THREE

Hooch

“What the fuck is this?”

“Legitimate business, that’s what.” I turn the tinderbox over in my hand and look up at the plain store frontage with my sergeant at arms, Jo Jo, to my right.

My old man ran the Fort Worth chapter pretty damn well at the start. Rules were respected, everyone kept their shit under wraps, and there was no need for a front to hide and launder the money we earned through illegitimate enterprise. Stolen goods exchanged hands, contacts were vetted and trusted, and we buried those who caused a ripple in the smooth surface of our tranquil lake.

Then my oldest sister, Mel, split after the Sawyer incident. She didn’t take too well to being told who she could and couldn’t see, even though she damn well knew her partner would be handpicked for his suitability at the table. It crushed the old man, losing contact with his oldest daughter. He drank, he smoked, and he drew further and further into himself. He bundled up all the discipline he spared on Mel and dumped it on my baby sister, Dana, pushing her away, making her resent the club and the protection it offered her.

I loved my father, but the truth that I’ve never told another soul is that I hated him just as badly the day I stood outside Carlos’ estate and realized what he’d slowly done to our family over the past year. He’d been the poison, the illness that wore us down and tore us apart until all that was left alive was me, the cancerous lump that he lived with yet wished he didn’t have to.

Judas and I never saw eye to eye. He was my pops, the man I idolized from a young age only to realize what a false God he was when Momma left us as near-babies. He broke the strongest old lady the Fort Worth chapter’s ever had, and drove her to leave the things she loved the most—her children—in order to save us from the destruction that was their volatile marriage.

Things were never the same since then, and I think in a way the disappearance and death of my sisters only dragged those repressed regrets back to the surface.

“What you puttin’ in there?” Jo Jo steps forward, raising his hands to the glass to peer inside the dusty windows.

“Saddlery.”

“What?” His voice rises an octave as he steps back, eyebrows raised. “I thought you mighta said parts or somethin’, brother. But horses? When you last ride?”

“Never. But it doesn’t take a rider to know leather.” I’ve tooled hides since I was a teen. I know how to work it, care for it, and keep the leather conditioned. “Besides, there’s a rancher who’s interested in starting somethin’ for his retirement, but he doesn’t have the capital upfront to get it off the ground.”

“Sounds like you got it all worked out, man.”

“I hope so.” I’ve jotted down the theory, got Digits to do the figures for me so I could get it set up above board and legal, but the feeling I’m still in over my head hasn’t gone away yet.

I flip the lid open on the tinderbox and set a bump in the crook of my hand. Jo Jo lights a smoke while I snort back the only thing keeping my legs moving these days. I tried to drop the habit after the shit went down with Carlos, but waking up sober carries ghosts I’d rather forget. The ache in my chest is better dealt with by walking alone.

“Heard anything from Crackers?” Jo Jo’s smoke crackles as he pinches it to his lips and takes a long drag.

“Almost home. Said they got a few scraps of information, but nothing definite.”

“What’s your plan B, Holmes?”

I shrug, and pocket the box. “I really don’t know yet. Hindsight is a grand thing, my friend, and if we’d stopped to think about it we might have realized that taking out both Carlos and Eddie within months of each other wouldn’t do much toward keeping contacts alive behind the scenes.”

“Yeah, I feel you.”

“We’ve lost a lot, cut ourselves off. The takeovers might have given us the lion’s share of the trade, but it also drew a definite line in the sand between us—the new guys—and the men who’ve been at it for decades.”

“When you got so many enemies, how do you know which one is knockin’ on your door, right?”

“Right. And how the fuck do you find out when they’re all standing on the same side of that goddamn door anyway?”

Jo Jo tosses his spent cigarette to the ground, crushing it beneath his boot. “The brothers are going to need somethin’, man.”

“I know.” The glass is cool against my face as I press my nose to the window, peering at the stripped interior to the shop. “I’ll work somethin’ out. Just need some space to breathe.”

“You got all the space in the world, man. What you don’t got, is time.”

“Thanks for remindin’ me of that.” Although I know the time he speaks of isn’t the same as what I’m worried about. He’s alluding to how long we have before one of these opportunistic fuckers makes a move. I’m alluding to how long I have before the club ain’t the only one gunning for my ass.

“We done here?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Jo Jo throws a leg over his bike, leaning back in the seat to regard me as he straps his helmet on. “You need to be anywhere for the next hour?”

“Nope. Crackers and Digits are due back in at about two. I’ll make sure I’m at the clubhouse before then, but otherwise I’m free. Why?”

“We need to take a ride, blow out the cobwebs.” He presses the ignition and fires his bike to life. “You, my man, need to let it go at ninety miles and hour and remember why it is you chose this life. Why you make the hard decisions. Why you’re goin’ to find a way out of this shit.”

“I’m in it, because I was born in it,” I grumble, strapping on my helmet and wishing for my dark, quiet bedroom.

“Maybe so, but that ain’t why you stayed.”

He takes off down the street, leaving me on the side of the road to mull his words over as I start my bike and pull out after him.

Fucker’s right: I might have come kicking and screaming into the world on a clubhouse pool table, but I had every chance to leave before I turned eighteen and patched in.

And I chose not to.

Because you can’t escape what’s in your blood, and leather and fuel are in mine.