Shit. Pops didn’t hold back. Not that I expected him to — but fuck damn.
You’d think being younger, faster, and in better shape would count for something. But no. He’s been boxing longer than I’ve been breathing, and it shows. Every fresh bruise on my body is a goddamn signature of that experience. Bones and I have been chasing a clean win over him for years. We’ve had our moments, sure. But never a definitive knockout. Not with Pops insisting we stick to the rules. That’s where he always gets us. We’re better when the gloves come off, when it gets dirty.
“Boy, you need to train more. That was pathetic,” he spits, towering over me like a judgmental god.
I’m flat on my back, staring up at the flickering ceiling light in the clubhouse gym, lungs burning. Mama peaced out a few minutes ago, said she was satisfied with the show. Must be nice.
“Give up those dumb rules, old man,” I grunt. “Then we’ll see who wins.”
He raises an eyebrow, and smirks down at me. “You think being an outlaw biker means you don’t answer to rules anymore? Life’s full of ‘em, kiddo. Spoken and unspoken. Break the wrong one and you don’t get a rematch — you get a fucking gravestone.”
His voice shifts, lower now, heavier. “Now, since I already beat the will to live out of you, it’s your turn to scare the life out of me. I want to hear what really happened with that girl. I know you told your Mama. Time to tell me.”
I narrow my eyes. “Is this your need for gossip speaking?”
He glares, his nostrils flaring. “Keep running your mouth and I’ll drag your ass through another round.”
I groan and cover my face with one hand. “I already told her everything, Pops. Every fucked-up detail. She can fill you in.”
“I can’t talk about it again. Not so soon,” I say quietly, eyes fixed on the ceiling.I really fucking can’t. I barely got the words out to tell Mama. There’s too much shame and pain todig through whenever I think about everything that happened. Everything that I did.
He doesn’t say anything. Just sits down next to me and hands me a bottle of water.
I drag myself upright, just enough to sit on my ass and accept the bottle. My body aches. But not as much as the guilt that’s still curdled inside me, making it hard to breathe.
“That cartel,” Pops starts, voice low. It grabs my full attention. “I wish to hell we’d had the power to take them down back then. Bury every last one of them. But the club wasn’t strong enough. We didn’t have a single alliance when they tore your life apart. Forty of us, maybe. Them? Two hundred, easy. Probably more.”
He pauses, like he’s searching through the memories. “The only move I had was reaching out to Massimo Romano. I knew if the Romanos stood behind us, the cartel would back off. They wouldn’t want a war with the Italians.”
I nod once. I know this story. The part he doesn’t say is that Massimo was a bastard. Luca and Arcangelo’s old man. Mean as sin, power-hungry, violent. Bones and I helped his sons put him in the dirt and clear out the loyalists. That was the turning point. The moment a desperate business deal turned into a blood-forged alliance. We’re solid with the Famiglia now, but back then, Pops had to swallow a lot of shit to keep the club alive.
He sighs, and bows his head like the weight of it all is still sitting on his shoulders. “I tried to protect everyone. Did what I could to shield the club. But I didn’t protect you. Not when it mattered most. It was too late by the time I made any moves.”
His eyes find mine. They’re soaked in guilt. “I’m sorry, Dominic. If I’d been smarter, stronger… maybe things would’ve been different. Maybe I could’ve stopped what happened to you.” He swallows hard. “Bones is better than I ever was. That’s why I trained him like I did. Why I handed him the club so early. He built this club into something powerful. Feared. Respected.”
His stare hardens. “And you… you’re better than me, too. I see it in you. You’ll go after them, won’t you? You’ll hunt them down.”
I don’t respond. I don’t need to. He already knows the answer.
“And you’ll succeed where I failed,” he says quietly.
There’s a pause. The kind that hums with unsaid warnings.
“But you need to be fucking smart,” he adds, voice dropping. “Verdugos work with other cartels. They’ve got deep pockets, bigger reach than before. They could’ve wiped us out back in the day. They just didn’t care enough. I still don’t know why they went through all the trouble with you. Why the setup. Why the theatrics.”
He reaches out and squeezes my shoulder, firm and fatherly.
“Be careful. Please.”
I nod once. “Yeah. I will be.”
Then I crush the empty plastic bottle in my hand, knuckles white.
“You didn’t fuck up, Pops,” I say. “You got dealt a rigged deck, and you still played the hell out of it.”
When I walk into Bones’ office without knocking, he doesn’t even lift his head. There are no muttered curses or annoyed glances this time. He just sits slumped in his chair, fingers wrapped around a glass of whiskey. That’s how I know things with Temperance are worse than I thought.
I drop into the seat across from him with a sigh so heavy that feels like it’s coming straight from the bottom of my soul.
