Back when my wife was alive.
Back when everything was the way it should be.
I opened the car door and stepped out, feeling awkward in jeans and a t-shirt, suddenly reminded of what I used to wear. The emblem of brotherhood.
Some fucking brotherhood, after what had happened with Mad Dog. After what he had done to April.
Blaze walked outside, a grin on his face. “Good to see you, man,” he said, clapping my shoulder. “It’s been way too fucking long.”
Whatever my misgivings were about being back here, I couldn’t help but be glad to see him. Blaze used to be a friend. He still would be if I were around here any more. If I were part of the club. “You too, Blaze. How are things going?”
Blaze nodded. “Smooth. Come in. Have a beer or something.”
I nodded. “Yeah, sure."
"You just drop MacKenzie off at the airport?" he asked.
I nodded.
"Shit man," Blaze said. "That's fucking rough."
I nodded. "At least we got her on a direct flight out of LAX. Couldn't get her anything direct out of Vegas. Didn't want her trying to navigate airports by herself, even with a flight attendant or whatever the hell." I answered him like he was just talking about the travel itself being rough. That wasn't what he was fucking talking about, and I knew it. But I didn't want to talk about how rough it was that my kid was going to be far away because I wasn't a good enough dad.
"April's mom seemed like a good lady," Blaze said. He was trying to make me feel better.
It wasn't going to work.
I followed Blaze inside the mostly empty clubhouse, a handful of brothers watching a game on the TV. I stared at the concrete floor still stained this ugly rust brown color, where the residue from Mad Dog still remained.
Blaze saw me looking at the floor. “Yeah, I kept it like that,” he said.
“The cops never…”
He shook his head. “No real investigation. They came by asking a few questions, but that was it. We made the bodies disappear. With Benicio's help.”
“What about Kate?” Mad Dog's wife had been just as involved in his shit as he had been.
“I took care of her,” Blaze said. His features tightened and his gaze became intense.
"You did?" I asked.
Blaze nodded. "Personally."
Blaze was pretty easy-going, tolerant of a lot of bullshit. People sometimes made the mistake of interpreting his laid-back attitude as indicative of weakness. But you only crossed Blaze once. He took shit like that real personal. I had no doubt that Kate's treachery was met with an appropriate degree of vengeance from Blaze.
“Crunch,” Knuckles yelled. “How the hell are ya, you rotten old bastard?” He walked up, hand extended. I took it to give it a firm shake and found myself wrapped up in a bear hug. I couldn't help but smile, knowing that some things really did always stay the same. Knuckles was one of those guys who would never change, gregarious to the point of obnoxious, perpetually in need of a shower, and the first to throw a punch if shit was going down.
He dropped me and I nodded. “I’m okay, Knuck. How’s the family?”
“Oh, you know,” he said. “Same old. Cassie got a boyfriend.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah, she told me it was none of my fucking business.” He laughed. “Can you believe that shit? Sixteen years old. I had a little chat with the boyfriend. Surprised he stuck around. What the fuck man, you been working out? Looks like you’ve been in fucking lock-up or something.”
“Yeah, been working out.” I didn’t add that it was about the only thing that kept me from losing my fucking mind anymore.
I turned to Blaze. "How's Dani?"
"Good," he said. "She's doing great in law school. Told her she'd better be doing good. She'll probably have to defend my ass one of these days."
"Here?" I asked. "Or is she still at Stanford?" I should know these things. The old me would have known these things.
"UCLA," he said.
"That's good." I was silent. Blaze and one of the other guys made idle chit-chat and I looked around, detached from the whole thing. I didn't recognize some of the newer patches, and the whole place had a different flavor since I had left. It was kind of like going back to visit your parents after years away- everything was the same, but it was all different.
It definitely didn't have the same vibe it had when Mad Dog was running the show, but that last year with Mad Dog in charge everything had gone to shit anyhow. The whole place had been out of control crazy, parties all the time, drinking, drugging. It hadn't just been me that was out of control. The whole fucking club was. This, now- it was more subdued somehow. The guys sitting around, relaxed, watching the game. It was more...normal, I guess.
One of the brothers, someone who had been patched since I left, walked up to me, held out his hand. "Hey, man," he said. "You're a fucking legend around these parts. Nice to meet you."
"A legend, huh?" I repeated the word slowly. "I'm not sure why."
A kid, one of the prospects, stood a few feet away, obviously eager. "Hammer," he said, nodding. "They've been calling you Hammer. Why are you riding up here in a cage, man?"
