CHAPTER FIVE: WHAT THE CLUB KNOWS
308 Words
By Tuesday, everyone in the Iron Saints knew.
Rafe hadn't told them. He didn't have to. Seven men had watched him hand a civilian woman a helmet outside the garage, and in a club where information moved like weather — fast, sideways, and with consequences — that was enough.
His VP, a broad-shouldered man named Cord who had been with the Saints since before Rafe took the patch, found him in the garage that evening.
"You want to talk about Sunday?"
"No."
"She's contracted with the Road Kings."
"Was. Festival's over."
"Cord crossed his arms. Word gets around, Rafe. Dutch's guys see her on your bike, it reads like a move."
"It's not a move."
"Then what is it?"
Rafe set down the wrench he'd been holding and looked at his VP. He and Cord had been honest with each other for twelve years — through the shooting on Route 9, through the leadership vote, through the bad winter two years back when they'd lost two members and nearly lost the club. He wasn't going to start being something other than honest now.
"I don't know yet. Which was the truth."
Cord was quiet for a moment.
"She know what she's walking near?"
"I told her what county she was in. She made her own choices."
"That's not the same as knowing."
Rafe picked up the wrench again. Cord was right. It wasn't the same. And the gap between those two things was where people got hurt, and he knew it, and he was choosing to walk toward it anyway, which was new. Rafe Santos did not, as a rule, choose things that were likely to cost him.
"I'll handle it."
"Make sure you do. Cord said. And left it there, because that was the other thing about twelve years — knowing when to leave a thing alone."
- Writer
