Church was quick. I sat near the end of the table next to Domino. He kept giving me side glances. It was my own fault. I should have checked in with him last night after I left Hutchins Street. Hell, every pair of eyes at this table seemed to gravitate toward me. I should have figured as much. My little trip down memory lane was supposed to stay low key. Though I loved every one of the men beside me like brothers, they could sure gossip like a bunch of damn high school girls.

“We good?” Bear said. He sat back in his chair at the head of the table, directing his question to E.Z., his V.P. A true silver fox, Bear had long white hair clubbed back. His hard eyes had seen this club through decades of tough times. It had been Bear who had pulled me off the streets and out of foster care when my next stop would have been juvie or worse.

“Nothing else on my plate,” E.Z. answered. We’d run through the tallies for the week. The Dark Saints kept our membership flush from a variety of savory and not-so-savory ventures. Though I’d taken issue with Ariel’s accusations, she wasn’t far off. We kept Port Azrael clean and safe. Our methods were dark, but people and businesses like Ariel’s could thrive because of it. I’d never be sorry for that.

“Collections went smooth this week,” Axle said. He sat at E.Z.’s right. As club enforcer, he went on some of the most dangerous runs every week. Axle was the toughest son of a bitch I knew. Like Dom, he had Comanche blood running through his veins. Most of the time, it took just one look from Axle’s battle-hardened face to get our tenants to pay their bills. The times it took more than a look, Axle was ready for that too.

“Good,” Bear answered. “It ain’t gonna stay that way and we all know it.” His gaze drifted to Kade sitting on the opposite side of me. A few months back, Kade had to take care of some shit with our biggest rivals, the Devil’s Hawks M.C. Though we hadn’t felt any repercussions for that, we all knew it was only a matter of time.

“Anything you wanna share with the group, Chase?” E.Z. asked. I curled my fist beneath the table. E.Z. knew damn well my trip to Hutchins was personal. I wondered if Domino had been the one to talk. I’d kept my exchange with Ariel to myself. I’d felt some kind of strange protectiveness over her that I couldn’t quite explain. But now that the full membership was here, I had a reason or two to talk about her.

I pulled Ariel’s business card out of my back pocket. It was simple, clean, with green lettering. Her logo was just a toolbox. I ran my fingers over the raised letters of her name. Flipping the card on the table, I locked eyes with Bear. He was the only man at this table that I’d ever told the whole truth of what happened on Hutchins Street twenty years ago.

“The north side’s turning,” I said. “Flippers are buying up property on Hutchins and some of the other streets for cash.”

Bear’s steely-eyed stare cut straight through me. I knew it meant we’d need to talk alone, soon. He knew how much I wouldn’t want to.

“Anybody know what they’re making on the back end?” Zig asked. He was our club secretary. Beside him, Maddox, our treasurer, was still tallying up the numbers we’d just gone over. Zig’s question piqued his interest and he slid his laptop to the side.

“I did some asking around,” Domino answered. He shot me a guilty grin and shrugged. “Three bedroom at the corner of Hale and Hutchins went for two hundred grand a couple of weeks ago.”

Low whistles went around the table and Bear slammed a fist into the wood. “You gotta be shitting me. So somebody’s making a fortune in our backyard.”

“You want in on that?” Zig asked. I bristled at the implication. Zig had married into one of the biggest crime families in Texas. His wife, Gina, was trying to take things legit by the time their son was old enough to inherit, but her uncles had their thumbs up the asses of a lot of local trade unions.

I held my breath. Any other time, I might have been the first one to raise a hand. Everyone here knew the north side was my old stomping grounds. Out of respect, they’d want me to have first dibs on any slice of pie we made out of it. Again though, my spine bristled. I’d only just met the chick. She’d damn near taken a sledgehammer to my chest. And yet, I hated the idea of anyone fucking with Ariel or her business.

“What’s good for the north side is good for Port Azrael,” I said. “Just like down at the docks. Business is thriving down there now. If that can happen on the other end of town, why would we want to get in the way of that?”

“We wouldn’t,” Bear answered. He hadn’t broken eye contact. “It’s other people getting in the way of that I’m worried about. I think for now we need to keep a close eye on what goes on down there. This is still our town. You hear about any bullshit, subcontractors getting ripped off, copper going missing at job sites, you let me know.”

Zig cleared his throat. “I’m all ears on this. With the baby now, the DiSalvos are pretty well unified. But it’s not a good time to be stepping on anyone’s toes.”

There was color in Zig’s cheeks. Gina kept sending him pictures of their baby. He kept checking his phone every few minutes. It was good to see. A bunch of the guys were starting to settle down. Zig had Gina. Axle got married last year. Kade had found a woman too. His timing was perfect. His shit with the Devil’s Hawks would escalate at some point. I knew that’s what had Bear twitchy more than anything. Things had been calm for a while. It never lasted.

