The Fallen Saints are going to come for us.
They already have for the Black Reapers.
How long until they learn come for us? Not like Cole gave up the last name Carter. Not like we haven’t partaken in the war.
I let go of the tombstone and stared at my father’s plot of land. He and I would need to have a lot more conversations before we could even begin to... I don’t know, have a relationship again? It wasn’t like we’d ever have a dialogue, just a bunch of one-sided monologues.
Fuck, my head was spinning so much I didn’t even know what I wanted. I just knew what I wanted to feel. I just...
I just didn’t want to feel the chaotic voices and violence that were going on in my head.
“Fuck...”
Half of me wanted to follow that curse up with “you, Dad,” and the other half with “everything for making me hate my dad.” Neither side had a distinct likelihood compared to the other.
I stood up from the grave and shook my head. I briefly removed my sunglasses and wiped my tears before putting them back on. I didn’t want any inopportune visits right now—not that I would have paused to say hello to anyone.
I began the trek back to my motorcycle, confusion continuously seeping into my brain. This wasn’t like I had just learned that my father had a secret past; this was like everything that I thought I knew about my father was getting thrown on its head. Up wasn’t just down; up was now no longer a direction; it was something that didn’t have a word with it yet.
And I was no scientist or genius. It was going to take me a long fucking time to make any goddamn sense of any of this.
I got all the way to my bike and swung my leg around when I paused.
There was the couple, standing over two tombstones before and now just one, that had their back to me. But even with their faces hidden, I knew immediately who they were.
Lane and his girlfriend, Angela.
They have to be over the tombstone of Shannon.
The incident that started everything.
I had barely known Shannon despite being close in age to Lane and Cole, certainly closer to them than any of the other Black Reapers officers. Lane was, at the time, the epitome of a cradle biker, brought into the club not so much because of his genuine interest in the club but because his daddy was the President. As a result, though he made the rounds and was a member, he was never really present like Cole was. And that went doubly so when Shannon and him got serious.
But Shannon’s death had shaken all of us. It shook me as a reminder that anyone could die in this world at any time, myself and my loved ones included. At least when my father had died, he was an old man. But Shannon...
Seeing Lane and Angela hold hands over her grave gave me pause. Lane had been lucky enough to find love again, but there was a whole good fucking year in there in which he had just moped like a whiny brat so much that it sickened every one of us. I think the officers were legitimately on the verge of mutiny and voting him out as President before he got his shit together.
But he could have just as easily not found love again. He could have just as easily been in my spot, leaving a club that he felt abandoned by. Actually...
You can have your Shannon now.
You could have had her today if you hadn’t fucked up.
But this was not the place or time to think about that.
“I’ll be back,” I muttered to my father’s spirit. “We still need to talk.”
With that, I drove out of the graveyard. I had no idea if Lane turned around and saw me. It wouldn’t have made a difference anyway; even if my father was proved to be the greatest rat in the Black Reapers’ history, he and I still had to talk, and a graveyard where my father—not Red Raven, the traitor, but Austin Smith Sr., my father—and Shannon laid at rest was not the place to do it.
But there was someone that I needed to call, and as soon as I got home, as soon as I got inside and to a quiet place, I picked up the phone. I didn’t even hesitate to call. And on the third ring, I heard an answer.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Jess.”
