Besides my great big surprise, The Wet Mermaid is exactly as I expected. Mark runs me through my responsibilities for the night. It’s so straightforward, anyone could do it, but I guess they need someone who looks imposing. Mark introduces the guy I’m shadowing tonight as Beer Can, then leaves us to it.

Beer Can looks me up and down, arms crossed around his round torso. Gray streaks his black hair and beard. Despite his short stature, the dude is solid. He could be a Viking warrior. "You looking to patch in?"

Most of the guys here wear leather jackets or vests with the River Reapers insignia: a sludge reaper with water snakes wrapped around it. It’s a nod to the nationally known pollution level of the Naugatuck River due to illegal chemical plant dumping. Supposedly the river is actually clean now. Back in elementary school, kids whispered stories of two-headed fish and more sinister creatures.

I give Beer Can a shrug. I’m here for a job. At least, I thought I was. It’s really fucking weird that my P.O. would hook me up with this place.

Beer Can leans in. The patch on his breast reads SGT. AT ARMS. "Between you and me, kid, you’re better off. On the outside, you need family." He claps my shoulder twice. "Hang around, get to know everyone. You might like it."

I glance away. I might be green, but I’ve been around long enough to know that it’s pretty rare for M/Cs to invite in outsiders—especially nobodies like me. Either someone is fucking with me, or these guys are desperate. Whatever it is, I want no part of it.

Beer Can leans against the door frame. "Now, most of this gig is carding kids. Don’t know what it is, but they always think they’re gonna pull one over us." He spears me with dark eyes, face even darker despite his fair complexion. "Everyone gets IDed, even old men with oxygen tanks and walkers, got it?"

I nod. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a flash of bare flesh. One of the girls swings around the pole, legs a blur. Working here is going to be a pain in the balls.

"While we’re on the list of dos and don’ts, our girls are off limits. No palming asses or stealing kisses. They’re all club property. We clear?" Beer Can may be all of 5’6", but he’s no one to piss off. If push came to shove, it would be a close fight.

"You don’t have to worry about me," I say, thinking of Olivia.

"Good." Beer Can jerks a thumb toward the bar. "Every once in a while, fights’ll break out. Usually it’s just brothers messing around. Maybe someone had too much to drink. Sometimes it’s about a woman. We don’t run into too much trouble. Mostly it’s about flexing muscle, separating 'em. You know, kids in opposite corners." He strokes his beard. "Though sometimes we just let 'em at it, if it’s a good match."

I think of all the fights I’ve seen in the past two decades. "I once saw a guy get his head kicked in."

"Not here." Beer Can laughs.

"So no rival clubs storming in?" I keep my voice light and conversational, but I am curious. Mostly because I don’t want to get mixed up in that shit. Plus there’s Olivia to think of. I think I have to tell Lucy, which is going to be a problem because then I might have to mention the other night. But I can’t let Olivia work here. I don’t know what the fuck she was thinking, but even if the River Reapers aren’t outlaws, they’re still dangerous.

Then again, so am I.

Beer Can shakes his head. "None of that shit." He claps my shoulder again. "We have fun. We ride, throw parties, sell a little coke."

Christ. "Thought it was just Percs and shit?" I cock my head at Beer Can, who gives me a smug shrug. With every passing second, I’m more and more anxious to get Olivia out of here. She’s a college girl, for fuck’s sake. There have to be a hundred jobs at her school, yet she picks a drug warehouse fronting as a strip club.

This job is going to be temporary for both of us. There’s no way my P.O. did this knowing what's going on here. Normally, I wouldn’t care, but I’ll die before I go back into that concrete tomb.

"Relax, kid," Beer Can says. "If I were you, I’d float on this parade while it lasts."

Before I can ask him what the fuck that means, a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing colors strides up to us. He glares down at me with hazel eyes, even though we’re about the same height. The patch on his breast reads PRESIDENT.

The President holds out his hand. "I’m Ravage. Good to finally meet you." As we clasp, his gaze holds mine. Respect flickers in them. It takes me by surprise.

I glance from Ravage to Beer Can. Maybe it’s my time still haunting me, but this whole thing has me uneasy. I don’t know what to expect or what they expect from me. And even though I’m sure they’re great guys, I can’t believe any rational P.O. would send an ex-con to join a biker gang.

"I’m sure you’ve got questions for me," Ravage says. “Then there are a few guys who would really love to meet you.” He jerks his head, indicating for me to follow him.

Beer Can gives me a nod and returns to his position at the door.

I follow Ravage into a sort of conference room. A huge tapestry embroidered with the club’s insignia takes up a whole wall. Various photos and items with club colors decorate the rest of the walls. Ravage sits at the head of the heavy oak table and motions for me to sit too. "Is Mark gonna be cool with this?" I ask.

