The ghosts.
My office still smells like Tama, smoke, whiskey, and the faint burn of motor oil that never left his clothes. The heater rattles in the corner but never catches up to the cold creeping into the walls. Piles of bills, supply orders, contracts, and court letters cover the desk. All of it stamped with my name where his used to be.
I drop into the chair, rub a hand over my face, and pull the one folder I can’t seem to ignore. My father’s will.
The paper’s creased from too many nights of being folded and unfolded, like touching it might make the words change. I read the same line as I always do.
“To my son, Isaiah King, President of the Saints Outlaws MC, I leave all holdings, properties, and responsibilities to govern and protect in my stead.”
Responsibilities. Not blessings. Not gifts. Chains, disguised as duty.
He warned me.“You’ll learn power’s just another kind of cage.”
I didn’t believe him then. Thought he was just tired. Angry at dying. Now every breath feels like proof he was right.
There’s a photo sitting behind the ledger books of me and him, back before the cancer took the weight out of his voice. We’re standing behind his Harley, grease to our elbows, both pretending we don’t care that Mom’s the one taking the picture, right before she left us. The glass is cracked across the middle now, like even the frame knew we’d never get another one.
I drain what’s left in the glass beside me. Whiskey burns the back of my throat, but it doesn’t reach the ache in my chest.
The gavel sits at the edge of the desk. I pick it up, turn it over in my hand, thumb tracing the scar he carved into the handle the day I patched in. He said it was a reminder that every decision leaves a mark.
I set it down hard enough that it echoes.Power’s a cage.Maybe. But it’s one I built, and I’ll die before I let anyone else hold the key.
I start flipping through financials again, half-reading numbers that don’t make sense without his voice explaining what to do next. Draft tried to walk me through it last week, patient as ever, but the words went sideways in my head.
Still, I keep working. Still pretending I’m not just a legacy filling a seat that’s too big and too cold.
The heater sputters once, then dies. The quiet after hits harder than a punch.
I stare at the photo again, the gavel beside it, and the reflection of his ring glinting on the chain around my neck. My chest tightens, that familiar mix of guilt and anger and something I won’t name.
“You’d love this, wouldn’t you, old man?” I mutter. “Watching me drown in your empire.”
No answer. Just the hum of the lights and the weight of the crown pressing down on my shoulders. I can’t sit here anymore. The walls feel smaller every night, the air heavier. The whiskey’s not doing a damn thing except making the paperwork blur worse.
I grab my cut from the chair, the gavel from the desk, and leave the office before the silence caves in on me.
Outside, the night cuts deep, cold enough to sting, quiet enough to hear the river in the distance. My boots echo across the lot toward Saint Motors. If I’m going to survive the ghosts, I need noise. Metal. Fire. Something real.
Saint Motors is half-dark when I unlock it. The air hits me like cold iron. Gasoline, rubber, a hint of burnt oil that clings to everything we touch. The barrel heater glows dull orange in the corner, not enough to chase the chill, but enough to make the chrome breathe.
Tama’s Harley waits on the lift. The same one we built together when I was sixteen. She’s older now, paint scuffed, bolts worn slick from his hands and mine.
I hang my cut on a hook, roll up my sleeves, and grab a wrench. Every sound matters. The ratchet click, the metal groan, the faint hiss when the heater coughs. It’s rhythm. Control. The one language I never lost.
I strip her down slowly, part by part. Tighten, check, tighten again until my knuckles split and the blood mixes with grease.The sting feels honest. By the time I hit the carb, my shoulders ache, and the rest of the world narrows to the machine in front of me.
Piece by piece, I start putting her back together. Bolts slide home. Metal fits where it’s supposed to. The rhythm’s the same one he taught me years ago, slow, deliberate, no shortcuts.
When the last hose clamps down, I wipe the grease from my palms and take a step back. The silence feels like a held breath, waiting to see if I still remember how to make her live.
She starts on the first try. The low rumble fills the shop, steady as a heartbeat.
For a second, I close my eyes and see him standing where I’m standing, cigarette burning low, grin crooked.
“Still runs, old man,” I whisper, voice cracking more than I want to admit. “You’d bitch about the idle though.”
The sound of the engine eats the silence, but not the emptiness. I cut the throttle, let her die down, and just stand there, hands shaking, chest tight.
