“So, wait up.” Willa Moore set her cup of coffee down, stared at her best friend. “You… you had sex? Last night? In an MC bar back room? With a goddamn biker?”
“Shhhhh!” Zoe hissed, shooting a look at Keira. The baby was sitting at Zoe’s feet in front of the sofa, all blonde curls and brown eyes, happily absorbed in her favorite toy which Willa had been organized enough to bring on the plane. Thank Christ it was a totally silent toy, a stuffed giraffe with purple spots, because according to Willa, Keira had shaken that thing for the entire two-plus hours of the flight from Fargo. If it had even had a tiny bell inside of it, she was sure that it’d have driven the entire plane insane.
Willa stared at Zoe, then down at Keira, who was singing to herself in some language that made zero sense to anyone except Zoe. “‘Shhhh’… seriously? You think she knows what the hell we’re actually talking about, Zee?”
“Shhhh!” Zoe hissed again. “I have no idea, OK, but I don’t want the words ‘sex’ or ‘goddamn’ or ‘hell’ used around her.”
“Alright, alright.” Willa shook her auburn head and rolled her blue eyes. “Message received loud and clear, Mama Bear. I’ll skip the swearing, but we need to replace the ‘s’ word with something else, ‘cause we are going to talk about the hopefully-filthy-and-steamy ‘s’ that happened.”
Zoe grinned, drank some of her own coffee. “Let’s call it ‘step class’. Mostly because it was about that aerobic.”
“Nice. Burned some calories in a hot and sweaty step class, huh?”
“Oh, Lord.” Zoe almost shuddered as she recalled coming from Scars just sliding into her. “Yeah. So yeah.”
“How’d you meet the step class… uh… instructor?”
Zoe explained about going to meet Wolf’s VP at Satan’s Bar, who ended up being a scarred warrior with little bits of fallen sky as eyes. She told her friend about how she’d unburdened on him about Hailey, about how Keira had come into her life, about her fears of not being a good Mom for the sweet little girl sitting at her feet. Then she admitted that she’d just decided to go for it with Scars – history forgotten and the future ignored. That she’d just been living in the moment for the first time in a long time, and that it had been what she’d needed.
Now, though… now, it was back to real life. Her, Keira, this new house in a decent neighborhood, starting a new job managing an MC-owned tattoo parlor the next morning. And part of that reality was seeing Scars Innis again, and again, and again… around the bar, the parlor, the garage, with Wolf… and the whole truth was that as much as she wanted to stay the hell away from him because, Jesus Lord, the man scared the crap out of her, she also longed to see him.
Worse, she ached to have an extended, intensive step class with him again. Ached deep inside her body, deeper than he’d touched physically. Ached in her pussy, her guts, her chest, her throat. Just ached with desire and want and need. Ached for more of him.
No way she was telling Willa that part, though. Best to play it off as a stress-release and a meaningless night of fun before her kid reappeared on an airplane. Best to be all la-la casual about it, because God knows, Scars had barely watched the back room door hit Zoe’s ass on the way out last night before he (surely, most definitely) had been back at the bar, eyeing up one of the scantily-clad pass-arounds and MC regulars on the dance floor.
That’s what guys like him and Wolf did. It’s what all of The Road Devils did. She knew that. No sense pretending otherwise.
“So…” Willa said. “When’s your next step class?”
“Oh, there won’t be another one.” Zoe pushed her blonde hair off her face, aimed for ‘who-cares-anyway’. “It’s not like that with these guys.”
“No? Never?”
“I never saw it, in all the time that I hung around the club with Wolf,” Zoe said. “Even the married guys – the guys with old ladies – screwed anything that opened its legs to them, and the wives were expected to be cool with it, but stay faithful and not even so much as sneak a peek at another man. The club pass-arounds had literally no other purpose but to provide… um… step classes, and every night at Satan’s, women just showed up, looking to be around the bad boys. You’d be surprised how many college girls and women with decent jobs have a step-class-with-a-biker fantasy. It’s a nice break from their safe, little lives… and those boys are ready and willing and able. You get a few minutes of their time, maybe a night, then you’re damaged goods, and he’s off with the next chick hauling her skirt up. He’s a hero for it, the woman is a wh– uh… a w-h-o-r-e.”
“For real?” Willa grabbed a cherry danish. “Talk about a double standard.”
