He’s talking to Cade.
“What the…?” Cade was in prison? He’s wearing the same orange overalls, after all. He looks skinnier, less muscle, and his head is shaved, but it’s definitely him. I’ve spent the past six months living at close quarters with the guy; I’d know him anywhere. The two men appear to be deep in conversation in the picture. Not a tense, heated conversation. It’s as if they’re just chatting. Cade is actually smiling, and this Zeth guy looks a little less intense than he does in all of the other shots. He may not be smiling, but I get the feeling that the clear looseness in his body and the ease with which he’s leaning against the brick wall beside him means a lot. I don’t think his body language would be the same if he didn’t feel like he was talking to a friend. A good friend.
I gather all of the photographs and the papers back together and slide them inside the file, flipping it shut. I feel like I just invaded Cade’s privacy somehow. This is a part of his past, and I went snooping. Unintentionally, but still. I don’t know why I should really care. Cade’s loyalty has always been and always will be to his friend. If Jamie asked him to shoot his own mother in the face, I’m pretty sure he’d damn well do it. They’re closer than brothers. But he and I are friends now, too, I’d say. We’ve been left alone together too much, spent hours in cars and days holed up inside the same buildings to not know each other and to not care. At least that’s how I feel. He might feel very differently.
Either way, I try to place the file back in the spot where I found it, hoping he’ll never know that I saw it. It’s just easier that way.
It’s not really a surprise that Cade’s been locked away. As the months have passed by, I’ve been allowed to see more and more of the illegal activity the club is involved in. The Widowers don’t sell drugs, but they do move them from time to time. Weed, mostly. Large quantities of it that get picked up in one location, usually a couple of days’ drive away, and then dropped off somewhere else, far, far away from Freemantle and the permanent location of the club.
There are guns, too. The gun runs are a little more intense. They’re closer to home and happen quickly, and I can usually tell one’s about to happen by the nervous energy that lingers in the compound. Assault rifles. Hand guns. Large and small, all kinds of weaponry is trafficked not only by Cade, Carnie and the others, but by Jamie, too.
I feel sick to my stomach when I think about him getting busted and locked away for gun running. Cade must have been sentenced for a lesser crime. I don’t know everything there is to know about the judicial system, but I sure as hell know enough to realize that Cade would definitely still be serving time if he’d been caught with assault rifles. The ATF usually tend to frown upon the possession of unregistered, unlicensed weapons like that.
I spend another few seconds waiting around in the secret room behind the bar, waiting defiantly for Jamie to come back and find me here, but then I change my mind. I want to tear him a new one for what he did, but I also want to know he’s okay, and I want to know what he’s discovered about my father. Is he safe now? Is he okay? Is he even alive? Anything could have happened while I was sleeping. Jamie could have gotten himself shot. He could have gone to Ramirez’s place and discovered my father dead. Alternatively, my father could well be free now and he’s so angry with me over what I’ve done that he simply refuses to come and see me. I wouldn’t blame him for that. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t regret not telling my family I am safe. But as each of those days flew by, slipping through my fingers like grains of sand, the concept of reaching out to them and telling them I was alive became harder and harder, until it almost seemed impossible.
I’m sure most people would think I’m a terrible human being, but turning back never seemed like an option. I’d love to say I wanted to stay because I wanted to help bring Hector to justice, but the truth of the matter is that I was scared. I was scared because Raphael was still lurking in the shadows, and I know without a doubt he would have followed through on his promise. He would have discovered who I was eventually, the same way Hector has now, except he wouldn’t have kidnapped my dad, or my mom, or my sister. He would have killed them where they stood. He would have raped Sloane, and probably Mom too, and it would have been on me.