And Nash didn’t have the first goddamn clue what to do next.
The clubhouse was quiet, the only light coming from the bar’s overhead sign, flickering blue above the broken liquor shelves.
Nash sat alone, elbows braced, the nearly empty bottle of bourbon beside him.In front of him, spread out across the counter, lay Connor’s colors—frayed and filthy, the stitching coming loose almost everywhere, grime settled into every crease.
His gaze lingered where the name patch above the chest pocket was missing.Con-Man.The nickname began as a joke—a barb, really, back when Connor was the straightest and most honest of all of them.Couldn’t lie his way out of a paper bag, and he wouldn’t have tried.That’s what earned him the name—irony stitched into leather.
Now the patch was gone, and the joke had long since soured.There wasn’t a damn thing honest left in Connor at the end.
Nash twisted the heavy Kings’ ring on his finger—the one every patched brother wore—if only to keep from punching something.He kept turning it, slow and deliberate, like if he stopped, the weight of everything might suddenly crush him.
Turn.Turn.Turn.
Dead.Dead.Dead.
The floor creaked behind him; his hand stilled on the ring.
“You’re still here,” Margie said, stepping out of the dark hall.
“Didn’t feel right goin’ home.”His words came out thick, slurred at the edges.
Margie, glancing around at the mess, began brushing broken glass off a nearby stool.
“That girl always could cause a five-alarm fire just walkin’ into a place, couldn’t she?”
Nash’s nostrils flared.He had enough on his mind without adding any unwanted trips down memory lane.
“Where the fuck is she?”
“Sleepin’ in your office.”
Of course she was.Comes storming in like a bat out of hell, swinging at everything and everyone, and then goes to sleep.In his fucking office, no less.He had half a mind to march up in there, sling her over his shoulder and toss her crazy ass out the door.
“Are you fuckin’ kidding me—she’s sleepin’ in my goddamn—”
“Oh, cool those jets, Walker.I tried talkin’ her down, but she was wound up tighter’n a banjo string.So I gone an’ slipped her one of my nerve pills.”
Nash scrubbed a hand down his face, tamping the growl in his throat.“Jesus, Margie…”
“Don’t be ‘Jesus, Margie-ing’ me.I only gave her enough to sleep is all.That girl was halfway to hurtin’ somebody, probably herself.”
Nash’s jaw worked before finally muttering, “What’d you tell her?”
“The dang truth—she already knew some.How he wrecked a few years back, messed up his back real bad.Didn’t know them docs were pumpin’ him full of painkillers, though.And how the pills just kept comin’—
“Hell.Can’t be easy, learnin’ your kin been lyin’ all these years.Pretendin’ everything was fine when really he was…” She trailed off, shaking her head.
Nash’s thoughts knotted into a mess of curses.Instead of answering, he took a long, burning swallow of bourbon, finishing it.“If she’d been here,” he finally ground out, “maybe he wouldn’t be dead.”
The words tasted like bullshit the second they left his mouth.
“Now, Nash…” Margie started.
“It’s been me,” he snapped.“Me, cleanin’ him up.Me, draggin’ his ass back home.Me, watchin’ him killin’ himself slow—” His voice broke off.
Margie was quiet for a moment, then: “No one’s sayin’ otherwise.Still don’t mean it’s Cassie’s fault.”
He didn’t reply—he just resumed twisting his ring.Margie pushed off from the bar with a weary sigh.“I’ll stay in the office with her—you go home and get some sleep.Ain’t nothin’ gonna feel better in the morning, but it might be clearer.”
