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“Same,” I replied. “No one seems to know anything about this fucker. He’s a ghost.”
“What do we do?” Devon asked, with a raised eyebrow. “We can’t just let this go.”
“No, we can’t,” I agreed.
“Do you have a game plan?”
I sighed. I wished I had, but the truth was I had no clue what to do. Approaching Godwin openly would be a huge insult. It would give him the opportunity to deny everything outright, and that would leave me without an opportunity to retaliate. Of course, I was assuming a lot. What if Godwin simply admitted to everything? Then that would mean I would have to act and approaching him would mean walking right into his turf with only a handful of my own men. I couldn’t exactly show up with an army at my back and claim I was there just to talk.
This was one of those days when I wished I had chosen a different life. I had never wanted to be leader of this club. I had wanted to ride my Harley and live free, outside the rules that other people lived by. But after Dad had died… somehow everyone had looked to me to carry on his legacy. This wasn’t a fucking dynasty. I had repeated that till I was blue in the face, but the vote had been cast, and my name had been drawn. I had no choice but to accept the mantle with some amount of humility.
“Zack?”
“I’m thinking,” I snapped.
I looked towards the street. It wasn’t the best area to be in, and the good crowd tended to be on the opposite end of the town where there were ice cream parlors and bakeries and old record stores that played music from different decades. That was the world that I didn’t belong to… and yet sometimes I wondered.
“You can head back now,” I said, snapping out of my fog of thought.
“That’s it?” Devon asked.
“Why?” I asked. “Is there another lead that needs to be looked into?”
“No,” Devon replied. “But…”
“But what?” I demanded. “If you have any ideas that won’t start another war with the Knights, then I’m all ears.”
Devon looked at me curiously.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he shrugged. “I just assumed a fight was what you were looking for.”
“Maybe I was,” I said. “But maybe that’s changed.”
Devon raised his eyebrows. “What’s changed exactly?”
“None of your business,” I said shortly. “Go home.”
“Where are you heading to?” Devon asked.
“I need a drink,” I replied. “A strong one, and I won’t find that back at the house.”
I got on my motorbike and turned into the street while Devon finished off his cigarette. He was watching me intently, and I was on the verge of demanding what his problem was, but then I thought better of it. What did I care what his problem was? I had my own shit to deal with, and I didn’t need Devon’s opinions in my head.
He had kept his distance from me since the fight. It wasn’t like we were mad at each other or anything. That wasn’t what our lifestyle was about. We had disagreements, we had fights, but we always rolled back on our feet, dusted ourselves off, and got on with it. Only children held grudges, and Devon knew he had it coming to him. I was a grown man, and his sister was an adult who knew her own mind. A part of me didn’t really blame him for being protective of her though. I had noticed how close the two of them had gotten over the last several weeks.
I drove off and found another bar a few streets over. It was one I had frequented often. None of the Knights ever came in here because the owner had been a good friend of my father’s. He had passed away some time ago, too, and left the bar to a nephew he liked, but the tradition had stuck and while the Angels were welcome, the Knights kept away.
I used to be a regular at the bar on Friday nights. It was one of the best places in town to pick up women. I don’t know why I felt drawn to it tonight. Maybe I was trying to capture a part of my past self, the man I had been before this whole thing with Walter Black had started up. Somehow, I could sense a difference in myself. It was subtle, but it was prevalent and I wasn’t sure what I should make of it.
The bar was mildly crowded. There was low music, and the lights were dim. There were a couple of people at both pool tables; another group of people playing darts, and a handful at the tables. There was no one at the bar, however, so I sidled up and took a seat.
“Look who it is,” Aaron said, turning to me.
He was wearing his usual ponytail and a bunch of wooden bracelets on both wrists. “Hi man,” I nodded to him. “You died your hair again.”
Instead of the red color that I had grown accustomed to seeing him with, he was now a platinum blond. He had one of those chameleon faces that seemed to be able to pull off anything.
