Page 22 of My Veteran Biker

"Okay," he says.

"But I don't want to walk away either."

He looks at me then, really looks, and I see something crack in that control.

"What do you want?" he asks.

"I want you to stop acting like your life doesn't matter. I want you to go to the damn hospital and get stitches. I want you to admit that what happened last night scared you too."

"It didn't."

"Liar."

His mouth tightens.

We stare at each other across two feet of rumpled sheets and I realize we're having the same fight we had seventeen years ago, just with different words.

"I was scared," he says finally. "Not for me. For Tate. For the brothers inside who couldn't get out if something went wrong. For what happens if Crane keeps pushing and we have to push back hard enough that there's no coming back from it."

"What does that mean?"

"Means we've been playing defense. Waiting for them to make moves, responding, trying to de-escalate. But Perry's dead. They attacked our clubhouse. At some point defending stops working and you have to end it."

"End it how?"

He doesn't answer. Doesn't need to. I can see it in his face, in the set of his shoulders.

"You're going to kill Victor Crane," I say.

"Clint makes that call. Not me."

"But you'll do it if he asks."

"Yes."

No hesitation. No apology. Just yes, like I asked if he wanted coffee.

I should be horrified. Should tell him to leave, that I can't be with someone who talks about killing people like it's an item on a to-do list.

Instead I ask, "When?"

"Don't know yet. Chuck's working on finding where Crane's hiding. Could be a week. Could be tomorrow."

"And then what? You ride out and murder someone and come home and we just... what? Pretend it didn't happen?"

"I'm not going to lie to you about what I am, Francis. I'm in a motorcycle club. We operate outside the law. Sometimes that means doing things you can't take back. If that's something you can't live with, I understand."

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Give me an easy out. Make it simple for me to walk away."

"I'm giving you the truth. What you do with it is up to you."

I want to scream. Want to shake him. Want to make him understand that I'm not asking him to be someone different, I'm asking him to want to stay alive for me.

But maybe that's not fair either.