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Raising my hand to knock on Maestro’s door and then lowering it again with a weary sigh. Did I want to do this? I mean, this club had been my home for thirty-two years. Longer if you counted the years before I became a prospect.

I’d started at the age of eighteen as a prospect for the club with my best friend, Chains. We’d both been legacies, but that didn’t mean we had it easy. We had to do just as many shit jobs as the rest of the prospects. Sometimes I thought we’d been given the most shit jobs just so that it couldn’t be said that we’d been favoured.

Chains and I had been friends for all our lives. We’d gone to school together as kids, and as adults, we’d lived on the same street as each other. With both our fathers belonging to the same club, we’d been in and out of each other’s homes all our lives. That’s not to say we didn’t fight or argue, because we did, but we’d been inseparable just the same.

And until last month, when we’d found out about Ford, we’d all thought he’d never had children. He’d been godfather to all my kids and had treated them as if they were his. We’d been through both the good and bad together, always at each other’s backs no matter what life had thrown at us.

Then the fucker had up and died on me. Not his fault, I knew that. Getting gunned down like he had been but now… now I felt like a ship floating rudderless in a sea of grief. Everywhere I looked, there were reminders of him. This last month had brought it all home. I needed a change if I was going to find my way back.

My Old Lady, Maggie, was from across the pond. She’d been born and brought up there in a small town in rural Yorkshire, where her family owned a farm. Her brother ran it now that her parents had passed away.

A few years ago, Maggie had inherited some property in the UK from an uncle she didn’t even know she had. It was near the City of Southampton, which was on the other side of the country from her family in Yorkshire. There’d been a history of arguing between her father and his brother, which was why she hadn’t known about him. He’d kept up on his brother's life, though, and when the lawyer had finally tracked Maggie down and she’d read the letter he’d written her, she’d laughed. Apparently, he left it to her because she’d been smart enough to leave that mud hole in Yorkshire and make a life for herself elsewhere, and as she obviously had a brain and managed to make five children, he thought she’d be the obvious choice as his heir. According to him, her brother was an idiot for staying on the farm, so he got nothing.

Maggie’s brother was a good man, and when she’d shown him the letter, he’d just laughed. She’d offered to sell the property and split the money with him, but he’d said that he and his family were doing fine and to keep it as she’d not got anything from their parents.

So that’s what she’d done. The property had a decent-size house, some outbuildings, and sat on about ten acres of land, which apparently in the UK was a lot of property. I did know it was worth a pretty penny, and initially we’d been thinking of selling it, but Chains had persuaded us to keep it and have the manager carry on running it as it paid for its own upkeep. Her uncle had been a pretty savvy guy and had built a cidery on the farm to utilise the apples from the orchard the property had. Over the years, Maggie had upgraded the machinery as it was needed.

Last week, Maggie had a phone call from the manager to let us know that he needed to take some time off due to ill health. There’d been a discussion of getting in a temporary manager, but Maggie wasn’t so keen on that, and when Maggie had told me the options last night, something had pushed me to say we’d move.

Maggie had been understandably surprised because, in all the time we’d been together, not once had I accompanied her to the UK when she went to visit her family. All the kids had gone and spent time with her parents and their uncle but never me. I’d never felt the need to disappear for a month to the UK. I’d ensured that Maggie and the kids went every year, but I’d stayed put. Maybe it would be a big mistake, but I knew I couldn’t stay here anymore. There had been too many changes, and this old man just wasn’t in the frame of mind to learn new tricks.

With a sigh, I lifted my hand again and knocked on the door in front of me.

When I heard the call to enter, I grasped the handle of the door and took another deep breath, bracing myself. Because I knew that I’d not be seeing the man who had been my President for many years. Red had given up his president position after Chains had been killed. It was strange coming into the office now and not seeing him sitting behind that desk that had been his since forever.

