by Melinda Minx
“J.C.,” I say. “Now’s your chance to run.”
He nods. “I’ll tell Remmy what you did. We’ll give you a good funeral, Stone.”
I let out a dry grin, and J.C. runs after Malik.
“Any regrets?” J.C. asks me.
“Yeah,” I say, thinking of Joanna. “Just one.”
The lights from the road are close now, but they stop just short of us. They are two walls of light on both sides of the road, cutting us off. As if we could even run anyway.
“Wanna go down shooting?” Rigg asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s take out as many of these bastards as we can.”
I raise the assault rifle to my shoulder and squeeze the trigger. One of the lights goes out as soon as I fire. A hit.
But then there’s a huge roar of gunfire from all sides. I feel bullets tear into my leg, and then one hits my shoulder, and my whole body goes numb as I fall to the ground.
I look up and see Rigg firing and screaming. Each time he fires, the light from the muzzle flash shows his face in garish yellow, the weathered lines on his face cutting stark black shadows across his face. And then he drops his gun as bullets pummel his chest. Blood hits the ground in front of me, Rigg’s blood, though some of it must be mine, too.
I feel light-headed as I bleed out.
I see boots walking toward us. Rigg’s eyes are open, but his breath is a horrible rattling sound, like tin cans being dragged across sheet metal.
The last thing I see before I pass out is a pistol pointing right at Rigg’s face. It’s a pistol with a long silencer, and the man holding it is wearing leather gloves.
“Kill them both?” a familiar voice asks.
Then Lenk’s voice booms out above me. “Kill Rigg, we can still make use of Stone.”
Lenk. Figures. He said I was done, and I didn’t listen.
It all seems too stupid now. It seems like it would have been so damn easy to leave this life behind. Joanna was a chance for me. She was hope. And I threw it all away.
I close my eyes before the bullet pulverizes Rigg’s face. I hear the chunky hiss of the gunshot being absorbed by the silencer, and then I pass out.
I wake up. How much time has passed? I don’t know. I’m handcuffed to a hospital bed, and machines are beeping all around me. The fluorescent lights are blinding, and my eyes can barely focus.
What even happened? I struggle to remember why I’m here, but my mind can’t grasp it. The last thing I clearly remember is meeting up with Rigg before...the raid. The raid must have gone south. Shit.
“He’s awake,” a woman’s voice says.
I’m handcuffed. What do they got on me? If I shot anyone, it was self-defense. I would have pulled my guys back if we saw anyone defending. So maybe a few years served? Ten if they’ve got it in for me.
Shit.
And Rigg? My mind is hazy. Did Rigg and my crew get out alive?
“Rigg,” I rasp. My voice barely comes out. “Where’s Rigg?”
“Worry about yourself right now,” a man’s voice says.
“Where’s the old geyser I was with?” I try to shout, but nothing more than a whisper will come out.
“Your lawyer is on the way,” the doctor says. “You’ll have to ask him. Now, do you feel this?”
Something pricks my toe. “Yeah, yeah, I feel it. Stop jabbing my toe.”
“Now?” the doctor asks.
“Yeah, my legs still work,” I grunt. “I feel it.”
“A bullet grazed your spinal cord,” the doctor says, “but it seems there was no nerve damage.”
Lucky me. Even if I only end up serving one or two years, Joanna isn’t going to wait for me. And telling a girl like her, “Hey, I’m out of prison now, you wanna do dinner and a movie?” isn’t going to cut it.
A man in a suit and tie walks in, his polished black shoes nearly blinding me. It’s our MC’s lawyer, Dalton Killroy.
“Dalton,” I rasp. “Where’s Rigg?”
“I need the room,” Dalton says.
The doctor scowls at him. “Ten minutes.”
“More than I need,” Dalton says.
When the doctor is out, Dalton shuts the door behind him. He pulls a chair up to the side of my bed and pulls out a briefcase.
“Where the fuck is Rigg?”
“He’s dead,” Dalton says, no emotion in his voice. “And you killed him. J.C. and Malik are...missing.”
