"Still," Chris said, shaking her head. "This isn't like one single new player snuck into town under the radar. An entire club did. How many people would you say there were?"
"Twenty-five?" I guessed. "Maybe more."
"Twenty-five bikers rolled into this town, and no one saw anything off?" Chris asked, clucking her tongue. "We have all gotten too complacent. Things have been stable for too long. We got used to it. We let down our guard."
"Can't argue with that," I agreed.
There were too many elements to this whole thing.
Not a single one of them should have happened.
The supply chain shouldn't have gotten so bad without us realizing.
I should never have been able to be taken.
Third Street never should have had the balls to try to step to us, even if they were hired to do so.
And a goddamn one-percent club never should have felt comfortable not only moving into our territory, but stealing from us, making veiled threats to us, informing us that we would just have to get used to their presence.
None of this shit should have happened.
Yet here we fucking were.
And, what's more, they were right.
We would have to get used to them in some fashion or another if they had gotten in, gotten a building, got their club going, started to build allies, stolen our business.
It was another couple hours later when all the men were back, when everyone was comparing notes on what we had learned.
It was about then, too, that I heard the gates opening, accounting for our only missing member.
Colson.
"Did I read this text right?" he asked, rushing in. "There is a new club in town? And they want what is ours?"
"Not just want it," I clarified. "Have already actively started to take it."
"What the hell is going on?" he asked, casting a bewildered gaze around the room.
To that, I let out a mirthless laugh.
"Welcome to the new Navesink Bank," Fallon said, shaking his head. "I have a feeling it is going to be a bumpy ride."EPILOGUEEva - 3 DaysWell, we got the first lie out of the way.
The one where he claimed "these are extreme circumstances, the club is never like this." And then all hell broke loose in a matter of days.
I guess I couldn't hold it against him too much since no one knew that the days of calm and certainty in Navesink Bank were far behind them.
Besides, if I was going into this with any naiveté about what it may entail, then I didn't belong with Colson to begin with.
And, hey, I lied to him once already too.
When I told him his scrambled eggs were good. The man needed to learn to season things correctly. But we would get there.
My only real holdup at the moment was the whole "I need to explain this to my kid without being a complete hypocrite for not letting him join a gang" thing.
And the longer I put it off, the more time he had to build solid arguments that I couldn't topple with a simple "Well, that is just how it is, kid, like it or lump it." Yes, I had become a "like it or lump it" parent, and I was somehow okay with that. Let's face it, I gave away my "cool card" the first time I changed Jacob's diaper and got peed on in the face. Somehow, I would have to learn to live with this sad fact.
Colson was bringing Jacob back from the gym where he was having his first official ass-kicking. I mean... martial arts lesson. I had spent the entire time standing in my kitchen, having a conversation with my coffee, working out the talking points I planned to bring up to Jacob as soon as he got home. And showered. The shower was nonnegotiable. I'd learned many moons ago how rank teenage boys got when they worked out.
That gave me ten extra minutes to figure out how to make "gangs are bad but outlaw bikers are good" sound less ridiculous.
"You sound like a crazy person," Gus told me, making me jolt, turning to find her standing in the doorway to the kitchen.
It had been so long since there had been anyone else in our lives that I had forgotten all about Gus hanging around, helping out with my mom.
Apparently, West was busy with the clusterfuck at the club, so she was bored. It was probably selfish of me to capitalize on that boredom, but I comforted myself with the knowledge that I hadn't asked it of her. She'd offered. And my mom got a kick out of her. So I was happy to accept.
"I am preparing for my son calling me a hypocrite."
"You know what's fun about kids?"
"What?"
"That they're underage and can't do shit about it even if they did think you were a hypocrite. And they're practically useless. So they depend on you for everything. So they will have to get over themselves sooner or later."