“Complete and total. These jerks live for the pussy on tap.”
“Shhhhh!” Willa flapped her hands and gestured at Keira. “Don’t say ‘pussy’! Say ‘pineapple’ instead!”
“B-i-t-c-h,” Zoe said with real affection. “So, yeah, now that Keira is here and I start work, my pineapple is closed for business. No more step classes for a while, and when I do feel the need for a bit of exercise, I’ll be looking far away from that clubhouse, believe me.”
“Like where? An Appleby’s? A TGI Friday’s?”
“You got it, babe. Gimme vanilla and law-abiding. I’ll be good with that.”
“Well,” Willa said, not convinced. “I think attending a regular step class isn’t a terrible idea. I mean, look… if it’s the kind of thing that you can just show up for when you get a burst of energy, and you don’t have to buy a full membership or commit to monthly fees, then why not just enjoy it? Treat that instructor like – well. Like a piece of convenient hot fun, the way that he’d treat you like a hot pineapple. Why not? Have a good time, get a work out, call it a day. Come home and eat ice cream, and hug this adorable little girl.”
“Because Wolf already desperately wants me to be part of the MC family,” Zoe said in a hollow voice. “He wants me to think of his brothers like my brothers, and to be honest, the guys that I’ve met are already taking me in. Doing things for me.”
“And that’s a problem, because…”
“Because I don’t want to be thought of as club property or a club responsibility. As a club woman.”
Willa stared at her, not fully getting it. Zoe elaborated.
“If the guys start seeing me as theirs, and then word gets around that I’m doing a step class with one of them, the assumption will automatically be that I’m up for it with any and all of them. I’d be fair game.”
“Bull s-h-i-t,” Willa declared, meeting and matching Zoe’s withering glare. “Wolf would never let anyone treat you like a pineapple and nothing more.”
“Of course not. He’d tell them to leave me alone,” Zoe said, ignoring that fact that she’d just totally contradicted herself, scrambling to get the feet of her argument back under her. “But it’s more… uhhh… more about how I’m seen and thought of.”
Willa stared at her some more. Yeah, Zoe knew that look: it was the one that her friend leveled her with when she thought Zoe was talking shit, but she wanted to see what else Zoe had to say. It was Willa’s ‘I’m gonna give you all the rope that you need to hang yourself with, you idiot’ look.
“I mean, I’m going to be running the tattoo parlor where three of the guys work,” Zoe said, back on firmer conversational ground. “I can’t have them looking at me and thinking that I’m exercising with one of their brothers. That can’t be the way they see me, it can’t be one of the first things they think about me. They have to respect me, Willa, take instruction from me, and being a woman, I’ve got a big enough challenge with that as it is. I just can’t be involved with one of The Road Devils. Believe me… it’s a terrible, terrible idea.”
“Actually, yeah.” Willa sighed. “Yeah. That makes sense.”
“Right?” Zoe said. “I moved here to start again, to make a better life for this little girl. To earn a decent wage to save up a bit for a car, and be able to buy Keira some clothes as she grows, make enough for me to live off more than Kraft Dinner and Mr. Noodles. Thanks to Wolf, I’ll make enough to be able to hire a babysitter for Keira instead of sticking her in some awful death-trap daycare like I did back in Fargo, because I had no goddamn choice in the matter. It’s just – this is a chance. A real chance. I can’t mess it up… not for anything, or anyone.”
“Hey, Zee.” Willa spoke softly. For all her joking and teasing and pushing, she knew where Zoe’s heart and priorities lay – and that place was sitting right there at her feet, cooing at a patch of sunlight. “I get it, alright? I mean, I wish you’d find a good guy who could make you happy, but I know that’s not where your head is right now. That’s OK. You did real good, moving here and making the choices that you have. I think it’ll be great for Keira and for you to be back in Denver. Despite all that shit that went down back then, despite being back around the MC… you’re back with Wolf, and after everything you’ve told me about him, he’s a true friend. He’s going to look out for you.” She looked down at Keira, who was rubbing her eyes, a sure sign that afternoon nap-time was approaching. “He’s going to look after both of you. You’re going to be OK here. Happy, even. I know it.”
