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Nobody makes a joke.

Hyde’s voice lowers. “And my word is that club comes first.”

The rule beneath every other rule.

Club above everything. No brother left behind. Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Fuck around and find out.

Simple words until two of them point in opposite directions.

Nevermore studies me. “You made the promise.”

“I know what I fucking made.”

“Then if you break it, don’t pretend Hyde did it for you.”

I look at him.

He looks right back.

Bastard.

CSI closes one screen. “We can forget it.”

Hyde doesn’t tell him to.

Neither do I.

She taught me to ask.

The thought appears so clearly in my head it might as well be Sweet standing on the other side of the table saying it herself.

Ask.

That was all she wanted from me.

Ask before taking the phone. Ask before touching the picture. Ask before deciding something about her life.

She taught me to ask, and last night she trusted me because I finally fucking learned.

I could walk downstairs right now. I could tell her exactly what CSI wants to do.

I could ask.

Maybe she says no.

That is the problem.

If she says no, I already know what I am supposed to do with that answer.

Respect it.

And in my head I see Lena’s note.

Love don’t pay debts.

I see blood on a garage floor. A brother getting stitched without enough lidocaine because we couldn’t risk a hospital. Another brother’s wife crying in a hallway.

All because I trusted someone outside the club with something that belonged inside it.