The entire club was there, expecting a regular church meeting.
This was about to be the most irregular church meeting in the history of them.
There we were, Crunch and I, back from the dead.
You could have heard a pin drop when we walked through the door. Before voices erupted everywhere.
Blaze stood in the front of the room. "I know - " he said, holding a hand up, waiting for the room to return to silence again. "I know that this is not what you expected, to see Crunch and Axe here today."
"No s.h.i.t," someone said.
"What the f.u.c.k is going on?"
The murmurs rippled through the group again, and Blaze held his hand up, his face weary. "We need to explain some things, and the club needs to make a decision today, about where we go from here, about who we are. What kind of a club we are going to be. The decisions we make today are about loyalty. Brotherhood. Family."
Then he began his explanation, let Crunch present his evidence that Mad Dog was stealing from Benicio, stealing from the club. He got one joking comment almost immediately when he started to talk numbers and the books, and shut it down.
"You think it"s no big deal, this s.h.i.t?" he asked. "That it"s a f.u.c.king joke or something? My wife died over this s.h.i.t. Mad Dog had my wife killed over this s.h.i.t."
After that, no one in the room moved a muscle.
We took the club through everything.
It was the longest club meeting I"d been present at.
And when we were finally finished, and Mad Dog"s fate came up for vote, I was filled with this sense of inevitability. Finality.
The vote was unanimous.
Mad Dog would die.
When Benicio"s men brought him inside, bound, and stood him before the club, the air seemed charged with electricity. I stood, facing him, ripped off the tape from his mouth. "They all know what you"ve done. Who you are."
Mad Dog looked at me, then spit on the floor.
I smiled. I would have no remorse when I did what I was going to do.
"Do you have any last words?" I asked.
"See you in h.e.l.l," he said.
I unsheathed my knife. The blade I"d saved for Mad Dog. Then I stepped in front of him. "I"ll see you there," I agreed. "But not today."
I stabbed him, right above the stomach, and pulled out the knife, slick with blood. I handed it to Crunch, like it was a G.o.dd.a.m.ned ceremony.
Pa.s.sing the torch.
Crunch did the same.
Then Blaze stabbed him.
And then one by one, the brothers followed suit, even after Mad Dog was on the floor, each of them plunging the knife into the man who had betrayed the club, who had betrayed us. It wasn"t something I expected or planned, and I just stood there, not even looking at Mad Dog, but watching them, this parade of men willing to be a part of this, not just stand by and watch while we killed him.
And in that moment, I didn"t feel blank.
I felt faith.
In the most warped of possible ways, I felt hope.
June "Are you ready?" I asked, smoothing my skirt. The thought of standing there, at April"s grave, made me want to cry.
"Yeah." Cade pulled on his leather cut.
"Poor MacKenzie," I said.
"You can sympathize with her," Cade said.
"Of course," I said. "Losing your parents isn"t easy. But at her age? I can"t even imagine it. I was older. At least I could understand what was happening, you know? Talk about it. She can"t even understand it."
"Do you think she"ll end up being okay?" he asked "Eventually," I said. "It"ll be a long road. Do you know what Crunch is going to do?"
"He"ll hold up. I think he"s going to go back to Puerto Rico with MacKenzie and grandma, at least for a while. Says he needs a break from the club. I don"t know if he"ll come back."
"MacKenzie will be okay though," I said. "She will." I don"t know if I was trying to convince him or myself.
I was amazed by how many people had turned out, regular people and bikers, even from some other clubs who"d heard what had happened. April was a beloved member of the club family.
During the service, I gripped Cade"s hand, my fingers digging into his palm to keep composed. Crunch stood still, holding MacKenzie, who buried her face in his neck, overwhelmed by all of the people. It wasn"t until Crunch watched MacKenzie toss a rose onto her mother"s coffin after it was lowered into the ground that he broke down, sobbing.
At that point, there wasn"t a dry eye there, not among all those bikers.
Axe "You sure you don"t want to stay, man?" Blaze asked. I looked over at June, where she stood talking to Dani after the service. June tucked her hair behind her ear, bit her lip. The circles under her eyes revealed the toll that all of this had taken on her.
h.e.l.l, I knew the toll all of this s.h.i.t had taken on me.
I didn"t want to stay. Yeah, Blaze and I had once been close. Of all the Inferno MC members, I trusted him more than anyone. Crunch and I hadn"t been tight when we fled to Colorado, but now after all this, I considered him a friend.
Our friendship had been forged in blood.
But with all of that, I couldn"t stay.
It would destroy me, and I knew it.
Blaze knew it.
It didn"t matter what happened in the club. Benicio might be a good man, but it didn"t matter if we worked for him. h.e.l.l, even if we went legit, it wouldn"t matter.
I couldn"t go back to it.
Killing my father"s and April"s murderers was righteous act. But if I stayed, I would have to do it again. It was inevitable.
And if something happened to June, I didn"t want to imagine what I would do, the depths I would descend to protect her.
