Rolling my eyes, I tell him, “Get home safe.”
Once the last brother has left, I wander home myself and find the place empty.
I grab Lana’s photo albums from the shelf and fall onto the couch. I open them up until I find photos from back in the day.
Pictures of me with Slade and Dex, with Ricky fresh out of prison, Pope before his hair went grey, and with Oak, sat at the bar with glasses of whiskey in our hands. Him grinning, me with my usual scowl. Pictures of me with Sparky and Slade, proudly wearing our cuts and newly sewn on patches. Weddings, parties, cookouts, so many moments captured and kept safe for years. I've never felt my age more than I do now. It used to bug me when Lana would constantly get her camera out, smile for this,smile for that. Smile, smile, fucking smile. Now I'm grateful she did. It's a privilege to be able to look back on life.
A shadow falls in the doorway. I look up and find Luca leaning against the doorframe.
“What the fuck are you doin’ here?”
“It’s so warm in here with your welcome,” the little fucker sasses. “I came to check in about the traitor.”
“Is Victoria and the baby with you?”
He shakes his head. “No, I rode out alone.”
“They good?”
“Wouldn’t have left them if they weren’t.”
I sigh. I can never get an answer from him without violence or sarcasm. It would drain me if I weren’t used to men like him my whole damn life. His mother would say he gets it from me, but I don’t think I'm that funny to carry off sarcasm.
“You missed the shit show. The traitor’s been dealt with.”
“Yeah, I saw the twins hauling his body out of the bar. A bar in which looks like a bomb’s hit it.”
“Ask ya brother.”
Glancing down at a group photo of the club before the days Alannah became my obsession, I see so many similarities between myself and my youngest son.
“You’re doing well in the city.”
“It comes naturally.” He shrugs.
I roll my eyes as his sarcasm wears thin.
“Regretting giving the wrong son the gavel to the kingdom?” Leo grunts from behind his brother.
Luca steps into the room and drops down on the arm of the chair.
I say nothing as Luca glances between us, noting the tension. “What’s going on here?”
Leo crosses his arms over his chest and glares down at me. “Dad blames me for Slade’s death.”
“That doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense. Slade’s gone cause we had a traitor.”
“He hasn’t come out and said it, but he’s made it very fuckin’ clear how he feels. Ain't ya, Dad.”
I stare down at Slade from over twenty years ago. We were so fucking young back then, it’s hard to know where the time has gone. My childhood dragged by painfully slow, but then I found a place where I belonged, and it’s passed in the blink of an eye.
“Dad?” Luca urges. “Tell Leo he’s got it wrong.”
Lifting my eyes to Luca, I can’t make my mouth move to form any words. I don’t know what hurts most, my oldest friend dying needlessly or my son’s presence, because he’s the reason the club got attacked.
Tears stream down my face, but I don’t care to wipe them away. This shit hurts and I'm terrified of lashing out at my son. They both stare at me like they’ve never seen me before. I'm a bad man, but I've never been a bad dad. I've gone out of my way to make sure my sons haven’t known violence in the family home.
“Come out and say it, Dad, so we can move on,” Leo pleads.
