My fingers gripped tighter onto the handlebars as I read the sign: Vilas – 5 miles. I was nervous. It was fucking ridiculous and entirely pathetic, but I was scared of rejection. I had never felt like a bigger pussy for admitting that fact to myself, but there I was. My heart wouldn’t calm down, not even with every deep, slow breath of fresh mountain air I forced to pump in and out of my lungs. My brain was a jumbled mess of uncertainty, but there was no turning back at that point.

As the road curved slowly down the mountainside, my mind tripped back to where it had all begun.

“Mom?” I climbed onto my mother’s boney knee in the middle of the afternoon. Our front room was blazing hot from the sun pouring in through the sheer curtains.

She helped me get settled into her arms, the ash of her cigarette landing on my shoulder. “What is it, Ryder? Mommy’s watching her soaps.” Even as a five-year-old, I could tell how much she didn't want me just by the tone in her voice.

“Why don’t I have a daddy? All the other kids at school have daddies.”

 She put her cigarette inside the empty Old English bottle next to her foot and chugged out of her glass of grain alcohol with ice cubes clanking around. “Your daddy didn't want you so he never came home.”

Sniffling, I tried to wrap my tiny mind around what those words truly meant. “But why? Aren’t daddies supposed to love their kids?”

“Yours doesn't love us. Now piss off. Go play in your room. Mommy’s tired.”

I scampered off to my section of the studio apartment that was my ‘room’. I grabbed my Thomas The Train blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders as I sniffled and cried over a dad that had never been there. 

It was a plain as day memory that had plagued me for more than ten years; that’s how long it took me to grow the balls to confront my mother again about my father who had never loved us. That’s when she finally told me the truth: that she had been a few years older than my dad and could have been charged with statutory rape when she was fucking him, so she’d run away, only to send a letter to him years later, once she assumed she couldn't be sent to jail for raping a minor.

What a fucking awful eighteenth birthday present.

My mom swore that she had sent it, but who knew if he had gotten it, read it, or even if she was telling me the truth or not. I wasn’t even entirely sure why I was looking for my old man after eighteen years, but there I was, twisting and curving along an old mountain highway, not knowing if my father would know his own son when he saw him. It was freaking insane. Nothing else had panned out for me in my life so far, so something had to give…right?

What if he doesn't even know I exist? 

It was my biggest fear.

My forearms were sore from the four hour ride, but I didn’t give a shit. All I was focused on was finding a place to grab a beer and get my head on straight again. 

I pulled off into a parking lot with a few trucks and a handful of bikes near the front. 

Seems like my kind of place.

I swung open the heavy wooden door and puffed my chest out while all the guys lining the bar and at the pool tables stopped dead to stare at me making my way to an empty stool. There should have just been a damn sign on the wall: No fucking outsiders welcome; it would have made things way less awkward.

The middle-aged bartender smiled sweetly at me as her long, curled dark hair bounced along while she made her way over to me.

“What are you havin’, sugar?” she asked, wiping the counter.

“Bottle of Bud Light.”

She nodded, dug in the trough, and put the brown bottle in front of me. “My name is Crickett, love. If you need anything, just holler.”

I smirked at her name, but held back. “Thanks,” I muttered.

In two gulps my first beer was gone and another was slammed in front of me. My nerves were cooling…finally. I just had no idea what I was going to do next. I had an address of where my mom had sent that letter years ago, but so much time had passed. It was a complete shot in the dark, but it was better than nothing.

Crickett kept looking over at me, glancing and checking me out. It was unnerving, but nothing that I hadn’t dealt with in the past. Most of my mom’s friends would hit on me during their wine nights in our apartment; they pretty much made a game out of it. Cougars love their cubs after all. 

“Not from around here are you?” She finally decided to talk to me instead of just staring.

I shook my head. “Just passing through.”

She laughed a little. “I said that once, sitting in that very seat that you are now. I’m still here.”

“That ain’t gonna be me, lady. I have one mission and then I am getting out of this fucking town.”

“Well, good luck…” She trailed off, fishing for a name.

“I’m Ryder.”

“You look incredibly familiar, Ryder.” She squinted at me, presumably trying to place me. I had never seen her in my life.

