your health checked?”
He laughs, sending himself into another coughing fit. “Don’t need some overpaid quack to tell me what I already know.”
That he sits in this garage day after day, quietly killing himself with cigarettes and booze. And he knows it.
He wants it.
I swallow away the lump in my throat and give him a tight nod as farewell, knowing one of these days it’ll be the last time I do, and I won’t even know it. He watches me with those tired eyes, a hint of sadness behind the tight lines when I don my helmet and get on my ride.
My father’s best days are over.
And one day, mine will be too.