“Jem!”
With the car stalled under his knees, Jeremy paused. Kane had survived the showers and the fights in the yard. But Angeline was always okay. That thought kept him going.
So why wasn’t she…?
“Jem?” he asked again.
No answer.
Something horrible had to have happened to her. No other reason for her absence. Had she sold more pills without his protection? Angeline was no fool. But in the glaring light of her father’s injury, maybe she threw caution to the wind and made like a dealer looking for new marks. In Kane’s world, it was skinny boys and skinnier girls in search of a quick fix. Kane never dabbled in the stuff, but he could point them in the right direction. Angeline was different. She just needed a fast buck to help her dad.
And maybe she had had made the worst call.
“Kane,” Jeremy started. “You need to hear this and—“
But Kane didn’t as he kept talking.
“Where is she?” Kane demanded.
Kane’s mind filled with all the ways in which she might be hurt. Best case scenario, she was languishing in some cell. He had money, funds that he had sent Jeremy’s way in the wake of his incarceration. Jeremy only had to give the word, and Kane would bail her out. But what if she had fallen in with the wrong crowd? His own crew would never dare, but there were other clubs that might use her. And if a nurse with access fell into their hands, Angeline would be lost to herself as well as him.
Jeremy stayed silent, and Kane pressed him.
“No,” Kane said as his pulse quickened. “Just don’t tell me…”
He couldn’t stand the idea of her caught, trapped. Kane pictured her torn apart if she failed to make her quota. And there was no way that she ever could. He, she had been caught by accident. The doctor she worked for was already being eyed for fingering his patients under a local anesthetic. The man was serving his own time, and Angeline should be in the clear. But what if there was no letting it go? What if it was known that she was able to find drugs and bring them to the street? Kane was locked up, and even as his club and Jeremy promised to look after her, they could only do so much.
“Jem….”
Kane saw her tied down to a bed, only released to go to work and fill the coffers. His sentence was proof that she could make that happen, but maybe it got out of control. She might be hurt, scared, and now he needed nothing more than to save he all over again.
“Why do you care?” Jeremy asked. “She never came to see you. Not once. And—”
Grabbing his brother by the collar, Kane shoved Jeremy’s shoulder into the horn. A sharp blare filled the car. Jeremy winced, but Kane heard nothing as his fingers grinded against his brother’s throat.
“Because I told her to keep away!” Kane bellowed over the roar. “And you said you’d keep tabs on her! So what the fuck—?”
“Oh believe me,” Jeremy said. “I did. And she’s just fine!”
Pushing his brother away, Jeremy ran his hand over her neck.
“So how about you just let it go, Kane,” he said. “You served your time… her time. Don’t you know a second chance when you see it?”
Kane formed a fist and stopped just short of clipping his brother’s jaw. As his chest heaved, he remembered the lessons they received at the hands of their father. A head slap when they were late coming home from school, a mangled wrist when they broke a glass, a punch to the gut just because. But brother or not, Jeremy had no right to smear her.
“So you did check in on her,” Kane said as he fought to calm his breath and unclenched his trembling fists. Had to be a simple misunderstanding. Jeremy blamed her for Kane’s sentence and never got that she was desperate. Kane had to save her; there was no other choice. In time, he would let the past go.
They all would.
“Jem?”
Jeremy nodded and wrapped his hands around the wheel.
“I keep my promises,” Jeremy said. “So yeah. I’ve been looking in…”
He sighed heavily before looking at his brother.
“You really want the truth, Kane?”
He wanted Angeline more, but he’d take word of her, even Jeremy’s, if it meant that she was alright.
“I want to know everything,” Kane said. “Five years… Christ.”
It suddenly felt like way too long. Too much time without her, without knowing where she was and what she was doing. Kane wanted to be the one keeping tabs on her. Dealing her drugs made her safe, but Kane needed her with him to be sure. A knot formed in his throat at the thought that he had made the wrong call.
“Let’s take a walk,” Jeremy muttered.
He exited the car, and Kane followed. Jeremy’s shoulder slumped as he walked like a man who had just done the hardest time.
