by Zoey Parker
“We won,” Bard agreed, “but barely. And it meant wiping out almost every Bonaccorso, plus calling in favors that can't be called in again. Plus, what happened with Lauren...”
“Don't,” Nic said, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Just don't even talk about it, okay? I don't like thinking about it.”
I looked at them both and for the first time, I noticed how exhausted they looked. At first I'd assumed it was just because I hadn't seen them in so long and they looked older. But it was more than that. Their faces reminded me of those before-and-after photos I'd seen in magazines of guys who'd been to war. The cocky look that used to be in Nic's eyes had been replaced with a thousand-yard stare.
“And it was all the result of a misunderstanding that got out of hand,” Bard said. “If you go gunning straight for Jester, this time, there's no way it can be seen as anything except a full-on declaration of war.”
“One the club wouldn't survive,” Nic added. “We took out one mob family, fine, it was a one-time beef. We start targeting others, and every mob outfit from coast to coast will come down on us. We'll never be able to ride free or do any business again without worrying when those fucks will decide to drop the hammer. Probably not just Reapers, either. Every MC will get a big bull's-eye painted on their backs so they can send a message: Bikers do not get to fuck with wiseguys, period.”
My head started to throb. I understood what they were saying and I knew they were probably right, but damn, it hurt like a motherfucker. All I'd been able to think about was putting a bullet between Jester's eyes when I got out. It never occurred to me that the other Reapers wouldn't be behind me when I did.
“Okay,” I said. “I get it. That's a lot to ask of you guys, especially after everything you've been through already. I don't wanna be the guy who sent the Reapers on a suicide mission. But what do you expect me to do? Forgive and forget? Send Jester a bouquet and a teddy bear with a card attached? 'Hope we're square, live and let live,' whatever?”
Growler chuckled in the corner, then nodded and see-sawed his hand in a “maybe, maybe not” gesture.
Bard held out a small rectangular patch to me. I took it and saw it had the words “Vice President” on it.
“Growler is a Reaper for life, but he's chosen to take a step back from active duty, as I'm sure you can imagine,” Bard said. “So has Nic, since he's got a family to take care of now. Boomer is our new Sergeant-at-Arms. But I kept the VP spot empty, Rafe. I was saving it so I could offer it to you when you got out today. You deserve it, and if you hadn't been sent upstate seven years ago, you'd have gotten it long before now. It's yours if you want it, but first you have to make a promise.”
I looked at the patch I'd wanted so badly ever since I joined the Reapers. It would be such an honor to finally know I'd earned it. But I knew what promise Bard wanted from me. “I have to drop the thing with Jester, is that it?” I asked.
Bard nodded. “You can't go to war with the Mancusos while you're wearing a Reaper patch unless you want to drag the rest of us into it with you. But if you're willing to let it go, you can be our VP and I can smooth things over with the Mancusos so Jester will leave you alone.”
I suddenly flashed back to all the times I'd seen Bard playing chess at a table at the back of the Nest before I got sent away. He was always eager to teach prospects how to play when they asked—and a lot of them did, just because they figured it was a way to get on his good side. He'd patiently remind them over and over to think about each move far in advance and plan for every possibility.
And I realized that he'd just check-mated me.
“You planned every part of this, didn't you?” I asked Bard. “You knew I'd come in here wanting Jester's blood, so you stashed Growler back here like some kind of fuckin' prop, and then had the VP patch ready to just hand over, too. The carrot and the stick, huh? I'd forgotten what a calculating motherfucker you were, Bard.”
Bard raised his eyebrows. “You can call me anything you like, as long as you tell me it worked.”
I sighed. “Yeah. It worked. It was a shitty way to use Growler, though.”
Growler shrugged and scribbled on the board again, holding it up. “Needed you to get the point. Don't let this happen to you!” Next to it, he'd drawn an arrow pointing to himself.
Nic put a hand on my shoulder. “No one's trying to fuck with you here, Rafe. Everyone here respects you and what you went through. We were just trying to put it to you in terms we'd have understood ourselves, if the situation were reversed.”
I thought about it. When I was at Potawatomi, I was worried that when I got out, I'd be running behind the pack for a while and waiting to catch up since I'd been out of the loop. Now I was looking at my chance to not just run with the pack again, but help lead it.
Still, seven years was seven fucking years. Seven years of food that tasted like cardboard and a cell that was a freezer in winter and a goddamn oven in the summer. Seven years of no music, no pussy, no TV, and wondering when the next guy would try to come at me with a sharpened toothbrush. Seven years without showering or shitting alone, and without riding my bike down the highway with the wind in my face and feeling truly alive.
All that, plus a bogus fucking drug charge that'd be pinned to my record for the rest of my life. And maybe even worse than that, a rep on the street as some kind of goddamn rapist, all thanks to the lies of a crazy bitch with a soul sculpted from dried-up dogshit.
“What if I can't let it go?” I asked.
