Page 25 of Riding the Edge

This guy really is off his rocker. Yeah, I wanted a family. Sunday dinners and big holidays where I got the chance to dress up in a red suit. A good woman and a house full of kids. While they’re grown now and didn’t live with me full-time, I got the kid part. I even dressed up as old Saint Nick a time or two. However, I never nailed the right woman and at my age, I sure as fuck ain’t looking for wife number four. Besides, there probably isn’t a divorce attorney in the tri-state area that will take me on as a client. The most I’m willing to tackle is a hobby or whatever it is that you do when you retire. Plus, it would be nice to spend more time with my kids. Learn their likes and dislikes. Their beliefs and their dreams.

“I need you back at the table,” he says, tearing me away from my thoughts. “The doctor wants to change my medication. Apparently, there is some new drug to treat the crazy. Blackie is ready to take over,” he reveals, running his fingers through his hair. “But he’s going to need someone at his right and that someone should be you. Figure out what’s lacking, find it and take your rank as the vice president of this club.”

Ignoring the nod for the vice president, I harp on his illness.

“You said they’re changing your medication. That’s a good thing. If it works, you can—”

“I’m losing my fucking mind, Wolf, and I can’t control it no more. I tied you up and poured gasoline over you. I could’ve killed you and Linc like I killed that paramedic. My actions have brought a ton of heat onto the club and I swore if my mind ever compromised my abilities to rule, I’d stand down. That time is coming, brother, and it’s coming soon.”

I want to tell you that I’ve been preparing for this day, that in the back of mind I have a plan for the club. However, this might be the first time, I have nothing. I think I’ve spent all these years hoping and praying he’d prevail. To hear him admit the end is drawing near makes me question my decision and before I realize it, I’m the one holding out my hand expecting him to return my patch.

“No,” he defies. “You took it off—”

“That’s before I knew—”

“And I won’t be the reason you put it on again. You want your patch back then go make a life for yourself because man, I promise you, you’re going to need a reprieve from this shit.”

“This is my life.”

It’s the only one I know.

The only one I got.

“It’s not,” he says with conviction.

“The backlash of Cain is going to get messy, Jack. When everyone discovers he was working with Yankovich, they will toss dirt on the name we’ve made for our club and question our morals. All the enemies we’ve managed to keep at bay will come charging for us and the alliances we made will hide in the shadows.”

“I said my days are numbered, didn’t say they were up, Wolf,” he reiterates. “I’ll handle the repercussions, but, first, you’re going to tell me everything you know. Then when you’re done, when all the truth is laid bare, you’re going to walk out of this garage and you’re going to do whatever it takes to make yourself right. You come back, Wolf, you come back, you keep my daughter’s man alive, so he can be there for her when it's her mind that starts to fail.”

I came here thinking I’d be the one releasing a burden. I never expected to leave with the weight of the club’s destiny and Jack’s illness on my shoulders. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I motion to the crate.

“You might want to sit down for this.”

He doesn’t move at first but eventually, he grabs the grate and takes a seat. Crossing his arms, he gives me his undivided attention as I start from the very beginning to the day Cain purposely overdosed and asked me to look out for his son. I fill in the blanks concerning Linc, revealing how I hooked him up with the North Carolina charter and why we decided for him to come to back to Brooklyn with me. I told him about the concerns I had about revealing his identity. Throughout his time as monarch, he made a lot of enemies—enemies, that are still looking for their retribution. The last thing I wanted was for Linc to fall victim to his father’s sins.

Next, I recalled the conversation that drove me to dig into Cain’s past. I was sitting across from Linc after the motel fire that ended with Deuce taking a bullet, warning him off my niece and ordering him to keep his head clear. You see, at the time we thought we could send Linc into a high stakes card game to bait Yankovich. There were a lot of holes in the plan but seeing as we were running out of options, our backs were against the wall and no one wanted to admit defeat. Linc pointed out that all the recent attacks were very personal hits to the nomads. He made me understand how foolish we’d be to think Yankovich didn’t already know Linc’s identity considering how much he knew about everyone else.

“I don’t know why, call it a hunch, but, I started wondering if Cain had ever crossed paths with Yankovich. I searched all our records and the only thing I found was a bill for a storage unit in Cain’s name. Knowing they auction those things off after a couple of unpaid invoices, I took a chance and called the facility. Turns out, Pops has been paying for the unit since Cain died,” I reveal.

At the mention of Cain’s father, Jack’s eyes grow darker in color. The club had maintained a relationship with the man long after his son’s death. Having a shooting range out in Jersey, made him the ideal alliance for us to traffic guns. All we had to do was ensure he got a piece of the pie. All good things come to an end and when the Chinese shot up the range, Pops retired to Georgia.

“So, I paid him a visit. After a little coercing on my behalf, I finally got him to admit the truth about the unit. He told me not long before Cain killed himself, he came to Pops and gave him the keys to the unit. He swears Cain didn’t ask him to keep the unit that he did it of his own free will.”

“Why?”

“He said he knew whatever was in there held the power to end the club or Cain wouldn’t have tried to hide it.”

Reaching into my cut, I pull out the key and hand it to him.

“Everything is just how I found it but, man for the sake of your sanity, do not go in there.”

“You going to tell me what you found?”

“There was a briefcase with one of those old school combination locks. I worked up a sweat trying to crack the thing before I shot the lock off. Inside was a bunch of baby photos of Linc, a .38 caliber revolver, a bunch of bank statements to some offshore accounts and a voice recorder. There were dozens of tapes. I grabbed the first one I saw and played it back. Cain was on the tape talking to someone about moving rose petals. Then I heard the Russian accent, and I knew it was fucking Yankovich. I also knew they weren’t talking about flowers but rather the fucking girls that prick was snatching from the streets.”

“Jesus,” he hisses.

“Some of the tapes were labeled, most weren’t. However, there was one that caught my eye, the one labeled the bulldog.”

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