I nodded out at the sea of my people, catchin’ eyes with Nova as he held Lila, with Buck as he cranked the mechanism that lowered Mute’s black coffin into the cold, wet earth.
“And while Mute finds peace in the Underworld, we’ll be busy up here findin’ justice for ’im,” I declared, hand over the microphone so only the force of my lungs carried the promise of vengeances to the eager ears of my brothers.
A shout swelled in the air like a punctuation mark.
I nodded, tipped my chin at the pastor, and stepped down.
King was the first to step forward when the coffin was finally bedded down, a silver coin in his hand, probably a nickel. His face was gaunt like a fuckin’ skeleton’s, his lips held tight against the force of his misery. I wanted to go forward and wrap my kid in my arms like I’d done when he was a boy, but he was a man now and it was man’s walk to the edge of the grave to pay last respects.
“Go easy, brother, knowin’ you touched our lives like the hand of God ’imself.” He flipped the coin into the grave, payment for the ferryman or the pearly gates, wherever death mighta taken him.
The Fallen always pay their debts, even in death.
So one by one, my brothers stepped up to toss a coin onto the coffin and pay Mute’s way to Eden.
It took half an hour just for the Entrance brothers and when I stepped up last, we were all soaked through past the skin to the fuckin’ bone.
But I took my time ’cause I had two coins, one for me and one for Lou.
My heart burned like a torch in my chest, never fuckin’ goin’ out, not since I’d rode into Entrance straight to the fuckin’ hospital and found Lou with tubes in her mouth and so many damn needles in her arms she looked like a pin cushion. Fuck but she shoulda been there beside me. I coulda been strong for her the way I didn’t feel strong for anyone else.
Instead, she was fightin’ for her life in a fuckin’ hospital bed and her brother, my brother, was in the cold ground.
“Rest in peace, Walker Nixon,” I said, usin’ his full name for the last time. “Deserve more than this for the guardin’ you gave my girl. Wish you could know I’d sell my fuckin’ soul to get you back. For you, for me, for the club and for our girl.”
I tossed the coins into the ground but couldn’t see ’em through the wet in my eyes.
Fuck me.
A small hand went to my back and I jerked around to see H.R. starin’ up at me with red-stained eyes.
“Dad,” she whispered through her tear-swollen throat.
I lashed my arms around her and carted her up against my chest, tryin’ to breathe through the knife in my heart as I held my sobbin’ girl in a group of mostly grown men who wanted desperately to sob too.
“Need to talk to you.”
The party was windin’ up, not down.
It was the way of biker funerals. First came the procession markin’ “Mute’s Last Ride”, then the ceremony, then the reveling. No one could celebrate a life well lived like my MC brethren.
The clubhouse was overfilled and spillin’ out into the complex, the big industrial lights on across the lot so that everything was coated in yellow. People were shitfaced, high off their rockers and drunk as Irishmen. Families had left when the food the old ladies had put out disappeared and now it was just the brothers, partying hard to forget and celebrate.
I wasn’t.
I didn’t want to be with my fuckin’ brothers drinkin’ beer and doin’ shots.
I wanted to be by my girl’s bedside just in case she woke even though the docs told me that wouldn’t be for days yet even if she did wake up.
She would.
She would wake up ’cause no God was cruel enough to give her to me only to rip her from my hands months later. No God would take away the idol of a man’s religion just when he needed it most.
She’d wake up.
And I needed to be at the clubhouse with my brothers. They needed their Prez. I loved Lou more than most grown men are capable of ever lovin’ anythin’. Loved her enough to kill and die for her ’cause only the finality of death could match the finality of my kinda love for that girl.
But it was my brothers who had taught me how to love like that. To do it eternally with loyalty and pride.
So, I was leanin’ against the wall beside the front door of the clubhouse, sippin’ a beer gone warm and listenin’ to Bat, Buck, Blackjack, and Priest shoot the shit.
Then, Bat said, “Need to talk to you.”
“So, talk.”
He rubbed his head and I noticed his hair was longer, that all our hair was longer now. It’d been nearly two months since we’d shaved our heads for my girl.
“Hate to say this, ’specially right now, but we don’t got shit to go on ’ere. The cops have been fuckin’ assholes about not sharin’ their intel and the only thing we know is that Ace Munford is leadin’ the Nightstalkers and the man’s got a helluva a bone to pick with you. We don’t know where their fuckin’ base is or how they knew about Lou and H.R. bein’ up at the cabin unless we have a rat in our ranks.”
“’Course we have a fuckin’ rat,” I growled. “I need to know who the fuck it is so I can gut the bastard with a chainsaw.”
Blackjack laughed. “What makes you so sure there’s a rat? They coulda been followin’ Lou or H.R. knowin’ they’re your weak spot and then just struck when the chance came.”
Buck thumped him on the back with a meaty fist. “Don’t be a fucktard, B.J.”
B.J. ran a hand over his pale buzzed head and peered up at me. “She’s your weakness, boss. Just sayin’ you should be careful with who knows that. Shame somethin’ happened to her ’cause of ya.”
I took a step forward, the fury that lay at the heart of me ignited with one fuckin’ little match. Trouble was I was fuckin’ furious with myself. “You wanna say that again, brother?”
He laughed nervously. “Nah, listen, I just meant, she’s a good girl. Maybe, maybe this is a sign that this ain’t the life for ’er.”
His words fucked me dry. They were the same words been goin’ ’round my head for the last four days since the fire.
She was too good for this life.
Too good for murder, wrath and greed, too good for all the vices I lived and breathed.
My girl was an angel and I’d taken her to the dark side like she had a hope in hell of thrivin’ there.
I did it ’cause I was a selfish fuckin’ bastard and once a man’s tasted the kinda sweet ambrosia Lou’d given me, there was no goin’ back.
So I didn’t pray to God that I’d leave her to a better life if—no when—she pulled through.
I knew myself and I knew I wasn’t capable of that level of self-sacrifice.
But I did pray.
I went every goddamn day to First Light Church and sat in the same front pew Lou’d spent almost every Sunday mornin’ of her life in ’til she found me again, and I fuckin’ prayed to God for her life. Pastor fuckin’ Lafayette had seen me the first day and sat with me each time, sayin’ nothin’ just lendin’ me his goodness so I could use it to amplify my own and make my prayers shine brighter.