“Gina going to be able to keep her uncles honest for the time being?” Bear asked Zig. It was a question he’d asked before. Gina was young. But she was shrewd and tough. Plus, she had the backing of the Dark Saints.

“Gina’s good,” Zig answered. Fucker couldn’t keep the smile off his face. Good for him.

Bear nodded. “You let me know if she needs anything. You too.”

With that, Bear knocked his knuckles on the table and Church was over. Scraping chair legs echoed through the room as everyone got up to leave. I got halfway to the door before Bear called me back. When I turned, E.Z. gave him a pointed look but Bear waved him off. Whatever Bear had on his mind, he meant it just for me.

When we had the room, I took a seat on Bear’s right. He waited until E.Z. shut the door before leaning back in his chair. He hooked his hands behind his head. “You okay, Chase?”

“All good, Bear.”

I ran my finger through a groove on the top of the table. Something made me want to avoid Bear’s pointed stare. I was no good at hiding anything from him and he knew it.

“Did you find what you were looking for on Hutchins Street?”

My throat ran dry. I fucking hated talking about this. If anyone but Bear were doing the asking, I’d have told him to fuck off and left. I couldn’t though. Instead, I ran a hand over my chin and looked him square in the eye.

“Nothing there but ghosts, man.”

“Right. But did you leave ’em there, son?”

Bear knew what he was doing. He’d been more a father to me than my real one. Brian “Birdman” Cutter had been little more than a hangaround. Bear and Mama Bear tried to sugar-coat it out of respect for my mother and the dead, but Birdman had been a piece of shit. Bear wouldn’t tell me all of it, but I knew enough. My pops was a con man loser, always looking for shortcuts. He ended up on the wrong side of a drug deal when I was seven years old. He got capped for it, dying in the middle of an alley down by the docks. He wore no patch. Bear wouldn’t have him. But Bear looked out for me anyway.

“My head’s clear, Bear,” I said, meeting his eyes.

He didn’t seem convinced. “She was something special, your mama,” he said, his gaze drifting to some faraway place. His face split into a smile. I wished for that. I wished I could remember my mother without pain and loss. Bear’s memories of her were so much different.

“You know you look a lot like her,” Bear continued. “Thank God for that. She was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. Don’t tell my wife that, by the way. But Rochelle had it, you know? She had that thing where she could walk in a room and every head would turn. She coulda been so much more.”

Bear’s voice trailed off. I knew where he was going with this. My mother, Rochelle Raines, made her living working at The Dude Ranch. Back in its heyday, that strip club had been the Saints’ biggest money maker. Bear wouldn’t say it, but I’d heard the rumors. My mother had been the marquis act. She had it made. Until she met my loser father. It was another thing Bear wouldn’t come out and say, but we both knew. I remembered. I’d just been a little kid, but all of a sudden, she started bringing home “uncles.” She loved my old man to a fault. She’d been willing to do anything for him. He burned through all her dough. And when that wasn’t enough, he turned her out.

“Look,” I said. “I know you tried to protect her. I don’t remember a lot, but I remember that much.”

Pain etched deep lines in Bear’s brow. “I’d have killed for that woman. You need to know that.”

I leveled a hard stare at him. “I do know that, Bear. I remember the promise you made me when I swore my oath to this club and got this patch.” I thumped my breast.

“You remember anything else?” he asked.

I squeezed my eyes shut tight. Just like always, the question sent a million knives through my heart. After my pops died, my mom had been too proud to go to Bear for help. We were broke. At eight years old, I didn’t understand what that really meant. She started bringing tricks home and one night, something went wrong.

“She locked me in my room,” I said. I’d told Bear this part a hundred times or more. “She never even screamed.”

Blood welled in my palms where I’d dug my fists in. Bear put a hand on my forearm. When I opened my eyes again, his had gone blood red.

“You were right,” I said. “About Hutchins Street. There’s nothing there for me anymore. But I had to see that for myself.”

Bear’s jaw bulged as he swallowed hard. “I remember too, Chase. I told your mama to come to me if she ever needed anything. I wish to God she had.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “Me too. But you know that’s one of the last things I remember talking to her about. She said I should go to you if anything ever happened to her. You always took care of me. You always do.”

Bear nodded. “Damn straight.”

“I wanna find that son of a bitch, Bear. I want to be the one to do to him what he did to her. I want him to hurt like she did. You swore to me if the day ever comes, you’ll help me.”

Bear held out his hand. I grabbed it, locking fists with him. “I keep my promises, Chase. And I’ll keep this one. If we ever find out who killed Rochelle, you’ve got the full weight of the club behind you. I don’t just owe that debt to you, I owe it to her. She deserved better than what she got. I’ll regret till the day I die that I didn’t step in and get her away from Birdman sooner.”

