I tell it to them plainly. "My stepdad was the Blue Devils' president, Rooster, and when I was 14, nine fucking years ago, I killed him when he nearly took my mother's life. I did my time and I've kept my head down, even after I got out of juvie. I made sure they couldn't find me, and it worked until now."
Conley grunts in anger. “Until now all right.”
"Sounds like Welder wants to make you pay," Ranger says.
I nod. "I'm sorry, Ranger. I didn't think that they’d find me, and I certainly didn't think they'd come for Lydia. I would have never gotten her involved."
Conley, though, surprises me. "We've got to get on our bikes and head there now. Those motherfuckers have been encroaching on our territory for way too long. I don't know what they're playing at, but this game is over. We're going to go there with guns loaded and we're going to bring our girl home."
Everyone nods in agreement, and I feel a sharp pain in my chest. A feeling I've never had before.
"What is it?" Ranger asks.
I can't tell him what the feeling is. These guys will never let me live it down, but the feeling — it's fucking love, gratitude, hope, all that shit wrapped up in one because these men aren't blaming me for anything.
They've got my back. When they say ride or die, they're not talking shit.
They're speaking truth from their hearts, and right now, I fucking feel it.
"Thank you," I say.
Conley shakes his head, obviously hearing the emotion in my voice. “You were nothing but a kid, Jackal. You don't have to explain no shit to us. You're probably right. Had we known about the Blue Devils, we would have just fought them sooner. Now the time's right, and we're going to get Lydia, and we're going to bring her home, and it's going to be okay."
I nod. "I know where their clubhouse is. I've been checking on them every so often, stalking their social media and shit. I've wanted to make sure they weren't going to come close. But I saw a couple of them the other night. Some of them were down at Hollow Oak Lake."
“Fuck," Conley says, "I knew that party was a bad idea."
He's right, of course, and there's a reason I kept my head down so low all these years, because I was scared this was going to happen, and now it has, and it's all my fault.
But I can't rewrite history. What's done is done. What matters now is getting Lydia home safe and sound, and when I say home, I mean bringing her to me.
We get on our bikes and we ride. I tell Conley and Ranger where we need to go and Ranger takes the lead as the road captain. We follow him. There are about 18 of us out today. The Blue Devils won't know what hit them.
It's a two-hour ride before we get to their property, but when we get there, having crossed the California border, we get off our bikes, ready to fight.
Welder comes out, introducing himself like he's family, but he's not.
"Which one of you is Jackal?" he says, looking at us. His eye meets mine. “Ahh. There he is." He points to me. "You ready to pay up?"
"What are you going to do, shoot me?" I ask. "Fine, fucking shoot me. Just don't touch Lydia."
I hear Lydia screaming from inside and another man is dragging her out. Her hands are tied behind her back and her hair is loose and wild around her shoulders. She looks terrified.
"Don't, Jackal. Don't do something stupid,” she begs.
But it's way too late for that.
Good thing I have a plan.
I raise my gun. I aim to shoot, but instead, I walk toward Welder and I tell him how it is. “You know our territory. And you came too fucking close to our land. You stay put, you understand? You give me my girl, and don't you dare touch her again. Your hands are dirty in ways you're not ready to come clean about, and I have shit on you that could get you all time."
"What shit do you got on us, boy?" Welder says, spitting in my face.
I tell him the truth. "I have a hard drive. Rooster's hard drive."
"I don't even know what that means," Welder says.
"Yeah, you wouldn't," I say, "because my mother, she may have given her life to Rooster, but after he died, she realized the hell he put her