Leave a Trail

by Susan Fanetti

  “Hey, baby.” She smiled, and he wrapped her up in his arms. Fuck. Halfway through. Almost halfway through. He could get through and have this woman, these children again. He had to. Just had to do what he’d already done. Halfway through.

  He turned his face and nuzzled her neck, breathing her in. Hard since his skin had touched hers, he couldn’t stop his body from pressing to hers, and she moaned and responded in kind.

  “LUNDEN!”

  He pushed back fast. Dammit. No kiss. But he wouldn’t risk it. He needed these precious hours.

  Breathless and flushed, she let him lead her to a chair, and they sat. He pulled Gia onto his lap—at eight, she was getting too old to sit on Daddy’s lap, really, but the guards allowed it, and Bo no longer would. And she was happy to be there. Lilli sat next to him; Bo sat at her other side, looking at his hands in his lap.

  He was losing his boy.

  “How’s Len doing?” Lilli’s voice saved him from the pitch-black trail that thought would have sent him down.

  “Word is, he’s better. He should be back in gen pop within a week, I guess.” Len was in the prison infirmary with a nasty internal infection. The meds they got—Len to compensate for his missing spleen, Isaac for his back—were not of the quality they’d become used to on the outside. Tasha had had no luck getting them prescribed the better stuff, and it was driving her batshit, he knew. They’d sat in this room and gone quietly ‘round about her smuggling better stuff in. Neither Len nor Isaac wanted her to expose herself like that. But maybe she was right. Maybe, before Len kicked from a fucking infection, or Isaac lost his legs again, they needed it.

  “Thank God. It’s killing Tash not to be able to do anything. They wouldn’t even let her see him.”

  “Nah. They wouldn’t. Not in the infirmary. Maybe if they’d thought he was bad enough to send him to an outside hospital. But he’s okay.” He’d almost died, actually, but the bar for ‘bad enough’ around here was high.

  “Isaac, you’ve got to let her.”

  She didn’t say more, because she knew better than to say anything here, and she knew she’d said enough for him to understand.

  “Yeah. I know.” He looked past her at their son. “Hey, Bo. How’s Kodi?”

  Bo gave him a little wave and then shrugged. He’d never looked up.

  “He’s good, Daddy.” Gia answered. She always answered when Bo would not. Lilli had told him that she was fiercely protective of her quiet little brother and was getting into fights at school with kids who teased him. “Mamma says he’s trying to fill your shoes.”

  “He is?” Isaac cocked a sardonic eyebrow at Lilli, his brain going to an amusingly twisted place. She laughed. “No, you weirdo,” she muttered under her breath, “I’ve got my Rabbit for that.”

  He winked, but his cock was going to sprain something. He was having trouble keeping that under control today.

  More loudly, she said, “She means he sleeps every night on the rug in the front hall. He has since you left.”

  “Not on that expensive damn bed you bought him?”

  “Not since you left. He sleeps at the front door, between us and the world. Taking care of your people.”

  That made his eyes burn and itch. Needing to change the subject, he gave Gia a little squeeze. “So Christmas is coming up. What did you guys ask Santa for?”

  He and his family passed the hours of their visit like that, Gia speaking for herself and her brother, Isaac and Lilli speaking in half sentences and code. When it was time for them to go, he took a risk for a kiss worth the one they’d lost, and he pushed his tongue between her lips. Her tongue was there, ready to dance. Before he broke away, she pulled his braid, and he thought he’d just die.

  Halfway. He could do the rest. He could. He had to.

  X

  The 1,642nd Day

  Show, Badge, Isaac, and Len sat in the Visitor Center. They only had about forty-five minutes. The place was packed today, and visits were being doled out in increments. Without immediate family as visitors this week, Isaac and Len had been relegated to the bottom of the pile.

  They weren’t allowed to meet in a group like this. They never were. Show was on Isaac’s visitation list, not Len’s. Badge was on Len’s, not Isaac’s. And Isaac and Len didn’t always get visitation at the same time. They’d pulled some strings and greased some palms to make this work. They did the same thing whenever they had serious business and needed Isaac and Len’s input. Still, they had to be discreet.

