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“Hey!”
Ozzy ignored his complaint as he stared at it.
“Only too well,” Judge muttered. His head lifted and he shot a look toward the double barn doors that led out to the courtyard. “Jemma comes in here, this shit is gettin’ put away. She don’t need no reminder of all the bullshit we saw and lived through. She got enough nightmares.”
“That’s for fuckin’ sure,” Cage said. “Didn’t think she’d ever come home for good. The past almost fucked up our future. Thank fuck she did, but don’t need this shit to stir up her memories.”
Ozzy studied the photo of the three Fury brothers standing in front of their sleds, wearing their cuts with their heavily tattooed arms crossed over their chests. All wore dark sunglasses and skull caps. All had bad attitudes Ozzy remembered all too well.
Ham. Dead.
Beans. Ham’s best buddy. It was a joke that they were named Ham and Beans. But Ozzy had no idea where he ended up.
“Know what happened to Beans?” Ozzy asked Dutch.
The old man shrugged. “Fuckin’ ghosted when all the shit went down. He was one of my best mechanics, too.”
“What happened to Ham?” Trip asked Dutch next. “You remember?”
Ozzy tensed and snuck a glance at Dutch. The old man had said something a couple of weeks ago that made him wonder if he knew what Ozzy did to Ham.
“Nope,” the Original answered. “No fuckin’ clue.”
Ozzy blew out a breath.
Dutch continued, “Figured he took off like a little bitch. If they didn’t end up six feet under, they ended up goin’ to ground. Pete and me were the only ones willin’ to stand ours.”
Ozzy’s jaw shifted at Dutch’s words since he was also one who took off, disappearing into the night. “Nothin’ left to stick around for. You had the garage. Pete had the bar. What the fuck did the rest of us have, if we were still breathin’ or not thrown into a concrete box like Ox?”
Dutch scratched at his bushy salt-and-pepper beard. “I guess nothin’. But Beans had a fuckin’ job.”
“How you know Beans didn’t end up dead, too?” Trip asked the garage owner.
“Don’t.”
Ozzy put the picture of the three Originals aside and pulled another one from the pile. One of Buck and Razor standing together next to their sleds. Their arms around each other’s shoulders and both smiling.
Best friends. Brothers.
The two who started it all.
The two who ended it all.
Years after that picture, both betrayed each other. Both dead.
Ox landed in prison, then ended up dead.
Tin Man. Also dead. Ozzy was pretty sure Dutch took him out for whatever reason, but that wasn’t Ozzy’s business. Just like it wasn’t Dutch’s business what Ozzy did to Ham.
Dutch had his reasons. Ozzy had his.
Tigger also landed in prison. Ozzy had no fucking clue about what happened to him after that.
“What happed to Tig?” Ozzy asked Dutch. “You ever hear?”
“Got his head crushed in by a twenty-pound weight.”
“Damn.” Ozzy swept his hand through the photos, flipping over some more to see who they were of. “This ain’t all of us.”
Dutch let out a snort. “Fuck no. Think we were standin’ around posin’ for fuckin’ pictures? Like some kinda models?”
Ozzy began to collect the photos and throw them back in the box. “All right, I’m takin’ this for now to show Shay later. I’ll get them back to you when we’re done with them.”
“Keepin’ the one of Pete,” Trip reminded him.
“Yeah,” Ozzy said. “We know Pete ain’t Marshall Graham.”
“We know Ox ain’t, either,” Judge added.
“Coulda been Beans since he disappeared,” suggested Rook. “Don’t remember him havin’ a daughter, though. Shay say what her pop did for work?”
Ozzy shook her head. “Didn’t ask.”
“Wouldn’t that be smart?” Judge asked.
“Sorry I ain’t a genius like you,” Ozzy answered the club enforcer.
Judge tipped his head. “Should ask.”
Trip tossed two more loose photos back into the open box. “Report back soon as you show her these. Too bad we don’t got a picture of everyone. Thought Pete woulda had some in his apartment, but we went through everythin’ when we moved Stella outta there and Dodge in. He didn’t have much of anythin’.”
“The bar was his life,” Rook said. “That’s all he had.”
“Stella. He had Stella,” Trip reminded him, becoming tense once again.
“She wasn’t around, Trip,” Cage said. “We drank in Pete’s all the time before he died. Never saw her once. Not ’til after he was gone.”
“She was goin’ through some shit herself,” Trip muttered.
“Ain’t sayin’ she was a bad daughter, just sayin’ she wasn’t around. He died sittin’ at that fuckin’ bar.” Rook added, “Alone.”
“Exactly where he wanted to take his last breath,” Dutch grumbled. “And, yeah, that bar was his fuckin’ life.”
“Don’t ever wanna hear you sayin’ that shit around Stel, you got me?” Trip growled. “Fuckin’ never. None of you.” He tucked the picture of Crazy Pete inside his cut. “Now, we done walkin’ down memory lane?” He glanced at Ozzy. “You got what you need?”