My eyes bulge. “I didn’t...I didn’t fucking--”
“It’s all in this statement that you will sign here.”
“It was the fucking Black Spear MC,” I whisper. “We were at their meth lab!”
“No,” Dalton says. “You were at your own meth lab. You and Rigg were making meth on your own, hogging the profits for yourselves.”
My head starts to spin. Fuck, who gave me the location? Was it Remmy? No...it was Tank.
“Tell Remmy--”
“Remmy’s dead too,” Dalton says, smirking. “Natural causes, of course.”
Anger flares across my face, and the pain of losing Rigg cuts chasms across my chest. I raise a finger to Dalton, wanting to strangle him. “I ain’t signing shit, you--”
“When Lenk and the rest of the MC arrived to shut down your shady operation, they found you and Rigg fighting over who got the bigger share. Your argument became heated, and despite Rigg’s best attempts to talk you down, you killed Rigg. It was involuntarily manslaughter, and if you confess and reach a plea deal, I think I can get you a ten-year sentence with five or six years served.”
“Fuck that,” I grunt. “Give me the public defender, and I’ll take this whole mess to trial.”
Dalton licks his lips. “If you sign this, Lenk will leave that bartender, Joanna, alone. And when you get out of prison, you come back to the MC with your tail between your legs. Lenk’s new lapdog. Those are the terms.”
It was Lenk’s meth lab. Remmy found out about it, and we were about to catch him red-handed. He had to kill Remmy and take out everyone who posed a threat to him: me and Rigg. But killing me was too easy, he’s gotta hold threats over Joanna’s head and make me lick his feet.
I bolt up, and I feel bandaged wounds tearing open. Blood starts to drip down my body, and an I.V. needle pulls out of my arm. I grab Dalton by the neck as all the machines beep wildly. I squeeze his weak-ass neck for all I’m worth, and the door swings open. I squeeze harder, but the doctor and nurses jam something into my arm and pry my weakening hands off Dalton’s neck.
Dalton gasps for air as unconsciousness overtakes me. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he wheezes. “Your last chance to sign. Sign for her. Your fingerprints are on the gun that killed Rigg. It won’t go well for you in a trial.”
I stare daggers at him, but I know that I will sign. For her.
9
Joanna
Three Years Later
Jane walks into the coffee shop, and when she sees me and Logan, she gives a big, exaggerated smile, throwing her hands out for a hug.
Logan giggles and tries to jump off his chair, and I have to grab him before he really does jump down. I set him onto his feet, and he runs toward Jane and gives her a big hug.
Every time I see Jane now, I think of the way Logan’s father described her: Plain Jane. But plain is what Logan needs, not a father in prison. In prison for murder.
Logan is at the age where he’s starting to get talkative, and I know he’ll soon be asking question after question. Asking me where his father is. I still don’t know how I’m going to answer those questions.
I’ve never brought Logan to see Stone, and I’ve never so much as communicated with him in prison. I had been tempted to break my promise--to try a real relationship with Stone. I thought his whole promise schtick was overblown and exaggerated, but the night after Logan was conceived, Stone pleads guilty to manslaughter. If he’d at least gone to trial, told me he was innocent...maybe I’d have listened to what he’d had to say.
No, I dodged a bullet. L
ogan will grow up with me, and sometimes plain Aunt Jane will babysit him. No bikers, no Chrome Hog, no murder.
“Jane! Jane! Jane!” Logan says, out of breath. “Look! Look! Kitty!”
Jane’s eyes widen, and she looks all over the coffee shop, turning her entire body left to right to overact her searching. “Where is the kitty? Do you see a kitty, Logan?”
Logan nods furiously, pointing up at the table.
“On the table?” Jane asks, “There’s a kitty on the table?”
I giggle, looking down at the blob of crayon on Logan’s paper.
“I--I--I drawed it! I drawed a kitty! Mom!”
I hold the paper up so both Logan and Jane can look at it.
“Wow!” Jane says, pointing. “That’s such a beautiful kitty!”
“NO!” Logan screams. “That’s a doggy!” He points back up at the table.
I grab the other paper he was drawing on, another blob, this one orange. I hold it up for them to look at.
Jane, not wanting to repeat her previous mistake, asks, “Is that the kitty?”
“Yes! Kitty!” Logan says, puffing up with pride.
“Wow! I love it,” Jane says. “Can you draw me another one? So I can put it on my wall?”
Logan suddenly turns shy, clutching the paper to his chest.
“Logan,” I say. “Do you want to draw Aunt Jane her own kitty?”
Logan nods.
I plop him back up on the chair and hand him a clean sheet. He starts scribbling intently, and Jane and I move far enough away that he can’t hear our low whispers. I’d grown so used to talking openly in front of him, but now that he’s getting older, I have to be careful not to talk about adult things when he can overhear.
“Another letter,” Jane says, handing it to me.
I don’t even have to look at it to know it’s from the prison. But I see that this time the envelope is already opened.
“Jane!” I snap. “You--”
“If you’re not going to read them,” she says, “then I will! He’s Logan’s--”
I grab her wrist and shush her.
Jane takes in a deep breath. “Look, Joanna, he doesn’t sound like such a bad guy. He really misses you. He thinks he’ll be out in three years, and--”
“And Logan will be six by then. He’ll have spent his entire early childhood without a father.”
“Judging by the letter,” Jane says, “Stone doesn’t even know he has a son. You really didn’t think to tell him?”
“I haven’t said a word to him,” I snap. “And I sure as hell don’t want to tell him about Logan.”
“What about Logan? What will you tell him?”
“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head. “Logan knows what a ‘bad guy’ is from watching The Lion King like six times per day. I can just tell him that his dad is like Scar.”
Jane rolls her eyes. “That will go over well. Your daddy is like the evil lion that killed Mufasa.”
Jane looks up at the letter. “He says he took the plea deal because he wanted to get out sooner, to see you again.”
“Put that thing away,” I say. “Or shred it.”
Jane stuffs it into her purse. “Whatever, I don’t want you to get back together with this guy. But you really should at least start thinking how you’re going to deal with all this. Even if you never want to see him again, he will be out of prison at some point. And there will come a day when he finds out about Logan.
“I know,” I say. “But not today.”
10
Stone
“Any mail for me?” I ask Royce.
Royce shakes his head. “You ain’t ever getting any mail, man. Come on.”
I nod and walk away.
It’s yard time now, and as soon as the skinheads see me walking toward the bench, they scatter. Everyone knows I get the bench press when I want it. And I want it now.
I load the bar with all the weights there are. If I were on the outside, I could keep adding more weight, but they don’t want us to be too strong in here. We don’t get enough food, and there’s not enough weight to lift.
Still, it’s enough weight to keep me in shape. I think of Joanna as I lift. I’d honestly hoped that I’d have just forgotten her after getting locked up. It would have been much easier that way. Instead, every morning I wake up with a painful longing deep in my gut, and her smile is burned into my mind.
I rack the weight and pant as sweat drips down my face. My muscles burn and my blood starts to flow.
She won’t answer my letters, but if she could see me, maybe it would be different.
Three more years.
When my workout is over and yard time is up, we are herded back inside like cattle. Royce comes up to me, looking confused.
“A letter?” I ask, my eyes widening.
“Nah, man, but you got a visitor.”
“Is it a woman?”
“Yeah, but--”
“Take me to her,” I say. I try not to get my hopes up. The worst thing you can do in prison is to have hope.
The guards escort me through some locked doors, toward the visitation center. I’ve been in here for three years, and I’ve never once stepped foot through these doors.
They bring me into a room with a table. A private room?
“Why the hell am I in here?” I ask.
“Just wait here,” the guard says, shutting the door behind me.
It’s not Joanna. If it were, I’d be in a big room filled with other prisoners and visitors. I scoff. Good thing I didn’t get my hopes up.
