At the very least, there was some lingering discontent with the idea of our existence. Maybe it wasn’t outright hatred, maybe Lane had “come around” to us, but there wasn’t any sort of enthusiasm for us.
“We let him do it, provided he did it with his money and didn’t ask much of us,” Lane continued. “I let him have Butch come down. But I’ve never been comfortable with it. We fought like hell for peace for years. I’m not about to get my men involved in something that’s multiple states away when I know my brother will recover and that he’s got you guys on the ground.”
“We’re not the size you are, Lane,” Steele said. “We’re about half of you, especially after our last battle. And on top of that, like Zack just said, King will come back for you. Your battle isn’t done. It’s just on pause.”
“Fucking Christ,” Lane muttered under his breath as he bowed his head.
He muttered something under his breath—I heard the name “Angela” in there, but not much else. He looked back at his club, then to Steele and me.
“The fact that you two drove all the way up here is un-fucking-believable,” he said. “You can spend the night if you’d like. Even have some drinks with us. But don’t expect to leave here with a commitment from us. I need to do more digging into this King character. Like I said, everyone here has been through hell. The battle with the Fallen Saints cost me my first love, our club chaplain, the longest-tenured officer, and so many other members. I’d just like for this club to remain a place of booze, bikes, and babes if it can.”
Steele and I shared a glance. We both understood the reality—if we pushed, we’d get an answer. But the answer would be no. The best thing that we could do right now was to integrate ourselves and hope for the best.
“We’ll take you up on that offer,” Steele said. “Appreciate it.”
“Don’t push your luck on it,” Lane said. “We’ll get you some food and some beers. Come chill in the clubhouse. But don’t bring up what you did today.”
“Understood.”
But we were far from done. Better for us to push our luck and get a hard no than to not push our luck and wind up dead.
Because really, given how things were going in Santa Maria, that’s where it seemed things were headed—either we lucked out and got their help, or we were screwed and we would die.
And I had to appeal on a more emotional level.
I had to hope that Lane and Cole still had a good relationship.