“Then you go and do what you need to do,” Bard said, “but you leave your vest here. If you do this thing and you manage to make it out alive and with no heat on you, your cut and the VP patch will still be here waiting for you.”
I nodded. “Let me think it over,” I said.
“Absolutely,” Bard said. “Now come on, let's enjoy the party.”
There was cake and dancing and laughing, not to mention the obligatory parade of girls in tube tops and miniskirts that the Reapers wanted to introduce me to. I wanted to relax, but I couldn't stop thinking about what I was going to do. I'd missed these guys so much. Part of me wanted to make sure this moment never ended by accepting the VP patch and forgetting my rage.
But that's the thing about rage, when it's real.
Anger isn't real rage. Anger's what happens when some dude gets cut off in traffic or gets a drink spilled on him in a bar by a guy who acts like a dick about it instead of apologizing. Anger can happen many times a day. The average person can probably drink the anger away quickly enough, or smoke it away, or even fight it away if it comes to that.
Real rage is something different. It only happens when something important is taken away from a person, and they know that no matter what they do, they'll never get it back. Rage is the name for the hole that leaves inside. Nothing can ever fill that hole again because it's the exact shape of what was lost, but the only thing that will come close is revenge.
Rage was what I'd felt as a kid when my parents' house caught fire and they'd died. I'd had to spend the next seven years of my life getting passed around from one foster home to another. Some of the families I was given to were violent, some were perverts, and some just didn't give a fuck. By the time I was eighteen and on my own, I'd have given anything to get my hands on God for ripping my whole childhood away from me in some stupid, senseless accident. I'd had to deal with the fact that I'd never be able to get revenge for that.
But I could get revenge for this. And the idea of just letting it go felt about as realistic as deciding to detach my own head and carry it around under my arm.
Boomer tapped me on the shoulder and gestured for me to follow him to a corner. When I did, he leaned in urgently. “Bard gave you the speech, right? About not going after Jester?”
“Yeah,” I said.
Boomer nodded. “Sure he did. Well, I just want to say that he's absolutely right. You can't go after the Mancusos, and if you did, the rest of us Reapers sure as fuck couldn't help you.”
“I got that, thanks,” I replied. What the fuck was this about?
“So for instance,” Boomer continued, licking his scarred lips, “if I happened to know that Jester's pal Angelo always hangs out at a pizza joint called Maggia's, then I certainly wouldn't be in a position to tell you something like that. Otherwise, you might be tempted to follow him to Jester and stick a blowtorch in his ear until his brains roast.”
I raised my eyebrows. “And we couldn't have that,” I said.
“No, we couldn't,” Boomer agreed. “One more thing. Chicago's become a major shithole since you left. Crime everywhere. I blame the schools. Anyway, I figured you might need this.” He reached behind him, taking a 9mm Glock from the waistband of his jeans and handing it over. Before I could thank him, he held up a finger and dug into his pockets, producing two extra clips of ammunition.
I smiled and gave Boomer a bear hug. “Thanks, man,” I whispered in his ear. “I owe you big-time. Congrats on being Sergeant-at-Arms.”
“Hey, congrats on the VP patch,” he answered. “Just make sure you live long enough to sew it on, okay?”
I told him I'd do my best.
I didn't realize that might not be good enough until it was too late.
Chapter 5
Jewel
On the average work day, I'd leave the office at about 5:30 and head home on the Red Line. Unfortunately, as it turned out, Wednesday was not an average day.
It was tax season, which meant the number of files we handled quadrupled. Likewise, the phones were a lot busier, so it was harder for me to find time for the necessary typing and filing during the day. I'd skipped lunch to make up the time, but that afternoon, an important file went missing. I had to spend four hours tearing the office apart to find it so Bertrand would have it for a meeting the next morning, and another hour putting everything back in place after I realized the silly thing had slipped behind the file cabinet.
Just when I thought I was ready to leave for the night, a package arrived from another CPA's office that was transferring nine new files to us. I had to mark and annotate them so Bertrand could review them when he came in.
By the time I left, it was almost 8:00. Even though the walk to the train had always given me the creeps in the daylight, it turned out that nighttime was infinitely worse. Hookers in colorful spandex mini-dresses strutted up to parked cars, leaning into the windows. One of them laughed when she saw me, and another one rolled her eyes. Young men in gold chains and sagging jeans leaned against the walls of the buildings, hooting and catcalling at me as I passed.
Every block I walked felt a mile long. As usual, I kept my eyes pointed straight ahead, trying to concentrate on the bright lights and busy streets up at the train station.
When I was just two blocks away from the Grand Street station, I saw that I was getting closer to the alley next to Maggia's Ristorante Famiglia. This was the alley where I'd always felt the most certain that there were eyes staring out at me, and I usually hurried past it.
This time, though, it was worse. As the alley's entrance drew nearer, I heard a man's voice, sobbing. “Please...Jesus, Angelo, don't fuckin' do this, okay? I'm sorry I did it! Is that what you want to hear?”
