Page 57 of Coach
“My club brothers?”
“Yeah. Are they all ex-cons too?”
“All of ‘em? No. But me, Colter, Rook, and Judge. Oh, and Saint. But he’s not in the club yet.”
“And Rafe.”
“Rafe isn’t in the club. Rafe was stealing water and chicken eggs. He’s on his way out of town in the near future.”
“Are you helping him because you’d want someone to have helped you if you’d escaped?”
“Not necessarily. We got together as a group to decide what to do about him. Mostly based on his crimes.”
“Why?”
“Because even among criminals, there is a code. None of us like bastards who put their hands on kids and women. Most of us have families, women and kids we love. Women and kids we can’t protect when we’re on the inside. So when one of those bastards comes in, everyone is lining up to take out our frustrations.”
“So if Rafe was guilty of that, you’d have sent him back?”
“Bloodied and bruised and trussed up like a pig.”
“The news called him a violent criminal.”
“The original crime he was being brought in on was non-violent. But as they were arresting him, one of the cops kicked Steve.”
“No!”
“Yeah. Rafe saw red. Beat the shit out of the cop.”
“Honestly, I feel like any sane person would have done the same.”
“Agreed. Hence why he’s here. And why we got Steve back for him.”
“No wonder Steve seemed so sad. Not only did he lose his owner, but he’d been hurt by someone else.”
“Yeah.”
“What about the other guy? Colter?”
“Colter was in the military. He was away, fighting for our country. While his wife and his best friend were fucking behind his back.”
“No!” Este said again, eyes going wide.
“When he came home and realized, he took his anger out on his best friend. Went away for it.”
“And Rook?”
“Rook has a fragile mom. Mentally. It was really hard growing up. But she was doing well. Until she met this guy who ran a sweetheart con on her. Made her fall in love with him and he took everything she had. Rook’s ma went downhill fast. Had to be institutionalized. Rook lost his shit on the guy.”
“Again, I kind of think that’s an almost normal reaction too.”
“The system doesn’t always care why.”
“What about the last guys? Judge and…”
“Saint. Judge went away for charges related to organized crime. Saint went away for confessing to something his little brother did. Sure, Saint was guilty of some smuggling-type charges on his own too. Just didn’t get caught for those.” I paused, watching Este process the information. “Do you want to run?”
“Not yet,” she decided after a long moment. “It’s actually kind of nice to get some straight answers. I found some stuff online about this town, but it was all ‘alleged’ and ‘speculation.’”
