TWO
Back at the Beginning
Lucky
I left Glory MC in a bad spot and that knowledge didn’t sit well with me. Bronson, Ward Three’s new leader, had approached Glory MC for assistance and I had reacted the same way a psychotic killer would—with violence first. The reason for Bronson’s visit was to inform Glory MC that the Phantoms, the same organized criminal gang who had blown up Neptune’s parking lot and half of the building along with it, were extorting several businesses and Wards for protection money.
This thing with Ward Three and the Phantoms wasn’t new. Their previous leader, Brennan O’Flaherty, had foolishly involved himself in their endeavors, putting himself and the people of his Ward in a tight spot. Though the Phantoms were powerful in their own rights, there was a hefty price to pay to gain that type of protection. When the Phantoms wanted money and you couldn’t provide it, you were instantly on their shit list, which basically meant you were walking with a target on your back.
Time had quickly run out for Brennan so in an attempt to save his own hide, he began stealing choppers and reselling them. I had to admit, the racketeering business was a genius idea. Except for the part where Brennan thought it was smart to steal from Ward Four. As the major distributor of automotives, Glory MC wasn’t going to stand by while a neighboring Ward stole our business.
When we discovered his betrayal, Glory MC retaliated in the only way we knew how. We put a stop to it through intimidation and brute force. But not before things took a turn for the worst. We lost members in that war with Three, including our beloved vice-prez, Newt. Still we managed to finally take Brennan down, disabling their Ward like a chicken without a head, leaving only the Phantoms to deal with.
With that small triumph, Glory MC hoped to lay low for a while and recover, but the ghosts with an unattainable goal took it a step further when their leader, Anthony Cavezza, approached Indy, Hastie’s ol’ lady, and tricked her. That same night, he blew up the back parking lot of Neptune’s, nearly toppling down the dive bar as well. Glory MC categorized it as a personal attack and the next thing I knew, we were formulating a plan, riding in on our Harleys, ready to dish out some retribution.
The violent night hadn’t ended the war with the Phantoms but simply silenced them for the time being. Now, it seemed that they had gathered their wits from our surprise attack and were ready to dish out more disaster, starting with Ward Three.
In some ways, I had to respect Bronson Alborn for what he did. It took a lot of balls to realize you were in over your head and needed outside assistance. Already he was proving to be better than his predecessor was.
Knuckle’s mood hadn’t simmered down one bit during the whole meeting. His rise in temper was my fault, but I could probably vouch that Bronson’s presence here at Neptune’s had thrown him off too. For one, Glory MC never mingled with our enemies. To have Bronson sitting across from me at the table was not something I thought I’d ever experience. Too many things were changing in this post-flare world and none of it was good.
When the meeting adjourned and everyone left, I lingered around, hoping to fix the mess that I had caused. I knew what I had to do now, but actually doing it required balls I wasn’t sure I had. This could go one of two ways. Knuckle could flip and say no or he could be so fed up with my bullshit that he’d be glad to see me gone. Today proved that I was severely off my game, and until I could handle my shit, I had to leave.
Hastie shot me an encouraging look as our gazes met. I took a deep breath. It was now or never.
I realized too late that I should’ve given Knuckle some time to settle down because he started off aggressive as I filled him in on what had happened. “You must be seriously fucked up in the head if you think I’d allow you to leave after what you just did today.”
“I need to do this,” I told him. All week that note had been imprinted into the back of my eyelids, a constant image in my mind whether I was awake or asleep. I had to know what was going on with Lennon. I had to learn if she was okay.
My eyes met my best friend’s. Hastie was probably the only one who could understand the rising panic within me then. Only he knew all the details of my past. Of all the things I had run away from. “Show him the letter,” he said.
I stiffened, shooting him a dark look. I didn’t want to display my personal shit to anyone. But realizing that this might be the only way to get what I wanted, I ignored the instinct to bolt and pulled out the crumpled paper from my back pocket.
With shaking hands, I placed it on the table before us, smoothing it out for the prez’s inspecting eye. Knuckle leaned over, reading the short few words that probably didn’t mean shit to him, but meant the world to me. When his eyes lifted, some of the hardness was gone. “Gimme a week,” I whispered.
“Shit, Lucky. I thought you were past this.”
“The past has a funny way of finding me,” I returned darkly.
“We’re already short of men. If you leave and trouble finds us, that’s on you. You already heard what Bronson had to say.”
In other words, I’d be abandoning my brothers, the one thing I had sworn with my soul to never to do. “My head’s not right,” I admitted. “Even if I stayed, my mind won’t be here.” A week had passed since receiving the letter and ignoring it had proven to be detrimental to the club.
Knuckle responded to that with a stern look that indicated he and I had trouble. Suddenly, I felt like my loyalty to the club was in question. Most members of the club wouldn’t have even considered what I was doing. “What if it was Hanna we were talking about?” I asked.
It was a cheap shot. Hanna and Knuckle had only been recently married and the newlywed bliss had yet to wear off the groom. Knuckle pinned me with a dark look. “If you bring my wife back into this mess again, you won’t be walking out of here.”
I pursed my lips. Threat received loud and clear.
“Fine,” Knuckle barked. “A week. But on one condition . . .”
My chest tightened.
“I don’t want any of this to blow back on the club, you hear? We’ve got enough shit to deal with. If the Phantoms or anyone else gets word of your ties to them, I can’t guarantee protection.”
I nodded. “I understand.”
“A week,” he repeated. His stern gaze penetrated deep. “You made a vow to the club, son. Remember that.” In other words, fuck this up and you’re out of the club.
Fucking fantastic.
With that healthy reminder, Knuckle rose, leaving Hastie and I alone in the room.
I cut a glance at him. “A week, brother,” Hastie reiterated. “If you don’t come back by then, I’m coming for you.”
