Page 15 of Sinful
"You should get some rest," Phantom says. "Long ride tomorrow."
"Yeah." But I don't move yet. Just sit here breathing in Texas—dust and grass and cattle and oil, all mixed together into something that smells like home even though I don't really have one.
Not since the fire. Not since I learned that home is just another thing that can burn.
"Bravos," Blaze says, and something in his tone makes me look at him. "Watch yourself out there. Los Coyotes are unpredictable right now. Sebastián's trying to prove something. That makes him dangerous. Makes his people dangerous too."
"I'm always careful."
"I know. But still." He stands, stretches. "We need you back in one piece."
After they go inside, I sit alone for a while longer.
The porch is quiet except for the wind and distant cattle, and the hum of oil derricks that never stop.
A coyote yips again, closer this time.
Hunting or calling to its pack, I can't tell.
This is my favorite time.
When everyone else is gone and it's just me and the dark.
When I don't have to pretend to be anything but what I am—a man with dead eyes and a dead family who keeps moving because stopping means remembering.
Tomorrow I'll ride to Florida.
Meet with clubs I barely know to form an alliance against an enemy who's already won too many battles.
Try to keep us all alive while Sebastián tries to kill us.
But tonight, I'm here, on this porch that's older than me.
On this land that's survived worse than Los Coyotes, watching stars that don't give a shit about human problems.
I finish my beer, set the bottle beside Phantom's on the rail.
My room in the bunkhouse is sparse—bed, dresser, weapons safe.
Nothing personal, except the drawings I don't show anyone. Sketches of the family I lost. Attempts to remember faces that get blurrier every year.
My sisters were seven and nine when they died.
Would be twenty-five and twenty-seven now.
Would have lives, maybe families, maybe happiness.
Instead, they're ash and memory, and the reason I can't stay anywhere long.
I pack light for Florida—spare clothes, toiletries, ammunition.
Everything fits in the saddlebags on my bike.
A Harley Road King, black and chrome, custom work done by members who knew I needed something reliable.
Something that could carry me anywhere and never quit.
The rifle case attaches to the side, concealed but accessible.