"No," I said. "We can"t stay. It"s over. I can"t be part of it anymore."
Blaze nodded. "I didn"t expect it." He was silent for a while. "Crunch is going back to Puerto Rico, taking MacKenzie."
"It"s not the best life for her."
Blaze shook his head. "Dani understands that, more than anyone."
Dani would, I thought, growing up in a crime family, her own mother murdered when she was only fourteen.
I looked up as Dani and June joined us.
"It was a nice ceremony," Dani said, sliding her arm around Blaze.
"It was," I agreed.
Silence fell over the group as we stood there. After so much had happened, there was nothing left to say.
Crunch joined us, holding MacKenzie in his arms. The rims of his eyes were red, and his skin was ashen, his cheeks sunken. It had only been a few days, but he looked hollow, a sh.e.l.l of a man.
He looked broken.
I think all of us looked that way.
"Hi Uncle Axe," MacKenzie said shyly, not moving her head from her place on her dad"s shoulder.
"Hey MacKenzie," I said.
"We"re going to visit my grandma"s house," she said. "My mommy isn"t going with us. Daddy said she needs to rest for a while."
I swallowed hard, and looked at June, who was clearly blinking back tears.
"No, baby," Crunch said. His voice cracked, and I thought he was going to break right there. "Mommy"s not going with us."
"Hey, Mac," June said, her voice falsely bright. "Can I see your stuffed animal?"
"It"s a jaguar," MacKenzie said, smiling. "Put me down, daddy." She ran over to June, and I heard June and Dani begin to pepper her with questions.
Crunch spoke to me, his voice low. "We"re going to take off for a while."
"Yeah, that"s what I heard," I said. "June and I are going back to Colorado." I nearly said, you"re welcome anytime, but stopped myself. I was sure he never wanted to set foot in the state again, after what had happened there. I was the opposite- it was the only place I wanted to be. I needed to lay my father to rest.
I needed to lay my own demons to rest.
SALVATION.
West Bend, Colorado Three Years Later June "Be careful, swinging him up in the air like that!" I called from the front porch, watching Cade lift little Stan up in the air and hearing him squeal with delight. "He"s only eighteen months- you can"t go too high!"
Cade carried little Stan back to the porch, and set him down. He toddled around, mostly stable but not entirely, still giggling. Bailey followed him, always loyal, but mostly looking for abandoned snacks. Cade wrapped his arms around me, around my belly.
"I don"t remember you being this anxious the last time you were pregnant," he said.
I leaned my head back against him. "We didn"t have a toddler for you to throw around last time."
"No, we didn"t," he said. "How"s the momma-to-be feeling?"
"Tired," I said. "But happy."
Looking out across the property, to my old house, the one we"d turned into a bed and breakfast, I thought, Stan would have liked this, knowing that Cade had come back here, that we were raising our kids in the home where he"d raised Cade. Keeping the old ranch alive.
"What are you thinking?" Cade asked, his voice low.
"Nothing," I said. "Just that your dad would have liked all of this."
"He"d have loved little Stan," Cade said.
I nodded. "He"d be so proud of you, too, with the bike shop and everything." The bed and breakfast had done so well, with the influx of ski tourists the past two winters, that we"d been able to open a custom bike shop in town, and Cade had gotten to start doing what he loved. It didn"t pay much, but it was good for him.
"Do you ever regret not going back to California?" I asked him. "Regret not being a part of the club anymore?" Guys were bringing their bikes to him from hours away, and Cade was getting a reputation for doing good custom paint jobs, but I sometimes wondered if hanging around those guys just made him wish he was back with the MC.
"No," he said. "I"m pretty barn sour now."
"What?" I asked, turning toward him, my protruding belly in the way. I leaned over to pick up Stan, and he patted his hand on Cade"s face, intrigued by his stubble. "What do you mean?"
"You and that little man right there are my home," he said. "I feel the way horses get, when they"re barn sour and they don"t want to leave the barn. I don"t want to leave you guys. I know where I belong."
Axe Everything was quiet, with my wife and child both napping.
My wife and child.
That"s something I never thought I"d say.
I stood outside, watching the clouds roll by, turning my cell phone over and over in my hand, thinking about the phone call I"d just gotten from Crunch.
He wasn"t Crunch anymore.
He"d moved to Vegas with MacKenzie, had this gig where he did some kind of hacking s.h.i.t for casinos. I couldn"t remember how he"d explained it, something about security or some s.h.i.t. He had come out of retirement, was starting to a.s.sociate with the club chapter out in Vegas. The s.h.i.t that happened out in LA had gotten him a new road name.
Hammer.
I guess brutally killing three a.s.sholes, smashing one man to pieces with a sledgehammer, warranted a name change.
After April"s funeral, he"d gone back to Puerto Rico, left MacKenzie with her grandmother for a bit. Which was probably for the best, because he"d pretty much gone off the deep end, a total f.u.c.king tailspin.
I could understand the feeling.