I'm doing this for her.
For us. For the future I'm starting to believe we might actually have.
I grab my keys and head for the garage.
---
Salvo lives on the outskirts of the city, in a modest house on a quiet street.
It's not what most people expect from a former MC president.
No compound, no security detail, no visible signs of the life he used to lead.
Just a two-bedroom bungalow with a well-tended garden and a porch swing that creaks in the wind.
Michael Webster—Salvo to anyone who earned the right to call him that—retired from the club five years ago.
Bad heart, the doctors said.
Too much stress, too many years of hard living.
He handed me the gavel and stepped back, letting the younger generation take the reins.
But he never really left. Not in the ways that matter.
I park my bike in the driveway and walk up the front path.
Before I can knock, the door swings open.
"Saw you coming." Salvo stands in the doorway, leaning on the cane he's needed since the second heart attack. He's thinner than he used to be, his hair more gray than black now, but his eyes are the same—sharp, assessing, missing nothing. "You look like shit."
"Good morning to you too."
He snorts, stepping aside to let me in. "Coffee's on. Loretta's at her sister's for the week, so you're stuck with my cooking."
"I'll survive."
The inside of the house is warm and lived-in.
Photos on every surface—the club in its early days, Salvo and Loretta's wedding, group shots from parties and runs and funerals.
A lifetime of memories, preserved in frames.
I follow him to the kitchen, where a pot of coffee is indeed waiting.
He pours two cups, hands one to me, and settles into a chair at the small table.
"So," he says. "What's got you driving out here at the crack of dawn?"
"What makes you think something's wrong?"
"You've got that look. Same look you had when you first prospected, trying to figure out how to fit a square peg into a round hole." He takes a sip of coffee, watching me over the rim. "Sit down, Levi. Tell me what's eating you."
I sit.
For a moment, I don't know where to start.
The words feel tangled in my chest, knotted together with emotions I've spent years refusing to acknowledge.
