Cody was mentally exhausted when he got back to the ranch as well as sore from both of his long rides. He was also starving. He went straight into the kitchen to see what he could find to eat and he found Macy’s father, Tank, standing at the stove, cooking something that smelled like heaven.

“Tank.” It was late, and Cody had been hoping to grab a snack or some leftovers and get to his room without having to talk to anyone. He hadn’t seen Tank since he got back, so he’d have to make at least a little conversation with him to show him the respect that he was owed as an old-timer and Macy’s dad.

Tank turned and looked at him, and Cody could see that it took him several seconds to place him. “Miller. I heard you were back.”

“Yep. Almost a week now. Can I grab something out of the fridge to eat? I’m starving.”

“Sure. I got some stew here just about ready too.”

“It smells good. What’s it for?”

“My turn to cook for the gathering tomorrow. I’m gonna barbecue up some steaks and all the fixings, but the weather’s been a little cold so I thought some stew might be nice too.”

Cody kept a straight face, but it was hard. Tank was a big guy, not just in height but in build. Cody remembered him as being muscular at one time, but now he was just big, with a belly that protruded out over his pants and threatened to skim across the floor if he bent over. No one that saw him outside of the club would ever guess that he’d say things like, “A pot of stew would be nice.” Most people didn’t spend a lot of time talking to Tank because he was such a grumpy, unpleasant old codger; but because Cody had been sniffing around Macy for so many years, he had come to find out that Tank wasn’t your average biker. He was college-educated and according to Macy he came from a middle-class family in Boston. He’d been badass in his day, but he’d never lost the ability to articulate like a college professor.

“What’s the gathering about?”

“Got some out-of-towners stopping by—a crew out of West Virginia, I hear.”

That was interesting. Cody sure wished he knew what that was all about. Tank didn’t sound like he did either, and Cody knew enough to know that even if he did, Tank wouldn’t be willing to share it with him. “Stew sounds good,” Cody told him. He went over to the cabinet and took out a bowl and brought it back over to Tank. Tank took it and ladled it full.

“There’s some bread the girls made this morning on the counter over there.”

“Thanks.” Cody took his bowl, grabbed a piece of bread and said, “I thought I’d take it to my room and eat—I’m pretty tired.”

Tank didn’t say anything until Cody reached the door. When he got there the old man said, “You know she cried every day for months after you got locked up.”

Cody stopped in his tracks. The image of Macy…sixteen-year-old Macy, no less—crying for him every day went straight to his heart and cut like a knife. For some reason his mind went back to the first time he ever saw her cry. They were both ten years old and even though he hardly knew her at all then, it had stuck with him. “I wasn’t thinking,” he said. “I was so upset about Keller…” Upset was an understatement. He had been out of his mind with grief to the point of not being able to think about anything other than doing to those men exactly what they had done to his brother. He hadn’t gone looking for them to kill them, but he hadn’t cared if he did. Most of all, he hadn’t thought about who else his decision to avenge his brother’s death was going to hurt.

“I get it,” Tank said. “I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing if it had been me. But I also can’t say that I haven’t done a hell of a lot of stupid shit over the years I regret and wish I hadn’t done. I’ve got regrets I’ll probably take to the grave with me.”

Cody carried his bowl back over to the table. Tank fixed himself a bowl and carried it over too. The two men sat down and Tank said, “You didn’t know Macy very well yet when her mama died, did you?”

Cody got chills, since he’d just been remembering the day that it happened. The little girl with the long, dark ponytail stood behind her daddy’s leg with a tear-stained face as they took her mother out in a black body bag. Cody was too young to really understand it then, but he grew up hearing the talk and the rumors. When he and Macy were thirteen and going steady he’d asked her about it finally. She cried again that day when she told him about it. What had stuck with him most was Macy saying, “I don’t ever want to die alone like her. No one loved her, Cody. Promise you’ll love me forever and you won’t ever let me die alone.” Cody promised her that day he’d never leave her alone. When he went to prison, he broke that promise.

“Not well, no,” was what he said to Tank.

“Her mama was beautiful. I wanted that girl the minute I saw her. Doc’s the one that brought her in. We all waited to see if he was going to keep her and when he didn’t, she was free game. I think she went through about three or four of the guys before she made it to me. I realized pretty quickly that she was a little unstable. She acted like we were in love the morning after, and I almost had to physically take her out of my room. But you know what?”

Cody was afraid to ask, “What?”

“It didn’t stop me from using her, because that’s what we did. When she got pregnant we all wanted to deny it was ours. She was a well-used club girl by then and it could have been anyone’s baby. She insisted it was mine and refused to have an abortion. Doc felt sorry for her and let her stay on, and when the baby was born and I saw her, I was pretty sure she was mine too. I guess I found a little bit of a heart I never knew I had that day. I agreed to do the paternity test and it turned out that sure enough, she was mine. So, you know what I did?” Cody shook his head. “I kept that baby and her mama in my house, because I wanted the kid, but I wasn’t going to take care of her. I used her mama when I wanted her and I let the rest of the guys use her when they did. I knew she’d started using the smack but I didn’t give a shit because when she was high she liked to fuck even more and she didn’t cling to me as much. When she overdosed, I was kind of relieved to be rid of her…until I saw Macy’s face. It was only then that I realized my selfishness had not only led to that woman’s death…it had changed that little girl’s world forever. To this day I can honestly say I haven’t mistreated another woman and I haven’t done anything to make my little girl cry. But at night when I’m alone, I’m still haunted by the misery I caused her, because I can’t ever take that back.”

“I’m sorry I hurt Macy. It wasn’t ever my intention.”

“I know, son. But what I’m trying to tell you in a long-winded sort of way here is to make sure you learn from it. You can’t take back the past, but you can sure as hell not hurt her again in the future. Remember that what you do affects everybody around you, and think it through before you do it.”

Cody thought about the plans he’d made while he was in prison. There was one more person that needed to suffer for his brother’s death. He wondered if what Tank was saying held true only if you didn’t do it…or if you did what you had to do and just didn’t get caught…

Cody went to sleep that night with the image of Macy crying. He slept restlessly like he had for the first year he was in prison. Nightmares of finding Keller’s body and what his brother must have gone through plagued him every time he closed his eyes back then. It had been years now since he’d dreamt about his brother and the agony tonight must have been for him. Tonight he had that dream again, only this time he also dreamt of what it was like the night he killed one of the men that had taken his brother’s life. The first few punches had felt so good, but those were really the only ones that he remembered when he was awake. He’d gone into what his psychologists at the prison called a “fugue” state at that point, and sixteen years of abuse as well as the trauma of finding his brother’s battered body took over. In the dream, however, he saw himself hitting them repeatedly. He felt each rip of flesh and each shattering of bone and he could even feel the blood as it dripped down through his fingers and ran up his arms.

He woke up in a puddle of sweat and breathing hard like he’d been running. The sun wasn’t up yet, but there was no way he was going back to sleep. He got up and showered and dressed, and quietly left the clubhouse and headed for the shop. Maybe tinkering around on his bike would help get rid of some of whatever it was he was feeling. That was the worst part: he didn’t know what it was. It could be guilt because he’d never once thought about how his actions would affect Macy. It could be grief because his heart still hurt when he thought about Keller. Or it could just be twenty-four years of anger because no matter what he did, it always seemed like his life turned out to be a big, steaming pile of shit.