by Kasey Krane
Rook and I exchanged looks as we walked through to our clubhouse at the back of the casino. In what used to be Buck’s old office; we found Edge, Spinner and Shark there. The moment I entered the room, I could sense something was wrong.
“Boys. What’s going on?” I asked, shutting the door behind us.
We’d left Church earlier on shaky grounds. The last thing we’d discussed and decided on was that we were going to hold an official vote to select our next President, but nobody was willing to do it right away so we were going to hold it off till the next time we called for Church.
Given that—things were still not entirely smooth with Shark. I could sense that the guys were still looking at him suspiciously for not accepting his role and responsibility. I hoped that the tension in the air was caused by this and not by something major.
Edge was the one to answer my question.
“Last night’s take on the casino was much fucking lower than usual. Banker is looking through the numbers again but unless he’s a magician, there isn’t much he’ll be able to do.”
I glanced at Rook, who now looked nervous as well.
Currently, the casino was our only stronghold. The money we made from it, was what gave us our position of power in the city too. We couldn’t afford to lose business at this stage. For fuck’s sake!
“How could the takings be low? It was a Saturday night, it would have been packed as usual. Saturdays are our busiest nights.”
Edge interrupted me then.
“That’s the thing. It wasn’t as packed as usual.”
“Since shit went down with Mr. Money and especially since Buck’s death, our regulars in attendance have reduced. It’s been slowing down but last night was a big shock. Things haven’t been this slow in years,” Spinner filled us in.
Nothing about what he said sounded right. How and why was this happening?
I rubbed a hand frustratedly over my face.
“Okay, we need to figure this shit out. Tell the boys we’re done grieving for Buck. It’s time to step up. If he was around and saw us moping around like we are, he’d yell at us to get our shit together. And that is what we need to do right now.”
The others murmured and nodded in agreement.
None of them had put their foot down like this, but someone had to. That’s what Buck would have expected us to do and that’s what I was doing.
“We need to talk to our regulars, see if they know anything. If our usual sources can’t find intel on Mr. Money and what’s happening to our business; we’ll have to go directly to our clients,” I said. The others nodded again. I looked at Rook and he tipped his head in agreement too.
“Let’s go, let’s get this sorted,” I snapped and quickly the others started to leave the room. Rook came over to thump my back encouragingly, but he was out of the door soon.
All of a sudden, I realized that I was standing alone in Buck’s old office. I wasn’t expecting to find myself here, not today.
His desk was right there, his leather chair with the cigarette burns in it. His ashtray was on the desk too, filled with old cigarette butts. Every aspect of this room and this MC, screamed Buck. He’d built this, he’d built us from the ground up and we owed it to him to keep this business alive. To make sure that the MC survived this storm.
The only reason Buck did what he did—walk knowingly into danger and face death was because he was confident in our collective ability to keep this MC and his legacy going.
I didn’t know about the other guys, but I wasn’t about to watch it burn to the ground because of one asshole.
“I’ll see this through, Buck.”
I hadn’t realized I’d spoken aloud till I heard the last word. What was happening to me? I was standing alone in a room and talking to myself now. Was I going crazy?
Was Buck’s death responsible for this? Or was River?
I barged out of the room, locking the door behind me. I needed to get out of this place and get some work done before I started to lose my mind.
Chapter Eleven
River
Marley had gotten up from the couch in our old family living room, and walked over to the kitchen. I could hear the whistle of the kettle blowing and the sound of spoons tinkling and mugs on the counter. She was making us some tea, even though I insisted that I didn’t want any.
Marley said it was going to help soothe my soul.
I hadn’t allowed myself to cry since that initial outburst of sobs and tears when she first walked into the house. Since then, I’d been resistant towards her even though I knew she was my closest friend and the only person I could trust and rely upon.
Despite knowing that; just the thought of giving Spade a chance, accepting that maybe he wasn’t full of terrible intentions and that just maybe he had something of meaning to tell me—went against every thought I had about him these past seven years.
I had spent all this time in Texas blaming him for everything, and genuinely believing that he and my dad had done all this because they hated having me around. That Spade had worked completely in accordance to what my dad said because he was devoted to him.
Now Marley’s theory was that Spade had no choice. That being a part of the MC meant that he had to give up his rights to disobey his President’s command. Neither of us knew exactly how an MC worked, but we had been trying to fill up the blanks.
And now the more questions that she asked me about it, the more I realized how little I knew about The High Rollers; the MC that had been such an integral part of my father’s life. I knew nothing about those people I had grown up around. For some reason, these people had all chosen to keep the details a secret from me.
And that made the theory even more convincing—that my dad and Spade had been hiding something from me.
Marley returned to the room with two large mugs of tea.
“I actually recognize these mugs. Your dad used to make us hot cocoa in these when we were little,” she said, placing them down on the coffee table in front of me. I recognized them too and it made me smile.
