As we pulled onto the blacktop, Catherine reached around my waist and squeezed, just once. It was all the confirmation I needed.
The road out of the club was a black artery, pulsing with nothing but the sound of my engine and the rush of blood in my ears. Catherine’s arms cinched my waist, tighter than before, every bump and swerve sending a message through her grip. She didn’t flinch from the wind or the speed; she leaned into me, trusting I’d keep her upright even as the world blurred at the edges. There was nothing better than having a woman who trusted you to take care of her. I knew enough about women to know that’s all they really wanted, to be in the hands of a man they trusted and knew would protect them.
We took the long way, snaking through the old mining town and cutting across a dry wash that was more sand than gravel. The headlight carved out thirty feet at a time, the rest of the world erased. For a stretch, we didn’t see another car, just jackrabbits and the odd set of coyote eyes reflecting orange from the side of the highway.
About halfway to the bakery, I banked the bike off the main drag and up onto the shoulder. There was a pull-off, an old surveyor’s overlook with a busted sign and a lonesome picnic table. The mesa loomed above us, blacker than the sky, and the only light came from the distant glow of town and the slow, quiet dance of distant stars.
Catherine slid off the seat first, her boots scuffing the grit. I killed the engine and let the night settle. For a while, neither ofus spoke. I listened to the pop and tick of the cooling metal, the wind in the creosote, the heartbeat that finally slowed back to normal.
She fished in her borrowed jacket, found a crumpled pack of cigarettes, and offered me one. I lit hers first, then mine, and we sat side by side on the tail of the bike, staring out at nothing.
“You ever stop to wonder if any of this makes sense?” she said.
I let the question hang. I’d had the same thought more times than I could count, but always decided it was better not to dwell. “I think if you ask, it means you already know the answer.”
She exhaled, the smoke catching in the cold air. “When I was a kid, my mother used to take me to this place in Yonkers—old country Italian, checkered tablecloths, the kind of joint where you never saw a cop but everyone knew who ran the block. She’d tell me which guys to watch out for. Not the ones with big talk or rings on every finger, but the quiet ones who never looked up from their soup.”
I could picture it: a younger Catherine, all sharp elbows and observation, cataloging the world before she could even spell Mafia. “You were a judge in training.”
She smirked, then let it fade. “Not quite. I was supposed to be an asset, not a risk. But my mother, she’d whisper in my ear, ‘See that man? The way he holds his fork? Real Italians don’t eat like that. He’s watching your father.’ She could spot a fed from fifty paces.”
“Did you ever ask her how she learned it?”
“She said it was survival. You learned to trust your instincts, or you didn’t last.” She paused for a moment. “It’s the same way with relationships.”
I let the last comment fade into the night, though I agreed. There was still the thing with her and Jenna. Was that over? And why the fuck had I fucked Jenna? That would eventually have to be explained.
The cigarette burned down to the filter before she spoke again. “I never wanted this life, Seneca. Not the blood, not the lies. But it gets in you, like black mold. You think you can keep it out, but one day you wake up and you can’t breathe anything else. I always knew it would someday come back on me.”
I reached for another cigarette, let her light it for me. The spark flared between us, brighter than the future.
“The Corps told me I was born for the job. Clearing houses, breaking down doors. It was all I was good at. But after I punched out, there was nothing waiting except the club. Bloody Scythes gave me a reason to stay alive, even if it was just loyalty and cheap beer. Even a man needs the trust and loyalty of other men.”
She laughed, soft but real. “What about now?”
I considered. “Now I think I’m good at protecting people who matter. Maybe that’s enough.”
She leaned against me, her head on my shoulder, not needing to pretend it was for warmth. “You’re a better person than you think, Seneca.”
I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter what I am. Only what I do next.”
We finished the cigarettes in silence, then watched the wind comb the grass. Somewhere, a coyote barked, then another answered from farther down the draw.
Catherine said, “If we live through this, let’s go somewhere. Not New York, not here. Somewhere with no ghosts.”
I let myself imagine it, just for a minute. “You think we could outrun them?”
She pulled her knees to her chest and gave a sly grin. “We could try.”
I thought about all the things that had ever mattered to me, and how most of them were gone or ruined. But Catherine wasstill here, and for the first time in forever, I felt like I had something to fight for that wasn’t just the club, or my own skin.
“We should get going,” I said.
She nodded, but didn’t let go of my arm as we mounted up.
The next stretch was quiet, but different. She rode closer, her arms locked tighter, the curve of her body molded to mine. The town lights got brighter, the night colder, but the old fear was gone, replaced by a kind of electricity.
We didn’t talk again until we could see the bakery’s flickering sign, a quarter mile away; the world condensed to just the two of us.
