He did that. He caused that.
He reached out and snagged the large letter “S” that hung from a long black leather cord around her neck before she could stop him. He studied the silver pendant in his palm and wracked his brain trying to remember her name. But it slipped from his hand as she quickly stepped back out of reach, putting not only the width of the bar between them but an invisible wall.
“Stella,” he whispered, lifting his gaze to hers.
She didn’t answer, but he could see it in her face he was right.
Stella, the one that used to chase him around the warehouse and the courtyard insisting she was going to marry him. And he’d yell back right in her face, “Get lost, you crazy bitch.”
Memories began to crash around him. Taking him back to that time he thought he’d forgotten.
It started when he was about ten and she was probably six. And ended that last time when he was about fifteen and she was eleven when he finally snapped. She tried to kiss him, and he shoved her away so hard, she stumbled back and cracked her head against a concrete block wall.
He didn’t mean to make her bleed like that. His intent wasn’t to hurt her. He just wanted her to stop bothering him. But it had pissed off her old man, which in turn pissed off Trip’s when he heard what happened. And Trip got his ass kicked so hard by both Pete and Buck that he couldn’t move for two days afterward.
He learned his lesson that day to never put his hands on a female in anger. The painful bruises were also a good reminder for weeks afterward.
It wasn’t long after he hurt her that the club imploded, so he never saw her again. Her mother split, taking Stella, and so did Trip’s, taking him along with her.
A twelve-year-old Sig was left behind because Trip’s mother didn’t want anything to do with him. Not surprising, but still...
It was the last time he saw Stella. The last time he saw who he discovered later was his brother.
And the last time he was in Manning Grove until recently. Until the day after he walked out of SCI Huntingdon. The day after he earned his freedom ten months ago and vowed to never be caged like a fucking animal again.
“I’m thinking you remember now,” she said softly.
Trip pushed from the stool, grabbed his cut and muttered, “Sorry your pop’s dead.”
With that, he turned and shoved his sunglasses on, not just to protect his eyes from a late April’s bright afternoon sun, but also to hide his regret from her.
He walked out of Crazy Pete’s, shrugged on his cut, mounted his bike and rode the fuck out of town.
Chapter Two
As he turned the key to cut the engine of the old Ford, the exhaust backfiring sounded like a gunshot, causing Trip to jump out of his skin and his heart to seize.
Fuck. That had brought him back to his fucked-up time in the Marines when his unit was being targeted by not-so-friendly fire.
He sat stiffly in the seat waiting for his heart to stop racing and his narrowed vision and arrested breathing to return to normal. Once it did, he glanced out of the windshield to see he’d drawn some attention.
No shit.
Speaking of shit, he needed to check his fucking pants after that.
Four men stood in one of the open bays of Dutch’s Garage, staring at him. The oldest one had his greasy hands planted on his hips over his just as greasy gray coveralls and was shaking his salt and pepper head, heavy on the salt.
The driver’s door on the old rusty 1948 Ford wrecker squealed like a stuck pig as he opened it and climbed down. A little WD-40 would fix that right up. It would have to since he didn’t want to spend the dough right now to restore the tow truck.
“That ‘48 looks familiar,” the old man shouted across the parking lot. His grin quickly disappeared as his gaze dropped to Trip’s cut. He had removed it, flipped it right-side out and shrugged it back on as soon as he’d stepped onto the concrete. “Fuck. That looks way too familiar, too.”
Trip eyed up the foursome cautiously, not sure which way this encounter would turn yet. “It should, old man.”
“Who you callin’ an old man, boy?”
“One whose face has deeper cracks in it than my ass.”
The old man stepped forward, breaking out of the line of thoroughly confused men. “Recognize that truck, recognize the colors, tryin’ to recognize your ugly mug. Strugglin’ though, must be my old, addled brain.”
“Or inhalin’ too many gas fumes.”
Trip approached him and they met halfway between the old Ford and the garage. Dutch’s eyes dropped to Trip’s name patch and his dull brown eyes widened.
“Fuck,” Dutch muttered under his breath. Trip’s own shoulders dropped a bit when he saw the old man relax. “Sorry ‘bout your granddad. Good man. But what the fuck you doin’ here? Thought you were off fightin’ for my freedom to drink beer and eat pussy.”
Trip guessed word hadn’t gotten back to Manning Grove that he’d been fighting for his own freedom. Maybe his granddaddy kept it quiet, since his own son had ended up dead over stupid shit and then both his grandsons ended up in prison over doing stupid shit, too.
Like father, like sons. Clyde Davis had probably been far from proud of the rotten fruit that fell from the family tree.
“I inherited the farm.”
Dutch yanked his grimy baseball cap off his head and slapped it back on with a jerk. “No shit. Gonna sell it?”
He guessed Dutch hadn’t heard Trip had been back in town permanently for the past couple of months, either. Trip must have done a good job keeping low. Plus, he’d bought the motel under a business name and sold the warehouse quietly to a developer who was going to rip it down. It probably also helped that the Amish certainly weren’t hanging out in town gossiping. “No.”
His thick salt and pepper bushy eyebrows rose. “Gonna farm it?”
“Fuck no.”
“What’re you gonna do?”
“Bring back the Fury.”
Dutch scowled and sputtered, “Well, that’s just plain fuckin’ stupid, boy.”
Trip ground his molars. He figured he’d get some resistance. But so far, he was two for two.
“What’s the point of that?”
“Wanna rebuild my father’s club.”
Dutch jabbed a crooked finger in his direction. “See? That there’s a fuckin’ big problem. The Fury wasn’t your father’s fuckin’ club. It was our fuckin’ club. All of ours. That was one mistake Buck made. It was supposed to be a brotherhood. He was not the goddamn king.” Dutch shook his head, muttered a curse under his breath and said, “Need a goddamn beer.” As he strode away, he waved his arms at the three men still standing there listening to everything that had been said. “Get the fuck back to work. I ain’t payin’ you to stand around and scratch your fuckin’ nuts.”
The three guys grinned and disappeared back inside. Then Trip heard, “You fuckin’ comin’, boy?” from the open garage door.
Trip guessed he was having a goddamn beer.
Not ten minutes later, after two goddamn beers and at least a dozen loud belches between them, Dutch was still shaking his head with his grimy boots kicked up on a desk that probably hadn’t been cleaned off in at least ten years.