Yeah. I don’t do that either.
“Not a lot of Sinner action on a Monday night,” I say, ignoring his comment. “We won’t miss anything.”
He hums. “I guess you’d know. How old are you?”
“Thirty-six.”
“You and Donovan are about the same age, then, huh? You grow up with him? Go to school together?”
I readjust my hands on the steering wheel, my grip tight. “I’m a couple years older, actually,” I say casually. “But I was in the same year as his VP.”
He already knew that. Any potential conflicts would have been mentioned in my file. Is he testing me?
He hums. “Jack McKenna. The Grave Man.”
Eyes still on the road, I dip my chin. “That’s right.”
“You all get along?”
“Jack and I for a bit, yeah. But Axe and I have never enjoyed each other’s company.”
“Guess not,” he muses. “The police chief’s boy and the heir to Jimmy Donovan’s throne. Woulda been an odd friendship. Your old man put him away a few times, didn’t he? Jimmy?”
I nod. The crux of the problems between Axe and me. When my dad took over as police chief, he wanted to do a lot more than just keep the peace with the outlaws running his town. He wanted them gone. Along with every cop in Jimmy Donovan’s pocket. That didn’t sit right with Jimmy, and his disdain for my family was passed onto his son. We were raised to hate each other. Probably didn’t help that my old man kept putting his in handcuffs.
“Your father still around?” he asks.
I slow as I pull into the Tim Horton’s parking lot. Right. It’s after midnight, meaning it’s drive-through only. No way to escape this conversation.
“Nah,” I say as I roll up to the order board. “Died a while back.”
“Shit, man. Sorry. How’d he die?”
Slowly. Years of rotting on the couch with a drink in his hand. That’s what happens when a man lets something eat at him. It kills him. Not right away. Things like that never come all at once. It’s a little jab here, another there, a chip off the shoulder, a cut to the cheek. Soon there’s nothing left but anger. Rage.
My mother fucked her way through half the Sinners before she got pregnant with me. It destroyed him. And when she left us, he went on a fucking rampage to put an end to the biker ganghe felt was responsible for destroying his family. He wanted Jimmy in jail, and he wanted Jack’s father, my biological father, dead.
It’s why when Jimmy left South Bay and my dad didn’t get the climactic face-off with the outlaw biker president he’d been gunning for, he picked up a bottle and never put it down. He dug himself an early grave.
But that story doesn’t make for good small talk. And revealing that Donovan’s VP is my half brother probably wouldn’t do me any favours.
“He’d been sick for a while,” I say. “You want a donut?”
He grunts. “Coffee. Black.”
Of course he drinks his fucking coffee black.
Once I head out on my route, I distract Allen by asking about his workout routine. The man looks like he could bench at least three of me, and I’m not a small guy. Dudes who look like him fucking love talking about the gym.
The road gets a little darker as we get closer to the edge of South Bay, and as I near my spot, I slow. It’s deserted, like usual. No one’s gonna be driving down a South Bay back road at one a.m. on a Monday. But sitting here gives me a little quiet.
“Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” by Cage the Elephant plays low on the radio as I put the car in park, kill my lights, and flick on the radar.
As expected, the donuts are stale. I sip my coffee as I stare out at the dark road.
“So you just… sit here?” Allen asks.
“Yup.”
