Levi had been shocked when Zoe’s grandfather invited him home for dinner. He almost made up some excuse not to go. Levi had never had a real girlfriend before Krissy, so he’d never had to tolerate the horrors of meeting the parents. Even though he and Zoe weren’t really more than new friends, that’s what it felt like. But he’d wanted to see Zoe, and insulting her grandfather probably wasn’t going to get him very far in that respect. So he’d accepted the invitation and he’d gotten one of the prospects to cover for him at the meth lab, where Cheney had assigned him again. He had yet to hear back from Zack, so even though tolerating Cheney while he thought he had something to do with Krissy’s and his dad’s deaths was hard, he sucked it up and did as he was told…for the most part. Jackie D tried to insinuate that he had something to do with the raid on Patrick’s house, but since he’d been arrested too, there was no way for him to prove it.

He was glad he had showed up for dinner once the initial awkwardness went away. Mr. Bennett, or “Frank” as he insisted Levi call him now, actually turned out to be an interesting and even funny guy. Levi enjoyed talking bikes with him, and the old man had a classic Mustang in the garage that he was restoring and they’d gone out to look at that together too. Zoe was quiet throughout the night, but Levi understood. Her grandparents had probably put her on the spot inviting him over, and the last conversation the two of them had had been bizarre to say the least. He was beginning to firmly believe that Krissy was still with them, guiding him and maybe Casey, but he had yet to figure out Zoe’s place in the mix. He was attracted to her and since she wasn’t his usual type, he had to wonder if that was Krissy’s doing. Right after he had that thought, he had to tell himself that he was nuts. It was a vicious cycle.

He might not have had to worry about what to say to Zoe if not for her nana. Frank had him in the garage for almost an hour, looking at and talking about the Mustang when she came in. “Frank…can I talk you for a minute?”

Frank looked at his watch and then gave Levi an “I’m in trouble” look before saying, “Yes, dear. Excuse me, Levi.” She smiled sweetly at Levi as her husband approached her. Levi tried to pretend like he was focusing on anything but them, but he could see, out of the corner of his eye, how the small woman held tightly onto her husband’s arm and gritted her teeth as she talked in a low whisper. Frank tried to lean in and kiss her cheek when she finished with him, but she’d already turned to go back inside. The old man looked amused when he turned to Levi and said, “I’m sorry. Apparently I’ve dominated your time tonight.”

Levi smiled. “It’s okay. I probably should be getting on soon. It’s getting late.”

Frank finally looked worried then. “Oh, please don’t leave before you go in there and have a piece of apple pie and talk to Zoe for a bit. If you go now, I might not live through the night.”

Levi chuckled. “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for that.”

“Thanks.” Frank led Levi back inside, where Zoe was sitting on the couch. “Where’s Nana?” Frank asked her.

“Getting the pie,” she said. “She wouldn’t let me help her.”

“I’ll help her,” he said, before disappearing in the direction of the kitchen.

When he was gone, Zoe looked at him with color in her cheeks and said, “I’m really sorry about all of this. As you can tell, I really don’t have any friends, so they’re both trying too hard to make you one.”

He smiled and put his hand on top of hers. He was instantly filled with warmth. “We’re already friends, right?” She nodded and said:

“I’d like to think so.”

“Good. Me too.” Zoe’s nana came into the room just then with a tray in her hands. She sat it down on the coffee table in front of them and as Zoe slipped her hand out from underneath Levi’s the older lady said:

“Why don’t you two take your dessert out on the patio in back? It’s such a nice evening.”

Zoe looked embarrassed again but Levi stood up and said, “That sounds like a great idea, I’ll get that tray.” He picked up the tray and saw the ladies exchange a look as Zoe got up, and they followed her nana to the glass doors. Nana slid them open and he let Zoe go through first before following her through. She took a seat at a glass table with wicker chairs and he sat the tray down in front of her.

“Y’all enjoy,” Nana said, before leaving them and going back inside. Levi sat down once she was gone and again, Zoe said:

“I’m so sorry.”

He laughed. “Stop apologizing. I had one hell of a home-cooked meal and now I get pie and ice cream and good company. Nothing to apologize for.” He took a bite of his pie and once he swallowed it, he told her, “Wow, if I came for nothing else but that pie, it would have been worth it.”

