Ghost looked over, his dark eyes sharp and assessing. “I think I’m gonna need you around here, Merc. You’re the only one in this club who does what you do the way you do it.” He grinned at the goofiness of the statement, then sobered again. “I want you to transfer here. If you can.”
If he could – but there wasn’t really an option, was there? When the president of the mother chapter wanted you at his table, a man couldn’t very well say “no thanks” and keep his distance.
Feeling suddenly like a teenager and too small inside this big body, he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Yeah. I mean…yeah. I can. If you’re sure?” He lifted his brows.
Ghost studied him a moment, then gave him one of those firm non-smiles and clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about that old shit. We all want you here. Let’s call it a fresh start.”
It was unnerving the way the man seemed able to read his thoughts. Almost as disturbing as the knowledge that there was no such thing as a fresh start.
When he left Ghost, Mercy put the clubhouse at his back and ambled down the long Dartmoor lot toward the end of the compound. He loved his brothers, loved socializing as much as the next Dog, but he felt cold inside now, full of an old familiar chill that had everything to do with Ava. He’d denied she was the cause of the sensation five years ago, but in the long stretch of time since she’d left for college, he’d faced the reality with the help of a lot of Scotch and a cache of old photos: Of all the horrors he’d committed, it was what he’d done to Ava that haunted him. Ava, his one chance for brightness, and he’d dashed it to bits. For her sake, he’d told himself. So she could have the future she deserved.
At the opposite side of the property from the clubhouse, the first, vivid impression of Dartmoor, was Green Hills Nursery. Every one of the separate businesses bore its own name, all of them somehow related to the rolling moors of England after which the property, and their club, had been named. Green Hills had almost a thousand square feet of indoor/outdoor aisles of plants on raised tables, sorted according to sun and shade, perennial and annual, interspersed with fountains, birdfeeders, and garden art. A rectangular space had been cordoned off with low counters that served as an office and a place for customers to checkout with their purchases. In back, parked semi trailers held pine straw, bags of sand, cattle manure, fertilizer, potting soil and mulch. There was a gravel pit. In front, two original preserved oaks shaded the hardscape and stone samples, the concrete statues, the wheelbarrows and miscellaneous garden gear for sale. It was in the process of closing up for the afternoon, the last customers pulling away and the staff chaining the wheelbarrows together so they didn’t walk off in the night.
Ava had worked here in high school. Mercy smiled to himself, as he remembered her green polo shirt and khaki shorts, the smudge of dirt on her forehead as she stole a moment in the shade with him, her kiss tasting like Coke and cherry Chapstick.
The reverie was broken by the sound of approaching bikes. Mercy glanced toward the road and saw three turning in at the Green Hills gate. Most of the crew used the clubhouse gate – there was a gate at each business front – but on occasion, the guys would use a different one, as a way of keeping an eye on things.
He recognized them before they pulled up alongside him and killed their engines. His mood soured, but he kept his face from showing that.
He tossed a smile toward Collier, James’s sergeant at arms. Mid-forties and just beginning to gray at the temples, Collier was the epitome of his officer’s rank: composed, controlled, precise in all things. He took his job seriously, serving as bodyguard for his prez and VP, keeping the order within the club.
Riding alongside him was Andre, a perpetual fuckup of a kid with a coke habit he couldn’t kick and two baby-mamas whose child support he usually flaked on paying. He was harmless, and up for anything most of the time – so long as that “anything” wasn’t important. He was the last man Mercy would ever want covering his flanks in a fire fight.
And then there was Michael.
Mercy’s replacement.
On the first group run where NOLA and Knoxville convened after Mercy’s departure from Tennessee – five years ago when he’d abandoned the city he loved for the sake of the girl he’d ruined – he’d met Ghost’s new go-to guy. Odds were, Michael was his birth name, but there was a certain air of the Biblical about him, the archangel of unswerving devotion and brutality. Mercy had never seen him smile, heard him laugh, detected a hint of humor in anything he’d ever said. Walsh detested him. Mercy tended to agree, but when it came to efficiency, there was no better Angel of Death in the MC. If someone needed to go tits-up, Michael was the man to get it done; most of the time, he could make it look like an accident. He was damn good at a sending a loud and clear message, too, if that was what the occasion called for.
His face, beneath his helmet and behind his riding glasses, was a nondescript mask of exact planes and angles. His eyes were dark and flat behind the clear lenses of the glasses. His straight nose, his unforgiving mouth, unremarkable clean-shaven chin – all were plain, all enabled him to melt seamlessly into crowds. Not an extractor, like Mercy, but a true soldier.
“Hey, Merc.” Collier pulled off a glove and offered Mercy a handshake that was readily accepted. “How you been, man? You just got back from London, right?” He pulled a face. “Shit. How was that?”
“Ah, you know me.” Mercy grinned. “Always up for a field trip.”
“I can’t believe you guys didn’t kill that English prick,” Andre said, and spat on the pavement to display his opinion of that.
Collier turned to him with a tired sigh. “It’s not just about killing, Andre. It’s about doing what helps the club the most.” He glanced back at Mercy, shaking his head. “What the hell’s wrong with this generation?”
“Participation trophies,” Mercy said. “And Adderall.”
Collier nodded in agreement.
Mercy glanced at Michael. Gave him a little up-nod. “Hey. How’s the murder business?” He said it jokingly, though why he bothered, he didn’t know.
Michael gave him a flat look. “Fine.”
Collier lifted his brows in silent apology for his comrade. “So, you patching Tennessee again?”
“Looking that way.” Mercy shrugged. “We’ll see how things go at church.”
Michael’s face gave one small twitch of reaction.
Collier said, “We’ll be glad to have you back. With things shakin’ up, we made need you around here.”
“That’s what Ghost tells me.”
Andre, oblivious, said, “Wait, though, isn’t Ghost’s daughter back in town?”
