“JESUS GOD, HE SHOT ME!” Tex screamed.

I swung my gun around at Lee, Fishbone, and Indiana. They all stood there frozen in shock, staring at Tex bleeding on the sofa.

“ON YOUR KNEES!” I yelled as I kicked the .38 out of reach.

The three of them slowly got down on their knees and put their hands behind their heads.

“OH JESUS, HE SHOT ME, HE SHOT ME!” Tex continued to screech.

“Shut the fuck up or I’ll shoot you again!” I roared.

He stopped saying anything intelligible, but he still whimpered and groaned.

The only silver lining to this entire situation was that for the neighborhood Tex lived in, a gunshot at 11 in the morning was nothing out of the ordinary. The fact that it was from a Midnight Rider’s house made it even less noteworthy. If anybody called the cops, they would probably show up in an hour, if they ever showed up at all.

“Now somebody want to tell me what the fuck is going on?” I demanded.

“Jack,” Indiana said in an overly apologetic voice, “I am REAL sorry about that bullshit that went down at the Roadhouse – ”

“Shut the fuck up about the Roadhouse!” I shouted. “What’s Lou been telling you?”

“Just what I fuckin’ said,” Tex snarled through his moans. “You killed eight Midnight Riders, you’re still with that traitor whore, and now you gone and sold out the club to Sloane and the Bastards.”

I stared at him. There was no way to refute any of what he said about Sloane, since secrecy was key to the whole fucking plan.

Fiona was right; I should have never come.

“And if anybody – ” Lee started.

“Shut the fuck up,” Tex hissed.

“If anybody what?”

Tex glared at me hatefully. Then he reached over with his good arm –

“AAAH,” I said, pointing the gun at him again.

“I’m gettin’ my phone, you trigger-happy son of a bitch,” Tex spat.

“I’ll get it,” I said, and reached for his phone where he’d tossed it on the couch.

“Didn’t fuckin’ think to look at any of the other messages, huh, smart guy?” Tex sneered.

I went back to the main text screen and saw one from Lou.

50K to the man who brings me Jack Pollari. Dead or alive

I scrolled up to read more messages.

Word on the street is Jack is working with his ex Sloane and the Bastards to take down the Riders. Leave Sloane and the Bastards alone, I reached out to them and am trying to work shit out. But if you see Jack, take care of business

Jack just killed again. Wild Bill, Benjy, Chuck, Jergens and Irish. I’m gonna kill that motherfucker

Jack back with that traitor bitch Fiona – they’re murdering us for revenge for me kicking him out of the MC. Eyeball Vince and Cowboy dead

Tex shook his head. “You sell out the club for a piece of snatch, and when Lou kicks you out, you try to fuck us even more?”

I put the gun to his head.

“Call her a piece of snatch one more time,” I said coldly.

Tex swallowed hard as he looked up at the barrel pressed to his forehead.

“Jack… you don’t have to do this,” Indiana pleaded.

Lee looked at me accusingly. “You really have lost your mind over that chick.”

“That ‘chick’ was looking for the guy who killed her cousin,” I snapped. “Lou used her as an excuse to betray me. He planned that night at the Roadhouse for months – maybe years – and not a single one of you motherfuckers stood up for me.”

The words coming out of my mouth surprised even me.

“So it really is all about the Roadhouse, then,” Tex said scornfully.

I turned back to him. “…maybe it is. Why didn’t you say something that night, huh?”

When he just stared at me hatefully, I turned to the other three.

“Indiana?”

I looked at them one by one, pausing between each.

“Lee?… Fishbone?”

They all stared shame-faced at the floor. Except Tex.

“Ain’t it obvious?” he asked.

“No, it’s not.”

“You betrayed the club, jackass.”

“I didn’t betray the club. The club betrayed me. You betrayed me.”

Tex laughed, then winced and wheezed as he clutched his bleeding arm. “I didn’t hook up with no PI cooze. ‘Specially not one tryin’ to frame us for shooting a DEA snitch.”

“She didn’t frame anybody – Lou and Benjy did it.”

“So fuckin’ what? She deserved it! Back in the day, we woulda done a hell of a lot worse to a snitch than just fuckin’ shoot her!”

“This isn’t back in the day,” I shouted. “And for you to throw that away and just bend over for Lou – after everything we accomplished, going legit, going legal – ”

“Goin’ legit, goin’ legal,” Tex said mockingly. “Nobody wanted to go legit or legal, you stupid asshole.”