“Thank you,” Zoe said in a low voice. “For everything – for having my back for all this time with Keira, for taking care of her for free all those days I took a double shift, for bringing her to me today. For taking time off work and taking care of her until I find a babysitter here. You’re a true friend, as much as Wolf is, and I’m damn lucky to have two people like you in my life.”
“Bah,” Willa said, a bit embarrassed at all the naked emotion. “I’ve never done anything for you that you wouldn’t for me in a heartbeat, if the roles were reversed. And besides…” She smiled at Keira. “I love her. I love you. You know that, Zee.”
“I know. I love you, too. And I promise, I’ll find a babysitter as fast as I can, so you can get back home. I’m meeting three potentials tomorrow after work, so maybe I’ll get lucky.”
“You think I’m in a neck-breaking rush to get back to flipping Fargo?” Willa snorted. “Nah, babe. Take your time sorting out the child care. Do it right. I’m happy to stay here, hang out, look at the mountains.” She grinned. “Maybe check out your step instructor… and Wolf. Maybe even bed a hot bad-boy biker before dragging my ass back to the drudgery of ringing up sales for grumpy customers at the local Costco.”
“B-i-t-c-h.” Zoe grinned back, knowing full well that Willa would never make a move on Scars or Wolf: she was a woman who understood the meaning of both friendship and sisterhood. “Have some more coffee while I put Keira down for her nap.” She scooped up her amazing, perfect daughter, gave her a kiss on the nose. “C’mon, sweet baby. Come see the pretty present that the bikers bought you.”
**
Scars shut the front door and knelt down, his ams open wide. His three-year-old niece Cindy squealed and tore at the speed of light down the hall to him. A big part of him still couldn’t quite believe that she wasn’t fazed or freaked out by his scars, especially the ones on his face, but to nothing but his eternal relief, Cindy was fine with how he looked.
Oh, of course she’d asked, pretty early on. She’d touched the shiny white marks on his cheeks, his forearms, his hands, and she’d asked him if it had hurt him when he’d gotten them. For just a second, maybe two, he’d flashed back to the feeling of being burned alive, of his flesh melting off his bones, of how it had smelled to be on fire. God, the smell of his skin burning – that was what haunted his dreams still, even more than twenty years later.
But he’d just smiled at Cindy, and said, “Yeah, honey. It hurt when it happened.”
She’d nodded solemnly, and in a gesture so sweet that it had fucking knocked the breath from his chest, she’d raised his right hand to her mouth and kissed the biggest scar on it. And that was it… Cindy never asked again, and God knows, she never shrank back or looked at him like he was a freak. Instead, every time she saw him, she launched herself at him like she couldn’t wait to give him a hug.
“Uncle Vic! Uncle Vic!”
“Hey baby face,” Scars said as she ran full-tilt into his chest. His arms closed around Cindy and he stood up, cuddling her close. “How’s it shaking?”
She giggled. “Shaking good.”
“Atta girl.” He looked over Cindy’s dark head and nodded at his younger brother, taking the time to get a good look at him. “Hey, Sam.”
“Hi.” Sam’s brown eyes were tired behind his glasses, and Scars saw dark purple half-moons under them. His dark hair was tousled and messy, like he’d just rolled out of bed despite it being pretty late on Sunday afternoon, and his clothes looked a bit thrown-on-in-a-rush. Then again, Sam was raising Cindy on his own, and balancing insane shifts at the hospital, and somewhere in all of that chaos, he had to eat and sleep and shower.
Oh, Scars was doing his part, as best he could. He babysat often, took Cindy to her therapy sessions once a week, sometimes twice, and brought Sam take-out when he had to rush from work back home in the evening, and Scars figured that cooking dinner after a sixteen-hour shift in the E.R. was too exhausting.
Not that Scars was alone in supporting Sam, of course: he smiled as Annie Matthews appeared carrying a tray of cups, saucers, a coffee pot, and plates of cookies.
“Hey, Annie,” he said, walking down the hall, still holding Cindy close. “How’s you, darlin’?”
“Good, thanks,” Annie replied, heading into the living room at a rapid pace, giving him a tiny smile that had more than a hint of nerves. “You?”
“Yeah. Good. Glad to see you guys.”
She nodded, started pouring out the coffee without further comment and with far more concentration than was strictly required – especially considering that the woman had worked full-time as a diner waitress for going on twenty-plus years. Scars let the conversation stop there, though, and with no real hard feelings.
