“You’ve got this, brother,” he said.
Later, back at the clubhouse, he poured me a shot of whiskey. Decades ago, he lost his wife and unborn baby in a car accident. The years that followed were dark for him, but he survived his torment and grief and was happily married now with a kid on the way.
I threw back the shot, my nerves frayed.
“How do I fucking do this?” I asked him. “He deserved more than this.”
Bull put his hand on my shoulder and fixed me with his supernatural blue eyes. “You get through today,” he said, his voice gravelly and thick with a heavy Mississippi accent. “Then you go after the motherfucker who did this, and you make the sonofabitch pay.”
JACK
Two Years Ago
“I’m leaving.”
I look up from the table where my face has been planted since I passed out on it the night before. Spilled whiskey from an overturned bottle of Jack pools on the tabletop, and the acrid smell makes my stomach churn. I try to focus but my head is pounding like a motherfucker. Squinting, I see Rosanna standing in the doorway, her face pale and gaunt and stiff with determination.
“I’m moving in with my folks, and I’m taking Hope with me.”
Somewhere inside of me, I want to fight her because she’s walking out on our marriage and taking our daughter with her, but even that part of me knows she is doing the right thing. Hope is better off with her mother than she is with me. I’m not even here. I’m a ghost. Even when I am present, I’m not really here. The twins, Bam and Loki, will be fine. They’re in college, and the fact that their old man is a fucking shell of a human being doesn’t affect them anymore.
Still, it doesn’t stop me from asking, “Why?”
“I’ve tried, Jack. I really have. But you’re never here anymore. You’ve given up. You’d rather be with the club than here with me.” She leans against the doorjamb. “I used to lie awake worrying I was going to get that call, the one telling me your recklessness had finally claimed you, and you were dead. Then I used to lie awake praying you’d come back to me. Praying you would find the strength to pick up the pieces. Now I just lie awake alone, my body aching because my husband hasn’t touched me in months. I don’t know if there have been other women, club girls—”
“There hasn’t been.”
She nods. “I didn’t think so. That’s not really your style, is it? But your grief might as well be another woman, Jack. Because she is your mistress, and she has taken you from me.”
“I love you,” I croak out. And I do. I just can’t seem to muster the strength to show her anymore.
She smiles softly. “You love the memory of me. Of us. But when Cooper…” She stalls because saying his name still hurts. “When Cooper died… you died, too.”
She is right.
I died on that goddamn pavement right alongside my baby brother.
“I’ve tried, but I can’t reach you anymore, and I’m tired, Jack. My mind. My body. My soul. I lost Cooper, too.” She picks up her bags. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t stand by and watch you slowly kill yourself with liquor and guilt.”
I need to say something…
… anything to stop her from leaving.
But words fail me.
And even after the initial surprise of her telling me she’s leaving fades like smoke, I realize she is right. I love the memory of her. Of our relationship. Our marriage. But nothing has existed since that fateful afternoon. Everything died, and I’ve been too overcome with grief and too marinated in hard liquor to notice.
“You need to find a reason to live again.” Rosanna places the crown pendant I’d given her on our wedding day on the table. Every king gives his queen one when they marry. If she gives it back, you know it’s over. “Take care of yourself, Jack.”
I watch her walk out the door, and when I hear her car pull out of the driveway and disappear down the street, I drag the bottle of Jack to my lips and take a deep mouthful. The taste is harsh, and the burning liquid is like fire as it carves a flaming path through my chest. But it feels good because it’s the only thing to remind me I am alive.
I look at Rosanna’s crown pendant on the table in front of me.
She is gone.
But nothing has really changed.
Cooper is still dead.
And I am still broken.
JACK
One Year Later
It’s one of those dark nights when nothing good is going to happen. A sinister feeling hangs heavy in the air. There is no breeze. No life.
Leaning against the large willow tree across the road, I watch the screen door open and the looming figure step onto the porch. It walks across the moaning floorboards to lean against the weathered porch railing, the glow of a cigar the only light in the darkness. From where I stand, I don’t see his face, but I know who he was. His name is Rasputin, and tonight he is going to die.