Page 124 of Ruin
“The fuck you were,” Kaison shouts.
“I was. For two years.”
“Oh yeah, where is she?”
“Living in Texas with her husband and kids. She divorced my ass.”
“Smartest decision she’d ever made, I bet,” I say, and they both laugh.
It was meant to be a dig, not funny. We don’t talk much after that, not for a couple hours, when Coyote decides to speak again.
“This shit ain’t for me,” he says. “You should be Prez, Shark.”
“Fuck no,” he says, which shocks me.
“No?” I ask.
“Nah,” he answers. “Coyote, you need to learn a lot of shit, but it’s your spot. You can make our grandfathers proud by doing good in this clubifyou do it right.”
“With my father teaching me, I don’t think I know what that means,” he says.
I always thought Chisel was a decent guy. Now, I’m not so sure.
Kaison huffs out a laugh. “No one knows that better than us. Our father was a royal piece of shit. Worse than I ever thought possible. But it doesn’t have to be about them. It needs to be about us and the future. You need to be more of a team player. Start giving a fuck about the town and the rest of the guys, not just yourself.”
“Now that my life isn’t on the line, that may be easier.”
“So you think,” I mutter, causing Shark to slap my arm.
“About that,” Coyote says. “You shitheads were really going to kill me, weren’t you?”
“Fuck yeah, we were. And I was so fucking ready for it,” Kaison says.
He chuckles. “Well, if you ever plan on doing it again, just do me a favor and make it quick.”
We get back to town late into the afternoon. When I pull into the lot, I see a ton of bikes that don’t belong to anyone we know, and of course we all think one thing.
“Iron pricks,” my brother growls, getting out of the truck before it comes to a stop. I park right where I am, and the three of us hurry inside.
I expect to see my brothers slaughtered with their heads on sticks, but that isn’t even close to what we walk in on.
Howler, the Iron Runner’s VP, gets up from the couch. I already have my gun trained on him.
Okay, so maybe weshouldbe a little more pro-gun. We’ve been using them a lot lately.
“There’s no need for that,” Grizz says as he steps up beside him.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Coyote barks, stepping forward and taking charge.
Good for him.
“You should hear what he has to say,” Grizz adds.
“Fuck them!” Shark shouts, looking from Howler to Grizz and then the other guys standing around the back. “And fuck you for saying it, you Benedict Arnold.”
The air in the room is tense and thick. I can’t begin to imagine what’s going on here or what happened while we were gone. Howler steps closer to us and speaks words I never thought I would hear.
“Sloth is dead, and we want to make a treaty.”
