My stepfather is still in the perfectly tailored suit he was wearing during the meeting. He removed his jacket, and he’s now sitting on the couch with a heavy crystal tumbler in his big hands.
There’s a generous serving of an amber colored liquid and two ice cubes inside his glass.
“Whatever you guys want,” he says without lifting his eyes from his glass. “This is not the time.” The ice cubes clink in his glass when he takes a sip of his drink.
His broad shoulders strain the expensive cotton of his crisp white shirt. He has folded the sleeves of his shirt to sit above his elbows, leaving his muscular forearms exposed.
Even in his seemingly relaxed appearance, the tension in every muscle of his body is evident.
“Dad,” Ares takes a seat on the couch opposite his father. I lower myself next to him, and Chance sits on the other side of me. Lev takes one of the two plush chairs near our couch. “There are a few things you aren’t aware of, and we hope you can give us a little more of your time. These facts will explain why we presented that petition today.”
Scott’s lips flatten in a thin line. “What could you possibly say to explain the way you ambushed me today? You didn’t just betray me; you made me look like a fool in front of the whole town. And you undid the most important thing I had achieved to keep us all safe.” His words echo what Mom said when we got here. If I needed any confirmation of where Mom stands in this matter, this is it. They must’ve discussed what happened on their way home, and I’m not surprised that Mom backs him. She’s always had her own reasons to hate motorcycles.
“You didn’t just reintroduce motorcycles in town. You got into business with one of the most dubious people you could have found. Zara is new in town, but the three of you should know that Enzo Morelli isn’t just a regular businessman, right?Don’t tell me you don’t know that his legitimate businesses are just a front for every criminal enterprise you could think of. He’s Lev’s parents’ client, for fuck’s sake! I don’t understand how they not only allowed you to involve him in your plans, but they actually helped you make it happen. I’ve always considered them honest, hardworking professionals. Maybe they aren’t the people I thought they were, either.”
Lev intervenes. “Scott, my parents did their best in the situation at hand. I guarantee you they weren’t happy about this deal either, but there was no other way.”
Before Scott can say anything else, Ares scoots forward in his seat. “I know how this looks, Dad. And I’m not saying that we didn’t make any mistakes since we got ourselves into an impossible situation. But if you let me explain, you’ll see that we had valid reasons to act the way we did.”
Ares tells him everything.
He doesn’t hold back any of the events that brought us to that town hall meeting earlier today.
From the thefts at the gas station that were clearly Cal’s and his gang’s work to get gas for the motorcycles they had initially hidden into the hangar, to the first illegal race under the guise of a Gamma Delta Tau initiation, to the last race a few days ago.
He tells him about the bets, my incognito involvement in the attempt to help the guys get out of the races; Mason’s attack in the Country Club’s bathroom, the mysterious rider that has reappeared out of nowhere and seems hellbent on hurting me. He ends with his offer to race instead of Chance after his little brother’s panic attack during our last race.
For a long moment, silence descends into our living room.
Grief stricken doesn’t even begin to describe the look on my stepfather’s face.
Mom looks just as shocked and at a loss for words as her husband.
Scott’s strong hand trembles when he sets his glass down on the coffee table, most of his drink totally forgotten.
“Jesus.” He says, running a hand over his face. “I don’t even know where to start unpacking all of this.”
Lev nods. “Take your time; we understand. But once you’ve wrapped your head around it all, I know you’ll be able to see why we had to do what we did. Making the races legal and making them profitable for Enzo was the only way to kill Mason’s business without having to watch our backs forever, fearing his uncle’s retribution. And this way, at least they’ll have to pay taxes on the profits from all those tickets they’ve been selling, from the fees they collect from the racers, and from the bets. The whole town will profit from the races now, and Mason can’t touch us without pissing off his uncle.”
Scott nods. It’s a slow movement, as if he were still considering the situation. “That’s true. But I still have questions.”
Mom backs her husband. “Scott isn’t the only one with questions; I have some too. For example, why did you and Chance?” she says, looking from Lev to Chance. “Go along with the first race? If you hadn’t let Calvin Fox’s brother convince you to race that first time, they wouldn’t have been able to blackmail you into keeping it up. That’s where it all snowballed from.”
Chance rubs the back of his neck, sounding absolutely mortified. “It’s mostly my fault. Lev didn’t want to do it, but I convinced him. It’s for the most part because you can’t refuse an initiation task if you want to get into Gamma Delta Tau, and Chris and Dad were brothers, and we knew they were looking forward to seeing us continue their legacy. But I’d be lying if I said that I also didn’t want to show Dave Fox that we were way more badass than him. We had no idea at that time that Cal was his brother.”
To my surprise, Scott doesn’t look mad about that. “Sweetheart,” he says to Mom. “I know fraternities are an archaic tradition that many people find completely out of touch in this day and age, but Chance is right that you can’t really refuse to do what they require if you want to become a pledge. And despite the bad rep fraternities get, I made some of my longer lasting friendships within my Gamma brothers.”
Mom doesn’t look convinced. “How can you be so cool about it when the task they were given was illegal?”
“Many of the initiation tasks given to the future pledges are borderline illegal. In this case, they pushed the envelope a little, but I can think of some of the initiations back in my day that were a lot worse.”
Mom raises a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Really? So now you’re fine with them breaking the law because it was for Gamma Delta Tau?”
Scott laces his fingers through hers to placate her. “No, I’m not saying what they did is ok. But I understand why refusing was so hard because I was in their shoes when I was a freshman in college. They had no idea it was a trap. Right, guys?”
“We did not.” Lev confirms. “Fox is a fairly common last name, and we didn’t connect the dots. Maybe we should have, since we knew that Cal was in town, but we didn’t make the connection. Dave is totally different from his older brother. Not as rough around the edges. Unless you get to know him a lot better, he blends in with the rest of the Gamma brothers.”
Chance backs him. “Yeah, that’s true. He’s also a teammate, and we just didn’t think there could be anything behind the initiation other than asking us to do something a little dangerous that would ensure our undying loyalty to the fraternity. When we realized that we had fallen into a trap, it was too late, and we were scared of what would happen if Calvin had sent the video to Dad like he threatened to do.”
