Chapter 2
Jake
A hard kick to the bottom of my foot made me aware that I was not alone. Only one person I knew would be able to sneak up on me like that. I used my feet to pull the dolly and myself out from under the car I had been working on. Uncle Luke stood, arms folded across his massive chest, a scowl on his face, yet his bright blue eyes were twinkling with mischief.
“You gotta be more observant than that son. You could be flat as a bug under that car right now.” Luke warns as he sticks out his hand to help me up.
I grab his hand and pull myself up, putting him in the headlock in the process. “Hey old man, you’re losing your touch. I’ve killed for less reasons than that.” As the words leave my mouth I regret them, as they are true, but I shake that thought out of my head. I let my uncle go and stand back, all joking and thoughts of the past gone.
Luke rubs his hand over his scruffy beard. “You sure you wanna do this son?”
Luke has always called me that, hell he deserved the right. He was more of a father to me than my actual father ever was. He was actually my uncle, my mother’s big brother. But when my life came crashing down around me the first time, he was there to catch me. When I got out of the Marines two years ago, he was there for me again. To others he was a scary six foot, 200 pound wall of muscle, with too many tattoos and too much hair but to me, he was my savior.
As I cleaned my hands on a rag that was probably more dirty than they were I thought about his question. Did I want to do this? Hell, no. Did I have to? Yes I owed it to him, my mother, and myself.
“I’ve run from that man since I was 16 years old and he let me. Now he suddenly wants me back under his control, I’ve got to find out what he is up to. I should have done it ten years ago.” I clench my hands just thinking about the past.
“Jake, you were a kid. You had enough to deal with. She was my sister, I should have fucking stepped in but I knew if I did, you would have neither parent.” Luke has picked up a tool and is passing it from hand to hand, like he needs to do something with his hands.
I look my uncle straight in the eye when I say, “I wouldn’t have had a parent because I wouldn’t have had you. He was never a parent, he may have taken my mother from me but I couldn’t let him take you as well. What would have happened to me if you ended up in jail for murder?” I pause to let it sink in. We rarely talk about what happened in the past but with my father reaching out to me, he is bringing it all back again and this time I am going to see it through. “I’m going to find out what really happened that night and if it takes going back into that world to do it, I will.”
Luke shakes his head slowly as he says, “I don’t like it. There is an easier way to deal with this if you would just let me. Those fucking politicians are a dangerous bunch.” I almost laugh at that, considering my uncle is the president of the Triggers Motorcycle Club. Luke grabs me in a one armed hug and slaps me on the back. He pulls back and looks me right in the eye, eyes so much like my own. “You need anything, you know we all got your back, don’t think twice.”
As I got ready to go to my father’s house I thought about the man. When I was little, he was my hero. But I guess every little boy feels that way. By the time I was ten my opinion of him started to change. He spent too much time at work, took too many calls in his den when he should have been sitting at the dinner table with his family, and was often too short and impatient with my mother. By the time I was fourteen and started to challenge him, I really saw his true colors. What I saw more vividly than his true colors was the colors on my mother’s face that she could never quite hide well enough with her makeup.
I know I need to stop going back there or I will never be able to play the prodigal son. I hadn’t seen my father since the day of my mother’s funeral and not once had he tried to get in touch with me. Then when I was discharged from the Marines after serving two terms, he suddenly reached out to me. Well, actually it wasn’t that loving, it was more like he tracked me down and stalked me. I don’t know how he even knew I was back in the U.S. full time. I know Uncle Luke didn’t tell him. I guess he had a good P.I.
Then last month things got really weird. I started receiving messages from him about how proud he was of me for serving my country. It was hard to believe that he could be proud of the son who never did anything right in his life and was nothing but a loser like his uncle and his gang of punks, just because he served his country. And to actually ask me to move back into the house I stormed out of at the age of 16 and never looked back! No way in hell would that ever happen. Something was up with the old man and I was determined to find out not only what that was but what actually happened that night 18 years ago.
Putting on my best pair of jeans, a thermal pullover and a clean durag. I knew just my look would piss the old man off but hey, this was me. After getting out of the Marine’s the first thing I did was grow my hair and a beard. I knew I now looked more like my uncle than I ever would my father and that was just how I liked it. If he wanted me back in his life he had to take me as I was, it's not like I was willing to stay in his life. I grabbed the keys to my Harley, got my head in “Marine” mode and headed out the door to one of the hardest missions I ever had.