  When Tasha and Lilli were here together, the guards looked the other way, also for some consideration. But this was men talking business, and the guards were taking a bigger risk, too. So palms had to get very greasy.

  Today’s serious business: reestablishing Signal Bend Construction. Legitimate business, not criminal conduct, but the BOP wouldn’t see it that way.

  Show was describing the plan. “We got the logistics worked out—a lot of the clubhouse now is vacant space, easily converted. We just need to build out a little, and we can keep the important parts of the clubhouse—the Hall, the Keep, the dorm, weight room, office, kitchen—intact. We don’t need the Room the way we did—that can go over to the business. We’re thinking twenty grand to overhaul the building.”

  “And equipment?” Isaac did not see how the plan could work. Signal Bend Construction had barely made its nut in its heyday, and they would need to start almost from scratch to get it up again.

  “Got a partner wants in, will front for that.”

  “Who’s that?” Len looked as skeptical as Isaac felt.

  Badge answered. “June Mariano. Hav’s mom.”

  “I know who she is.” Isaac leaned back. “You’re honestly talking about taking money from a widow for this? That’s bullshit.”

  “She’s got a sharper head on her than Don would’ve let anybody know. He left her a pile, I guess, and she wants to do right by Hav and his family. It’s an investment, Isaac.” Isaac could see in Show’s eyes that his vote would count no more than any other member’s. That had not always been the case. At first, Show and Isaac had led as the team they’d always been, just with Show taking point. But Show and Badger were the team now, and Show had found the fit of the President’s patch.

  Isaac shook his head, and Show’s face darkened.

  “This vote is already locked in, Isaac. I want you in on this, both of you. But we don’t need it. There are three more seats filled at the table now. And the Horde at home are in. We all worked this together. I want you part of this plan. But mainly I just want to know how you feel about us keeping the name. SBC was your old man’s company.”

  Feeling angry and hurt, Isaac snarled, “I don’t give a rat’s ass about the name. You’ve got my proxy. Do with it what you want.” And he got up and left, ignoring Show calling out his name.

  He was halfway back to the cell, still fuming and paying attention to little else than his raging, furious thoughts. He passed a dark inset, where double doors led to a large equipment closet. Normally, of habit, his eyes made a quick check there. But he was lost in a sea of change, suddenly, after so long away, understanding how very much about his home would always now be lost to him. How many changes would have happened and become old news by the time he got back. All the things he was missing, and the ways his people and his home would be unfamiliar because of it.

  He was lost, and he didn’t look.

  The next thing he new, he was being tackled to the ground, his back screaming at the way it was forced to twist, then a line of hot, new pain fired across his throat, and he felt his chest soaking with thick heat. From a distance, he heard Len shouting his name. He turned to his back and tried to answer, but nothing came out but a wet gurgle.

  The last thing he saw was Len’s frightened face looming over him.

  ~oOo~

  He came awake and knew four things: one, he was alive; two, he was cuffed to a bed in a public hospital; three, there was no way Lilli wasn’t going to find out about this attack; a
nd four, he wasn’t going to get parole in eighteen months. Because he had to retaliate this time. This was the fifth attempt in four and a half years. They’d almost gotten him this time. They would next time, unless he made a stand. His days of trying to stay off the radar and just get the fuck home were over. Badger had been right about the constantly turning cycle of violence that came from vengeance. But if they didn’t retaliate, Isaac would be killed. That simple.

  About fifteen minutes after he’d woken, a nurse came in and checked on him. She’d asked him how he was feeling, but he couldn’t get more than a weird kind of growl past his sutured throat. A doctor came in and checked on him, described how long he’d been unconscious (eighteen hours), the procedure to sew him back together, how many pints of blood he’d needed (five), and other bullshit he didn’t care about. They’d have him in the infirmary in two days and probably back in his cell in four. Fine. Whatever.