The door opens, and a woman comes inside. She looks Latina, and her hair is pulled back into an impossibly tight bun. She gives me a lopsided grin, then slams a big binder onto the table in front of me.
“What the fuck is this?” I ask.
“Stone Harding,” she says. “Three years ago you confessed to killing Germain Rickmann.”
“Rigg,” I say. “He was called Rigg.”
“So you were close then?” she asks.
“I didn’t catch your name,” I say, dodging the question.
“Detective Ramirez,” she says. “Now tell me about you and Rigg.”
I strain to remember the details of the plea deal.
“Rigg and I were going to go cook at night, and the batch went bad, so we argued about whose fault it was and who had to lose out--”
“No,” Ramirez says, “I want to know what really happened.”
“I signed a plea deal,” I say. “This is what happened.”
I cross my arms and stare her down, daring her to press the issue. I’m not risking Joanna’s safety for some nosy fucking cop.
“We have a better deal for you,” Ramirez says, pulling out a folder from the big binder. She slides it over to me.
I make no move to grab it. I’ve been counting the days ever since I got in here, and anything that might get me out earlier is tempting. Very tempting. But if I snitch to the cops, the most important part of my original deal, Joanna’s safety, will be null and void.
“Not interested,” I say.
Ramirez rolls her eyes and presses the folder into my chest. “If you at least read that thing, I will give you some information about Joanna Jensson that you will be very interested in.”
“What do you know about Jo?” I ask.
“Read it and I’ll tell you,” she says.
I read. They will let me out in a week if I agree to go undercover for them. To snitch. I’d have to pretend to rejoin the MC, and they’d create a plausible reason for my early release that would protect my cover.
I throw the paper down. “I read it. Now tell me.”
“You have a son,” Ramirez says. “His name’s Logan.”
I nearly fall out of my chair. A son? With Joanna? We only did it one time, but…
But I was locked up right after. No wonder she never answered my letters.
Shit.
My head swims, and I can barely swallow or breathe. I look up at Ramirez and say
, “If I break my deal with the MC, Joanna is in danger. My son is in danger.”
It’s the first time the words ‘my son’ have left my mouth. It feels alien and strange, but saying it aloud makes it real.
Ramirez opens the binder, showing photos of Lenk, Tank and Luger. “These three are getting greedy. They control 90 percent of the meth in Arizona, and they are looking to expand outward. The feds are getting interested. The only problem for us is that every time we’ve tried to put a man inside the Fallen Phoenix MC, he gets his throat slit.”
I laugh. “So send me in, huh? You cops never cared about real justice, not for me, and now that you want me to literally risk my neck for you, suddenly you care about me?”
“I don’t care about you,” she says, locking eyes with me. “I just trust that you care about your son. He’s just over two years old right now, plenty young enough to not even remember you were gone. But he’s getting older, his memories are solidifying, each month you lose now cements your image as an absent dad. And that’s just Logan--”
“Don’t you say his name,” I rasp at her.
“What about Joanna?” Ramirez asks. “How long until she finds a new daddy for Logan?”
I dig my nails into my palms and clench my teeth.
I start to seriously consider it. If I get out, I can get revenge. I can take down Lenk. A younger me would have never considered taking a fellow outlaw down with the help of the police, but I’m a father now. I have to use whatever weapon is available to me. If I take Lenk down, then the threat to Joanna is gone, and I can try to fix things with her, and I can try to be a father to my son before it’s too late.
“We’re going to claim a combination of good behavior and overcrowded prisons,” Ramirez says. “Both are actually true--we’re releasing dozens of non-violent offenders early, and--”
“I’m not a non-violent offender.”
“Look, Stone, it will be plausible. When guys like you take plea deals like this, everyone--the cops, the judges, the lawyers--they all know it’s bullshit. A normal plea deal is drafted up by the prosecutor and lawyers together, it’s negotiated from both sides. Your deal was written entirely by Lenk’s lawyer, then rubberstamped by a judge who was later sacked for corruption.”
