Page 65 of Caution to the Wind

When I was nine, our family dog, Daisy, died. I was devastated.

Behind me, Wrath had laughed a cruel, gratin’ cackle that made the psychologist back up three steps.

I hadn’t laughed or scoffed. I’d just told the bitch to get lost. There was no way she could understand any of the men in this brotherhood with so little of her own tragedy as context.

’Cause that was it.

The glue or the catalyst or the flamin’ thing that drew us all together as one unit against all else.

Tragedy.

Every single man in The Fallen MC had been through hell and come back, willingly or not. We didn’t have just one hardship, one tiny tale of woe. We had a string of them like black beads in a macabre rosary.

Most of these men were broken beyond repair. Even the ones who found the love of a good woman weren’t miraculouslyrepairedby their connection. That love just made breathin’ a little sweeter ’cause it gave them somethin’ to live for.

We were all broken, and we didn’t try to fix shit about each other.

We just stood together against all the tragedies of the world that inevitably came for us, and we tried to ease the burden as much as we could, even when it seemed impossible, even when it meant riskin’ our lives for each other.

I could still remember the day Zeus Garro showed up at Fort Hudson Prison with my old friend Bat at his side. He was a hulkin’ man, bigger than anyone else I knew. It would have been funny, watchin’ him cram himself into the tiny phone cubicle if I’d been in a place to find anythin’ funny.

“Brother,” he’d said into the plastic phone, the thing tiny in his huge paw. “It’s been too long since I set eyes on ya, and I gotta say, I’d rather it was happenin’ under better circumstances.”

I’d stared at him.

“Let me get straight to it, then. I know the Calgarian fucks turned against ya, one of their fuckin’ own.” He paused to swallow back the roar of anger buildin’ in his voice, shakin’ off the yoke of rage like water on a wet dog. “Want you to know that’s been dealt with.”

“Dealt how?” I’d already put Whitey, Dunkirk, and Rooster into early graves. What else was there to take care of?

“Sent some brothers from my crew with Bat to clean up there. We’re startin’ from scratch. One’a my men stayed back to help recruit and set up a new crew. It’s somethin’a his speciality, so Calgary’ll be in better hands now than it ever was with motherfuckin’ Rooster in the chair.”

I didn’t say anythin’, mostly ’cause if I’d been a quiet man before the clink, I was near on silent now.

Zeus appraised me with shrewd eyes, brows lowered over them in a glower I knew masked a sharp mind. “What they did to you wasn’t right, brother. Rooster wasn’t dead, I’d do the deed myself. Fallen don’t turn against Fallen.”

One of my brows ticked up in a small show of incredulity. It was club lore that Zeus killed his own damn uncle to gain the presidency of the mother chapter.

He grinned wolfishly in response, leanin’ close to the glass. Some basic human instinct in my nervous system screamed at me to lean away from the predator, even separated as we were by the partition.

“Some things are thicker than blood, and this brotherhood is one’a ’em. Someone does one’a mine wrong, they pay for it with their life, and that payment is takin’ the hard way, you get me? Any other chapter’a the club, you’d’a seen that, but ’specially inmyclub. People think biker moral codes are a little shaky, but I see things fuckin’ clear. There are no bad deeds done to those who fuck with the good people’a The Fallen.Mypeople. Other clubs, gangs, civilians, they all know that ’cause my reputation precedes me.” Another feral grin. “So the men who ride with me and their families are safe. Or safe as they can be livin’ the kinda life we gotta lead.”

My gaze found Bat, who opened his hands to me in silent offerin’. I just didn’t get what it was on offer ’til later.

Zeus echoed the movement, leanin’ back to open his hands and shrug pseudo-casually. “Listen, we haven’t talked much about my past, but I was in the joint for a spell, too, and I got kids. I get what it is to be parted from ’em.” He hit his fist against his chest brutally. “Kills ya every fuckin’ day.”

I swallowed thickly but didn’t say a word. Barely a minute went by when I wasn’t thinkin’ and worryin’ about Cleo.

“Wanted to come here and offer to look after your girl for you while you’re inside. I get we’ve only spent two weeks years ago gettin’ a feel for one another, but you know Bat and you know Smoke. They’re good men, and our club’s full’a’em. Bat told me your girl and your stepmum are lookin’ to move. The club’s got a house in a good area in Entrance. You want it, it’s theirs. Couple’a the guys, they got kids too, good ones. They’d be happy to meet your Cleo. Not to mention, I got a daughter ’round about her age, and fuck knows, my girl could use some more goodness in her life.”

“Why?” I demanded through my gritted teeth, my fist clenchin’ and unclenchin’ on the table.

I’d learned the hard way, many times, not to trust anyone. Even though I’d fought with Bat, had his back as much as he had mine, it went against everythin’ I’d hoped I’d learned to trust this man and even my friend to look out for the only two loved ones I had left in the world. The impression he’d made on me as a good man beneath the violence and edge of aggression, a man with a keen mind to back up his brutal fists, didn’t matter much to me at the moment.

Zeus stared at me then, his eyes glintin’ like silver blades. For all his height and weight, the scars visible on his knuckles, and the tatts peekin’ out of his shirt, there was a kind of gentleness in his expression. An openness like he was exposin’ somethin’ to me he didn’t often offer to people.

“I’ll tell ya the full story one day, but let’s just say I was fucked by my club once too. Went to prison for what they made me do one day. I don’t like to see it happen to a man I’m told is a good brother. A brother Iknowto be a solid man.”

“So what, you take care of my girls, and when I get out, I transfer to your chapter and do your dirty work? I was an axe for Rooster. I won’t be one ever again.”