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It’s been almost twenty years, but I still remember trying to be the tough guy at this clubhouse despite having all of three hairs on my balls. This was technically enemy territory, but I’d already decided I was going to marry Brooke. I was breaking bread attending her best friend’s fifteenth birthday party.
When she died, an innocent bystander in the fight the men in her life dragged all their women into, and I first heard the voice of fate telling me I’d die in Flagstaff, I told myself I would never bring another woman into my life. I told myself that it was so no woman would ever grieve for me the way I grieved for Brooke. No child would be pulled into this curse that took Kostya’s father, then my father, then my brother.
I was lying to myself. Losing Ana— even if I was the one who ended it— was a stark reminder that I’m the one who can’t handle loss. I’m the weak one.
I can’t lose Kseniya.
I can’t lose Ana.
I can’t lose Artom.
And I can’t sentence him to this fucked up fate. So I’m just going to have to break the cycle.
Which means I flick the safety off on my gun and tuck it back into its holster. I pull my phone out, instead, and warn Dooley, Brooke’s best friend’s father and vested member of Blazing Hell to this day, that we’re about to come in.
He’s not happy. My guys aren’t either, especially Janson. There’s a lot of bad blood and suspicions surrounding him. Leaving Flagstaff was as much about saving his life as saving him from the FBI. I nearly tell him to stay in the car, but I don’t want everyone else making fun of him. Instead, I guide us into a formation where he’s next to me with Vlad and Kostya flanking us.
One of the gang’s prospects meets us at the door, but once we push our way past him, there’s a wall of beefy, gristled, weathered bikers who look like they beat each other up for fun behind him.
They flash their guns, their knives, their brass knuckles. Between the filtered light through the warped, nicotine-yellowed windows and cloud of smoke lingering in the air, it’s hard for me to see anything well. I plant my hands on my hips to show off both my holstered guns while my eyes adjust to the poor lighting.
“Dooley says you come here as a friend,” says Bernie, the leader of the biker gang. He’s the biggest, most gristled, most weathered, and also the most bruised. “And yet you come armed.”
I brush off the obvious double-standard. “I did not say friend. I said ally. And that remains to be seen.”
The clubhouse has a bar running the entire length of the wall and line of bar stools. There are pool tables and a foosball table. A dartboard. An open area that has two lines painted on the floor, explaining why everyone’s all bruised up. Bare-knuckle fighting, most likely, and right here in the front where any passerby might see them.
But there’s also some basic four-top tables and a long dining table where I imagine everyone can sit together for a family dinner. It’s already decorated for the birthday girl’s party, those balloons and that cake, streamers and party favors. The room is clearly a bar, but they’ve cleaned it up as much as they can, and two of the windows are open with giant fans attempting to pull the smoke from the air.
“As you see, this is not a place for you today,” Bernie says gruffly.
I nod. “And we’ll be out of your hair just as soon as we know why one of your men spent their morning murdering my guards and stealing from my warehouse.”
The air goes electric. I smell ozone, and the fact that it’s imagined makes it no less pungent. Some of the bikers are exchanging confused looks, but some are wrapping their hands around their weapons.
Vlad cocks his gun.
Three guns get pointed at us.
I push my palms down in front of my men, but Kostya has his gun out faster than I can stop it, pointing right at Bernie.
Dooley, who I once thought was going to be my surrogate father-in-law, having practically been a father to Brooke,points his gun at me.
I see the look in his eyes.
I wish I could tell him that I’ve always blamed myself for Brooke’s death, and even though I have a wife and a kid now, I never meant to replace her and I’ve never let her go, but this isn’t the time for that conversation.
“Easy,” I hum to my men. “We said we weren’t going to fight.”
Another hammer clicks back. I know it’s Dooley’s, and Bernie doesn’t help anything by saying, “You come into my house and you bring accusations to us, and you think that’s not a fight?”
I feel just like 15-year-old three-ball-haired me as I say, “I don’t think it’s a fight...yet.As long as you cooperate.” We’re outnumbered. My guys are all great shots. The ghost gun game has us in shooting ranges a lot. I even have one in my basement. We’re also all in bullet-proof vests. But that doesn’t protect our brains. This is a major gamble.
Bernie stares me down hard, and there’s some concern that we’re going to stalemate on this. But eventually, Bernie gives in and motions his guys to back down. He gestures to three of his men and my quartet to follow him into a meeting room so the women can go back to setting up the birthday party.
“Now tell me what this is about, and make it fast. Birthday girl’s arriving in half an hour. Sid’s daughter.”
I nod to both Bernie and the man he gestures to. Guy’s not much older than me, looks familiar in a blurry sort of way. Like I’ve done meth with him. He looks clean now, but he wasn’t clean when his daughter was a little girl.