Page 51 of Rogue

I didn’t see the door open and I didn’t see him walk in, but Zane is now standing by the door, his leather jacket zipped up to the throat, his eyes shining bright even in the dim light of the bar.

“But whatever happened to not walking on the dark side?” he asks as he approaches. “Whatever happened to not making pacts with the devil?”

Several of our newer members stand to block his path. I signal them to let him through, because Alice is as shocked as Blade, Creed and I am.

“I heard you finally tracked down Ghost,” Zane says as he comes up to me. “I would’ve like to have been there.”

I’m standing and I don’t remember getting to my feet. I haven’t seen Zane—or Unholy, as he began calling himself after he broke out of prison for killing a priest—in years.

“What? You all lost the ability to speak?” Zane asks looking over the room, then fixing me with a very piercing gaze.

“How’d you get in?” Creed asks. “We have a guard on the door.”

“He didn’t want to test me,” Zane says.

“And he was with us,” Tito chimes in from the near darkness by the door. “We’re still members here, aren’t we?”

“You walked out, last I checked,” Alice answers, saving me the trouble.

Funny how things can go from one thing to another in the blink of an eye. Most of the members in here with us never knew Zane. Some were here the last time he wanted to join us. And they all look confused as fuck right now, some poised to leap into action, most looking at Zane, Tito and his brother warily.

I ignore it all and offer Zane my hand. “It’s good to see you again, old friend.”

“But not brother?” he asks as he shakes my hand. His tone might be cold and level, but his eyes seem content. And not aswild as they were the last time we spoke. Maybe he finally found some peace. I hope so. He needed it.

“What brings you here?” I ask as I sit back down, pointing at the empty seat next to me, meaning he should take it. He does.

“I’m ready to call you brother again,” he says. “I’m here to ask if I can join your club.”

I’ve known Zane all my life. Since we both wore diapers. He was closer to me than my own two brothers. But that all changed the day he tortured and killed a young priest that might not have deserved it. He’s done a lot more since. Unforgivable things.

“Nothing’s changed,” I say, wondering if I’ll be able find the right words to send him away again. A part of me doesn’t want to.

“Sure it has,” he says and laughs harshly. “You murdered Ghost. So you’ve now joined the elite club of stone-cold killers.”

“We did what had to be done,” Blade says, sounding like every syllable hurts him to utter. “What needed to be done.”

“And you’re in league with Devil’s Nightmare MC,” Zane says. “So much for all your righteous talk of never crossing over to the dark side.”

He’s still firmly on the dark side. That much is clear to me from the dead, cold look beneath all that burning brightness in his eyes. Maybe he’s still as wild, but just better at hiding it.

“I’m sorry, Zane,” I say. “But I don’t follow your logic. We don’t harbor criminals and fugitives. And we never will. I wish things were different for us. I really do. I would love to call you brother again.”

I’ve said pretty much the same thing to him the last time he came asking this same thing. He ranted and raved and fought then. Now he just barks a laugh, leaning his head back to get more of a bellow going. It is not a happy sound.

“I wish I could believe you,” he says. “But you did always know how to lie convincingly.”

“It’s not a lie,” I say. “Our paths diverged a long time ago?—”

“I told you there’d come a time when you’d need me more than I needed you back then,” he says. “And that time is now.”

“How so?”

He shakes his head, grins darkly and stands up. “Maybe if you’d welcomed me as a brother, I’d tell you. Maybe if you didn’t spew your vile lies while trying to get me out of here the moment I walked in. But I see now that this particular dream of mine will never come true. Goodbye, Gabriel. God speed.”

He strides out, the crowd parting for him. I should just let him walk out. But I can’t.

It’s not that I need him to tell me what he knows.

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