Scars let it lie because he knew damn good and well that Annie wasn’t totally relaxed around him yet, and he didn’t blame her much. He knew what he looked like, what he sounded like, what kind of rep he had as VP of The Road Devils. To be fair, though, her daughter Sarah had just married Jax Hamill – owner of Dangerous Curves bar, Scars’ second-favorite drinking spot on the planet – and according to Sam, Annie had welcomed Jax into the family with open arms.
Sam had assured Scars that Annie was actually semi-fine being around him, but she just needed time to show that. She was cautious by nature, protective of Sam and Cindy, and she knew a thing or two about what trouble looked like in male form.
So Scars was cool with waiting for Annie to come around if and when she wanted. She was an incredible girlfriend to Sam, which was a big plus; her kindness and love to Cindy was an even bigger one. After all, Cindy was Sam’s daughter, but not Annie’s, and Cindy’s sudden appearance in Sam’s life just a couple of months earlier had almost ended their relationship.
Sam hadn’t known about Cindy, hadn’t even had a clue that he was a father, until his ex-live-in-girlfriend Kathleen had shown up with Cindy in tow, and dropped the bomb. DNA tests confirmed that Kathleen was a snake and a bitch and a cheater, but not a liar (about paternity, anyway), and Sam had moved Kathleen and Cindy in with him, worked to figure out how to make it work. And Annie had stepped aside and back from the relationship with Sam – and effectively ended things between them. She’d wanted to give Sam a chance to work things out with Kathleen, if it was at all possible, and she’d wanted him to get to know his daughter. She hadn’t wanted to be a distraction, so she’d removed herself from the situation completely.
When Kathleen had taken off one day – just walked out and abandoned Cindy while Sam slept after a shift – she’d left behind documents relinquishing any and all rights to her daughter. Scars wasn’t a Dad, though he did want to be, but he couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around that selfish, horrible, devastating decision. How the hell did the woman do that? How did anyone do that? How the fuck did they live with themselves after?
Scars and Sam knew a thing or two about losing parents suddenly, so it hadn’t been a surprise to Scars when his brother had stepped up to take care of his daughter. Gotten her in therapy twice a week, found an incredible babysitter that Cindy trusted, cut back on his hours a bit at the hospital, worked damn hard to get his daughter to see him as a calm, steady, reliable presence in her blown-apart little world.
And Annie had come back to Sam, eventually, after a bit of time. Scars understood that they were taking it slow for Cindy’s sake, letting her get to know Annie, trust her, maybe even love her one day. Sam and Annie’s relationship was going to go at whatever pace Cindy could handle – and Scars had nothing but admiration for them and that decision. If it took Cindy five years to be ready for them to all live together, or for Sam and Annie to get married, then they were going to wait.
Scars took a deep breath, reminded himself that sometimes the best things had to be waited for and won over. Coaxed and convinced; shown that what was being offered was genuine and could be trusted.
I’m gonna see Zoe again tomorrow, and we are gonna talk. Hell, yeah, we are.
He looked over at Annie now, took in the tiny streaks of gray in her long auburn hair, smiled. She was older than his brother by fifteen years, and had two grown kids, and worked in a crappy diner, and lived in a bad neighborhood, and Scars really and truly didn’t give a shit about any of that. All he saw when he looked at Annie Matthews was a woman who understood sacrifice for a child – even if that child wasn’t hers – and that was worthy of respect. It was something that both Annie and Sam understood.
And Zoe too.
He sat down on the living room sofa, and Cindy cuddled up next to him. He accepted a cup of coffee from Annie, then leaned back and took a sip, started to let the tension drain from his large body. He was exhausted from the night before, for more than one reason.
The sex with Zoe had been earth-shatteringly incredible, of course, but even though he’d been drained from it, he knew that if she hadn’t left, he’d have gone for at least three more rounds with her. Preferably at his place in his large bed, then in his spacious shower, then on the kitchen counters, then maybe back to the bed, but really, he’d have made it work anywhere. He was sure that he’d be able to figure out how to get back inside that hot little body even if they’d been trapped in a tuna can.
For that woman, Scars would do anything to hold her close, to drive his cock into her welcoming warmth, to watch her fall apart under him, all around him. To swallow her cries of release into his mouth, before driving into that hot, wet pussy deeper and harder – almost too deep and too hard – then shattering into a million pieces himself, just being blown to bits and floating away, like stardust in the air.