“You're only sorry you got caught, Maggot,” a hoarse voice answered. “And that kind of sorry don't count. Now where is it?”
I slowed down. Whatever this was, it sounded horrible and I didn't want to get too close to it. I thought about turning around and heading back to the crosswalk to take a longer way around. But part of me couldn't ignore the fact that I could get into plenty of trouble that way, too, depending on what other kinds of strange people might be out in this neighborhood. I figured I should just rush past the alley as fast as I could without looking into it.
I was so scared by the tone of the voices that I wasn't paying much attention to the words they were saying. I assumed that the worst-case scenario was that someone was getting beaten up or mugged, in which case they'd probably report it to the police later. There was no reason for me to get involved.
I just had to walk past it quickly and forget I'd heard anything.
“Where is what?” the sobbing voice said. I heard a smacking sound, followed by a cry of pain.
“You know what,” the hoarse voice insisted. “No one's coming to your rescue, Maggot, so stop fucking stalling and spill it.”
Just give him your wallet, I begged the man silently. Or your watch, or whatever else he wants. Just get it over with.
The alley was just a few feet away and getting closer with each step.
“Okay, it's at the place in Milwaukee! Jester knows the one I'm talking about!” the crying man said.
I'd reached the entrance to the alley. Half of me prepared to rush past it while the other half begged me not to, insisting that whatever I was hearing, it definitely wasn't a mugging.
But just two more seconds, I thought, and I'll be past and I won't have to care what it was. I'll probably even skip the news tomorrow just to make sure I'll never find out, either.
As I ran past the alley, I heard the crying voice scream, “No! Don't! Help...!”
There was a series of gunshots. Before I could stop my body from reacting, I froze and turned to look at the source.
I'll never regret anything in my life as much as I regret doing that.
The flashes from the gun's muzzle lit the alley in split-second bursts like a strobe. I saw the victim hit the ground face-down as the bullets tore into the back of his shirt, sending up clouds of red mist. The man who shot him was tall and broad-shouldered, his face twisted into a snarl of rage as he pulled the trigger over and over. With each blast, there was a flicker of golden light from his hand, as though the gun itself was gold-plated.
The gunshots ended abruptly and I suddenly realized that I was still rooted to the spot and staring into the dark alley. I tried to make my legs move, but the fear made them feel like they were encased in cement. My heart felt like it was going to punch its way out of my ribcage.
I saw movement in the shadows and heard the hoarse voice in the alley. “Jesus, who the fuck is that? Grab her! Now!” There was a scuffling sound as several pairs of shoes hurried toward me.
You're going to die, my mind insisted. Whoever these men are, they're going to murder you. You need to run. Now.
But I was still paralyzed with terror. I saw the barrel of a gun raise in the darkness ahead of me, briefly catching the glare of the street light above. I shut my eyes helplessly, waiting for another loud bang followed by endless nothing.
I heard the bang, then another, and prepared to feel the bullets tear through my body. Instead, I heard a jumble of confused voices in the alley and felt a hand grip my shoulder firmly, pulling me backward.
I opened my eyes and found myself staring into a man's face, inches away from my own. His skin was pale and he had piercing brown eyes. Handsome and rugged-looking, he was probably in his thirties.
“Come with me,” he said.
Chapter 6
Rafe
Before I left the party at the Nest, I walked over to Bard and asked, “Okay, so where is she?”
Bard furrowed his eyebrows in mock confusion. “Who are you referring to, Rafe?”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, man. Seven years. I got no conjugal visits. I didn't collect stroke mags. Hell, I didn't even fantasize about anyone except for her. Now I'm free and I want to see her. I want to touch her. I want to ride the fuck out of her all night long. So don't be a dick. Tell me where my Rosie is.”
Bard smiled and reached into his pocket, pulling out a set of keys. He handed them to me. “She's out back in shed number three. We all took turns giving her plenty of love and care while you were gone. Go to her.”
I smiled and sauntered out the back door, jingling the keys. Every day at Potawatomi, I'd been able to deal with the constant fighting and yelling and cursing around me by just closing my eyes and thinking of Rosie. Every night, I'd escape from my lumpy cot and itchy blanket b
y dreaming about the thrill of having her under me again.
When I got to the metal door of shed number three, I bent down and put the key in the lock near the ground. I pulled the door up and the light from the street shined into the dark shed, reflecting off the customized paint job. Thorny black stems with blood-red roses blooming on them coiled around the bike's front fairing. The headlight was turned toward the entrance to the shed and when the light caught it, it seemed like she was opening her eye to look at me as I walked in. My old helmet hung from one of her handlebars.
My faithful Rosie.
I gazed at her lovingly for a long moment, then rummaged in the shed until I'd found the notepad and pen that was used to keep lists of parts and tools which needed to be bought. I shrugged out of my Reapers cut and folded it carefully, draping it over the top of a folded stepladder.