There was a soft knock at the door. Only one person would be bold enough to interrupt us. Bear squeezed my hand again. As the door cracked open and Mama Bear poked her head in, I patted Bear on the shoulder.

“I don’t hold that one against you, man,” I said. “If you’d done that, I wouldn’t be here.”

Bear’s belly laugh vibrated through the floorboards as Mama Bear stepped in. I swear that woman could read minds. She gave me a soft smile as she leaned against the wall. She was compact and tiny, with white hair cropped in short spikes.

“You boys about through?” she asked. Though Bear and I knew if she was asking, it wasn’t really a question. It was more of a command.

“Coming, Mama,” Bear said, smiling. He gave her a gruff growl, but his eyes melted when he turned to her. What they had was special. I knew their love hadn’t come easy. Legend had it Josie Bullock’s stint in the army had been in part to get away from Bear. She kept coming back though. Their son Shep was our Road Captain now. Mama Bear lived and bled for this club as much as Bear did. We’d all be lost without her.

“You okay, baby?” she said. I knew I couldn’t put a damn thing past her. She knew I’d gone out to Hutchins Street and why.

“I’m good, Mama,” I answered. As I stood up, she reached for me, running her hand through my hair.

Bear came to her side, sliding his arm around her waist. He jerked her to him and Mama Bear gave him a wicked smile. I felt like the intruder now. It had been a long day for everybody.

“You look like you need a good night’s sleep,” she said. “I’ll make you some breakfast in the morning before you head out on your run.”

“I just might,” I said. I shot her a wink then gave Bear and his woman the privacy I knew they needed.

I walked down the hall, heading for the apartments we kept in the back. I was saving up to build a new house on the beach. For now, the clubhouse was home. Mama’s offer sounded damn good. Something gnawed at me though. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

The rest of the guys had scattered for the night. Maddox and a few of the prospects hung out by the bar. It was going to be a quiet night, but that didn’t mean the guys here wouldn’t get their fun. Our clubhouse was shaped like an L. We had a bar in the middle, the conference room built off that. The apartments where some of us crashed curved around the back.

Grabbing my helmet from the bar, I drew a hard stare from Maddox. One of the banger girls he liked sat on his lap nibbling his ear. I gave Maddox a wave and headed out the door. If he meant to question me, the chick he was with made him quickly forget. That was good for me. I didn’t want any company where I was headed.

Sliding on my helmet, I started my engine. A full moon hung low in the sky. The light it cast was so bright, I barely needed headlights.

I went north, over the Port Azrael Bridge. Each mile I put between me and the clubhouse made my heart pound just a little faster. It was always like this when I headed out this way, like something pulled me back. The north side was my past and the thing that dragged me down. The docks, the clubhouse, and my brothers were my present and future.

Hutchins Street was quiet as I made the final turn. I picked a spot just across from my old place. Ariel had taken the “For Sale” sign down and boarded up the broken windows.

Ariel.

Her name had been on my lips all day. She didn’t belong here. Hutchins Street was cursed, man. The idea that it could touch her made my blood turn to ice.

I don’t know how long I stayed there, but pink bands streaked across the sky marking dawn. I sat still as stone, watching the house. It was just a fucking house. Brick and glass, pavement and grass. Still, something about this place threatened to drag me down.

As the sun peeked over the rooftop, a truck pulled up in front of the house. My heart flipped and I pushed my visor up, hoping to see a glimpse of Ariel. She wasn’t there though. Just two young kids climbed out of the cab. They were probably part of her demo crew. She had dumpsters parked on each side of the house. I watched for a few minutes more as the kids went inside.

“Nah,” I whispered to myself. “There’s nothing here for you anymore, man.” I’d lied to Bear. I hadn’t left the ghosts behind. They were with me, always. I didn’t come here to say goodbye. I came hoping something might jog my memory.

My mother had locked me in my room that night, but her bedroom was right next door. I could see straight into hers through broken slats in my closet. I never heard her scream. That doesn’t mean she didn’t. When the cops finally came in, they found me crouched there. Only I couldn’t remember anything. I’d blocked it out.

I closed my eyes and heard the sound of glass breaking. A scuffle. For a brief moment, I thought finally, my memory had come back. A deep voice and a grunt snapped me back to reality. The scuffle was coming from inside the house in real time.

“Shit,” I said, tearing my helmet off.

I’d been so focused on the damn house, I hadn’t noticed the other truck parked at the end of the street. Pulling my Nine from my holster, I ran to the front door.

“Hey!” I yelled. What was left of the front window erupted in a shower of glass. I dodged just in time. I didn’t think. I just reacted. When I burst through the front door, four men had the two young kids down on the ground about to bash their skulls in.

I lifted my gun and fired once.