Reminding himself that getting hard here and now was a terrible idea, Scars wrenched his thoughts away from the look on Zoe’s face when she’d come for him while riding his cock. God, he’d never seen anything so pure or beautiful, not in the whole his hard, rough life.
But really, he wasn’t just wiped out because of his mind-blowing orgasm and the killer sex session. No, what was really making him drag his ass today was the fact that he hadn’t slept a wink the night before. Too much on his mind. Way too much.
He’d watched Zoe tear out of the back room like a bat out of hell, then just kind of stood there for a while in his underwear, wondering just where the actual fuck things had gone so wrong between the two of them. All that soft, murmuring warmth replaced by a cold, hard woman throwing insults and spewing venom. What had he done to bring on that change? He was pretty sure nothing – but from what he knew of Zoe from Wolf, the woman wasn’t a head case, so the theory that she’d flipped out because she was a nutbar didn’t really hold water. So what, then?
Eventually, he’d gotten dressed, headed back to the bar and checked in with Cole. Glanced around to ensure that things were cool and under control, and he’d spent the next three hours sitting at the bar alone, drinking plain Coke with ice and chatting with Cora and Jasmine, two of the bar waitresses. He’d also given every drunk female eyeing him up the cold shoulder. Well, more than cold, really. Glacial.
He hadn’t been lying when he’d said that Zoe had ruined him for all other women. No matter how tempting the breasts spilling out of those little tops, or how firm and curvy the thighs exposed in those skirts, or how taut and rounded the ass as they flirted with him, he wanted none of it. None of them. True enough, he never really had, and his time with Zoe had just put the last nail in that coffin.
Give him the silken blade; the honeyed edge; the icy flame. Give him Zoe, in all her glory and fire. Give him days talking to her and making her laugh, then give him nights buried between her thighs, his hands cupping her breasts and his thumbs teasing her nipples.
Give him her every mood, her every fear, her every worry, her every demon, and let him hold her hand as she faced those fuckers down. She wasn’t the kind of woman who needed saving, because she damn well could save herself and Scars knew that, but he didn’t want to save her. He just wanted to have the astonishing gift and privilege of being the man that she turned to when her strength flagged, or she needed a hug. He just wanted to be in her life, and he’d do a lot to have that. Even just a little place, just for a little while.
Yeah. Fucking ruined. Totally toast. Just like that, and so damn quick.
At about five in the morning, he’d nodded at Cole and the waitresses, then headed out back to the private parking lot reserved for the club motorcycles. Ignoring the grunts, moans, and cries coming from the club delivery van – though he did idly think that it was Vixen in there with one of his brothers, and no big fucking shock, since the woman was working her way through the MC like clockwork, and probably for the third time – he’d strapped on his helmet and peeled on out of there. He’d arrived at his cabin up in the Rockies just as dawn was breaking. He’d made a coffee, then sat on his porch, still in his leather jacket and cut, and watched the sun rise. Pink and gold, and so bright and gorgeous, it hurt his eyes.
Like Zoe.
Fuck, the woman was in his head.
He’d sat there for hours in the crisp late-spring morning, telling himself that he should go get some sleep, but just not getting up to do more than pour more coffee and make a bunch of sandwiches. He brought everything back to his porch, propped his booted feet up on the railing, and ate and drank while staring out at the calm beauty of the mountains. Just breathed and thought, made some promises to himself and made some decisions… and one included talking to his younger, smarter, way more successful and civilized brother, who was now a single Dad to a sweet little girl.
Maybe Sam would understand Zoe better than Scars ever could? Maybe he could give his rough, idiotic, big brother a goddamn hint? Because right this minute, Scars would pay whatever was sitting in his bank account and buy a fucking clue, if it pointed him in the right direction.
At about noon, he’d dragged himself into the shower, then out to Sam’s house. He’d hoped that Annie would be there, though it was no guarantee, because he didn’t want to talk about this in front of Cindy. All’s he had to do now was figure out how to get Sam away from the ladies.
