Page 20 of Bones and Ashes

I do not miss the fact that she said we. She brought SOD here. "To what?" I ask. "Bury the hatchet or somethin'?"

She smiles at me. Pushes her sunglasses up her nose, then stands. "I'll let him know you're ready for him."

Then she walks off. Just like that. Conversation done, scales balanced, judgment rendered. Walks off like she didn't just unravel twenty years of buried history in a five-minute sitdown at a bar I'm barely holdin' together.

I watch her cross the room. She moves through the bodies—my guys, her guys, all of 'em pretendin' not to watch—and she heads straight for him. Straight for the mirror.

Straight for Lazarus.

June slides up behind him. Puts an arm around his shoulder like it's the most natural thing in the world. Like she's done it ten thousand times. Like he belongs to her in some way that don't need explainin'. She leans in close, mouth against his neck, and whispers somethin'.

He nods. Slow. Doesn't flinch, doesn't tense. Just absorbs whatever she said the way a man absorbs orders he's been waitin' on.

Then he looks over his shoulder at me.

And there it is. My own face, starin' back at me across a room full of leather, and smoke, and unfinished business. Blue eyes I know too well. Jaw I've seen in every mirror since I was old enough to hate what I saw there.

He says somethin' back to June. Quiet. She pulls away, gives his shoulder a squeeze—motherly, almost, protective in a way that makes my chest tighten for reasons I've got no fuckin' words for—and then he stands.

I watch him step aside for her. Smooth. Natural. Like breathin'. He offers his hand—not flashy, not performin', just offers it the way a man does when it's been done so many times the gesture lives in his fuckin' bones—and helps her climb up onto the barstool. Steady. Easy. His fingers don't linger but they don't rush neither, and she settles onto that seat like she's been acceptin' his grace her whole life.

Like a baby brother to me.

That's what she said.

All these years.

All these years June looked at me—looked me dead in the face, handed me a handkerchief, stood in my space, breathed the same clubhouse air—and she thought… what?

What the hell was she thinkin'?

Every time she watched me walk through a room, did she see him too? Did she clock the jawline, the eyes, the way I hold my shoulders? Did she stand there smilin' at me like a good church woman while runnin' the math in her head—comparin' me to a man I didn't even know existed?

What the hell was she thinkin' all that time?

What the hell was she doin', for that matter?

All those years. The handkerchiefs and the soft words and the way she'd show up at the compound with casseroles and clean towels like some kinda fifties saint in vintage cotton, smilin' at everybody, knowin' everybody's business, runnin' Mama Jo's kitchen overflow like it was ministry work. Organizin' bake sales. Foldin' into the background like wallpaper that never peels. And the whole goddamn time—what? Watchin'? Waitin'? Runnin' a clock nobody else could hear?

Settin' us all up in some kinda long-game revenge plot?

I turn that over in my head and it makes some sense. Parts of it, anyway. Havoc did show up for me. Havoc rode into that shitstorm knowin' the math, knowin' the odds—and he showed up anyway.

Showed up so I could put a bullet between Brick's fuckin' eyes and walk out alive. Took a massive risk. Took three bullets. Kept fightin'. Took a fourth one in the neck and didn't get back up.

Lost.

Lost everything.

And June—June who packed his lunches and raised his six kids and ironed his fuckin' shirts—she knew the cost before he paid it. She had to. A woman like June doesn't miss details. She was countin' somethin'. Measurin' somethin'. Buildin' toward somethin' I still can't see the whole shape of.

But there's more to this story. There's gotta be. Because the math I got doesn't add up to the answer I'm standin' in.

That's what I'm thinkin' as Lazarus Kane rakes his fingers through his hair—slow, deliberate, the way a man does when he's organizin' his thoughts before he lets 'em out of his mouth—and starts walkin' toward me.

Boots on concrete. Steady gait. No rush.

Same build as me, same face with just enough variation to make it strange instead of familiar, same blue eyes catchin' the low light like somethin' forged in the same fire but cooled in different dirt.