Ravage smiles. "Mark is our Treasurer. He answers to me." He jabs a thumb at his chest. "Don’t worry about him." Leaning back in his seat, he swivels a little to the left, then a little to the right, back and forth. Just watching me.

Waiting.

My brows furrow. I want a simple life. No games. A job to come home from. Eventually a place of my own. I think of Lucy’s spare bedroom. Good thing she decorates in neutrals. Then, as if by default, I think of Olivia.

Ravage nods at me, that smile still there. He oozes understanding and respect. It’s fucking weird. "I get it, man. Fresh out—everything is surreal. But I made a promise, and I’m gonna hold up my end of the bargain. I always do." He places both hands on the table, palms down. "Fire away, kid."

I start with the obvious. "Why did my probation officer connect me with this job?"

Ravage shoots me a superior look. "Because no one else around here will hire a convicted felon." He leans forward. "But we do. We have an arrangement with local law: send us your convicts, and we won’t cause any trouble. Mostly." His smile is feline and predatory. "We also get a nice tax break, so I owe you another thank you."

"Another?" I’m scowling so hard, my face is going to get stuck this way. I don’t believe any of his bullshit. Whatever his game is, he’s playing me.

"Relax," he says. "We didn’t bring you here to cause trouble." He drums thick fingers on the wood. His voice drops conspiratorially. "Everyone in this town knew what was happening to that poor little girl. It still boils my fucking blood." Face clouding over, he looks away for a moment. "We don’t tolerate that shit."

My face relaxes an iota. "Why are we talking about Lucy?"

Ravage straightens. His eyes meet mine, awed. "You did what none of us were able to do, son. When you went in, we took a vote. I promised to watch out for you when you got out."

I should ask him where the fuck they all were a week ago, but I don’t. Mostly because I still don’t understand the game. Thoughts are knocking around in my head like a bunch of bumper cars. I need a cigarette, some time to sit down and make sense of this. Because it's completely upside down.

"We can’t have shit like that in this town," Ravage continues. "It’s wrong.”

He says this with such conviction, it surprises me. Everything I know about bikers is compounded into one rule: stay away.

"We were fractioned,” he continues. “Couldn’t come to an agreement. Any decision had to be unanimous. This club was split into two, and there was nothing I could do about it. And then you came along." Despite the light from the overhead lamp, Ravage’s eyes are hooded, shadows painting his face into an angel of death. "Killing him wasn’t against club rules, because you weren’t a member. You did us all a favor, kid, so now it’s time for us to repay you."

The room spins as he stands. His words replay in my head, my brain trying to catch up. I must’ve been one naive kid to have missed something this big.

Ravage slides a leather vest across the table to me. My eyes snap up to his. I start to shake my head.

"It’s a brand new world when you realize who your father really is," he says quietly. "But you’re a better man than he was."

I trace the insignia that is embroidered into the leather with a trembling hand. Surreal doesn’t even begin to cover what’s happening right now. "I don’t even have a bike," I tell Ravage, voice hoarse. I need a drink. Or a whole bottle. Even though I wasn’t actually manipulated, I feel used. But that’s not all.

"We have plenty," the President says. Like it’s that simple. They can just give me a bike and I’m ordained.

As I trace the sewn on Prospect rocker, an entirely new feeling envelopes me. It brings me back to my childhood, when one-year-old Lucy giggled for me for the first time. We were at my parents’, and she’d asked for a cookie. My mother told her no, that it was too close to dinner. As soon as she left the room, though, I climbed up onto a chair and grabbed one of the soft chocolate chip cookies from its packaging. Breaking it in half, I handed one to Lucy. She tapped hers against mine and giggled, an announcement of camaraderie.

I haven’t felt anything like it in twenty years.

My eyes meet Ravage’s. He gives me a nod.

"Go ahead, son. Try it on."

So I do.

The cut-off vest has a weight to it that isn’t just the leather. It’s brotherhood, but it’s also a major responsibility. It’s the unasked question that is heavy on my tongue. I’m afraid to voice it, because I already know the answer, and I don’t like it. It means that there’s no escaping who I am, that the very thing I hate is embedded deep in my veins. The only way to get rid of it is to spill every drop—but I don’t believe in that.

My choice is obvious: either I embrace what I am, straddle the point of no return and ride it out, or I walk away. The answer comes easy because there’s nowhere else to go. I’m not leaving Naugatuck and Lucy. There’s also Olivia to think about, but I can’t get started on that just yet. I’ve got enough to chew on.

