Page 7 of The Biker and the Baker
Brothers dead.
Brothers thrown in the pit.
Brothers disappeared.
And I’m the last piece of what it was.
It’s been two years. We still haven’t found my father’s body.
I doubt we ever will.
Someone honks their horn, jolting me from the dark memories. They’re giving me the go-ahead. Rolling my shoulders back, I shake my head to clear the depressing memories, then merge into traffic.
With the trafficflowing out rather than in this time of the morning, I make it to Castle Pines in under thirty minutes. My buddy, Scratch, and his wife, Leyana, owns an impressive home on four acres of land here.
After my father died, I was restless, so I sold my bungalow and bought an RV. I moved from place to place in that thing, until Scratch and Leyana all but forced me to park and reside on their land. Been camped out here for about seven months and I love it. Lots of land space, peaceful and quiet, an amazing view.
The stately electronic gates take fucking forever to creak open. I ride through and it's a full ninety seconds before the house comes into view.
When it does, I spot Scratch loading his two boys into his Jeep. It never stops surprising me to see him like that. Scratch had been a brother in the club. It wasn’t just Kendra that my father had taken in and cared for like his own. Scratch and my other buddy, Grunt, had been like sons to him, too. We all grew up in the club like siblings. But one by one, they all left and found better lives. Made better choices. Got married and had kids.
When I first met Scratch, he was a thirteen-year-old corner thug peddling weed. Look at him now. Married to a billionaire bombshell with two adopted sons while working as a commando for the most prestigious investigative firm in Denver.
Sometimes it feels like everyone else has moved on to bigger and better things and I'm still stuck in the same place.
"Yo," he greets when I pull up behind his Jeep. "You look like sh—" He pauses and eyes the kids inside. "Shoes. Old, stinky shoes. You good?"
Christian and Cameron poke their heads out of the Jeep and flash me toothless grins. "Uncle Nyx!"
"When are you coming over to play sword wars again?" Christian asks.
“Coming over” means coming inside the house. As much as I try to avoid invading their lives too much, the Michaelson family insists on inducting me. Hence “Uncle Nyx.”
"Soon." I force a smile I'm not feeling.
"Promise?" Cameron asks.
"Promise."
Scratch watches me with concern, waiting for an answer. "Yeah, I'm good," I assure him. "Dropped in at Metal House…"
"Ahhh," he hums as understanding dawns on him.
"Yeah.” I breathe heavily. “The ‘old, stinky shoes’ look'll pass in a few hours."
"Not complaining." He rounds to the driver's side. "Gonna drop the boys off at school. Stay strong, bro."
I jerk my chin in acknowledgment before navigating my Harley to the path that leads to the back gardens. Parking by the fishpond bridge, it’s another minute and a half before I get to the RV.
I'm not inside for five minutes before I'm out like a light.
~
Half an hour later, I’m woken right back up by my phone buzzing nonstop against my ass. There’s no ignoring it.
"Yo."
"Boss, there's a problem at the house." It's Mice. One of the handful of survivors from the bloody demise of the Den of Heathens MC, and that's because he was barely even a recruit. Tall, awkward, and overly polite, no one had taken him seriously, so we made him the gopher, and damn if he didn’t take pride in that job.
