Thor was in the kitchen cooking. Baghead and Clean were in back with Trinity and the boys from Charming, and Rollie was out here wiping the counter and trying to wrap his mind around it all. Maybe it wasn’t fair for him to blame Jax for everything that had happened—maybe the kid’s story about Joyce’s murder out on that ranch road was true—but Rollie couldn’t help it. He needed somewhere to aim his rage.

But when Jax walked out from the back of the bar in a clean T-shirt and jeans, his face swollen from the beatings Lagoshin had given him but otherwise all right, Rollie took a deep breath and swallowed his bitterness before turning to face him.

“You all set?” he asked.

Jax slid onto a stool, wincing in pain. “Trinity’s on a ten o’clock flight. Couple of hours, and we’ll be out of here.” He cocked his head, studying Rollie. “Unless you want us to go now.”

Rollie considered it. Pressed his lips together to fight back the words he really wanted to say. When he exhaled again, some of his fury eased.

“Take the time you need. But I won’t be sorry to see the back of you.”

“I just came out here to tell you I owe you,” Jax said, his voice still a rasp. The bruises on his throat showed just how close Lagoshin had come to strangling him.

“Damn right you do,” Rollie said. “Things go along pretty quietly here as a rule. Then you roll into town and I’ve got three dead brothers.”

His anger simmered, and he stared expectantly at Jax.

“She’s my sister, Rollie,” Jax said. “What would you have done?”

Rollie didn’t have an answer to that. He shook his head and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels, poured himself a shot, and tossed it back. He didn’t offer one to Jax.

“Eat your fries,” Jax said. “I’ll see you before we go.”

When Jax had retreated into the back room again, Rollie noticed that Thor had remained at the bar instead of returning to the kitchen.

“Something you wanna say?” he asked.

Thor stared at the door Jax had gone through. “Not really. I like him well enough. I just still get a feeling there’s something hinky about his version of what went down with Joyce last night.”

Rollie picked up another shot glass, filled it, and slid it down to Thor. “Me too,” he said. “But it’s just a feeling, and I’m not gonna stir up shit with the mother charter based on that. Weird thing is that I always liked Jax, but it’s like he’s not the same guy I used to know.”

Thor downed his whiskey and banged the shot glass down on the bar. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

“Is anyone?”

* * *

When Jax kissed Trinity good-bye at the airport, he still had Oleg’s blood under his fingernails. He’d scrubbed himself as well as he could in the shower, but he just couldn’t get it all off.

“Oleg saved my life,” he said.

Trinity visibly trembled, swallowing her grief. “He was a good man.”

“He was,” Jax agreed.

“And now my mum gets her wish.”

Jax shook his head. “This isn’t what she wanted.”

“Listen you,” she said, holding his hands in her own, sorrow-filled eyes locked on his. “We’re gonna keep in touch now. It was peculiar before, I know, for all sorts of reasons. But I could get used to the idea of havin’ a brother.”

Jax smiled. “We’ll keep in touch,” he promised. “Starting with you calling to let me know you got home all right.”

People streamed around them, most trailing wheeled luggage or toting little children and ignoring the small island made up of Jax, Trinity, Opie, and Chibs. Announcements came overhead. Travelers hustled toward the lengthy security line, talking on cell phones and checking the time, worried they might miss their planes.

“You should go,” Jax said.

Trinity’s smile was cracked porcelain. Perfect and smooth and beautiful but betraying fractures that could be sealed but never healed.

She kissed Opie and Chibs, both of whom spoke soft farewells, and then she hugged Jax, and he held her tightly, flushed with guilt. If he’d had it to do all over again, he would still have Oleg’s blood under his fingernails. Yes, he’d made Maureen Ashby a promise, but sending Trinity home was about more than that. If she’d stayed with Oleg, it would have just been a matter of time before she’d ended up dead or as a pawn in some negotiation between the Russians and SAMCRO, and he couldn’t risk either. By protecting Trinity, he’d also protected the club.

“Tell your mother she owes me one,” Jax said, making a joke of it, though he meant every word.

“I’ll pass it on,” Trinity replied.

Opie had been holding the new bag containing a couple of changes of clothes and some toiletries they’d bought for her before coming to the airport, just to make sure Trinity didn’t draw any special attention at security. Her belongings had been seized by the police when the fire at Wonderland had been put out. Izzo had done the club one last favor by getting his hands on Trinity’s passport. When Opie held the new bag out, Trinity took it and slipped it over her shoulder. There were no more words. She raised her hand in something close to a wave, then turned and joined the queue. Jax, Opie, and Chibs waited until she had passed through security and moved deeper into the terminal, out of sight. Only when there was nothing more they could do to ensure she boarded the flight to Belfast did they at last turn and leave the airport.

Though night had fallen, the day’s heat remained. As they walked to the lot where they’d parked their bikes, the air, so dry it stole the spit from their mouths, baked them. Jax straddled his bike, kick-started the engine, and minutes later they were riding northwest, tearing along the nighttime road and leaving the lights of Las Vegas and the deeds done there behind. Jax thought of Tara and his boys, and his heart swelled, making him give the throttle an extra twist. He thought of his mother and Clay and the delicate balance of power he’d left behind in Charming. They could get through it all, he knew. SAMCRO would survive, and in time the club would thrive.

Someday his father’s dream of making the club legit—of getting out of all illegal business—would come true. Jax would take Tara and his boys and start a new life. All of that waited for him in Charming—a peaceful future, a new beginning.

Oleg had saved his life—the blood under Jax’s fingernails was his. But there was other blood on his hands, invisible but there nevertheless. The blood of hard decisions.

As he rode, he wondered what his father would make of the man he’d become. The question haunted him.

Jax sped up, his Harley knifing through the night-black desert, but he could not escape his ghosts. They rode with him.

Also by Christopher Golden

Snowblind

Father Gaetano’s Puppet Catechism (with Mike Mignola)

Joe Golem and the Drowning City (with Mike Mignola)

21st Century Dead

The Monster’s Corner

The New Dead

About the Author

CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the award-winning, bestselling author of such novels as Snowblind, The Myth Hunters, The Boys Are Back in Town, The Ferryman, Strangewood, Of Saints and Shadows, and (with Tim Lebbon) The Map of Moments. His original novels have been published in more than fourteen languages in countries around the world.

Kurt Sutter is a writer, director, and producer of television and film.

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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