The pounding on the apartment door dragged them from a deep sleep. They had made love long into the night, Scott’s desire for her nearly insatiable, as if being home had removed a darkness from him. Though they knew they needed to get an early start, they had kissed and touched after he slapped the alarm off until they fell back asleep.

 

He leapt from the bed and peeked out of his bedroom window into the parking lot below. “Fuck!” he snarled.

 

“What?” Jess asked, pulling the sheet around her, her eyes large.

 

“Looks like Lance is here.”

 

“Someone you know?”

 

“Yeah. A brother,” he said as he pulled on a pair of boxers and removed his weapon from its holster. “What do you want, Lance?” he asked when he arrived at the door.

 

“Open up man. We need to talk. What’s going on?”

 

“Who’s with you?”

 

“What?” the voice on the other side of the door asked. “Nobody. It’s just me.”

 

Scott nodded at the door and then stepped to the side. Jess opened it, still holding the sheet over her naked body, and Scott placed his gun to Lance’s head as he stepped in. “Why are you here?” he asked as he shut the door.

 

“Whoa! Take it easy, brother!” Lance said, his hands slowly coming up so that Scott could see them. “I just want to talk to you, that’s all. Find out what’s going on.”

 

“Go get dressed,” Scott said to Jess as he reached under Lance’s Grim Angels jacket to pull his weapon from his belt.

 

“There’s a hold out in my boot, too,” Lance said, making no moves.

 

“I know,” Scott said stepping back, his gun still pointed at Lance. “Who sent you?”

 

“Jason. He said you turned and we were supposed to watch your place in case you showed up.”

 

“Then what?”

 

“Then take you down and hold you until someone from Detroit could get here. I couldn’t believe it. None of us could. When I saw your bike here, I wanted to talk to you to find out what the fuck is going on. And who was that?”

 

Scott thought it over then handed Lance his weapon back. Lance was a fireplug of a man, heavily built and thickly muscled. He was older, in his sixties, but he radiated health and vitality despite his white, close-cropped hair.

 

“Talk to me, Scott. What’s going on?”

 

Scott sat down in his chair and laid his weapon in his lap. “It’s complicated.”

 

Lance settled into his spot on the couch where he and Scott had shared many a beer. “It usually is. Does it have anything to do with her?”

 

“It has everything to do with her.”

 

“Who is she?”

 

“Jessica Mitchell.” When Lance looked at him with blank eyes he continued. “Val Ingersson’s niece.”

 

“The Val Ingersson? The president of the Detroit charter?”

 

“The one and same.”

 

“What the fuck did you do, Scott?”

 

“Nothing,” Jess said as she entered the room dressed in the same clothes she had on yesterday. “He saved me from a life of misery.”

 

Lance glanced back and forth between the two. “And?”

 

“And my mother and uncle didn’t like it.”

 

Lace stared at her a moment. “I think you need to start at the beginning.”

 

Lance sat quietly as Jess talked, his eyes flicking back and forth between hers and Scott’s, taking it all in but saying nothing. “So you really did pull a gun on Val?” he asked when she fell silent.

 

“Yeah, I really did,” Scott replied.

 

Lance made a face. “I can’t say I blame you. That’s not quite the same story Jason told us over the phone. Oh, he didn’t outright lie, but he certainly left out a few key facts. Like the fact that he helped set you up or that the odds were eleven to two. Same with the shooting of the two brothers. Funny how he forgot to mention that they started shooting first.” Lance smiled at Scott. “You did good, boy.”

 

For the first time since the pounding on the door, Jess relaxed. “You’re not going to cause us trouble?”

 

“Turn over one of our own to a bunch of damn Yankees? Not fucking likely. No offense intended.”

 

“None taken,” Jess said with a grin.

 

“What I want to know is how the hell you got into so much trouble so fast? You’ve only been gone a week!”

 

“Talent,” Scott said.

 

“What are your plans?” Lance asked.

 

“We’re getting the hell out of Dodge. I was hoping to be packed and gone before anyone noticed. Jason is a prick, but he isn’t stupid, I’ll give him that.”

 

“Well, he isn’t that bright if he thought we were just going to turn you over to him no questions asked.” Lance pulled his phone from his pocket and Scott stiffened, his hand going to his weapon. “Relax,” Lance said as he dialed. “Do you want some help moving or don’t you?”

 

***

 

Jess was kept busy making lemonade and sandwiches as the men worked. She and Scott hadn’t even returned with the moving van before the Grim Angels, Atlanta Chapter, had arrived and already had several pieces of furniture sitting in the parking lot, ready to load.

