Instead, I just ended with, “Thanks, Dad. I love you.”
I kissed the tombstone, patted it a couple times, and returned to my bike. I revved it quietly and moved it forward a bit, dismounting with a bag of flowers. This one was making me a lot more emotional, and as I moved toward Shannon’s grave, I did my best to fight the tears making their return.
“Hey, baby,” I said. “It’s been a full year.”
And just like that, the tears came streaming down.
“Goddamnit,” I said. “Why did Cole have to kill you? Why? I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
I let myself act like a slobbering mess. It was the only time in my life these days where I got the chance to let the emotion out. The rest of the time, I had to act detached, cool, and calm to effectively lead the Black Reapers.
“I failed miserably, and I’ll never forgive myself,” I said. “Understand, baby, I love you. I’ll always love you.”
But that was the shitty part about graves. No matter how often you spoke to them, they never spoke back. There was a grim finality to them, the realization that the person you had once loved and still loved had not remained a human being with a soul trapped six feet under, but a part of the earth, as much one with the soil as the blade of grass that covered part of the gravestone.
The first time I had that thought, I fucking bawled.
“I will do you right, baby,” I said, placing the flowers before her grave. “I will do right by you. I will avenge your death. I will let you live in peace.”
I will kill Cole. I will kill Lucius and every goddamn Fallen Saint out there. And I will free your soul of this burden.
I slowly rose, my legs wobbly. As much as I wanted to spend all day here, I could not. Club business would pull me away eventually, and with our “church” meeting, where all the officers gathered, at noon, I definitely could not stay here. Church was one of the few times I had to be fully active with the club.
“Love you,” I said, kissing the tombstone and rubbing it as I would have rubbed her soft hair.
When I turned, I saw a young woman with brown, curly hair, pale skin, and professional clothing staring at me through sunglasses. She, too, had flowers. She was too far away to engage in conversation, but she was definitely staring at me. The look was anything but compassionate and understanding.
I didn’t give a fuck what she wanted. I’d come to make my peace. If she had something to say to me, she could come and say it.
For now, though, I had to get back to the club life I thought I would have left by now.
* * *
Angela Sanders
Of all people. Lane Carter.
The name was like a curse to me, and as I stood waiting for him to finish at the grave of my childhood best friend, I had a sickening reminder of what this town needed.
A good scrubbing. A damn good scrubbing to remove the bad element.
The Fallen Saints, yes, but also the Black Reapers, who, contrary to the opinion of some, did not help this town so much as they kept it in an era of vigilantism and nineteenth-century laws of justice. It was my job as deputy district attorney to see the elimination of these two clubs.
The sooner we did that, the sooner society could move forward. And the sooner we moved forward, the sooner deaths like Shannon’s could be prevented.
Shannon’s death could have been avoided in the first place if Lane had never taken her to a violent showdown between the Reapers and the Saints. That was like taking a mouse to a war between cats. What the hell did he think was going to happen? I’d known Shannon my entire life, and while she was a sweet girl, her overbearing kindness and empathy for others were her downfall. She could rarely say no to Lane, and it had cost her everything.
If she could not say no to Lane, then I would. I would make sure of it.
As he stood up and glared at me, I tried to figure out if he recognized me. The arrogant prick probably did not—he never was one for getting to know Shannon’s friends. He had a way of isolating her from the rest of us that was just so damn infuriating. That was Lane’s approach in general—to remain aloof except with a couple of very close associates, to ignore or stay above the rest, and let everyone figure out what they needed to do on their own.
It might—might—have been a decent strategy for business and for offices, but for friendships, it was a terrible way to be.
I wasn’t going to go so far as to say Shannon was in a better place without him, as I still would have liked her alive and with him, but I could say him not hurting one of my friends was...
Well, the slimmest of silver linings.
After I had made sure he had left on his bike—an incredibly disrespectful gesture, in my mind, to bring a bike somewhere as quiet and somber as a graveyard—I took my own flowers over to Shannon’s grave, moving Lane’s away so mine would be closer. I patted the tombstone and smiled.