Turns out, he didn’t have to scheme at all: after about half an hour, Annie took Cindy off to the kitchen to make cookies together. They did this pretty often, according to Sam, just headed off to bake and cook all alone, and it seemed that this was the gentle, unobtrusive way that Annie was letting Cindy get to know her. The food was a bonus, Scars supposed, but the true good thing was the kindness and patience that Annie was extending to this confused, hurting little girl. Besides, Cindy loved ‘helping’ – though Scars couldn’t imagine that she did much more than make a huge mess – and Annie treated her as an equal in the kitchen.
So yeah, it was fair to say that Scars liked Annie just fine. He watched Annie hold out her hand to Cindy, watched Cindy take it without hesitation, watched them trot off to the kitchen a couple of rooms over. They chattered happily the whole time, and he liked the way that Cindy leaned into Annie. Like she wanted to be closer, as close as possible.
“So.” Sam stretched a bit, his shoulder muscles straining against his t-shirt. He wasn’t as broad or built as Scars was, but the man hit the hospital gym regularly and it showed. “What’s up with you?”
“Oh, you know. Mostly looking for ways to run the bar better.”
Sam nodded. “You ready to maybe take some of those skills and run something besides a biker bar?”
Scars had to fight not to roll his eyes, but it wasn’t easy to stop himself from doing it, even at his kid brother. This was a conversation that they’d had many times in the past, and he was sure that they’d be having it many times in the future.
“C’mon, Sam,” Scars said, keeping his tone measured. “You know I’m not leaving the bar, not ever. It’d be like leaving my family, and I’m not doing that unless I’m kicked out – and I’m never going to do anything to have that happen. I’m at Satan’s and in the clubhouse, and that’s where I’m staying.”
“Vic, look… plenty of the guys are in the MC but hold down jobs elsewhere. Not everyone works at the bar or the tattoo parlor or the garage. Moving on to a new workplace doesn’t mean walking away from Wolf and the others. You can do both.”
“Not as Veep, I can’t. That position means being on the ground as much as possible, in case something happens, or a decision needs to be made, or my Prez needs some back-up or even just an ear. If I’m worrying about earning a living from a full-time job in some other place, then I’m not gonna be able to give the boys and the club my attention.”
“Well…” Sam shifted a bit, looking uncomfortable. “Maybe – maybe you can step down?”
“Maybe I can –” Scars stared at his brother, dumbfounded. “Maybe I can fucking what?”
“Step down,” Sam said, starting to speak in a rush, like he wanted to say what was on his mind before his courage failed him, or Scars walked out. “Stay in the club, of course, but just as a general member, not the Vice-President. That way you’d be able to take all the hospitality management skills that you have, and find work somewhere else – maybe in a bar or restaurant, maybe even a hotel. You could still be part of things, but not so much… part of things.”
Scars blinked. “I don’t – where the fuck’s all this coming from?”
“Seriously?” Sam said, and now his voice rose a bit. “You think I haven’t always felt this way, Vic, right from the beginning, for you to not be totally involved and immersed?”
“Well… yeah. But –”
“No ‘buts’, OK? Look…” Sam took a deep breath and visibly calmed himself. “Look. I know why you joined the MC, and I understood and God knows, I benefitted – but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t hated it from the time I got old enough to properly understand what it all meant. When I was at college and med school, all paid for by your risky and illegal Road Devils work and I knew that, I spent years worrying that you’d come home dead after some out-of-state drug run for Kirk Jensen, or some raid on your clubhouse by a rival MC. When I started working at the hospital, I looked for you in every ambulance, on every gurney, on every operating table. I kept waiting for you to die right in front of me, Vic, just like Mom and Dad – and that I’d be just as helpless to save you as I was to save them.”
“Hey, Sam –”
“It’s been years and years of it, and I get it. I do. I get that these guys are your brothers, just as much as I am. Maybe more than I am in some ways, because I know that you’ve done some sketchy shit, some awful things, and you’ve had each other’s backs. You keep each other’s secrets. You’re a closed group, bound together by blood and history, and I don’t want you to lose any of that.”
“No?”
“No.” Sam was emphatic. “When Wolf took the club legit last year and cut off all ties to Jensen and his operation, it was the best news that I’d heard in my life. I thought that it was over, that the MC was now just like any other group owning a dive bar, and a tattoo place, and a garage. I could breathe again, Vic. I thought you were safe.”
“It is. I am.”