I flashed him a forced grin. “All right, man. A week.” The approval from Knuckle should’ve eased me, but the worry wouldn’t alleviate until I saw Lennon again. “Keep in touch.”
“Yeah. Same to you.”
In my haste to leave, I’d forgotten all about the rules. It wasn’t until Hastie demanded that I hand over my cut that I realized how much I didn’t want this.
I knew I had let the club down with this unexpected takeoff. Worst of all, I had no ties to the club now. Stripped of my cut and without my Harley, I felt like a nobody. A faceless figure without an identity. It was a shocking revelation of how Glory MC had become a home. Now that I was leaving it, what was I to do? Nothing about this situation felt right to me. But I ignored that hollow feeling in my chest and traveled like a ghost to see Lennon.
Things were worse than I had thought. The small non-descript building acted as a house for Dex and Lennon. On the outside, it looked strong and sturdy, but it didn’t match the wreckage that made up the inside.
Dex opened the barred door when I knocked, warily peeking out as if he was afraid I would rob him. When he caught a glimpse of my face, his own instantly relaxed. I didn’t dare let my guard down. “Where is she?” I asked him.
As he allowed me in, I was hit with the stench that returned me to my childhood. The scent of weed and fabric softener battered my olfactory senses. I blinked, trying not to lose focus, but the images in my head were strong and vivid.
“Come on,” Dex called out when I didn’t immediately follow him. His voice helped me escape the childhood memories that seemed to claw at me. It took all of my energy to focus only on his back as he led me farther into the house.
The rest of the quarters remained the same since the last time I was here years ago. It consisted of bare walls, stacked piles of clothing, and minimal furniture. I entered a room where a small coffee table sat in the middle. A floral-patterned couch, straight out of the ’70s, settled in front of it with a TV just a few feet away. My guess was that both the coffee table and the couch had been plucked from the side of the road and the TV had been picked up from a second-hand store.
My chest tightened right before I dropped down by the couch. “Are you okay?”
Lennon’s eyes opened slightly at the sound of my voice. She’d been sleeping, but her voice still sounded too weak for simple slumber. “Dylan?” she whispered, looking very confused.
I assessed her features, noticing the dark rings under her eyes and the sallow look of her complexion. She looked tired. Sick. Tremors shook her frail body, her breathing jagged and irregular. “What happened to her?” I asked Dex.
“She overdosed.”
“What the fuck?” I pulled away. “How?”
“She injected the drug instead of snorting it this time.”
I stared down at my baby sister, horrified at the news. “Why the fuck do you do this to yourself?”
Lennon pushed herself up into a sitting position, tucking her legs beneath her bottom as she rolled her eyes. “I’m fine.”
At her tone, I straightened to my full height, desperate to put some distance between us. I had left years ago because of this. She knew that. So why do this again? Why hurt me this way? “You overdosed,” I reminded her, tone sour. “You wanna end up like her?” I didn’t have to spell out whom I was referring to. We both knew. We simply chose not to say her name anymore.
Lennon flinched like I had hit her, as if I was the bad guy in all this. But no. This had been all her doing. Head downcast, she avoided my eyes. “You didn’t tell her you called for me?” Why would Dex summon me if she didn’t want to talk to me?
The older man blanched as if he’d been found out. He’d lied in the note. Lennon hadn’t actually wanted to see me. It’d just been a cry for help. When he exhaled harshly and ran a hand through his hair, he said, “She almost died. I wanted you to see her again.”
“Why?” I cut straight to the point. “She clearly doesn’t give a fuck about herself. Or me.”
“You’re family,” he said simply.
What did Dex know about family? Most of his family had died in the first flares that wrecked the world. He had no one now, which was why he was living with my sister. “That word doesn’t mean shit to me.” The plethora of emotions swirling within me gained momentum until anger permeated from my pores.
I had left the club for this? To deal with the one thing I had run away from in the first place? I felt like someone had hit the rewind button on my life; I was eight again, helpless to a certain kind of devil that had no weaknesses.
“She needs you,” Dex said simply.
The words acted like water over my flaming temper. When I ran away years ago, Lennon had stayed with Ma for a couple more years until she had enough of her shit too. It was in that time that she had met Dex at a rundown café and they hit it off, finding a strange companionship in one another. She was a neglected teen and he was a lonely man who had no other kin.
At first, it had put me on guard. But when months had passed and Dex made no move on Lennon or showed any other kind of attraction towards her, it seemed that they genuinely enjoyed each other’s presence as friends.
When they got into an argument and stopped talking for months, Lennon fell into a dark phase, spending time with the wrong people. Eventually, drugs called to her restless spirit and that was when my baby sister followed my mother’s footsteps into addiction.
As soon as I learned of this news, I located her again and tried to talk some sense into her. We were falling down the same hill again and I knew that this time, we wouldn’t make it out at the bottom. I reached out to Dex, desperate for them to get over whatever it was that had split them up in the first place and bring them back together. Having Dex back in Lennon’s life would not only change her habits, but also her outlook on life.
Apparently, I had been wrong because here she was again, killing herself.
Seeing her this far gone brought on a rage that I thought I’d gotten over after all these years but it was simply in hiding, repressed by years of being away. At the sight of Lennon, thin and frail, and stubborn to the core, it made me wonder how it was possible to help someone who didn’t want to be helped.
Once again, I was at a crossroads with two options to choose from: I could run again, or I could stay.
Instinct told me to run. It was what kept me alive this far. I had done it once. I could do it again. The next time Dex came calling, I’d be sure to ignore it. I wasn’t going to throw my own life away like Lennon was.
But I had also never been a quitter.
I weighed my options. Running meant I didn’t have to deal. It also meant giving up on her.
Turning towards my baby sister, I made up my mind. “Got a spare room?”