An hour later, I’m back at my house, staring at the lake with a cold one in my hand. The sun is just starting its descent toward the horizon. I’ve watched its path at least a hundred times out here, just like this, by myself.

I came back to the lake after church because I needed some time to relax, and to think. Everything that’s been going on the last couple of days is whirring around in my brain, and sometimes I just need some goddamn silence to sort it all out. That’s why I bought this place. Such as it is.

In the little more than a year I’ve lived here, I’ve basically rebuilt what was a falling down shack from the ground up. The house wasn’t worth much when I bought it, so what I’d saved up after eight years in the Marines was just about enough to pay for the whole thing in cash. Even so, this place is my goddamn pride and joy. It’s funny, but even after a full day of working at the garage, a lot of times the thing I look most forward to when I get back home is firing up the bandsaw or ripping out some old wiring. It’s therapeutic somehow, taking something that’s run down and fucked up, and making it strong and solid again. That’s one of the reasons I like working at the garage restoring bikes and cars, too. But here at the house, the results of my work are mine, and mine alone.

Before this house, I’d never really had much before that I could call mine. In my childhood, I went from being a burden and an afterthought to my parents, to being passed around from foster home to foster home by people who made it clear to me I wasn’t part of their family and never would be. I joined the Marines as soon as I turned eighteen, and spent the next eight years of my life working hard and playing harder, with nothing to go back home for during my leaves, and no goals except doing the job I was sent with my regiment to do.

When I got out of the Marines, I was rootless, and aimless. I had no idea where I was gonna go when I got back home to the States, and no fucking clue what I was gonna do with myself. All I knew was that I didn’t want to make a career out of being in the Corps. I chafed a lot at the rules and the hierarchy inherent in military service. Even though I rose up fairly quickly in the ranks, the structure didn’t always sit well with me, especially whenever I saw dumb shits with higher ranks lording it over men who were the real backbone of the unit. The camaraderie, though, and the pure physicality of it — those things I liked.

That’s probably what ended up drawing me into the Lords of Carnage, after I got out. Gunner and I had served together in the same platoon, and he knew I was having a tough time finding my way out in the civilian world, much as I’d thought I wanted it. He was the one who gave me a call and told me to ride out here to Tanner Springs. Told me he had something to talk over with me. Something he thought would be a good fit.

Now, a handful of years later, here I am. Turns out Gunner was right. He sponsored me to get patched into the Lords of Carnage, the club he’d always thought of joining someday. Now, instead of a Staff Sergeant or a Master Sergeant, I’m the club’s Enforcer. Instead of enforcing rules by military procedures, I do it with my fists. And weapons.

It’s a much better fit. For the most part.

Now, for the first time, I have a family. A real one. Brothers who have my back. A place of my own, where I can lock the goddamn door at night and be left the hell alone. Most of all, silence. And peace. It’s lonely sometimes, but it’s mine.

Absently, I pull a cigarette from the pack and light it, sitting back in the Adirondack chair I pulled from a dumpster and refurbished. Taking a deep drag, I let it out with a heavy, troubled sigh.

Church today has left me on edge. Not because of anything that was decided. Not because of this bullshit crime wave in Tanner Springs. Not even because of the threat on the horizon posed by a growing Iron Spiders club, and what that means for the ongoing war between us.

I’m on edge because I’m starting to have serious doubts about my club president.

An Enforcer, above all, has to be very loyal to the man who is his president. Sometimes I’m a bodyguard. Sometimes I’m sent out to do the more violent tasks that need to be done: a hit, or a beatdown, or even ending someone, if that’s what’s called for. I’m the president’s arm of justice. I do what he tells me.

One of my jobs is to keep the other brothers in check if need be. Not only when we’re out on a run or in a situation of danger, but also within the club itself. I have to be able to carry out the president’s orders without question — even and especially if that means I have to face off against one of my own brothers to do it. Insubordination, just like in the military, is not an option.

But unlike in the military, I’ve never had cause to question the judgment of the man whose orders I’m bound to execute in the Lords of Carnage.

Until now.

It’s nothing specific. Nothing I can quite put my finger on.

But for a while now, I’m not really sure where Rock Anthony’s head is at. I think some of the other brothers are feeling it, too. I see the way they look from Rock to Angel. They’re wondering where the club’s heading. If there’s a crisis in the making.

And that makes me nervous. Because I’ve never been much good at enforcing rules I don’t believe in.

Eventually, my cigarette runs down to ash, my beer is empty, and my ass is starting to get sore. With a sigh, I haul myself up and stretch my arms over my head. Enough thinking for now. There’s a bathroom renovation inside waiting for me. And God knows laying shower tile is a fuck of a lot simpler than contemplating the future of a club that I’ve grown to love, but don’t know quite how to enforce anymore.