Now it was Maestro sitting at the desk, Chains’ younger brother. Chains had been groomed as the eldest to take the President position, and I knew Maestro had never expected to be President, but he’d stepped up just like we’d all known he would after Chains’ death and Red’s subsequent retirement. He was a good man and a phenomenal president, and I hated to admit it, but he was a better president than Chains would have been.

Pushing open the door, I walked in and closed it behind me before turning to look at Maestro, and yeah, it hit hard the similarities between him and his brother.

Maestro smiled at me, and just for a minute, it was like looking at Chains. Yup, this decision had to be made, and it was better that I did it sooner rather than later. I was useless to the club feeling like I was. It would be better to leave and make a new life somewhere.

Was it running away? Probably. But honestly, at this stage in my life, I didn’t really give a fuck. I sat down in the same chair that I’d sat in for years when I’d been in here shooting the shit with Chains and Red, it moulded just right to my butt. Leaning forward, my hands hanging between my legs and my head down, wondering how I was going to ask for this and hoping Maestro would give this to me.

“What can I do for you, Tinman?”

Clearing my throat, I looked up at his question to find him looking at me with a knowing expression on his face.

Running my hand across my face, my hand rasping along my beard, “Fuck,” I muttered, struggling.

“Just spit it out, David, like a band-aid. I think I know what this is about, but I can’t do shit until you say it.”

It was the use of my government name that did it for me. I straightened my shoulders.

“I need to leave, Maestro.”

He nodded and brought his hands to his face, his fingers resting together at the tips as he rested his chin on them, swinging in his chair as he contemplated me.

“I figured this might be coming. I have a few ideas, but before that, tell me what you plan on doing? I can’t see you sitting doing nothing, Tinman.”

Chuckling, I shook my head at him, “Honestly, Maestro, I have no fucking clue what I’ll be doing other than helping Maggie.”

We were silent for a while; Maestro wasn’t rushing me. I gathered my thoughts before speaking up, “You know that Maggie is English, right?”

He nodded his head that yes, he knew that. She’d been in the US so long that she didn’t sound anything like she used to, so I wasn’t sure if he’d remembered.

I went on to tell him about the cider farm and that she needed to go and spend some time on it. I explained that Maggie was a farm girl, and she’d looked into all sorts of shit she could be doing with the cidery if she was on the premises. She’d even done a few courses on distilling, thinking she may expand a little. She’d supported me all these years, it was my turn to support her. I’m sure there’d be a garage on the cider farm and if there was, I’d be happy tinkering on an engine.

I went on to explain how we’d decided that we wanted to slow down a little. We were by no means old, just tired. We’d both be fifty in the next year or so, and Chains dying had woken us both up that life was short. Even if we weren’t a one percenter club anymore and the danger was less, we still wanted something different. Maggie and I had five children, ranging from Coal at twenty-eight to surprise baby Opal, who was fifteen.

Once I’d finished explaining about the cider farm and Maggie’s plans, I sat back and waited.

Maestro didn’t say anything for a while, just contemplated me for a minute.

“What about Coal and the other boys?”

I was surprised at the question, “What about them? I’m sure they’ll be staying here.”

“Mmhh,” Maestro muttered, his brow furrowed as he thought something through, muttering under his breath so soft I could barely hear him. But I got where he was going. “I had something pointed out to me not so long ago. Coal’s wasted here. He’d make a fucking fantastic president. The rest of your boys would be good as his officers, with a few others mixed in so that there are no favourites when it comes to voting.”

Taking a pad and pen from the drawer, he read something on it and was silent for a little while as he wrote a few things down on the pad in front of him, crossed them out, and then wrote something else down.

“Mmhh, yeah, that could work,” Maestro rubbed a hand across his mouth as he studied his notes. “Damn if those Skulls weren’t right. What do you think?” he asked, handing me the paper. Reaching across, I took it from him and read down the list of names. My brows raised as I read the list because four of the names on that list of officers were my sons.