Page 32 of Ruckus

“Sick fuck.” The vein in Finn’s temple pulses as he turns his head back to his brother. “Dad didn't want this for you. You knew that, and yet you came here anyway.” He sounds furious.

“Yeah I fuckin’ came here, I wanted to know what it was that you both fuckin’ died for.” Rocco stands tall and frames up to his brother. “It’s a free fuckin’ country, Finn, and in a world where you can come back from the dead, I can be a fuckin’ Soul too.”

“Holy shit.” Finn looks away from him and scratches the back of his head. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this could have been for you?”

“Yeah, I fuckin’ knew, and guess what? I wasn’t fuckin’ scared. I saw how much our father loved the life, I saw that it meant everything to you to follow in his footsteps and so here I fuckin’ am. Desperate to earn the cut, prepared to dowhatever it takes.”Rocco uses that same line his father always used with such pride and determination that it puts tears in Finn’s eyes.

“I’m not a stupid kid anymore, Finn, you’d know that if you weren’t busy playin’ dead.” Rocco turns around and storms out the door, leaving us all shocked into silence

“Are you going to tell me why you're going through all this shit again?” My uncle frowns at me across the breakfast table.

“I might have missed somethin’.” I lift my eyes from the folder momentarily, then get back to skimming over the words.

“Son, you’ve read over that case file hundreds of times, you’ve missed nothing. Why don’t we talk about what you’re here to avoid.” I hate that I can’t hide anything from the clever fucker.

“There has to be something, it’s here.” I refuse to give up, even if the words that I’m reading aren’t being absorbed.

“It’s a cold case, Brody.” Uncle Vin sounds defeated, and I get up from my chair and slam my fist at the table.

“It’s a cold case because everyone gave up. We failed her.” I feel the same emotions I did when I was thirteen and found her lying on the bed. “We stopped asking, we stopped caring. I focused too much on acting up and?—”

“Whoa, calm down, what's brought all this on?” Vin shakes his head at me. “Someone came back into my life a few days ago, someone I feel like I need to protect. I guess it scares me.” I slowly sit back down, surprised at how good it feels to let that out. Uncle Vin has always been the person I could talk to, Ishould have figured that’s why when I got on my bike I ended up here.

“You were thirteen when your mom died, Brody, you didn’t fail anyone,” he tells me, in that rough, but kind voice. “Murders go unsolved all the time. There’s nothing more we could have done.”

“Then why do you keep this shit? When you retired, why did you bring it all with you?”

“I guess I figured I could solve it, with time on my hands, but I was wrong. I’ve read everything in that file a thousand times over and I still come up with nothing.”

“I guess we both use it as a distraction, huh?” I slide my hand over the front of the folder. I refuse to believe that Vin don’t get lonely living here all by himself. He doesn’t seem to have any friends. I know that he was close to my dad, his brother. But my dad died a long time ago, I was just ten, and that was a terrible accident, not a cold blooded murder. He was working alone at the garage he owned when the jack that was holding up the car he was under, gave out on him. I was with mom when she drove to the garage that night and found his body. I watched her heartbreak, and that night as I laid beside her in bed I promised her I’d take care of her.

Three years later, some fucker strangled the life outta her on that very same bed.

“So this person that ya wanna protect, does she wanna be protected?” he asks, changing the subject.

“I can’t have her, so I guess it don’t matter.” I clench my fists.

“And you can’t have her because…?” He looks at me expectantly.

“It’s Aaron’s sister, goes against bro code and club rules.”

“Club rules.” Vin shakes his head and gives me that disappointed look. I give him one pass per visit.

I don’t expect my ex-cop uncle to be proud of what I’m a part of, or understand it, but we both agreed that we’d never let it come between us.

“If we don’t have a code, we’re just criminals.” I wink across at him, trying to lighten the mood.

“Aaron’s your best friend, he’d want you to be happy. You should talk to him.” My uncle proves he has no idea what he’s talking about.

“Aaron ain’t my only problem, Freya, she… something’s got her scared and she’s keeping it from me.” I wish I could figure it out, just like I wish I knew who my mother’s killer was. Whoever it is has gotten away with it for over fifteen years.

“You ever wonder if this killer that’s targeting the club is him, that the problem’s with me and not the club?” I ask what’s been on my mind for a while.

“Can you hear how crazy that sounds?” Vin laughs at me. “First off, it’s a different MO, your mom wasn’t raped or tortured, she wasn’t kept anywhere for weeks.” He proves that he’s taken in everything I've told him about our latest problem. I don’t usually talk club business with him for obvious reasons, but on this occasion I figured he could help. “Second of all, serial killers don’t go dormant for fifteen years. Brody, you have to find a way to stop blaming yourself for what happened. Your mom wouldn’t want it.”

“There are a lot of things I do that she wouldn’t want,” I point out.

“Which we don’t talk about…” he reminds me, raising his eyebrows up under his glasses. “All your parents would want is for you to be happy.”

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