by Tia Lewis
“I would do anything for you,” I said. I held her face in my hands. “I love you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You’re safe now. I’ll never let anything happen to you, ever again.” The sounds of celebration faded in the background as I held her in my arms.
22
Diesel
Two days later, we were sure the Devil’s Den was just a memory.
Nobody was upset to see them go, especially not the police. There wasn’t much of an investigation, thanks to the tips we had already given Tommy about a possible problem with them. His affection for Nicole kept him from looking into what we meant. Not that he would’ve tried too hard to find out who blew up their clubhouse. They were nothing but trouble for everybody.
Only two of the club’s members survived the night. Eagle and his lieutenants were all gone. Nobody would miss them, either. They weren’t exactly family men. I told Violet she could rest easy once we were sure we took care of them. She didn’t ask for specifics and I didn’t give them to her.
Once it was all settled, we sat down to work on one more issue. It was a big one.
“I hate to say it, brother, but what he did was unforgivable.” Drake leaned back in his chair and stared me down.
“I’m on your side in this. The club’s side.” I sank into the chair across from him. “It’s killing me, though.”
“He could’ve gotten us all killed for real, man. You know that. Hell, he almost got you killed for real, out on the road that day.”
Creed and Ace stood against the wall, arms folded. “So what do you think?” I asked.
“Anybody else would already be dead,” Creed muttered. “You know that.”
“I know.” And I did. That was the way things were. If you betrayed the club on the level Gunner had, you didn’t deserve to live.
“We all loved him,” Ace reminded me. “He’s part of the club. I know he’s your brother, but he’s a brother to us, too.”
“I know it’s not easy for anybody. You don’t have to convince me. There are rules. He broke, like, every one of them.” My heart was like lead. I knew he was wrong. I was just as pissed at him as anybody else. But he was my brother. We all called each other that, but we were blood. And I was just sitting there, letting Drake decide it was time for him to die.
Drake sighed. “I know what I should do here. It’s part of being club president.” He looked at each of us. “That doesn’t make it any easier to do it, you know?”
“I’m glad I’m not in your shoes right now,” Creed muttered. “No offense.”
“None taken.” He looked at me. “You don’t have anything else to say about this?”
I looked down at my hands. “I’m not sure what else there is to say. I’m with the club, you know? You’re the only family I know. And we all know the rules when we patch in, too. It’s not like Gunner didn’t know what he was getting into when he joined us. He can’t act like he thought this was gonna go unpunished.”
“That’s true,” Drake said.
I looked up at him. “But look at what he did for us already. I mean, he took the rap for what happened that night. He gave up eight years of his life for the club. For me. So no. I’m sorry. Even though I know what he did was wrong, that he could’ve gotten us all killed, I can’t sit here and say I think it’s right that we kill him.”
“Are you sure you’re not letting guilt talk for you?” Drake asked with a cocked eyebrow. “I know who should’ve gone in for that bombing. It wasn’t your brother.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know. I was the one who should’ve gone in. I can accept that. But that’s not why I’m sticking up for him now.”
“So why? Because he’s blood and we’re not?” I couldn’t believe Creed sounded so bitter. I turned to him.
“No, man. You know that’s not it.” I stood up. I needed to feel I was on the same level as them. “I don’t know what happened to him when he was inside, but something did. He only survived all those years by dreaming about getting out one day. And when he dreamed, he dreamed about the club we used to have. You know what I’m talking about. He was gonna be President one day—Big Jack loved him, and he looked at Jack like a father. He had all these plans for the way he wanted to run the club, and what happened? He got out and everything was different. He didn’t even get the chance to stand up and claim what he thought was his. He had to take it. He didn’t have a choice.”
“That’s another part of being a club member,” Drake muttered. “You obey the President and you don’t fuck the rest of the club over because you’re unhappy with the way things are.”
“I get that. And he knows what he did was wrong. At the time, it felt like the right thing to do. I don’t know—it was like he thought he was doing what Big Jack really would’ve wanted. Only it was what he wanted a long time ago.” I shook my head. “None of it makes any sense. I’m the first person to admit that, you guys. But that’s where he’s coming from. I just want you to understand and maybe put yourself in his shoes before you decide for sure what to do to him.”
Drake looked at me. His jaw was tight, but his eyes weren’t as hard as they were before. Maybe I was getting through to him.
“Your brother called me a pussy. More than once. Now you want me to prove him right.”
I shook my head. “This wouldn’t make you a pussy, Drake. It would make you the leader you want to be. Ever since you took over the club, you’ve made us better. You’re smart and you’re fair, and Jack saw the way things needed to be in the future—that’s why he put you where you are. Try thinking about what’s fair here.”
“Fair to who? Fair to the club? To the people who your brother almost got killed? Because killing his ass is what would be fair to them. Think about Violet.”
My eyes narrowed. “Don’t throw her up in my face right now, man.”
“You know what I’m talking about, though. Don’t you? You know she deserves somebody who’s gonna stand up for her and punish the guy who made this happen.”
