Page 103 of 4 Bikers for the Doctor

“That’s why,” I answer, “and if you’d known what I know, you’d have done the same thing…and that’s how wars start.”

Rick says, “And why is it that you knew all this and we didn’t.”

Moment of truth.“Because I was there when it happened.”

Before I can say anything more, the one person who’s said nothing till now, Lara, speaks up, “Why is he here, now?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dom says, then pulls his weapon and offers it to Lara. “You were his blood. We’re all Luke’s brothers, but you’re his blood and you’re a patch. This falls to you.”

Lara takes the gun from Dom and steps up to Malcolm, “Look at me.”

Malcolm looks up at her with tears streaming down his face.

“Why did you do it?”

“I wasn’t aiming at him,” his eyes fall on me for a moment, then go back to Lara. “I was on Meth. Luke was my friend. I didn’t mean for that to happen. It was the drugs. I wanted to take out the Reapers and Nico and own the whole thing. It was the drugs. But I’m clean now and the nightmares won’t stop. Every time I close my eyes…”

He looks like he’s falling apart.

“I can’t sleep, I can’t eat…I can’t even confess and get what I deserve, but you can give me what I deserve. Do it. Please. Put me out of my misery.”

Lara looks at Dom, “Is his life mine to do with as I see fit?”

“Yes.”

“So, you’ve been lying to me, tous,” she gestures to everybody. “For more than two years, you hold me here against my will, make me a prospect, give me a patch and a bike…now you put a gun in my hand and ask me if I want to take this man’s life?”

“If that’s what you want, yes.”

“Then no one is going to hurt him.” She kneels down and stares Malcolm in the face, “You’re not getting off that easy. You’ll live with what you’ve done. Your soul is eating you alive because you have to balance the scales. Do good things for people…as many as you can till you die from natural causes. That’s what my brother would’ve been doing if he were here. It’syourjob now.”

Lara hands the gun back to Dom and starts for the door.

Dom asks, “Where are you going?”

She doesn’t answer.

I go over to Malcolm and Rick comes over with the keys for the cuffs. When I start to unlock him, Nick asks, “So, what? We’re just letting him go.”

“That was Lara’s decision,” Dom says.

When Malcolm is free I grab him by the collar and bang him against the pole one more time so his head bounces off it and I catch him with a headbutt on the rebound.

Blood flows freely from him now.

“Lara might’ve forgiven you, but I don’t. Go far, far away from here and never come back, because if I see you again…Iwillkill you.”

I fling him away and Bret catches him, throws him at Nick, who throws him to Rick and then he finally lands with Dom.

Dom pulls him close and stares him down, “Far away. You got it?”

“Yeah,” Malcolm snivels.

Dom pushes him out the door and the guys begin to escort him off the premises.

When it’s just the two of us, I say “Look at him. He used to be built like a tank. That guilt wasted him away to skin and bones.”

“Yeah. I don’t know how much satisfaction we’d have got putting a bullet inthat.”

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