I never did find out what he did that warranted me taking him out, but Pardon had asked it to be especially brutal and I obliged. You didn’t say no to the club president and you didn’t ask questions past the information you were given.
I took a deep breath and decided not to think about it when there was a knock on the front door. With a sigh, I got to my feet and walked over and pulled it open.
“Where have you been, brother? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you,” Dallas said, raising an eyebrow.
“Decompressing,” I replied, stepping back to let him in.
“From what?”
“Shit in general. Anyway, what’s up?” I asked, leading him into the living room and sitting down on my couch.
“Pardon’s been looking for you. Says he needs to talk to you about something important,” he said, sitting down on the love seat and leaning back. “Want me to tell him that I couldn’t find you?”
“No. He’ll chop both of our balls off,” I said thoughtfully.
We were both silent so I decided to turn the television on to get some kind of noise. I hated silence; it always fucked me up on the inside. Unfortunately there was nothing good on, so I turned it off and tossed the remote control onto the space next to me.
“Can I ask you something?” Dallas asked.
“Yeah.”
“What did Pardon want to talk to you about? That night of the vote?”
“Nothing important,” I replied, rubbing the back of my neck.
“You’re lying, Swing. You always do that when you’re lying,” he pointed out with a laugh.
“It’s not important,” I insisted.
Dallas leaned forward and looked at me. I hated when he stared at me. To be honest, I hated when anyone stared at me, but him in particular because he always thought he could break me with that look.
“Is that the only reason you came over? To tell me that Pardon is looking for me and to ask me what he talked to me about?” I asked in exasperation.
He didn’t answer right away; he was still using his mind control stare to try to get me to talk, but I refused to give in.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he finally said, leaning back against the couch again.
“I’ll come by the clubhouse later and talk to Pardon, alright?”
Dallas nodded and got to his feet. About damn time. I watched him from where I was sitting as he walked to the front door. He put his hand on the doorknob and hesitated.
“Are you sure everything is okay, Swing?” he asked.
“Just fine,” I replied with a nod.
With a slight shake of his head, Dallas left. I reached for the remote and turned the television back on, attempting to lose myself in the barrage of commercials that were on. Anything to not have to think about what kind of shit Pardon was going to give me for being unreachable as long as I had been.
After Dallas roared away on his Harley, I heard the mailman outside fussing with the mailbox. I rarely checked the mail so I knew he hated coming here. I waited until he left before I went outside to grab it. It had been the traditional two weeks I would wait before emptying my box and most of it would probably go into the garbage anyway.
I got up and peeked through the blinds, waiting til he disappeared down the street, before I went out my front door and grabbed the stack of letters and circulars that were waiting for me.
Once I was inside again, I went back to the couch and grabbed a cigarette from the pack that was sitting on the coffee table. Dropping the stack next to it, I reached for my lighter and lit it, before I started to thumb through the mail. As I suspected, most of it was garbage with the occasional bill here and there.
I was bunching all the junk mail together to take it to the trash can when I saw an envelope that caught my attention. It fell out of one of the circulars and landed on the table, the word NERO scrawled on the front.
It was a rare thing that anyone called me by my given name and an even rarer thing to see handwriting I didn’t recognize. Balancing the cigarette between my teeth, I picked up the envelope, turned it over, and ripped it open. Inside was folded piece of paper, which I opened and looked at.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID.