Page 40 of The Devil's Scars

“Vic…”

“What?” Scars pivoted, gave his brother his most ferocious glare, the one that had stopped armed men dead in their tracks. “What the fuck now?”

“I know Wolf is working damn hard to take the club legit. To keep things on the up-and-up. I also know that what happened with Ace and that bloodbath in the warehouse isn’t a daily occurrence. Not anymore. But…”

Sam hesitated, plowed on:

“But wanting to do everything in a totally legal and above-board way, and actually being able to pull it off – when we’re talking about a group of men with the club’s history –thatisn’t so easy. Wolf can have the best of intentions, and I believe he has them, just for the record… but he’s long been conditioned to deal with things a certain way. You all have. You and your brothers, you speak the language of violence fluently. You think you can all forget that you know it, just because you were told to stop using it? That’s as likely as me telling you to just forget how to speak English, starting tomorrow.”

“Sam…”

“And do you really think that your first instinct to turn to violence is going to disappear, just because Wolf says you have to talk things through now?” Sam looked agitated, even a bit afraid, but he kept talking. “Maybe there is no coming back from the one-percenter life, Vic, even if you really, really want to. Maybe – maybe it just runs too deep inside all of you now.”

Despite the heat of his anger, Scars froze; it was like his private troubled thoughts from the night before were coming out of his brother’s mouth. After all, hadn’t Scars just been thinking that his MC brothers wouldn’t be able to treat Zoe right, because so many of them still believed in secrets and silence? Keeping women at arm’s length and away from club business, even if club business was basic and boring now? And hadn’t he also been pondering the fact that the boys still didn’t fully understand how to live this new, non-violent life?

Scars had just wondered if it was possible to shake off so much violence and darkness and dirt, wondered if maybe they were all just damned and marked – including himself. He’d spent most of the morning on his front porch, drinking black coffee and asking himself, over and over, if he was a good enough man for Zoe and her little girl.

In the bitter end, he’d decided that he wasn’t… yet. But he’d be better for her, for them. Because she was the kind of woman who made a man want to be better than he was, better than he ever thought he’d be.

The truth was that Scars had wanted to change, for a long time. He’d fought damn hard to hang on to the good, pure parts of himself, even in the muddiest and worst moments. He’d failed, sometimes, but he thought that he’d mostly succeeded. But he’d needed that last push, that last reason to really do it. For real and for good and no fucking waffling or half-assing it.

Zoe was it.

Yeah, he wanted to change for her – but he also wanted to do it for Sam, for Cindy. For himself.

But – and this was a goddamn terrifying thought – what if he couldn’t? What if it was too late for him, for Wolf, for Cole and Saint and Arrow, for all of them? Because Sam was right, as much as Scars hated to admit it: it was true that the second he and Wolf had been presented with the choice to help King and drill bullets into those Fallen Angels dickheads, they’d accepted and loaded up.

Without very much hesitation at all, actually. Without very much remorse after, too.

The other truth – the one that Scars had denied to himself, but which he’d faced on the porch just a few hours earlier – was that it had all felt so fucking familiar… almost comforting. Like slipping into a well-worn, favorite pair of jeans. Scars had been surprised how good that gun had felt in his hand. How… right.

I don’t want to want that life anymore.

I want to be different. Better.

“Vic?” Sam’s soft voice brought him back to the moment. “You OK?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Good.” Scars pulled himself together, turned for the door with renewed determination. “I’m out of here.”

“Wait –” Sam stood up too.

“Look, man. I’m not going to say it isn’t a challenge to change, OK? It is. You’re right about that, I’ll give you that one. But it is possible, if someone really wants it.”

“You think…” Sam hesitated again. “You really think that you can get past everything? All those things that you did before?”

“Yes.” Scars’ voice was clipped. “I do.”

“You know that the past never really stays there, right?” Sam said quietly. “That at some point, it tries to drag you back… it comes calling, because a bill is still due. Karma, Vic. None of us escapes it.”

“So why the hell should I leave my VP post, then?” Scars demanded. “If I’m damned and done and dusted, I’m right where I belong, huh? Down in the shit?”

“Because,” Sam said, sounding almost defeated. “Because we can always do some things to increase the likelihood of success, or keeping karma at bay just a bit longer. And in your case, I think that the only way to really start again is to leave the MC as a full-time member. I think – I think that if you do, if you make a good, whole life in the civilian world, then you’ll be safe. Safer than you are right now, at least.”

“Sam…” Scars stopped, not sure what to say after that, but definitely not angry anymore. His brother may not have gone about this conversation in his usual thoughtful, careful, tactful way, but that was probably because he was worried, and so he was making a fucking mess of it. It was all coming from a place of love and concern, though. That much Scars knew for sure. “Sam… I can’t leave. I won’t. I totally understand what’s worrying you, though. I do. I’m sorry that you worry about me, I’m sorry that you’re going to keep worrying. But those men are my friends, my brothers, and I owe them everything and frankly, so do you.”

“I know,” Sam said in a hollow voice. “And I’m not thrilled about that.”

“Well, get over it. You got an education and you’re a trauma surgeon because of The Road Devils paying me good money to do bad things. If you’ve got issues with it, or feel any kind of weird guilt about it, that’s your shit to sort out, so don’t take it out on me, OK? But if you’re mostly worried that I’m gonna end up dead in some MC business, well… yeah, it may happen. It’s not as likely now as it was a year ago, but, yeah… maybe. Then again, maybe I’ll get hit by a goddamned bus crossing the street downtown. No guarantees anywhere, man. You work in an E.R. You know what happened to Mom and Dad. You know it, Sam.”

“Yes. I do.” Sam sighed, rubbed his eyes behind his glasses, those eyes so much like their mother’s. Scars had gotten his piercing blue eyes from their Dad, but Sam was the lucky one, Scars thought, to have those soft, warm, chocolate-brown depths. “I guess I just don’t like to admit it.”

“Nobody likes to be out of control, man.”

“True.” Sam sighed again, then smiled. “So… can you stay for cookies? I know Cindy will be happy if you do. She’s baking them for Uncle Vic, you know. To hell with me on this one.”

“Yeah, for sure.” Scars gave his brother a grin, decided to postpone the Zoe conversation for the moment. Maybe indefinitely, because if he were being honest with himself, he was going to go for it, full-steam ahead. He’d figure it all out as he went along – the feet-first approach had worked in his life so far. Mostly. “The cookies are the whole reason why I came over this afternoon, you know.”

“Mmm-hmmm. I figured.”

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