 

As much as she liked all her “uncles” in Detroit, she fell in love with the Atlanta Angels. They each exhibited the same easy charm Scott did, though most were considerably more rowdy. Several old ladies had arrived, as well, and were busy wrapping and packing boxes. She found them easy to talk to and she had them oohing and aahing over their recent exploits. She wasn’t up for the telling of Luke, and glossed over those details as she had with Lance by saying Luke was driven out of the club for hitting her one too many times and the resulting shit storm is what started it all.

 

Six hours later, Scott was putting his bike in the bed of his truck, and then drove the truck onto a trailer hooked to the back of the van. Most of the Angels had left, but Lance and his old lady, Becky, a charming woman probably the same age as her husband but looked twenty years younger, had remained behind. She had watched as she and Lance played a little grab-ass after the van was loaded, and wondered if that could be her and Scott in forty years.

 

“I can’t thank you enough,” Jess said, hugging the woman fiercely. Why couldn’t Mom be like this woman? she wondered as they hugged.

 

“The Angels take care of their own,” Becky said as they parted. “Seems to me that is something they have forgotten up there in Detroit.”

 

“It seems like it, yes,” Jess agreed.

 

“Come on, you two,” Lance yelled. “The brothers are waiting already.”

 

“Waiting?” Jess asked as she closed the door to the empty and cleaned apartment.

 

“Yes. Didn’t anyone tell you? We’re meeting everyone at Fat Matt’s. You can’t leave on an empty stomach.”

 

“Uh, Becky, you don’t have to do that. Everyone has done so much already.”

 

“Oh, poo,” Becky said as they clomped down the steps. “It gives everyone a chance to say goodbye. Scott, he’s good people, and we hate to see him leave.”

 

“He’s the best,” Jess said softly, then smiled.

 

“You take good care of him, okay? I’m glad he has finally found someone. He reminds me a lot of my boy.”

 

“Your son, is he an Angel?”

 

“No,” Becky said with obvious pride. “He’s a pediatric surgeon here in Atlanta.”

 

“Wow! You must be very proud.”

 

“A little,” Becky admitted with a smile.

 

The Atlanta chapter of the Grim Angels wasn’t as large as the mother chapter in Detroit, but there were still over thirty people in attendance by the time all the members and their old ladies had arrived. Jess found it amusing that as their story had circulated among the members, their exploits had grown until she and Scott had been involved in several running gun fights, she had single handily escaped from her deranged mother who had kept her locked in a roach infested kitchen, and Scott had killed two armed brothers with his bare hands in a street fight. She tried to correct the story several times, but had finally given up and basked in the attention. Rather than looking at her like damaged property, they saw her as strong, independent and powerful…and she liked it.

 

She drank a few beers, stuffed herself on the best ribs she had ever tasted, and laughed, enjoying herself more than any time she could remember. Jason had called several times, but none of the Atlanta members could be bothered to answer his call, keeping their secret.

 

When the party was over, she was feeling more at home in Atlanta than she did in Detroit. Slightly tipsy and euphoric over the warmth of the Atlanta crew, she had felt like crying as the women hugged her and Scott and the men shook his hand and hugged her.

 

“Where are you going?” Becky asked as they drove back to Scott’s apartment to get the moving truck.

 

“I don’t know. Somewhere in North Carolina, I think. Scott and I don’t have any place to go, so it could be anywhere. But North Carolina puts us between Atlanta and Richmond, and about as far from a Grim Angels charter as we can be without driving all the way out West. It may come to that, but neither of us wants to do that until we have to.”

 

Becky nodded in understanding. “You know Scott always has a home in Atlanta.” She paused and smiled softly at the lovely young woman sitting beside her, and she suspected there was a lot more to her story than she told. She wouldn’t pry, but she could see what attracted Scott to her. There was a keen intellect and a healthy dose of toughness packed into her small frame, and it didn’t hurt that she was drop-dead gorgeous. “You do, too. Just because Detroit wants you doesn’t mean we will give you up.”

 

Once again Jess could feel the tears threaten, but she fought them back. “Thank you, Becky. That means a lot to me.”

 

They rode in silence the last few miles to the truck, each lost in their own thoughts. As Lance came to a stop beside the truck, Jess found she didn’t want to leave this kind woman, but her new life was calling. They made their final goodbyes and Jess once again struggled with tears as the truck lurched away, Lance and Becky watching them leave.

 

“Where are we going?” she asked as the truck whined out onto the street and began to pick up speed.

 

“North Carolina. Greensboro, maybe.”

 

“Know anyone there?” she asked.

 

“Just one person.”

 

“Oh? Who?”

 

“She’s sitting beside me.”

 

Jess smiled, and realized it didn’t matter where they went. Detroit, Atlanta, or Greensboro, North Carolina. Wherever Scott was, that was home…and that was enough for now. She looked into the large rearview mirror on her door and smiled as her troubled past began to recede into the distance, her future as bright as the sun settling on the horizon.