I felt blood pumping in my ears, and my face was immediately hot. Some stupid prospect without a filter and a shred of common sense wanted to run his mouth? Retired or not, I was going to fuck this kid up. "You want to find out why I'm riding in a cage, you stupid fuck?"
My fist clenched, my feet shifted, and then Blaze yelled, "Shut the fuck up, Prospect! No one said you could fucking talk. Thatcher, get in here and take care of your goddamn prospect."
The prospect looked down at the ground, hung his head, and Thatcher slapped him across the head like a chastised child, then pushed him out the door, screaming like a drill sergeant at boot camp.
"Hammer?" I turned to Blaze. "When the fuck did that happen? That's some serious bullshit, especially from a prospect."
"He'll be taken care of." Blaze said. "Prospects don't need to be opening their fucking mouths like that. Actually, you can go kick the shit out of him if you want." Blaze nodded toward the open door.
I glanced outside, then shrugged it off. The truth was, I didn't know if I could stop once I started. Lately, it seemed like more and more was setting me off, and I was going zero to sixty in mere seconds. It used to take a lot more than this kind of bullshit to push me over the edge.
"Hammer?" I asked.
"The Hammer thing," Blaze said. "It's because word gets around, Crunch. I sent two brothers to help Benicio's guys clean that shit up. They came back to the club, drank themselves incoherent, and you know, shit happens. What they said became legend. For fuck's sake, even Benicio's hitters think you're the goddamned boogeyman now, and those guys are hard fucking dudes."
"Jesus Christ." I didn't know what to think about that shit. Achieving a reputation for pulverizing someone into pieces with a sledgehammer was one thing I'd never expected in life. It was also tied to my wife's murder, and I didn't need another fucking reminder of that. Not in a name. I'd thrown away my original road name, Crunch, when I retired. I didn't want to be reminded of the past.
Blaze saw the look on my face. "Come on," he said, turning. "Have a beer with me. Unless you want something stronger."
"Beer's good," I said. Blaze grabbed a couple of longnecks from the bar as we passed it, and ushered me into the back room, Mad Dog's former office.
"Place looks different without Mad Dog here," I said.
Blaze nodded. "Not just the office, either."
"I noticed that," I said. "Out there. It's a little calmer."
"Things are good, Ha - Crunch," Blaze corrected himself. So he was calling me Hammer now too.
"I'm glad to hear it," I said. "Working with Benicio is good for the club." I assumed they were still working with Benicio. I wasn't privy to club business now, and I knew not to even broach the topic. I was trying to be friendly, casual. But this was fucking awkward. I had no real reason to be
here anymore.
Blaze nodded. "It's all good now. You think about coming back to the club, coming out of retirement?"
"I - " I started, then stopped. Had I ever thought about it? Yeah, of course I had. I'd be crazy not to think about it. This club had been my whole life, the brothers my family.
Until the day April was taken from me.
They hadn't been a part of my life now for a long time.
Blaze looked at me, waiting for a response.
I shook my head. "I don't think so, man..." I said.
"I don't expect it," Blaze said. "It's understandable. But if you ever wanted to come out of retirement, here or at the Vegas chapter, normal rules wouldn't apply." Normal rules meaning the chapter rules that required retirees to stay in retirement for at least five years. It was designed to keep people from deciding to retire and then come out of retirement impulsively.
That wasn't going to happen, not in my case.
No matter how much part of me wanted to ride again.
Or the part of me that missed what I had here, the sense of brotherhood. No matter how empty I felt now, without April, without the club, I wasn't going back.
"It's good of you to say that, Blaze," I said. What the hell else was I going to say? Thanks, but no fucking thanks.
"If you ever want to come back, say the word," Blaze said.
I nodded. It will never happen, I thought. I stood there, silently. This was what the fuck Blaze wanted me to stop by for? To tell me that I needed to fucking consider coming out of retirement?
He finally spoke. "I've got a job you might be interested in," he said.
"Shit, Blaze, I'm not getting back into club business. You got to understand that, man," I said. "No can do..."
Blaze shook his head. "I'm not asking you to get back into club business. This is strictly contract shit. You're retired. It's just that we need someone with your tech skills."
"What kind of tech shit are we talking about exactly?"
"We're in a couple of new enterprises, with Benicio. This involves the chapter out in Vegas too."
"Not here?"
"Both."
"Okay." I was getting irritated with how vague Blaze was being about this. Just fucking come out and ask whatever it is you're going to ask, man. That's what I was thinking. I didn't say it. "I'm not going to promise anything until I know what the job is. I don't even know it's something I can actually do."
Blaze nodded. "Instead of telling me, let me show you."
