HARD KNOX(48)

The room stood in complete silence.

My father had always been the same man. The man who twisted, turned, and would do anything to survive. I watched him act like that my entire life. Job to job, woman to woman, never settling. Hell, maybe even with the Reap he wasn’t truly settled. No matter what, he was now dead. He’d get an honorable burial as a member of the club and that would be it.

“This is personal,” I said. “Porter did this. Whether Vinny wanted it or not, he did it. Because I took Ana from him.”

“Which is why this is your play,” Uncle Jakey said. He touched the gavel and slid it toward me. “You need to settle this, Knoxville. For your own sake.”

“There’s a lot at stake here,” I said. I looked to all my brothers and told them the news. “Ana is wearing my ring. And she’s carrying my baby.”

Shock spread across all their faces.

Uncle Jakey walked to me and grabbed me. He hugged me tight and kissed my forehead. The rest of the guys damn near jumped me, congratulating me. It was a nice moment to share in the midst of tragedy.

When the ruckus settled, I started to realize the old man would never know about me and Ana. He’d never see her round belly or meet his grandchild. Not that I really spent a lot of time with him. We weren’t some tight father and son bullshit thing. That ship sailed long before I was even born. Even still, if it wasn’t for him, I would have never been patched into the Reap. My only choice was to honor him by keeping the vision alive.

That meant finishing this thing.

I walked to the table and placed my hand over the gavel. Again, this was a no vote situation.

“I’m going to kill Porter,” I said.

Nobody objected. Nobody spoke.

The truth…

What f*cking choice did I have?





I stood at the old man’s grave and lit up a smoke. I sat on the headstone and left footprints in the fresh dirt. As a kid I always feared a hand would shoot up out of the ground and get me. Ma blamed the old man for that because he used to let me watch scary movies. Especially around Halloween. That was probably the one time he really came to life around me.

I made the decision to let the dust clear a little. It was the smartest thing to do. Chances were, Porter was on the run, or hiding. Vinny would be expecting me to call him, which I did. We had a discussion on the phone over the power between our organizations and what it meant for the town and city. He assured me that my father was going to be taken out one way or another and that by letting Porter do it, it seemed to truly calm everything down.

My response was simple.

Porter was going to die.

I wasn’t going to hide my hand. The thing that Vinny did have that I did… well, that one thing would take care of everything.

Not to mention the names and locations of those Vinny took out. Again, peeling back a page of respect, I told Vinny that I would keep those names close to my chest. What had happened with the old man and Porter was simply personal. Anything greater would be viewed as an attack against the Reap and all hell would break loose. Strange as it was, we came to a sense of peace over the phone. Vinny even offered the club a protection run which I accepted and then handed the info over to Uncle Jakey. He was acting President. I had enough on my f*cking plate.

I finished my smoke and dropped it to the dirt. I stepped and twisted, spiritually sending the old man one last drag. I looked back at the stone and saw his name.

Shaking my head, I patted the stone and whispered, “Not today, old man. Not today.”

I walked through the cemetery to my motorcycle. All these souls all around. There was something powerful about it. But I kept my eyes forward. If I didn’t keep everything forward, I’d end up in one of the holes myself. That wasn’t going to happen.

I climbed on my ride, fired it up, and checked the time.

I smiled.

Today I got to hear the heartbeat of my baby.





To me the screen was like a TV without reception. To the woman in front of the machine with the wand stuck up my darlin’s hole, it made sense to her what she was seeing. The press of a button here and there brought up some blue color, some red color, and then she settled on what looked like a black opening with a white bean on the inside.

That was my kid.

Yeah, Ana had an ultrasound already. The pregnancy was confirmed. She showed me the picture and I took it to the clubhouse, and me and the boys all drank whiskey until the sun came up.

But to be there and actually see it. The look on Ana’s face. The way the lady pointed at the screen and told me that the little bean on the screen was my baby. That was…

It was everything I was fighting for.

It was the final piece to my plan to end this spat with Vinny and Porter. It was to tie up the last loose end and all of us could then go forward and live.

I grabbed Ana’s hand and squeezed it tight. I leaned forward and kissed her.

“I love you, darlin’,” I whispered.

“I know you do, Knox,” she said.

That was the greatest thing to hear.

Well, actually it became the second greatest thing to hear.

A few seconds later, the lady pressed a button and I heard a heartbeat. The damn thing was racing and the lady told me it was not only normal but that the heartbeat was perfect. Everything was perfect. She printed out a bunch of pictures, almost like a photo booth, and that was it.