Ravage sends me off, telling me he’ll knock my teeth out if I go back to the door—Beer Can’s got it. I’m supposed to wander around, meet my future brothers, and enjoy the party. Turns out they’re closing the place to River Reapers only.

We’re celebrating me.

What I did.

I walk straight to the bar. Olivia is chatting with a woman whose bronze skin is so deep, it’s actually black. The other woman would normally be my type: long curly hair, round eyes, supple breasts that I can grab onto and hold. If Beer Can hadn’t told me to keep away from the girls here, she’d be my new class crush. Maybe the rules change when you’re fully patched.

Olivia eyes me as if she knows exactly what I’m thinking. She gives her head a tiny shake and shifts her eyes toward a purple-haired Puerto Rican woman at the other end of the bar.

I see the glances they exchange, and it’s obvious: they’re together.

Fair enough. It’s not like I can stop thinking about Olivia, anyway. Working here is going to make it even harder to stick to our arrangement.

The curly-haired woman carries two fresh drinks over to her girlfriend. They look at each other as if they’re the only two people in the world. I want that. I really do. But there isn’t a single woman in this world who would want that with me. She’d have to be irrational, and I don’t fuck with unstable chicks.

Olivia examines my vest. "That was fast."

I slump onto a stool. "I need a drink. Anything."

She frowns, but pours me a Jack and Coke. "Want to talk about it?"

Sipping my drink, I consider the idea. Confiding in her would be typical boyfriend/girlfriend behavior, though—strictly against our agreement. So many rules bind me now. And here I thought I’d gotten out of prison.

"Don’t worry," she says. "Bartenders are like therapists without the pay. You talk, and I’ll keep the drinks coming." She winks and lights a cigarette.

For the first time, I notice that everyone is smoking freely. I light one too. "We won’t get fined for this?"

Laughing, Olivia raises her cigarette in a salute. "All the time. Naugy makes a lot of money off us. We all chip in to cover it."

I lean on the bar and drop my voice. "Do you have any idea what’s going on here?"

She shrugs. "Why would I? I’m just the bartender." She takes a drag, then exhales into the smoky air. "Most guys would kill to wear that, you know."

"They sell drugs, Olivia. This is just a front." And fuck knows what else they do. I don’t say that, though. "This isn’t a good place for you."

The relaxed woman in front of me morphs before my eyes. Her eyelids droop so that only slits of her pupils, irises, and whites are showing. Her lip curls. Nostrils flaring, she stabs the cigarette into the air in front of me. "You don’t get to tell me what to do."

"Look, I’m not trying to be a dick, Livvie—"

"And you don’t get to call me that." She sucks in a long drag. "The only way this is going to work, Cliff, is if you do you and I do me. We agreed: family reunions. That means you don’t stomp around acting like my fucking daddy."

I rub my temples. "So you don’t mind working in a place that sells coke?"

The dirty look she tosses me is simultaneously condescending. "What the fuck do you think I do behind this bar? Pour beer for shit tips?"

Oh, Olivia. I look down at my drink, at the cigarette in my hands. I need something a lot stronger. It’s only my first shift and everything is spiraling out of what little equilibrium I had. "You’ll go down with them," I say. "Do you want that?"

She rolls her eyes. "I want to pay off my student loans. The most I can possibly hope to make is $40,000 a year in this fucking state. I’ll be lucky if I can land a job with DCF. I don’t want to start off in debt right out of the gate."

"What is it you’re going for?" I pictured her as doing something more adventurous, not sitting in a goddamn state office all day.

Stubbing out her cigarette, she settles those brown eyes on mine. "I want to be a social worker. I wanna help kids in the system." The unsaid remainder of that sentence hangs between us: So they don’t end up like you.

"Don’t you think," I say slowly, "that it’ll be a little hard to get a nice state job if you’re convicted of selling drugs?"

"Fuck you," she lobs at me.

Grinning, I stand. "You already did." I walk away, the whiskey soaking into me. Not in an out of control way. My veins swim, limbs relaxed. This head is clear.

The overhead speakers crackle, and the music switches from modern shit I’ve never heard to nineties grunge and metal. Soundgarden’s "Black Hole Sun" spins, the two girls on the pole whirling with it. I watch them for ten or so seconds before I move on.

This is my party. I might as well enjoy it.

Brothers pass me beer and clasp hands with me as I make my way through. Every one of them is welcoming, some of the older ones even thanking me. I guess the younger members wouldn’t really know about what went down.

I’m not even sure I do, anymore.

