Epilogue
Eagle
Ten weeks later
I’m sitting in my new office at the cabin. We officially opened the new chapter in Shreveport two weeks ago. Someone knocks on the door and I look up from my paperwork. “Come in.”
Lazaro Mendoza steps inside and grins. “Eagle.”
I stand and offer him my hand. “How’s married life?”
He rolls his eyes. “Good. I guess I should ask you the same thing.”
“She’s pregnant.”
“Who?”
“My wife, asshole.”
“Congratulations,” he says.
We both laugh and grip each other’s arms.
“About that little problem . . .” Lazaro reaches inside his jacket pocket and pulls out a business-sized envelope. “Thought you’d like this back.”
I take it. I find thirty thousand dollars inside. “What’s the extra ten G’s for?”
“A wedding gift from Tito.”
I nod and stash the envelope in the top drawer of my desk. “How’s yourprimodoing?”
“Not so good,” he says. “He took a one-way trip. No one has heard from him.”
When Lazaro found out what his cousin had done, he insisted on personally taking care of the problem. I let him. We’re still best friends, though our paths rarely cross. Some things from the past just stay the way they were meant to be.
“Are you staying for the barbecue?” I ask.
“Just dropped off three cases of Coronas and ten pounds of fajitas to the old ladies. What do you think?”
I round my desk and open the door so we can join Angel and my brothers outside. The Iron Norsemen throw several parties a year, for the charter, their families, and the people from the community who support our club. There’s a couple hundred people waiting for me. Just as I step out of my office, a man I don’t know wearing a club cut blocks my path.
“Are you Eagle Laramie?” he asks.
I look him up and down. He’s a couple inches taller than me with a week’s worth of stubble on his rugged face. He’s lean but strong looking. Definitely an outsider. “Yeah,” I say, offering my hand. “Who wants to know?”
“Brick,” he answers.
My new enforcer? He’s four weeks late showing up. “Where ya been, brother? Your old prez was starting to worry about you.”
“Took the scenic route down from the East Coast.”
I can appreciate his stay-the-fuck-out-of-my-way attitude. Austin Anderson, born in Texas, but raised in Philly. “Hungry?” I ask, pushing by him. “In case you didn’t see it, there’s a party outside. Grab a beer and come meet your new brothers.”
We walk outside and I spot Angel standing with her best friend Asia, her mother, and the other old ladies. Angel looks up at me and smiles. Pregnancy has only made her more radiant, more beautiful—if that was even fucking possible.
I join her and give her a hug, draping my arm across her shoulders. “Remember Lazaro?”
She nods. “It’s nice to see you again.”
