“Huh? No, no, I’m past that,” Cole said, who suddenly looked embarrassed at how he had phrased his words. “I meant, sorry, I meant that to me, your father is resting in peace, so I didn’t want to keep bringing him up to you over and over again.”
“You’re good,” I said with a short smile. “That’s just what we’ve spoken about the past few times.”
“No, no, sorry, I trust you to bring it up to me if you need to talk.”
If you need to talk. I swear this is the first club I’ve ever been a part of where we actually supply support and not just drinks and silence.
“Anyway, look, I need to ask you a blunt question, Phoenix. What would happen if we had to reunite with the Black Reapers?”
The gasp that emitted, the jaw drop, and the scrunching of the eyes should really have said it all.
“That’s... you can’t possibly be thinking about that, Cole,” I said. “I, you... you’d... fuck, man, seriously?”
“It’s not something that is set to happen anytime soon, just to be clear—”
“It shouldn’t be set to happen ever!” I said. “Let’s just leave my father out of this for a second, because that’s too… whatever. Cole, Lane kicked you out of the Black Reapers. In that time, despite his distancing, despite his arrogance, despite his... his Lane-ness, you still came to help him twice. And how does he thank you? By bitching about you, by being a giant pain in the ass, and then bringing his club down to Ashton to try to kill you. It’s a fucking miracle that nothing happened!”
I took a breath. This proposal was pissing me off, and I didn’t mind showing how much. I was aware that it was Butch who had actually prevented the greatest amount of violence, but that just delayed the inevitable. He hadn’t done anything special.
It didn’t make up for him murdering my father.
“Look,” Cole said. “I wasn’t posturing at the meeting. I really don’t think we stand much of a chance against the Fallen Saints if they get past the Black Reapers. And you know the Saints will not content themselves with remaining in Springsville. They are like a virus. They’re not going to just... they’re a cancer that grows, OK?”
I could hear real fear in Cole’s voice. I think he feared retaliation for the last joint strike we’d conducted, the one that had landed Lucius in the hospital. The one that gave us a chance to deliver the crippling blow, only for Lane and the rest of the Black Reapers to be a bunch of pussies and refuse to strike.
Oh, yeah, the one where my father voted to strike and end it all. Could have saved the club.
Or his own ass, maybe...
“For now, we don’t have to do anything, so we’re both OK in this regard,” Cole said. “But... just think about it. Think about if you can...”
“What, forgive them?”
The fact that Cole had no reaction said it all to me.
“I’d sooner see them die a painful death in fire than forgive them,” I said.
“I know,” Cole said. “When the anger subsides, think about it. Because if that happens, if they die, then we may die.”
Cole walked past me, but his message hadn’t really hit home as hard as it might have until those last words.When the anger subsides... if they die, then we may die.
Anger hadn’t just consumed me—it had practically become me since my father’s death. And damnit, I didn’t feel a fucking drop of remorse for that anger.
But at some point, somewhere down the line, that anger probably would go from being a spike of adrenaline, making me something of a super soldier, to more of a toxin that would poison me and weaken me. I mean, shit, my father said he used to have serious temper problems, and the reason he sought to be so calm was that he believed tranquility and serenity were the paths toward being the best version of himself.
But I wasn’t a fucking old man in his sixties with less than a few years of natural life to go. I was a goddamn healthy, fit, muscular, and agile man in his late twenties. I could afford some time to let this anger turn into something else. I could afford to suck in some of the toxin if it meant I could transform it into venom for my enemies, for Lane and Butch and all the Black Reapers.
But as for right now… I just needed a goddamn drink. After a meeting like that, I needed a very literal type of toxin, one that could subdue my anger a bit and make me feel a little more at ease. Shit, I also needed to sleep at some point tonight.
Cole wasn’t even in the clubhouse anymore; he had either left or gone outside. No one else was looking my way, so it was time to get the fuck out.
And when it came to grabbing a drink and, more importantly, quelling my nerves, I knew just the place.
I’d only needed one visit to already know where I was going to go to feel a little more at peace.
