Chapter 6
The investigation widened before Cal left the hospital.
Federal agents searched the biker bar.
Then Pike’s office.
Then three garages across Arizona.
Then a warehouse outside Henderson, Nevada.
Names started falling out of locked drawers.
Pike.
Vincent Cross.
Two county officers.
A judge’s nephew.
And someone inside the Red Valley Riders.
Not Reaper.
Not me.
Not Silas.
Someone worse.
Bear.
The man who had blocked the door.
The man who had stood beside Silas for twelve years.
The man everyone trusted because he said little and lifted heavy things.
Bear had been feeding Pike route changes.
Bear had told him when Cal started asking questions.
Bear had helped stage the accusation against me.
When agents arrested him, he did not fight.
He just looked at Silas and said, “You got old.”
Silas hit him once before federal agents pulled him back.
Not enough to injure badly.
Enough to say twelve years had meant something before betrayal poisoned it.
Reaper watched from the corner, his broken arm in a sling.
His eyes met mine.
“I’m sorry about Cal.”
I wanted to tell him sorry was garbage.
I wanted to knock him down again.
Instead, I said, “You put him near men who eat boys like him.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
“That guilt better do more than sit there.”
“It will.”
I did not ask what he meant.
I had my own guilt to carry.
Cal recovered at my apartment.
He hated it.
I loved it.
For once, I knew where he was.
He sat on my couch with bruises fading and a stack of mechanic school paperwork on his lap.
“I missed orientation,” he muttered.
“You almost missed breathing. Perspective.”
He glared.
“You sound like a motivational poster with anger issues.”
“Good. Fill out the forms.”
The school deferred him to the next term.
Mia, my neighbor’s daughter who helped with paperwork because she was better at forms than both of us, found emergency aid.
Cal pretended not to cry.
I pretended not to notice.
Meanwhile, the club fractured.
Some men wanted revenge.
Some wanted to run.
Some wanted to pretend Pike and Bear were isolated problems.
Silas called church three days after the arrests.
I almost did not go.
Then Cal said, “You should.”
“Why?”
“Because if you don’t, men like Bear get to decide what the club becomes.”
I hated when he was right.
The meeting was tense.
No beer.
No music.
Just men sitting under dim lights, waiting for a president to admit the house was burning.
Silas stood at the front.
“We became useful to people we should’ve buried in the desert of memory,” he said.
No one laughed.
Good.
“I let outside money in. I let dirty badges too close. I told myself I was protecting us while I watched rot spread.”
His eyes found mine.
“Jax paid for that. Cal paid for that. Three brothers sitting in prison paid for that.”
Reaper stood.
“I accused the wrong man.”
The room shifted.
“That’s on me,” he said. “I added Cal to the chat. I thought I was keeping him close enough to watch. I was wrong.”
He looked at me.
“I owe blood.”
“No,” I said.
Everyone turned.
“No more blood debts. That’s how this started.”
Silas studied me.
“What do you want?”
I looked around the room.
At old men, young men, lost men, angry men.
“Clean house,” I said. “Or I walk.”
May you like
Silas nodded slowly.
“Then we clean house.”