“You fucking voted me in for exactly that reason!”

He made a face like Whatever. “Yeah, sure, it sounded like a good idea at first – nobody else dyin’, nobody goin’ to jail anymore. But when the money stopped – fuck that. Lou was just sayin’ what the rest of the club was already thinkin’. We signed up for a better life, not the fuckin’ poorhouse.”

“So you had to get a job,” I sneered. “So you had to work for once in your life. Poor little bitch.”

“Fuck you, Jack – you and your fuckin’ body shop… you did alright, so you didn’t give a shit about the rest of us.”

“Fuck you, Tex. I bought that place ten years ago, back in the ‘good old days.’ I sweated and slaved and worked my ass off, and up until Lou fucked me over, I had eight other Riders working there.”

“I didn’t join the MC to work a nine-to-five, you dumbshit! I patched in to drink, and fuck chicks, and raise hell! And then you get elected president and suddenly the party’s fuckin’ over. Yeah, you fucked us all real good on that one.”

I stood there in shock.

Was this really what it had come down to?

Had I spent the last three years lying to myself, determined to build a better world that nobody else wanted?

I racked my brain, asking myself, Where did it all go wrong?

The only conclusion I could come to was, With the men I’d started with.

I’d told Fiona that I’d tried to raise a bunch of assholes and drunks up out of the gutter. To pull them up, clean them off, and make something out of them.

It never occurred to me that the majority of them might have preferred the gutter.

I looked over at Lee, Indiana, and Fishbone. “Is that what you guys wanted, too?”

They all stared at the floor, too cowed to look me in the eye.

I turned back to Tex. “Why didn’t you tell me? If you weren’t happy, you should have come and talked to me.”

“Riiight,” Tex sneered. “You were like a fuckin’ Jesus freak on crack, man. Born again! Gonna save the whole goddamn club! Wasn’t any use tryin’ to talk sense into you, you fuckin’ asshole. You were gonna steamroll right over the rest of us, no matter what anybody else wanted.”

Shit.

So it had all been fucking pointless. All three years of it.

“Give me your guns,” I said. “And take it slow.”

They all looked at each other, like they were trying to figure out what to do.

“Not THAT slow,” I snapped.

Lee, Fishbone, and Indiana slowly pulled their guns out and placed them on the floor. I slid them away with my foot, one by one.

“Now your phones.”

They did the same, and I kicked them into the corner.

“Lee, tie up Fishbone. Use that lamp cord over there.” Three minutes later – “Alright, now tie up Indiana. Use the fuckin’ string from the blinds.”

Next I had him tie Tex’s hands behind his back with another electrical cord. I’m sure it was painful with a bullet in his shoulder, but Tex shrieked like a little bitch the entire time.

“JESUS GOD, YOU’RE FUCKIN’ KILLIN’ ME!” as he lay facedown on the floor.

“Man the fuck up,” I snapped.

“FUCK YOU – YOU SHOT ME!”

“You were the one who pulled on me first, remember?”

“FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!”

I kicked him in the ass as hard as I could. “Next one’s gonna be in the shoulder unless you shut the fuck up.”

He shut up.

Once Lee was finished, I tied his arms and legs.

Now that they were all trussed up like Christmas turkeys, I threw the phones in the microwave and set it on five minutes. Sparks began to fly inside.

I walked back into the living room. “I came here for one reason, and one reason only: to warn you motherfuckers to leave town. Shit’s going down – ”

“Yeah, with you and the Bastards, trying to fuck over the club!” Tex yelled.

I put my foot on his shoulder and applied a little pressure. He squealed like a stuck pig.

“You got anything else to say?” I asked.

He shook his head ‘no’ as the sweat poured down his face.

I continued. “Shit’s going down soon, and I don’t want you guys to get caught in the middle of it. You can listen to me or not, but I came back here to save you.”

I paused.

“That was the whole reason. For three years, that was the whole reason. Believe it or not, but it’s the God’s honest truth.”

I stood there at a loss for what else to say.

“Tell the others,” I finally said. “Bucky, and Craig, and Sanford. But don’t tell Lou, because he’ll just lie to you and fill your head with horseshit till you don’t know which way is up. Just… leave. That’s all I’m asking. And don’t follow me, or come after me… because I will kill you if I have to. And that’s all the warning you’ll get.”

With that done, I walked out of the house as the phones in the microwave filled the kitchen with smoke.