“Well, to be fair, she did sneak out when she wasn’t supposed to,” Creed added.
Drake shot him a warning look. “Yeah, I know, and I already had a talk with her about that. But she wouldn’t have had to sneak out if Gunner wasn’t sneaking around with the skinheads. Come on, man. You have to see things the way they really are.”
“I do. I’m just asking you to see things how they are, too. Us?” I waved around the room. “We’re family. We have each other’s backs. We have for a long time. We’re together every day, we’ve all been through the shit that put us where we are now. Gunner wasn’t. He was a huge part of the club back in the day, and if it wasn’t for him, there might not be a club now. We all owe him something.”
Drake held his head in his hands. “This is not the way I saw this going. You know that, right?”
“Brother, it’s not the way any of us saw this going. Did you think you would ever have to hold a meeting to see whether or not you should send one of your men to the other side? That’s the sort of shit that went down in the old days, when life was a lot tougher. But look at us now.” I looked at Creed. “You’ve got a woman, a kid.” Then at Drake. “Same for you—well, almost.”
He nodded. “Yeah. That’s one thing he was right about. We changed.”
“Don’t hold it against him that he couldn’t change with us. Not when he was inside. Time stands still in there—that’s one of the first things he told me when he got out. Like his life got put on hold, but the rest of us moved on. Please. I’m just begging you to see things from his side for a little while before you make the final call. He thought he was doing something that could take us back to what we had before. He just doesn’t see that there are things out there better than what we had before. Like having a family. Like being a little more sure you’re gonna make it home at the end of the day. That kind of thing. It’s better than an adrenaline rush—but he doesn’t know that, because he never had time to figure it out like the rest of us did.
”
I sank back into the chair, exhausted. I didn’t think I had ever said that many words at one time in my whole life. The whole time I talked, I thought about him. How much I had always looked up to him when we were kids. He was everything to me, growing up. My rock. I wanted to be just like him. And he had bitten the bullet for me. I never would’ve had the life I had if it wasn’t for him telling me to run away that night so many years earlier.
Drake looked at me for a long time. I wished I could tell what was going on in his head. Violet would’ve been able to tell me. She was good at reading people, better than anybody I ever knew. Maybe because she had spent so much of her life watching from the sidelines, sizing people up, figuring out what they really meant even when they said something totally different. Why did it take me so long to figure out how perfect she was? How could I have been so blind for so long?
Finally, he looked at the guys. I looked at them, too. Both of them nodded, just a little. Hope flickered in my chest for the first time since the meeting started—no, since before that. Ever since I knew for sure that Gunner had been the one who started the whole mess we were in.
He shrugged. “All right. Have it your way. He can have his life.”
I let out a big, deep breath. “You’re serious? You’re gonna let him live?”
“Yeah, I’ll let him live. But.” He held up one finger. “He can’t be part of the club anymore. He’s gotta black out the club ink, turn in his leather vest and never let me see his face again. That goes for all of us. I don’t want him at our door ever again.”
“Understood.” That was more than I had hoped for, by a long shot. I stood up. “Drake, I—”
“Save it.” He sounded cold, but then he smiled. “He saved your ass once, right? Now you saved his. You’re even. Don’t ever feel like you owe him anything else again, and don’t ever let him make you feel like you do. Got it?”
I almost reeled back on my heels. Fuck, he was right. That whole time, for eight years, I felt like I owed my brother something. I had finally paid him back.
“Let me be the one to tell him,” I said. “One more favor, huh?”
“Okay. Not like I wanted to be the one, anyway.” So I went to the door. Harris and Butch were guarding Gunner at the bar, one on either side of him. Tamara polished glasses behind the bar, eyeing them up as she did. I waved the guys in, then stepped back and stood next to Drake who still sat behind his desk.
Gunner’s head hung low as he walked into the room. Harris closed the door behind him. All eyes were on my brother for a long time before I spoke. I wanted to make sure he felt the weight of our stares on him. Just one more reminder of how bad things could’ve gotten if I hadn’t worked so hard for him.
“So? Tell me what you’re gonna do to me—or how you’re gonna do it,” Gunner finally muttered as he stared at the floor. It was too much for him, the waiting. Maybe it was sadistic, but part of me was glad he was feeling the way he felt. He deserved it. I wasn’t kidding when I said he couldn’t help himself for the most part. I wasn’t only saying those things so Drake would feel bad for him and decide the way he did. I knew my brother didn’t really mean harm to the club or anybody in it. I knew time had stood still for him, and that his brain had warped a little while he was on the inside. Still, he was an asshole, and he was getting better than he deserved. It was all right for me to let him sweat it out for a little while.
“You’re gonna leave,” I said.
His eyes met mine. They were wide, disbelieving. “What did you say?”
“I said you’re gonna leave.”
“Like, leave the world?”
“No, asshole. Leave the club. You’re out, for good.”
His eyes darted back and forth, and his mouth worked, even though no sound came out. He was trying as hard as he could to make sense of it. I could see how he was confused. “I don’t get it. I was sure…I mean, club law…”
“Look who cares about club law all of a sudden,” Ace snorted. Drake shot him another warning look, and he quieted down.
