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“But I’ll tell you what,” Lou said with grandiloquent magnanimity. “As my parting gift to you… the ex-president of the Midnight Riders… you got it.”
He uncocked the revolver and let the gun drop to his side.
“Now get these pieces of shit out of my clubhouse,” he growled.
3
The Riders descended on us like a pack of wild animals. A dozen hands seized my arms and legs, and their owners cackled and hooted and leered as they simultaneously pawed at me and dragged me through the Roadhouse and threw me outside in the dirt.
Jack tumbled down next to me. A second later Kade slammed face-first into the gravel, unable to break his fall with his hands cuffed behind his back.
“Oooh – looks like that hurt,” Lou called out from the porch.
Kade didn’t say anything as he wrenched himself up to a kneeling position, his face scraped and bleeding.
“Gentlemen, after your disgraceful conduct and complete stupidity in protecting a fucking traitor, you are henceforth busted back to provisional members of the Midnight Riders,” Lou drawled. “You might be readmitted after a probationary period, which is up to my discretion. Take that time to think about what you did, and how you might avoid betraying us all again in the future.”
“Fuck you!” Jack shouted. “You’re the fucking traitor here!”
“You wound me, Jack,” Lou said in mock hurt. “I just want what’s best for the MC.”
“No you don’t – you couldn’t give a shit about the MC!” Jack turned to the other men standing beside Lou. “He’ll sell every last goddamn one of you out just to get what he wants – money and power!”
“Number one – no I wouldn’t. And number two – at least I didn’t sell them out for a piece of ass,” Lou said, then turned around and walked back inside.
Jack watched in helpless fury as the rest of the club members turned their backs on him and followed Lou.
4
“Jack,” I sobbed, “I’m so sorry.”
“Get the fuck away from me,” he growled as he limped over to help Kade.
“You have to believe me, I didn’t mean for any of this to hap– ”
He wheeled around in a berserker rage, spittle flying from his mouth. “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!”
I shrank back in terror. Lou’s gun at my head might have been scarier, but it didn’t hurt like this.
Jack stood there staring at me, chest heaving, eyes burning with hatred. When he finally spoke, he pointed at the Roadhouse.
“Three years. Three goddamn years of my life, gone, just like that. Hell, MORE than three years – half my fucking life was wrapped up in that club! Those guys were my brothers – I cared about them more than my own flesh and blood. Yeah, there were some fuck-ups, but every family has those – and that’s what they were: they were family. And I was turning them around. I was dragging them out of the shit and cleaning them off, getting them on their feet. I was making something better for all of us, and then you – YOU – ”
His face contorted in rage, and he bowed his head towards the ground as though trying to control himself. When he finally looked up, his eyes were cold and dead. I knew at that moment that anything he’d ever felt for me was gone.
“You lied to me,” he said, his anger barely under control. “I asked you fucking point blank – ”
“I know,” I whispered.
His words from earlier that night were burned into my brain:
If you are from the DEA or the FBI or whatever, please, just leave town. Now. And don’t come back. Lou gave me 24 hours to find out the truth, and then he’s going to hurt you. And I might not be able to stop him.
One sentence in particular stood out in my memory:
If you care about me at all, don’t fuck me on this.
It felt like a shiv in my gut every time I thought of it.