I pulled my feet up on the couch and tucked them under my legs.
“I know I’ve said a lot of bad things about my dad because of the way he treated me seven years ago; but I can’t forget how loving and caring he had been before that,” I said and Marley nodded her head. She settled down beside me on the couch and we both sipped our teas.
“Which leads me to think that he had to have been desperate enough to send you away to Texas. Desperate enough to not care what you thought of him.”
I stared down at my tea and sighed. At least for now, I was thinking logically and wasn’t being hostile towards Marley anymore. I was just trying to accept all her thoughts as helpful friendly suggestions.
We sat in silence for a little while, thinking. Either way, I wasn’t the one doing much of the talking. Marley was the one filling in all the gaps and slowly I was beginning to realize that I was happy she was here. I was glad she was helping me think. None of these thoughts would have occurred to me without her help, and they were helping to calm me.
“Do you really want to find closure with your dad and your past, River?” I heard her ask out of the blue. I looked at her and nodded. I knew she could see it on my face how desperate I was for it.
“Then you should try this technique I learnt from my meditation classes,” she said. Marley was happy to help and now she looked excited too but the thought of meditation sounded ridiculous to me.
“Are you serious?”
“C’mon, we have to try something. Unless you want to just sit around here feeling sorry for yourself.”
I stared at her. Still in disbelief.
“You want me to meditate? Like you want me to go into some kind of trance? You want to hypnotize me?”
Marley rolled her eyes.
“No, silly! It’s all about just clearing your head and focusing on the simple thoughts in your head. Ideally, what we want is for you to be able to go through your past memo
ries like they were film reels from a camera. It’s amazing the kind of stuff our minds are capable of storing but blocking out. There could be memories and thoughts in there you might not even realize you have.”
I had my brows crossed. This was getting silly.
“I don’t need to meditate. If there’s anything I need to remember about my father, I’m sure it’ll come to me on its own.”
Marley tipped her head to one side and smiled at me indulgently.
“Is there anything else you would rather be doing with your time?” she asked. I stared back at her because she knew my answer to that question.
“Good, so we can try this,” she said and jumped off the couch. I watched as she spun around the room. She pulled the curtains close first and darkened the room, switching off all the lights.
“Nothing to worry about, we just want you to get comfortable. Lie down here on the couch, honey.”
Initially I was resistant towards her bizarre ideas but eventually I started to stretch myself out on the couch. A certain kind of calm and exhaustion was taking over my body. Marley had a soothing effect on me.
I was down on the couch on my back and she was on her knees beside me on the carpeted floor.
Softly and in the gentlest of voices, she started to instruct me on what to do. I didn’t think it was going to work, and I definitely did not believe in these kinds of tricks—but maybe my brain was just overworked and when she started to guide me towards a sense of calm, I allowed her to do it.
I wasn’t fighting her anymore and I could feel my anxieties start to shut off. All that existed were Marley’s voice and then the sights and sounds of my childhood. They were whirling around in my head. I could see my father’s face clearly. I could hear my own voice. I was happy. He was happy too. We were running around the house. He’d taken me to the beach. He cooked me my favorite mac and cheese. There was Marley and me drinking our hot cocoa in bed during a sleepover.
But I tried to keep my focus on dad. I could still hear Marley’s voice in the background, coaxing me, guiding me towards something else. Towards memories of my father…and then I saw the gun.
I blinked my eyes open and sat up on the couch. My chest was heaving. I hadn’t thought about that in so long. Marley could see I was breathing hard and now she was worried about me.
“Oh my God, did you see something? Are you doing okay? I’m going to get you some water, alright? I’m so sorry if this was overly stressful for you, hun!”
Marley was fussing over me. She dashed to the kitchen and got me water, while I remained sitting on the couch, trying to catch my breath.
“I’m so sorry. We shouldn’t have done this. So soon after you found out about his passing. This is all my fault.”
I put a hand on my friend’s shoulder and squeezed.
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it…it’s just that…I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about it in so long.”
Slowly, Marley sat down beside me on the couch.
“Is it something bad? Is it something you wish you hadn’t revived?” she asked. I could see she was trying to tread cautiously. Clearly, she was worried about triggering the wrong effect.
I sat back on the couch and shook my head. I even tried to smile at her.
“No, it’s nothing like that. You can relax, Marley, you did good,” I said.
She put a hand on her heart and cried out with relief.
“Phew!”
We smiled at each other and then she reached over and held my hand.
“We can talk about it if you want, but I don’t have to know everything.”
“I want to tell you,” I said. “I think I had some idea back then about who my dad really was, as a kid, but I decided to block it out. Maybe because I just wanted my dad to be normal like all the other dads?”
My friend was listening intently to me.
“I think I was like eleven, I couldn’t have been older than that. And one day, I think it was a Sunday, I found a gun in my dad’s room. He didn’t like me entering his room, so I must have snuck in there out of curiosity. He’d left the gun in its case on the table beside his bed.”