“Yeah, Nana is a great cook. She’s trying to teach me, but so far it’s not looking good.”

He laughed and said, “Don’t feel bad, I can’t cook either. I would like to know what you do like to do. If we’re going to be friends, we should probably know something about each other.”

She sighed. “Well, there’s not much to tell.” He cocked an eyebrow and she said, “Fine, there’s a lot to tell, just not much that I care to admit.”

With a smile he said, “Have you always been in Memphis?”

She nodded. “Mama and I lived in probably ten different places between the time I was born and when she died, and I did a little stint in a foster home when I was about five.”

“That had to be rough.”

“Honestly, the home was really nice. It was out in the country with a lot of room to play. I only had to sleep in a room with one other girl, and I liked her a lot. She was younger than me, maybe only four, but I thought of her as my friend. She seemed older, like she knew things that even the grown-ups didn’t know.”

“Probably saw too much by that time already,” Levi said, shaking his head.

Zoe looked off into the distance for a second and then shook her head slowly. “No…it wasn’t really like that. It was more like she knew how to be happy, when the rest of us had no idea. She didn’t have any parents and she had no idea where she came from, but she was always happy. Some of the older kids thought she was weird, but I liked her. The lady of the house was really nice too, and she taught me my alphabet and colors and numbers…things I was behind on at that point. Her husband was sick and I remember being kind of scared of him. He wasn’t mean or anything, but it seemed like tubes and wires were coming out of him all over and he was so skinny and he smelled funny. My little friend loved him, though. She wasn’t old enough to know how to read, but she used to take books and pretend to read them to him. She’d sit with him whenever he was awake and his wife was busy because she said she didn’t want him to die alone. I thought about that years later and I couldn’t help but wonder what a four-year-old knew about someone dying…alone, or otherwise.” Zoe shuddered slightly and then she said, “Anyways, I was only there about three months and from there, they sent me here to live with Nana and Papa. I didn’t know them before that. Nana said they spent time with me for the first few weeks of my life, but of course I don’t remember any of that. I lived here for about six months and when Mama got out of jail, she came and got me.” She had a faraway look in her eyes and Levi felt a pang in his chest for her at the thought of what she had been through when she was so young. “She wanted to stay here. I remember the fight she had with Papa that night. She told him that she was either staying here with me, or she was taking me and it would be his fault that I had to live in a dangerous, dirty motel where I would probably get molested someday. I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew it was bad because Nana was hysterical and Papa told Mama what a terrible mother she was. It was one of the worst nights of my life, next to the one when Mama overdosed. Shit…If I were you, I’d be running for the door by now.”

Levi chuckled. Her story wasn’t making him want to run, it was making him want to go back in time and rescue her. “I don’t want to run. You forget, I grew up in a motorcycle club. I had great parents, but believe me, I saw some crazy stuff.”

“Yeah, I guess you probably did. So, tell me about Patrick’s daughter.”

Levi smiled when he thought about Susie. “She’s adorable, and sweet. I was so mad when she just let me in the house. I could have been anyone, done anything to her. She was so trusting. I went there with the idea of getting revenge on Patrick for what he did to you and once I met her, I wanted to kill him on the spot.”

“But you didn’t. You called Papa.”

“Yeah, getting soft in my old age.”

Zoe laughed. “Yeah, that must be what it is. Are they Patrick’s parents…the grandparents?”

“I think it’s the mother’s parents.”

“Good. I can’t imagine anyone that raised that demon being parents to a sweet little girl like that. I wish I could have met her. Maybe she’d convince me that something good can come out of anything.”

“I’m going by the foster home tomorrow to…” He realized what he was going to say was going to make him sound even softer than he already did.

“Are you blushing?”

“Hell no!” Zoe laughed. “My mom bought some toys for her. I’m going to drop them off.”

She smiled mischievously. “Your mom, huh?”

“Yes, my mom. Anyways, I was going to invite you to go and meet her…but now I don’t know.”

She giggled again. “Aw, the big, bad biker has a soft spot.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he said, laughing. “Do you want to go or not?”

“I’d love to.”

“Are you okay…to ride, I mean?”

“I’m fine. Now you sound like Nana.”