  When the doctor left, he saw the legs of the guard stationed outside his door. He wondered if they’d already notified Lilli. If so, she’d be out of her head.

  Before the door could latch, though, it opened again, and there she was. She looked like she hadn’t slept or eaten in, oh, about a year. Damn. He must have been pretty close to kicking, then, if she was here, and if they were letting her through that door. He noticed that the guard wedged the door open as she came in.

  “You asshole.” She said it sadly, with a twist of a smile, her eyes shiny and wet, and he knew what she meant.

  Sorry, he mouthed.

  She nodded.

  “They’re only giving me fifteen minutes, and then I have to wait until the next visiting day to see you again. I swear on all that is holy, Isaac Lunden, if you die, I will dig you back up and cut your throat again.”

  He laughed with his breath and nodded. Ow.

  Then she pulled up a chair as close to the bed as it would go, wrapped her arms around his one free arm, linked fingers with him, and laid her head on his chest. For fifteen minutes, until the guard turned and waved her out, she did not speak. They did not move. He lay there with his throat cut, Lilli’s head on his chest, and thought that, for a shot at fifteen more minutes like this, he might well put a hit on himself.

  X

  The 1,681st Day

  It didn’t take much to find out who’d done it. Len had seen enough of the guys to narrow down the field, and they had enough friends who had enough friends. It had to be him and Len. They couldn’t hire it out. And it had to be visible. It had to be known, or the hits on Isaac would never fucking stop. They were going down for this retaliation.

  It didn’t take much to get a couple of actual blades, either. No piece of shit shank was going to do here. But the black market was robust in prison, and their needs were within their means.

  They waited until Isaac had regained his strength. And then they took out the two contract killers from the Hermanos de los Muertos crew out of Texas. They did it at breakfast, driving the blades deep into their hearts, and they didn’t run.

  As he lay on the bare slab in the hole later, bruised and bleeding in the pitch dark, Isaac wondered if they’d ever see home again.

  X

  The 2,008th Day

  In the end, with the usual plea bullshitting, and because no guard had seen them do it, and no inmate had ratted, they’d added only a new eighteen-month bid, for intent to incite, to their standing sentence. If they could find a way to stay both safe and out of trouble, they could still get home.

  But Isaac and Len were separated and transferred to high-security facilities, Len in Colorado and Isaac in Pennsylvania. Far from home. Hopefully, the message they’d sent by taking down Isaac’s attackers had gone over the national wire, because Isaac was on his own, and Len was, too.

  For the three months between the retaliation and the sentence, while they’d still been fairly close to home, they’d been locked down in the Special Housing Unit and denied visitation entirely. For nearly three months after the transfer, for Isaac, it was the same. Locked down, full restriction. Then, for two more months, he’d only been able to see Lilli and the kids via video.

  The eight months he’d spent without feeling the touch of Lilli’s skin had made him wish with all he had that the Hermanos had just fucking killed him.

  When he finally got to hold her again, even for a precious few seconds, he about came in his pants and wept like a baby both at the same time. But he’d held his shit together. That was all he was doing anymore. Holding his shit together.

  He’d had to fight for his place among a nastier bunch of hardened men. He’d done so—he had size, strength, skill, will, and an increasingly fragile sense of self-preservation, and that had held him in good stead in the stalls. But his victories had not come without their physical price.

  He could not catch a break. He could not.

  Now, he saw his family once a month, if he was lucky. Lilli was tired. She tried not to show it, but he knew her. He saw. The way his life in the Horde had constantly fucked with their life together was beating her down. He could see it happening, even as she continued to fight like the warrior she was.

  She understood why he’d done what he’d done. She’d agreed. But she was angry nonetheless. Not at him, but at the cosmos or something. Just angry and tired, and he could offer her no ease.