Like he knows the first thing…
“Jem, just tell me. Whatever it is, man, you have to have it wrong.” Kane said. “Angeline… my Angel is true.”
Laughing, Jeremy stopped where he stood, shaking his head.
“Sometimes I don’t get you, Kane.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Jeremy shrank under his brother’s gaze.
“I… I don’t know,” Jeremy said. “Just that… well…”
Kane waited as Jeremy lifted his eyes. Long ago were the days when Kane had placed himself between Jeremy and their father’s fists. Jeremy would scream for it stop, but Kane took it all on. And there was gratitude in his brother’s eyes. Respect.
Now there was only pity.
“Tough guy, right?” Jeremy said. “Ruling the whole world just beyond the Golden Gate. No one’s going to take you down.”
Both boys made choices. Their mother used to say that Kane turned to the dark while Jeremy reached for the light. She would never ask her oldest son, the outlaw biker, back to her table. But the CPA was fine.
She’d have been better off if she’d given Kane another look.
“Damn straight,” Kane said. “The guys know I’m coming back.”
“Even Noel,” Jeremy asked as he narrowed his eyes.
Kane groaned.
“Like you know the first fucking thing.”
And he didn’t.
Noel White was as standup as they came. Kane remembered the break, the time when he finally ran and never looked back. Night after night, he scrounged for scraps in dumpsters. Picking though band aids and coffee grounds, Kane tried hard not to puke when he nibbled on hard bagels or a moldy piece of cheese. But it didn’t kill him; it made him stronger.
And that’s how Noel had found him.
***
“Hey, Kid. You like that shit?”
Noel White first appeared with a smirk. Wiping the dirt from his mouth as he swallowed around a rancid hamburger, Kane stepped towards him, drawn to the bike, intrigued by the scar etched across his cold face.
“I gotta eat,” Kane said.
Noel lit a cigarette and stayed silent through his first drag.
“I hear that,” Noel finally said. “But I asked if you liked it?”
Kane tried to answer as his found meal hit Noel’s shoes in a masticated heap. He was right; it was shit, and Kane didn’t know how much longer he could eat it and survive.
“So no?” Noel asked.
Kane nodded through his tears and became his father. Smacking his face for the show of weakness, he started to back away when Noel seized his arm. Kane’s first instinct was to run.
“Get off me!” Kane cried. “Get the hell—”
“Whoa! Easy, Kid.”
Noel dragged him closer, and Kane stopped fighting. At the mercy of the older boy, Kane closed his eyes and prepared for a beating. At least he knew he could take it; he’d had a lifetime’s worth of practice.
“What the hell?” Noel demanded. “You just giving up?”
This was his father’s game. Taunt him to the point where he thought he might stand a chance, then move in for the kill.
“Just get it over with,” Kane said, resigned to his fate.
Noel lit up and gave Kane a chance to run. But he was too sick, too sad to make a move. Hopefully it would be quick. Maybe he could limp towards a back alley and sleep it off. But what would happen tomorrow?
“Okay. Here.”
Reaching into his pocket, Noel pulled out a limp burrito. It was cold and soggy, but it also wasn’t covered in rat hairs. It looked like the best of meals, and Kane started towards him.
Then Noel took it back.
“If I give this to you,” Noel started, “Will you do one thing for me?”
He had to be a freak. Food for slavery that might take any form. Kane shuddered at the thought. But he was so hungry.
“Yeah,” he said. “I will.”
Noel handed him the burrito. Grabbing it quickly, Kane gobbled it down in two quick bites. He savored the meat and the cheese on his tongue, but as the unexpected meal settled in his stomach, Kane was back to fearing the consequences.
“So what do I have to do for it?” Kane asked.
Stamping his cigarette to the pavement, Noel mounted his bike with a smile.
“Hop on, Kid. Let’s get you a real rack tonight.”
***
“He’s a good guy, Jem,” Kane said. “He’s my brother and—”
Jeremy’s laugher had to come from a jealous place, but Kane’s words were true. Noel brought him to the club, gave him the promised bed, and saw that he never had to eat dirt again. That was loyalty. Something that Jeremy in his fancy house with his snooty wife would never understand and—
“Then why is he screwing your so-called Angel?”