“It’s not.” Sam shook his head. “You’re not.”
“Hey,” Scars began, but Sam made an impatient motion with his hand, as if cutting the words off in the air. It came to Scars now that these were things that his brother had wanted to say to him for a long time, maybe since almost the beginning, and so Scars just shut up. Let Sam have his air time.
“I thought you were safe,” Sam repeated softly. “I thought you were out of the one-percenter life. All of you. But Kirk Jensen was killed by Ace Cuddy, then Ace was taken by The Fallen Angels, and Matt Kingston swept in to save his informant. And who did King call for help and back-up when the shit hit the fan, and he was putting together an operation to rescue Ace? Your President. He called Wolf, and dragged you guys into his mess, one that King created by blackmailing Ace into ratting out Kirk.”
“King didn’t force us,” Scars said. “He asked for help with a rival MC, and we chose to give it. Hell, Wolf told me that I could stay out of it, if I wanted to. Told me to stay in the clubhouse and keep an eye out, if that’s what I felt better doing.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, because those boys were fucking monsters, Sam. You know about The Fallen Angels from what you read in the papers and see in the E.R., but Wolf and me? We know them. We knew what King and his people were walking into, and no way we weren’t going to be there to have his six. We’ll always be there if a friend needs help, and King is a friend of the club. Always has been.”
Sam sighed. “And there it is.”
“What is?” Scars snapped. “What’s the goddamn problem with helping a friend?”
“Nothing… if the help that friend needs is to move house. Or fix his car. Or go for a drunken boys’ night out because his girlfriend just dumped his ass. But your friends? They don’t ask for that kind of help. No. They ask you to load up your guns and bring extra ammo, and storm a warehouse full of MC criminals, and shoot every living thing that moves. Those are your friends, Vic, after two decades of MC life.”
“Shut the hell up, Sam.”
“No. I’ve shut up for years.”
“Then you should have no problem going right back to doing it again.” Scars got to his feet, all thoughts of talking to Sam about Zoe long gone. “Thanks for the coffee and awesome conversation. Say goodbye to Annie and Cindy for me.”
“Vic…”
“What?” Scars pivoted, gave his brother his most ferocious glare, the one that had stopped armed men dead in their tracks. “What the fuck now?”
“I know Wolf is working damn hard to take the club legit. To keep things on the up-and-up. I also know that what happened with Ace and that bloodbath in the warehouse isn’t a daily occurrence. Not anymore. But…”
Sam hesitated, plowed on:
“But wanting to do everything in a totally legal and above-board way, and actually being able to pull it off – when we’re talking about a group of men with the club’s history – that isn’t so easy. Wolf can have the best of intentions, and I believe he has them, just for the record… but he’s long been conditioned to deal with things a certain way. You all have. You and your brothers, you speak the language of violence fluently. You think you can all forget that you know it, just because you were told to stop using it? That’s as likely as me telling you to just forget how to speak English, starting tomorrow.”
“Sam…”
“And do you really think that your first instinct to turn to violence is going to disappear, just because Wolf says you have to talk things through now?” Sam looked agitated, even a bit afraid, but he kept talking. “Maybe there is no coming back from the one-percenter life, Vic, even if you really, really want to. Maybe – maybe it just runs too deep inside all of you now.”
Despite the heat of his anger, Scars froze; it was like his private troubled thoughts from the night before were coming out of his brother’s mouth. After all, hadn’t Scars just been thinking that his MC brothers wouldn’t be able to treat Zoe right, because so many of them still believed in secrets and silence? Keeping women at arm’s length and away from club business, even if club business was basic and boring now? And hadn’t he also been pondering the fact that the boys still didn’t fully understand how to live this new, non-violent life?
Scars had just wondered if it was possible to shake off so much violence and darkness and dirt, wondered if maybe they were all just damned and marked – including himself. He’d spent most of the morning on his front porch, drinking black coffee and asking himself, over and over, if he was a good enough man for Zoe and her little girl.
In the bitter end, he’d decided that he wasn’t… yet. But he’d be better for her, for them. Because she was the kind of woman who made a man want to be better than he was, better than he ever thought he’d be.
The truth was that Scars had wanted to change, for a long time. He’d fought damn hard to hang on to the good, pure parts of himself, even in the muddiest and worst moments. He’d failed, sometimes, but he thought that he’d mostly succeeded. But he’d needed that last push, that last reason to really do it. For real and for good and no fucking waffling or half-assing it.