"Meia,” Aston was bent over, his face close to the glass coffee table, inhaling white powder off the surface. “Where the fuck have you been? I called for you over an hour ago.”
“With the Congressman - the meeting you set up, if you recall.” I set my purse on the sofa, this piece of furniture - a modern art piece- that was ridiculously uncomfortable and useless in every way. Aston’s penthouse was filled with such things. I sometimes wondered how many people he could buy with the same amount of money.
Or how many women he had already bought.
Those were things I tried not to think about, tried to put out of my head so I could get through the day. The larger questions like that, I couldn't think about them. If I did, I'd fall into despair. Everything would seem too insurmountable.
Aston rose, walked toward me, put his hand at the base of my neck, his fingers raveling through my hair. He gripped me hard, too hard, yanking the hair by its roots. His mouth close to my ear, he whispered, “I don’t like this.”
“What?” I asked, my heart racing. I was surprised I felt fear at all anymore. I shouldn't, not with everything I'd been through. People say that your body adjusts to living in a perpetual state of fear, that over time it dissipates. But not for me. Each time felt like the first all over again, the dread and the anticipation, and the terror coursing through my body. But it was all because of him - my son. If not for him, I wouldn't care if I lived or died.
But I needed to keep him alive. I needed to see him again. I needed to get him out of Aston's clutches, before it was too late. Before Aston turned him into a monster. Even from afar, I didn't doubt Aston's ability to mold him, to shape him into his likeness. It was the kind of thing he would do for fun.
I wanted to kill Aston. Desperately.
I ached to kill him.
More than anything, I thought about stabbing him, feeling the knife pierce his skin, sliding it into his body and watching him fall to the floor, bleeding.
But I couldn't. My son would be dead.
Another yank on my hair pulled my thoughts back to my grim reality. “I don’t like you seeing the Congressman.”
As if it was my choice.
“It was by your request,” I said through gritted teeth, not even bothering to employ the light tone I usually used with him. He was unstable, his emotions intense and subject to ever changing whims. He'd whore me out to other men, then get angry that I had done what he asked, jealous of my supposed infidelity.
Aston’s finger traced over the top of my breasts, lightly, his hand still keeping a tight grip on my hair. Then he moved his finger down farther, opened the light trench coat I wore despite the warm weather, to conceal what I was wearing underneath. His finger slipped under the fabric, barely moving it from my skin, and he grazed my nipple. My nipple hardened to his touch, like it had a mind of its own.
And I felt revulsion. It was a familiar feeling, one I knew well from all of my training. This was what sex was. Arousal, fear, revulsion.
And more than anything else, rage.
“You belong to me,” he said, his hand covering my breast, cupping it in its entirety.
I met his gaze, my jaw set. I belong to no one, I thought. Least of all you. But I said, "I am yours."
"Was the Congressman good?" he asked, his finger circling round and round my nipple. "Did he turn you on?"
"I didn't need to sleep with him to get what you needed," I said. "He passed out."
Aston pushed me away, began pacing the room, filled with energy, hopped up on whatever he was on, his movements jerky. "You got the photos?"
Blackmail photos.
"They're in my purse, Aston," I said. I felt a flush of shame, like I always did at my behavior. I was doing things I could barely stomach. The Congressman was an asshole, a disgusting man. But he was a disgusting man with a wife, someone who cared about him. Someone who would be hurt by the kinds of photos I had taken.
I hated what I was doing.
I hated who I had become.
I could do nothing else.
Aston's phone rang, and he answered it, his words clipped, short. I listened for any information that might help me. I was always listening, despite the danger, filing away bits and pieces of knowledge in my head that I thought might someday help me find out anything...where Aston was keeping my son, how I might destroy Aston.
More often than not lately, I was beginning to lose hope.
When he hung up the phone, he returned, sliding his arms around me, the way I imagined a lover would.
As if I knew what a lover would do. I'd never had one. I'd only had owners.
“I’m tired of the others,” he said, his finger circling round and round my nipple.
Then don't whore me out to others, I thought. It was always this way, after Aston did something like this. He would be filled with momentary regret, rage that some other man had me, paranoia that I might have enjoyed sex with someone else.
That was something I could never imagine, sex with anyone being enjoyable. It never had been, and it never would be.
"I'm yours and yours alone, Aston." I spoke the words I knew he wanted to hear, my heart pounding in my chest, the words I thought might get me a reprieve from a beating.
But I knew better.
He kissed my neck, and I turned my mind off, knowing what he was about to do, that he would claim me as his own, some kind of