Then Drake cleared his throat. “We all know what club law states, and even though it didn’t make me happy, I was willing to go along with that law. It’s the same law that’s been in place in this club and in clubs all over the world for as long as we’ve existed. But your brother spoke for you, and he did a good job of convincing me of the right thing to do.”
Gunner looked at me again. “You did?”
I nodded. “I told them I don’t think you deserve to die. Besides, I know you. It’ll be harder for you to stay away from us than it would be to do anything else.”
He nodded. “You’re right about that.”
“I can always change my mind,” Drake muttered. He was doing a favor to me, not to my brother. I knew that if he had his way, he’d put the gun to my brother’s head himself and pull the trigger. And he would’ve had every right to do that. Gunner had just about destroyed everything he’d worked for and had undermined him ever since he first got out.
“No, no, that’s okay.” He looked at Drake. “Hey, man. Thank you.”
Muscles twitched in Drake’s jaw. “Don’t bother thanking me. Thank your brother, like I already said.”
“You’ll have to black out your club ink,” I said. “And give up the leather vest, of course.”
“Yeah, yeah. Of course.” He looked around the room—the walls, the ceiling, the desk. “No, it won’t be easy to say goodbye to this. When you have something in your mind for years, the only thing you can focus on for all that time, it’s not easy to say goodbye to it so soon. This place was my life for a long, long time.”
“It sucks that it has to be this way. We were happy to welcome you back. Remember that.”
Gunner nodded at Drake’s reminder. “Yeah. I know. I’m the only one who fucked things up for myself. I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life, I guess.”
He looked at me again, and I looked at him. Yeah, he would have to live with it. We all had to live with things.
23
Violet
I only left the kitchen once Gunner, and the other guys went into Drake’s office. Tamara relaxed against the bar and let out a deep breath.
“What happened?” I whispered.
“I don’t know. They only just called him in.”
“Could you hear anything that was going on in there?” I looked toward the door, chewing my lip.
“No. They were talking pretty quietly. I think we were all trying to hear, you know? I barely breathed the whole time.”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Part of me wanted to see Gunner get what he deserved for what he had done, but the rest of me knew it would kill Diesel, too. And I loved him. I didn’t want to see him in pain.
“What do you think Diesel said?” she asked in another whisper.
I shook my head. “I know he didn’t want to see club law go through, of course. But I don’t know what he was planning to say—or if he was planning on saying anything. He might’ve just begged for all I know.”
“Diesel doesn’t seem like the begging type.” She put down the glass she’d been polishing over and over. “Look at me. My hands are shaking, and I don’t even hardly know the guy.”
“I know what you mean.” Even so, we were both more worried about our men and what it would do to them to send one of their own to his death. They were tough guys, all of them, as tough as they came. But they loved each other, too. Then again, love and hate were flip sides of the same, thin coin. The stronger the love, the stronger the capacity for hatred.
The front door swung open, and in walked Nicole. “What’s going on?” she whispered.
“Not sure yet. We’re waiting to see.” She sat next to me. “What do you think Drake went in there planning to do?”
“What do you think?” she whispered. “He’s still livid.”
“I know. I think we all are, a little.” I shivered and rubbed my hands over my arms.
She not
iced and put an arm around my shoulders. “How are you holding up, sweetie?”
“Oh, you know. I haven’t slept more than an hour at a time since I got back. The usual.”
She nodded, and I remembered suddenly that she had been through something similar back when she first joined us. “It’ll get better in time. Trust me. You’re sure for a while that it won’t, but then it does. Slowly. You start to feel like yourself again, and pretty soon, the days when you don’t think about it are more than the days you do.”
“Do you think about it anymore?”
She nodded. “But only once in a great while. Months go by when I totally forget about it.” She snickered. “I mean, at first, I was sure I would think about it every day. I mean, look around. I was coming here, right? I had a constant reminder every day of what I had been through. And I had to sell Dad’s house, too, so I had to keep going back and seeing another reminder. But like I said, it got better. And it’ll get better for you. You have Diesel to help you through it, right?”
I couldn’t help smiling. Just thinking about him was enough to wipe away even the darkest mood. “Right.”
The office door opened and out came Harris, then Butch. Gunner was behind them, followed by the rest of the men. We looked at them expectantly.
Gunner nodded at each of us in turn, leaving me for last. “I wanted to apologize for anything I put you through. I didn’t mean it. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything.”
“I appreciate you saying that.” I was sure he meant it, too. He looked more sincere than I had ever seen him.
He leaned in. “Take care of my brother, huh? He needs a good woman like you.” His lips brushed my cheek, and I smiled when he backed away. Drake led him outside.
“What are you doing with him?” I asked, stunned. I didn’t think they were just going to lead him away like that. Were they really going to kill him?
“They’re going down to the tattoo parlor to black out his ink. He’s out of the club.” I had never seen or heard him so tired, but there was a brightness to his smile, too. Relief washed over me. So he had been successful.