They make the eighteen-year-old Cliff who saved Lucy sound like a hero. But it wasn’t like that. Not for me. It feels wrong to celebrate it. I may have protected Lucy, but the price I paid is acid eating at my soul. The man who walked out of penitentiary is not that teenager. From one second to the next, I’d transformed into something unrecognizable. A dark, insatiable creature.

Most people would be horrified if they had to do what I did. No matter how hard I try to feel otherwise, I enjoyed it.

I revel in every moment that replays in my head.

The only part that I would take back is Lucy, huddled in the corner, screaming with horrified eyes locked on me. As if I was the monster instead. Even still, there’s no doubt in me that I would do it again.

A man with red hair and a beard streaked through with a few grays claps me on the back. I read VICE PRESIDENT embroidered on his chest. "Welcome home, Cliff." His light eyes are sincere, shimmering with joy.

If someone had told me someday I’d bring a whole club of bikers happiness, I would’ve laughed at them. I’m not laughing now.

Turns out whiskey chased with lots of beer is so much safer than tequila. "Thanks," I reply. My shot nerves are swimming in alcoholic bliss. Apparently I’m at least ten times more sociable when I’m drunk. I make a mental note not to get too fucked up that I can’t talk to Lucy when I get home. She needs to know about Olivia.

"Everyone calls me Skid," the Vice President says. "It’s a long story."

Beer Can slings an arm around each of us—my waist and Skid’s shoulders. "It’s actually pretty simple. Skid here dumped his bike but wasn’t wearing anything else." He grabs Skid’s arm and rolls up the black sleeves he’s wearing under his cut, exposing a rash of pocked, whitened flesh. It’s at least ten years’ healed, but still angry.

Both men laugh.

"You should see the rest of me," Skid tells me.

"Don’t worry," Beer Can assures me. "I’m teaching you how to ride tomorrow, not this asshole."

Billy Idol pumps over the speakers, and my mood lifts even more. Even if I’m wary of joining the M/C, I have to admit—at least to myself—that I’m drawn to it. The notion of cruising down Naugy back roads with so much power between my legs and a whole family of brothers around me is such a good one, I can almost overlook the drugs. Give me a week and I’ll probably be completely ambivalent about it. Knowing what I know now, this was inevitable.

I’ve finally come home.

Beer Can waves several dollar bills and staggers toward the stage, leaving me and Skid in the middle of the club.

The Vice President leans in, eyes glinting. "I got you a little something, kid." He jerks his head for me to follow him. I stumble in his wake, suddenly more drunk than I thought I was. It’s still just a nice buzz, not anything I’m going to wake up hungover with. I follow Skid to a door that takes us into a hall. We pass customer restrooms and the dancers’ dressing rooms, then come to a flight of stairs.

It occurs to me that he might be taking me up to the roof so he can shove me off. No one knows where I am. Olivia is busy at the bar, probably pissed off at me, and Lucy is at home doing lesson prep for her students tomorrow. My fists flex. If he’s looking to punish me for what I’ve done, he’s going to get a hell of a surprise. I’m just as brawny in a fight as I’m built.

But we emerge onto a second floor. Skid gestures to the partially opened doors lining the halls. "By now you know The Wet Mermaid is also our club house. We keep rooms up here for some of the guys. Not you—you’re still a Prospect. But for tonight, we all kicked in and got you a little something."

He pushes the first door open.

A brunette with deep olive skin is spread across a made full-sized bed. Her breasts rise and fall with each breath. My eyes trace the swell of them, the way they slope into her belly. I follow the invisible trail to her parted legs. One arm is slung across her belly, her delicate fingers slipping low. "Hey papi," she purrs.

"Door number one," Skid says. He nods down the hall, takes a couple of paces, and opens the next door. This one houses a red-haired white woman, equally bare except for the fiery patch of hair between her legs. "Door number two." Skid grins. "And so on and so forth."

I laugh. "I think you’re overestimating my libido."

Nodding once, Skid grips my shoulder. "That’s why you’ve got to build it back up." With his free hand, he gestures to a door. "Your choice. Enjoy.” He claps me on the bicep and wanders away.

"Christ," I mutter. My brand new biker family has bought me a game show’s worth of prostitutes.

I pick a door at random. It feels offensive to choose based on the women’s looks.

The woman behind my door has long, wavy brown hair. Her nipples peek through the strands. "Hi honey," she says, stroking the creamy skin of a thigh. "Come on and join me."

Her eyes aren’t as luminous, but she still looks too much like Olivia. The animal in my pants relaxes as my heart clenches. Fuck me, but Olivia is the only woman I want.

But she doesn’t want me.

Even then, I can’t just forget about her. It’s as impossible as changing my DNA. For better or worse, she’s a part of who I am now.

“Sorry,” I tell the woman. I turn around, and close the door.