“Oh, that’s it…” They both laughed. It felt good. It had been too long since Levi had anything to laugh about. He liked Zoe, a lot. It wasn’t about sex, although that thought lingered in his mind too, thanks to the dreams. There was just something about her that drew him in. He had a lot of respect for the way she was working so hard to clean up her life and he liked the fact that although she’d had a troubled childhood, she had managed not to become bitter and cynical. He was grateful to her for being there with Krissy when she died…and because he was beginning to come around to the idea that Krissy wanted them to meet, he was thankful to her for the introduction.

It was late when he got home and he was tired, but it was a good tired. He was looking forward to taking the toys to the foster home the next day. Zoe was right although he’d never admit it out loud…he did have a soft spot, and Susie had wrapped her little red head around it. His mother had bought the toys, but only because he asked her to. He didn’t have any idea what to buy a little girl. He was thinking about that as he got undressed for bed and his eyes landed on a framed photo of him and Krissy on the dresser. He thought back to one Sunday that they’d lain in bed all day in each other’s arms and talked about the future. Krissy wanted kids. She always knew exactly what she wanted. She told him that she wanted a boy that looked just like him and a girl that could wrap him around her little finger. He smiled now at the memory. She would have been an amazing mother. With a lump in his throat he picked up the photo and out loud to the empty room he said:

“I can’t give you any of those things you wanted now…but I promise you that if it wasn’t an accident that took you away from me…I’m not going to rest until I get justice for you and Dad both. I love you.” Just as he sat the photo down, his phone buzzed where he’d left it on the nightstand. Somehow he wasn’t surprised when he looked at it and saw that it was Zack. It was like she was always listening. He pushed the “accept” button and said, “Hey, man, what’s up?”

“Hey, sorry to catch you so late but I’ve been on the road. I finally talked to GM and got things sorted…sort of, anyways. He’s been busy since he was left in charge of Hannah’s care and the old man’s business. Anyways, I have news. According to GM, Matthew did two things that surprised him a few weeks before he died. First, he asked GM to take care of Hannah if anything ever happened to him and second, he gave him power of attorney, again, in case anything happened to him. GM said he worried that Matthew might be suicidal, but when he talked to him about it, Matthew laughed and assured him that wasn’t the case. He told him that he was just getting older and worried about what would happen to Hannah if he died. GM confiscated the old man’s guns, just in case, and he said Matthew gave them up willingly. The next couple of weeks passed normally, only Matthew seemed to be in a better mood and he was going into the shop at Johnson’s place more often, so GM thought his business must be picking up. Then, the accident happened.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, GM didn’t say anything to anyone because Bledsoe had a little life insurance policy. It was only fifty grand, but it would be enough to take care of Hannah for a year or so. He was afraid they wouldn’t pay out. The club paid for Bledsoe’s cremation and memorial service and GM got a check from the insurance company about two weeks later, since he had the power of attorney for Hannah. It wasn’t until he went to deposit that check that he realized there was two hundred grand in the bank account.”

“Jesus, is there any way for him to find out where that came from?”

“It was a cash deposit. You know as well as I do that if Cheney paid him off, there’d be no way to trace that money.”

“Yeah, but I know the club has been struggling. I seriously doubt Cheney had that kind of cash to play around with. He would have just put a bullet in my old man’s head instead.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured. Dax told me you talked to him about this when you were out there, so I asked him for a favor. One of his brother-in-laws ran a not-so-legal check on Mr. and Mrs. Johnson’s finances. Those people are obscenely rich and they have a lot of money going in and out of multiple accounts that are managed by an accountant. But Angel’s brother David is a genius with a computer and he tracked down another account that’s only in the old man’s name. It’s a cash account that he uses for his fun money…at least that’s what it looks like. Anyways, about a week before the accident, he withdrew two hundred grand in cash.”

“Motherfucker. My Dad’s bike was in my parking stall that night, I’d parked in my neighbor’s stall the night before because some asshole was in mine. He thought he was fiddling with my brakes…but why put himself in the path?”

“I think GM was right about him being suicidal. The guy had shit for a life. He wasn’t a bad guy…”

“Really?”

Zack sighed. “I know, it sucks for me to say that, man, I’m sorry. My guess is that he was just at the end of his rope, desperate to figure out a way to take care of his daughter and put himself out of misery at the same time. It’s fucked up. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. I appreciate the hell out of this.”

“So, what now?”

“I’m not sure…but they’re not getting away with this. They took my life away from me that night too, and somebody is going to pay for it.”