We’re just a group of people who like to get together and have a good time for the love of our bikes, son.
Liar. If not for his lies, everything could be different right now. I could be inside that house making love to my wife. Be a cop like I wanted to be. Instead, his death left me with no choice but to try to clean up the brewing pot of shit-stew he created. That’s entirely not true, either. I was given a choice of doing right or wrong, and I chose wrong. But to me, I chose wrong for the right reasons.
Here’s where the problem lies. I turned this place around, into what I wanted it to be; a clean-cut bar, the way it should have been all along. We’re legit. Everyone has well respected jobs. Families. The whole nine yards. One man left when we found out he was dealing, and he’s the piece of shit who killed my father and Darcy to get back at me, all because I shut his shit down.
When I found out Kryder Banks was into dealing, we came down hard. He and his entourage of drugged-out coke and heroin addicts broke the fucking law every damn time they left here, selling to little kids, or moms who should have been using that money to feed and shelter those kids.
Kryder was given the choice to either back the hell off, or leave. He chose the latter. Went in with the Savages, or so I thought. He had been a member of that club for years and brought that shit in here. Now that lying son of a bitch is one of the biggest drug dealers in the Midwest. Or he was, until the * ass disappeared.
Bringing myself to a halt, I look back at my old house; the house I haven’t stepped foot in for several years. I wonder to my asshole self why I even brought Calla there. Why I left her in a room where the last time she saw me I was balls deep inside of Emerald.
Little does she know, I did it to save her life. Save her from this shit that surrounds me. I’m a bastard for doing that to her, and I’m an even worse bastard for telling her half the crap I told her and then storming out like I did. I’m completely fucking this up with her. The best thing I can do is stay as far away from her as I can, finish this meeting, and get lost in a bottle of whiskey.
Fuck me, I wish I could get lost in her right now. I wish I could take us far away from here and start the hell over.
I just need some space and time to think.
I wasn’t expecting her to come here today. I knew she would one day, but why the fuck didn’t Manny give me the heads up that she was headed here? Fuck, I ought to beat his damn ass!
I won’t, though. He’s one of a handful of people I trust. The one person who has kept my wife safe all these years while I’ve pretended to be a man I’m not. I almost gave myself up to her a few minutes ago when she sat on my floor and cried. And then I went and fucked things up even more by tainting the one night in my life I will never forget; the night we lost our virginity to each other.
It kills me to see the pain in her eyes that she’s trying so damn hard to hide. She’s changed, but no matter how hard she denies her feelings for me, I know she still cares. I know she still loves me in spite of all that bullshit about wanting a divorce so she can move on. Fuck. The truth is, she’s not mine anymore. But God, how I want her to be.
My emotions are normally well hidden under my dark exterior. Being a brutal son of a bitch does not permit me to be liked or loved; it gets me feared. They say I’m ruthless, a man who takes what he wants and stops at nothing. A take-no-prisoners kind of man. And if you cross me, my fists become my weapons of choice.