  Bo continued to be quiet and pulled further away with every visit. He’d sit on his hands and stare around the room, wide-eyed and silent, or he’d stare at his lap, and be perfectly still for the entire visit. Lilli would try to make him engage, but he would not. Isaac never let her push him much. He didn’t want his son to feel forced to love him. Bo just wasn’t wired right to be able to cope with his father’s situation.

  Isaac could look around that room, bleaker than the last, filled with even scarier people, men who made the Horde look like the Vienna Boys Choir—okay, not that, but still, not as scary as these guys—and understand. This was no place for children to spend any of their lives. He knew he should tell Lilli to keep them home. He’d tried to talk to her about it in letters, but she wouldn’t discuss it. He was their father. He was here. This is the only place they could be with him. End of story, as far as she was concerned. And honestly, he hadn’t fought as hard as he could have. He needed to see them.

  Gia seemed to adapt. She was his girl, and she didn’t seem to care one way or the other where she saw him, as long as she was with him. She’d grown too big to sit on his lap, but she held his hand and talked to him. She wrote him letters of her own, sending him pictures of her horse and their new kittens, and Kodi, who had taken on care of the kittens as well. Pip had died; Lilli had found him curled in his basket one day, stiff and cold.

  Isaac’s life was changing while he wasn’t living it.

  From the day he’d arrived in Pennsylvania, he’d ended every letter to Lilli with two words:

  I’m sorry.

  The 2,736th Day

  Isaac came out of the Springfield Greyhound station on a hot, muggy, brilliantly sunny July afternoon and met a long line of Harleys parked at the curb. His feet were on Missouri soil. Missouri concrete, actually. But Missouri. Seven years, six months, and four days since he had last been in his home state. His homeland.

  He had been assigned a parole officer in Springfield, and he’d need to check in soon, but he had a couple of days before he had to think about that. Right now, Show was walking toward him, and his brothers were all standing in a line. He realized he didn’t know them all, but he didn’t let himself think about that, either. He’d get to know them. He embraced every fucking one of them, even the strangers. Len was there; he’d been released a couple of weeks earlier. He embraced Len first.

  They were both home. They were both whole. As whole as they ever could be.

  When he’d greeted and hugged the line of men in Horde leather, Show turned to the curb, and the men separated so the Isaac could see his old Fat Bob, with his kutte lying over the saddle. Show lifted the leather and held it up, and
Isaac turned and slid his arms in. He remembered a day once before that he’d reclaimed this leather after he’d despaired of ever wearing it again. He wasn’t supposed to wear it now, not while he was on parole. Neither was Len. But for this ride, right now, fuck it.

  Show put his meaty hand on Isaac’s shoulder. “Can you ride, brother?”

  Isaac smiled. “One way to find out.” He walked around his big, beautiful bike and stared down at it, wondering. Could he? Had the years of hard prison life—the fighting, the attacks, the brutal guards, the bad meds, just his fucking age, past fifty now—had that life left him this thing? But then, looking at his beautiful, badass bike, feeling Missouri under his boots, standing with his brothers, he knew. Yes, it had. He could. He swung his leg over the saddle, ignoring the twinge in his back. It wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d feared.

  He strapped on his helmet and then slid on his Ray-Bans. The world looked suddenly brighter.

  “You good?” Show asked, strapping on his own helmet.

  Isaac grinned like he hadn’t grinned in seven and a half years. “Let’s ride, brothers. Let’s ride.”

  As they flew down the interstate toward home, he could feel the scales on his heart and soul loosen and begin to break away. Somewhere under there, deep down below the crust of loss and bitterness and despair that was his prison life, he felt a small flutter of something still alive. The buffet and roar of the wind in his face, the tang and the grit of the road, all of it brought his senses to life. When they took the off-ramp that would bring him home, his heart began to beat with real vigor. And when he saw the sign that bid him a cheery Welcome to Signal Bend, he laughed, loud, shaking his head with it.

  Lilli was just around the corner. Gia and Bo. His wife. His children. His family. His life.

  Home.

  Just around the corner.

  LILLI

  “Bud, come talk to me.” Lilli combed Bo’s dark hair back from his forehead.