Zoe was it.
Yeah, he wanted to change for her – but he also wanted to do it for Sam, for Cindy. For himself.
But – and this was a goddamn terrifying thought – what if he couldn’t? What if it was too late for him, for Wolf, for Cole and Saint and Arrow, for all of them? Because Sam was right, as much as Scars hated to admit it: it was true that the second he and Wolf had been presented with the choice to help King and drill bullets into those Fallen Angels dickheads, they’d accepted and loaded up.
Without very much hesitation at all, actually. Without very much remorse after, too.
The other truth – the one that Scars had denied to himself, but which he’d faced on the porch just a few hours earlier – was that it had all felt so fucking familiar… almost comforting. Like slipping into a well-worn, favorite pair of jeans. Scars had been surprised how good that gun had felt in his hand. How… right.
I don’t want to want that life anymore.
I want to be different. Better.
“Vic?” Sam’s soft voice brought him back to the moment. “You OK?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Good.” Scars pulled himself together, turned for the door with renewed determination. “I’m out of here.”
“Wait –” Sam stood up too.
“Look, man. I’m not going to say it isn’t a challenge to change, OK? It is. You’re right about that, I’ll give you that one. But it is possible, if someone really wants it.”
“You think…” Sam hesitated again. “You really think that you can get past everything? All those things that you did before?”
“Yes.” Scars’ voice was clipped. “I do.”
“You know that the past never really stays there, right?” Sam said quietly. “That at some point, it tries to drag you back… it comes calling, because a bill is still due. Karma, Vic. None of us escapes it.”
“So why the hell should I leave my VP post, then?” Scars demanded. “If I’m damned and done and dusted, I’m right where I belong, huh? Down in the shit?”
“Because,” Sam said, sounding almost defeated. “Because we can always do some things to increase the likelihood of success, or keeping karma at bay just a bit longer. And in your case, I think that the only way to really start again is to leave the MC as a full-time member. I think – I think that if you do, if you make a good, whole life in the civilian world, then you’ll be safe. Safer than you are right now, at least.”
“Sam…” Scars stopped, not sure what to say after that, but definitely not angry anymore. His brother may not have gone about this conversation in his usual thoughtful, careful, tactful way, but that was probably because he was worried, and so he was making a fucking mess of it. It was all coming from a place of love and concern, though. That much Scars knew for sure. “Sam… I can’t leave. I won’t. I totally understand what’s worrying you, though. I do. I’m sorry that you worry about me, I’m sorry that you’re going to keep worrying. But those men are my friends, my brothers, and I owe them everything and frankly, so do you.”
“I know,” Sam said in a hollow voice. “And I’m not thrilled about that.”
“Well, get over it. You got an education and you’re a trauma surgeon because of The Road Devils paying me good money to do bad things. If you’ve got issues with it, or feel any kind of weird guilt about it, that’s your shit to sort out, so don’t take it out on me, OK? But if you’re mostly worried that I’m gonna end up dead in some MC business, well… yeah, it may happen. It’s not as likely now as it was a year ago, but, yeah… maybe. Then again, maybe I’ll get hit by a goddamned bus crossing the street downtown. No guarantees anywhere, man. You work in an E.R. You know what happened to Mom and Dad. You know it, Sam.”
“Yes. I do.” Sam sighed, rubbed his eyes behind his glasses, those eyes so much like their mother’s. Scars had gotten his piercing blue eyes from their Dad, but Sam was the lucky one, Scars thought, to have those soft, warm, chocolate-brown depths. “I guess I just don’t like to admit it.”
“Nobody likes to be out of control, man.”
“True.” Sam sighed again, then smiled. “So… can you stay for cookies? I know Cindy will be happy if you do. She’s baking them for Uncle Vic, you know. To hell with me on this one.”
“Yeah, for sure.” Scars gave his brother a grin, decided to postpone the Zoe conversation for the moment. Maybe indefinitely, because if he were being honest with himself, he was going to go for it, full-steam ahead. He’d figure it all out as he went along – the feet-first approach had worked in his life so far. Mostly. “The cookies are the whole reason why I came over this afternoon, you know.”
“Mmm-hmmm. I figured.”