Ten years of nothing. Ten years of silence.
Not a birthday card, not a phone call, not a single goddamn sign that the woman who carried them for nine months remembered they existed.
And now this?
Now Angelica shows up in my life the way she always does—not in person, never in person, but through the wreckage she leaves behind.
I think about Wrenleigh. Blonde hair like her mother's. Fifteen—sixteen now, and fierce in a way that scares me sometimes because I don't know where she got it.
Not from Angelica, who ran.
Not from me, who stayed but went quiet.
Wrenleigh's anger is her own, forged in the space between a mother who left and a father who didn't know how to explain why.
I think about Sadie Jo.
Dark hair like mine. Thirteen and so careful with the world it breaks my heart.
She was three when Angelica walked out. She doesn't remember her mother's face. She only knows the shape of the hole.
I pull the coin from my pocket.
I flip it and catch it and hold it and I make a decision the way I make all my decisions—quietly, completely, and with the understanding that once I commit, I don't turn back.
I pick up the card from the porch railing and I put it in my wallet, not because I'm going to call. Because I want their number when I hand this to the club.
This isn't staying personal anymore.
Church is at four.
I called Ruger at eleven and told him I needed the table.
He didn't ask why. Just said, "Four o'clock. I'll have everyone there."
That's Ruger. You tell him you need it, he gives it.
Questions come after, not before.
I get the girls from school—both stops, Morgantown High first for Wrenleigh, then Suncrest Middle for Sadie Jo—and take them to Aunt Ellie's.
Ellie doesn't ask either. She just opens the door, pulls the girls inside, and gives me a look over their heads that saysI've got them. Go do what you need to do.
She's been doing that since Garrett and I were kids.
Reading a situation without needing it spelled out, stepping in without being asked.
Ruger's aunt by blood, but ours by every other measure that matters.
I drive to the clubhouse with the windows down and the October air cutting through the cab of my truck.
The mountains are burning with color—reds and golds and the deep rust of oak leaves holding on before they let go. Beautiful. West Virginia is always beautiful, even when it's trying to kill you.
The parking lot is full. Every officer's bike, plus a few of the full patches.
Word travels in this club the way smoke travels—you don't see it move, but everyone smells it.
Inside, the main room is loud with the usual noise—music, conversation, someone arguing about football in the corner.
