“I still don’t understand how a wild ass like you got out early.”
“‘Cause I can be good when I wanna be.” I say the words around a laugh.
“I ain’t talking about getting your dick wet in the sack.”
“You gotta keep bringing up sex?”
“Well?”
“I sincerely assured the review board that I would be starting a new life. Upon my release, in this new life, I had no interest in or being a part of anything or associated with anyone involved in crimes of any kind. I also assured them I wasn’t in touch with any of my other brothers, which they already knew from my lack of visitors.”
“You always were a good bullshitter.”
“With my clean record on the inside, they had no reason to doubt my words, which made the interview very short and very sweet.”
“I still say you should lay low for a while.” Maggie cocks her head. “Anyway, what makes you think the guys will want in on that life again?”
“‘Cause it’s the only thing we know, and I’m pretty sure most of them have shit jobs paying them a shit wage.”
“With one big selling point—they’re not gonna get busted and thrown in the slammer.”
“You gotta think positive, Mags.”
My first and only priority, regardless of what I told the review board, was to round up my brothers and jump knee-deep into my old life. First on the list, bring the Kings of Anarchy Atlantic City Chapter back to life.
“I see prison didn’t change you any. You’re still all gas, no brakes.”
“Being locked up gave me plenty of time to think—a good thing and a bad thing—but, bottom line, there was no life for me without the MC.”
Maggie’s face sobered. “I get that part.”
Planning to revive the Kings of Anarchy became my passion for living the last five years. It put me to sleep at night and was the reason I woke up every morning. It filled my brain as I ate the slop and endured the bullshit and mindless drudgery of prison life, knowing someday I would make it all right.
“No other way I know how to be, you know that.”
“Storm always said you had heart.” Her lips twist into a cocky grin. “Not much brains, but a lot of heart.”
“Says the man who used to drag race down Atlantic Avenue at a hundred and twenty, just begging for the cops to pull him over.”
Maggie taps her heart. “One crazy fucker.”
“Yup, but those days are gone, and I’ve had five long years to formulate a plan. I even got somewhere in mind for a clubhouse. A place called The End, all the way down Atlantic, almost out of the city limits. Ever hear of it?”
A guy in the next cell told me about a rundown bar in Atlantic City called The End. Not too original, but who gives a shit? Supposedly, some guy named Sammy owned it and was looking to dump it. I hoped to make a deal with this Sammy, ‘cause I had no time to waste.
“The End? I thought that dump closed down.”
“It did, and I have it from a very reliable source that the owner wants to sell.”
“And you think setting up in AC again is a good idea?” She cocks her head in a knowing look.
When I got sent up, Atlantic City ranked third in the state for violent crime, with Camden and Newark coming in as numbers one and two, which wasn’t saying much since they were all hellholes. Luckily, I didn’t pay attention to statistics, and a city with high crime rates made the shit the Kings dipped their fingers in seem unimportant.
“I wouldn’t go to see Ace first.”
Ace, my former VP, and I put the club together when we were barely twenty-one. We’d both needed a lifeline, and fifteen years later, it was the only life I knew—the only life I wanted.
“I’m not that stupid.”