Two stools down, a few guys bellied up to the bar. A gruff voice called over to Crickett, “Hey, babe. Holt is going to be in soon to take over for you.”

She smiled over at him as I froze in place. Holt—that was my father’s name. My blood ran cold.

Crickett’s voice broke into my swarming thoughts. “Ryder? Another?” She was pointing at my bottle and I nodded. “Sh-sure.”

Two men next to me started chatting. I tried not to eavesdrop while I peeled the blue label from my bottle, but it was hard. They were going on about one of their friends being sick and how hard it was to balance their businesses while trying to find someone to replace him. Pretty boring shit, but I had nothing better to do.

The guy with the gruff voice turned to me. “Hey, kid. New around here?”

Man, people sure were not used to outsiders in these parts.

“Yes, sir. Just passin’ through. Trying to track down my old man.”

The middle aged man sipped on his beer then sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. “We’ve heard that one a time or two in this bar.” He winked over at Crickett and she threw a bar towel at him as he laughed.

“Don’t mind my husband, honey. He has a dry sense of humor. What’s your daddy’s name?”

I stared at the bar top, ripping apart the beer label. “Holton Walsh.”

I was numb. There was no better way to explain the shock of the news I was about to deliver to my parents. I was about to devastate my father and destroy my stepmom. With my brother’s hand gripped in mine, I ran through the front doors of their bar.

“Raine, Collin? What the—?” My father’s gruff voice boomed across the quiet bar and I tried to catch my breath.

“Dad.” Tears started to roll down my face as Collin fell into my side and I gripped him tighter. He was so close to my grandfather, Collin was losing it. My emotions finally decided to catch up with me. I forced my throat to choke out, “It’s Pop. He’s—he, oh my God, Dad!”

I collapsed in my father’s arms as Crickett bolted around from behind the bar and wrapped my little brother in her arms as she started shaking. 

I couldn’t put it into words. If I said it out loud, then it would be true, and I just wasn’t ready for that to happen yet. There was nothing I could do other than grab my phone. I dialed my dad’s right hand man, who was already at the hospital. “Here, talk to Holt.”

My eyes locked on a stranger that was sitting a few seats away from our family crisis. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but he looked extraordinarily familiar. 

I watched as my father’s face twisted from shock to crippling grief. The phone fell from his hands, shattering the screen as he let out a scream that curdled my blood.

“What is wrong with Rave?” Crickett yelled, grabbing my hand as my dad pulled her into his broad chest.

“We need to shut down. We have to get to the hospital.” My dad’s members moved into action and kicked the only outsider out within seconds. His kind, green eyes pleaded as he left, like he wanted to express his sympathies but didn't know what to say. No one ever knows what to say when they eavesdrop on the death of a patriarch. 

Flying down the road in my dad’s truck with my little brother riding shotgun as we followed my dad and Crickett on his bike, it felt like the drive took a lifetime even though the hospital was only fifteen minutes up the road.

I ran through the front doors right into my dad’s best friend’s arms. “I am so sorry, Abel.” Holt’s voice shook as he hugged me back with one arm and put his large hand on my father’s shoulder with the other. Holton Walsh had helped raise me before Crickett came into our life; he was more than a friend, more than an uncle, he was my second father, and the comfort he offered in that moment blanketed the waiting room.

“What happened?” Crickett cried as she gripped my father’s and brother’s hands.

“He was run off the road. There was no way he was going to make it through that even if he had laid his bike down.”

“Do we know who did it?” My father gripped my grandfather’s cut in his right hand, running his thumb over the patch that read President.

“Not yet. But don’t you worry, we’re going to take care of it.”

My father took a deep breath. “We need to have a meeting, now. Crickett, take the kids home. I need to take care of this.”

Tears were leaking down her face as she grabbed my brother and me. “Come on.”

Dad put his hand on her shoulder right as she was turning to leave. The hollowing look in his eyes was bone-chilling. With a low voice he got close to my stepmother, wrapping her up in his arms. “I will be home tonight babe.”

She kissed his cheek. “You better be.” 

He nodded to my brother and me and that was that. It was club business now and they were going to handle it the only way outlaws knew how: an eye for way more.