Marley was all ears. She was listening to me with devoutness and her eyes were big and bright with surprise. I’d never spoken about finding a gun in the house before.
“What did you do with the gun?” she asked in a murmur.
“I think I was too young to know the full scope of what I’d found, or how dangerous a weapon like that could be. I was swinging it around, trying to mimic people I’d seen on TV with guns. I forgot where I was and dad walked in.”
Marley chewed on her lip, waiting for me to continue.
“He obviously panicked and pulled the gun away from my hands. I saw him checking to make sure it wasn’t loaded. Thankfully it wasn’t.”
“Was he mad?”
I nodded.
“Yeah, well, I couldn’t decide if he was mad at me for entering his room or for finding the gun,” I smirked and she smirked too. “Either way, he forbade me from touching his things without permission again.”
“So, you guys just left it at that?”
“No, I was a kid. I was curious. I wanted to know why he needed the gun.”
“Oh shit. What did he say?”
I fidgeted in my seat, moving my legs around till I was finally comfortable.
“He told me he needed to keep the gun around to keep us safe. I hadn’t realized until then that our safety was a concern. I asked him if we were in danger, and that’s when he started getting vaguer with his answers.”
Marley wasn’t saying anything anymore. She just wanted me to continue with the story.
“He said that sometimes his work put him in dangerous situations. That the MC had enemies and they could try and hurt me.”
The more I recalled my father’s words, the colder my voice became. How could I have forgotten such a crucial event? All these years, I couldn’t remember a single word of what he had told me that day. Now that incident was clearly envisioned in front of my eyes. It was like dad was right here, in the room with me today.
“I think he scared me a little that day. What he was saying didn’t make sense to me…”
“You were just a kid, River.” Marley placed a hand on my knee and patted it.
“I asked him why he did it. Why he was involved with the MC if it was so dangerous, and he told me because it wasn’t always like that. The Club was his family…our family, and we would always have each other’s backs.”
I blinked, looking at Marley next and it seemed like she was holding her breath.
“Shit. That sounds intense. No wonder your brain blocked it out. Just so you could forget about it and move on with your life.”
I nearly laughed aloud when I remembered what happened next.
“Dad told me that the only way I could touch his guns was if I knew how to use them.”
“He taught you how to use a gun?”
I was smiling as I nodded.
“We went out to the backyard to practice shooting at targets. We used BB guns that dad had in the garage. And guess what we used as targets?”
Marley shook her head.
“My old Barbie dolls, which I hated.”
We both laughed at that. I took in a deep breath and sank back in the couch. I still couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that all these years I’d just suppressed this memory in the back of my head somewhere.
“Well, there’s the proof you needed that your dad was involved in dangerous business.”
I stared at a spot on the wall beyond, trying to focus on the memory of my father’s face. Why couldn’t he just tell me the truth? Why didn’t he just admit the fact that he wanted me to be safe.
“It’s possible isn’t it; that both Spade and your dad forced you to go to Texas so you would be safe?”
I gulped. The longer I played with this idea, the more logical it was starting to sound. I didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to have to giv
e Spade another chance.
“Yes, it is possible,” I said to her reluctantly. When I looked over at her, Marley seemed concerned.
“It doesn’t have to be anything more than you having a conversation with Spade. He might be the only one in the MC willing to tell you the truth. It’s the explanation he’s talking about.”
I knew she was right and I nodded my head.
“You could talk to him, just for a little while and get it over with. It’ll help with the closure about your dad that you need.”
I nodded again, but I couldn’t admit to her how difficult that was going to be. Even a moment spent in Spade’s presence felt like a lifetime of torture because my body still craved for him. I couldn’t forget the way I had felt about him as a teenager. The desperation with which I had needed him back then.
And it seemed like with time; he had grown even more desirable in my eyes.
“Thanks for being here for me, Marley,” I declared and we hugged each other tightly.
“I’m glad to have you back here, back in my life again, River. I just want to help you solve this crisis in your life so you can move on.”
I nodded, rubbing my cheeks to wipe away the tear stains. Marley was smiling sympathetically at me.
“Now let’s get all that stuff you want packed away in those bags I bought,” she suggested cheerily and I nodded. I didn’t even know where I was going to take it all.
Chapter Twelve
Spade
We needed to get on top of our shit tonight. Just sitting around and waiting to be attacked by Mr. Money’s men because we were grieving over Buck’s death; wasn’t helping anybody.
When I left our casino, I stepped outside and saw Edge on the phone. The others had already left the scene, hopefully gone to pursue some of our regulars so we could find out why they hadn’t been showing up here lately.
I lit my cigarette as I waited for Edge to get off the phone.
“Think I’m going to drop by Steve Chang’s place, you wanna tag along?” he asked as he flipped his phone shut.
