Wayne's double car garage looked similar to how it was twenty-five years ago, and the sight took him back to a time in his life when he'd been happy. Rich refused to take a chair with the other Notus members around the desk, further showing that he was not one of them any longer. Instead, he looked at everything but the men as he digested the information they handed over to him.

A desk, couch, table and chairs, motorcycle parts, and shit collected over the years filled up the garage.

Notus Motorcycle Club worked with the St. John's Police Department finding missing persons.

Their purpose rocked him. The room backed up everything they'd said.

Maps spread on one wall with pins holding colored flags, filing cabinets, a computer system, profile pictures of men, women, children who had gone missing backed up the history of what they'd accomplished since he'd left them.

There was one picture that should've been up there. One woman who should be in the kitchen with the other ladies, laughing and gossiping. Thalia never deserved the outcome of her short life.

She'd been a free spirit, who deserved to live a fruitful life. His hands closed into fists. Her life was snuffed out in the worst way possible.

His gaze narrowed in on the cabinet and the numerous bottles of alcohol sitting on the top. He planned to take one or two of the bottles when the others let him leave. They wouldn't miss the drinks, and he needed something after going through the hell he'd gone through.

"It's been over two months since you landed in St. John's jail." Wayne paused and only continued when Rich looked at him. "We've given you time to sober up and protection while you regained your strength. Now it's time for you to explain what you're doing here and what kind of trouble you brought down on Notus."

Wayne hadn't changed a bit. He'd always been a bossy son of a bitch and impatient. He never let things go until he could wrap his head around what stared him right in the face. It was his way, or he'd fuck with whoever disagreed with him until he got his way.

Answers weren't what Notus needed.

Rich planned to leave after he made sure no retaliation would come down on Notus. To fix his current problem, he needed to inform them of what they were up against if they refused to let him leave.

"Since you've got cameras at Gracie's house, I'm sure you're aware that Komoon Motorcycle Club wants me dead." He shrugged. "Give me my motorcycle, and I'll hit the road. The Komoon member who has been following me will leave St. John's. You won't see him again."

"And, that way we won't see you again. Is that what you're saying?" said Chuck.

He scratched his beard. He'd like to be anywhere else but standing here in front of them. "I never planned to come back."

Glen frowned. "Ever?"

He let his silence answer the question.

Thad, sitting on the edge of the desk, quietly asked, "Have you ever given a shit about us? About my folks? About Thalia?"

The muscles in his shoulders and arms tensed. "Leave her name out of this."

Thad leaned to the side and took his wallet out of his back pocket. He watched Thad for any movement that he'd attack. When he'd left, his relationship with Thad had stood on shaky ground.

He'd lost the woman he loved, and Thad had lost his sister.

Underneath the anger and the mourning after Thalia's murder, there were unanswered questions directed toward him. The police had planted doubt in everyone's head. Law enforcement and the detectives questioned his integrity and his emotional connection to Thalia.

Thad straightened his arm and held out a picture toward Rich. "This is Avi Thalia Bowers, my daughter."

Rich's chest compressed, and he stonewalled to hide his reaction. The baby sat smiling at the camera, but it was as if the little girl could see every secret, every emotion, every memory inside of him. He looked away. Of course, Thad went on with his life and found love, happiness, a family.

Rich had wished that for his friend. If Thad hadn't found everything he deserved, Rich would've been disappointed.

"Remember when we were around sixteen and we rode our motorcycles up to Rocky Butte Point, and we talked about what we wanted in our dream girl? I told you that I wanted someone who treated me like a fucking king and I knew without a doubt that it wouldn't matter what I did or what I said, she'd never turn her back on me." Glen unwrapped a piece of gum and put it in his mouth. "I found her. Her name's Ingrid."

There were more details in that conversation, all those years ago, if he remembered right. Glen had wanted someone younger and innocent. He wanted to teach her how to fuck because he regarded himself an expert in that area after taking some high school chick's virginity. Rich stared at Glen, wondering if the rest of what they'd talked about had come true, too.

Glen had wanted a blowjob every morning. Dinner on the table every night. He wanted a princess he could put on a pedestal and take care of.

"I lost you. Later, I lost my parents." Chuck's mouth hardened and he looked around the room. "We've all lost people—"

"That's life, right?" The pressure in Rich's head pounded against his skull. "People come, people go. We worry about ourselves, and if we're lucky enough to find someone to share a short part of the time we're alive, we're considered lucky. You've all got your lives you feel like sharing with me for fuck-knows-why, and you expect me to what? Tell you nothing has changed? To wear the fucking patch and hand over my life?"

"Yeah," whispered Wayne. "We want you back. Not only for today and not because we've got you chained to a house. You took an oath, brother. You wear the patch. You're a part of us."

Rich stared straight ahead. "Like I said before, I had no plans to come back to St. John's. Since I'm not in the position to leave without my motorcycle and I'm not going through each of you to get it back, you're going to have to decide how you're going to handle the situation. Komoon won't back down until I'm dead. I'm not going to hand myself over. You can pass me to them if that's what you need to do and we can all be done with this shit, or you can give me back my motorcycle and let me go. I can take care of myself. If I'm gone, Komoon won't come after Notus."

"You know what we'll do. We swore to always protect each other." Wayne pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and patted the Notus Motorcycle Club tattoo. "You wear the same promise tatted on your skin."

He rubbed the back of his front teeth with his tongue. Everything he'd done from the time he was six years old until now at the age of forty-six had been for Notus, for his MC brothers. His loyalty toward the club had never wavered despite his separation.

The day he'd left St. John's without a word, he'd rode out of town because of the four men standing in the garage.

He protected them with his life.

It was a small price to pay to make sure each one of them could go on to find contentment, a woman who owned their hearts and come to terms with the death of Thalia. To have a baby by the sweet name of Avi Thalia. To be standing here as a club, tight and loyal. Everything they'd achieved came about because he'd left so they could go on.

Ultimately, Komoon Motorcycle Club stripped him of his promise to the outside world, but they could not kill his loyalty to Notus.

Chuck lowered his chin and looked at Rich. "Everything about Notus is in your blood, brother."

Fuck.

These men.

Wayne, Chuck, Thad, Glen...they were his life.

Nothing he said right now would get through to them. They held on to allegiance until death. The only thing he could do to push them away was to show them proof that they needed to let go.

He lifted his boot off the floor, planted the sole on the desk, and pulled the bottom of his jeans up to his knee and looked at the faces around him.

He no longer had the Notus Motorcycle Club tattoo like the rest of them. Instead, there was a five-inch black square on his calf that blackened his leg, and his heart.