Chapter 9: The Heavy Knock
The sun had completely dipped below the horizon by the time the sharp, insistent rap sounded against our front screen door. My mother froze instantly, her hand hovering just above the edge of the oilcloth table where Thomas still sat, his broad shoulders tensed under the heavy leather vest. The silence in the small kitchen grew heavy, thick with the kind of dread that belonged to men who lived outside the law. Outside on the gravel driveway, the low, throbbing rumble of idling motorcycle engines vibrated through the floorboards, shaking the chipped coffee mugs.
"Stay back in the hallway, Leo," Thomas said, his voice dropping into a low, uncompromising command. He didn't raise his voice, but there was an absolute authority in it that made my feet plant firmly on the linoleum despite the warning. He stood up slowly, his heavy boots clicking against the floor, and walked across the cramped living room toward the front porch.
Through the frayed lace curtain of the front window, I could see two figures standing under the porch light. They weren't cops or strangers from the county seat; they wore the familiar, heavy-stitched patches of the Iron Syndicate—the very club Thomas had walked away from two decades ago. The lead rider, a stocky man with a graying crew cut and a jagged scar running down his cheek, leaned heavily against the screen door frame, his expression carved from stone.
"Open up, brother," the man called out, his voice carrying clearly through the thin walls of the house. "Word got around down at the neon sign that you took a detour off the highway. The Old Man wants to know if you've forgotten how things work around here."
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Thomas didn't flinch as he pushed the wooden door open a few inches, blocking the gap with his massive frame. He didn't invite them in, but he didn't run either. "I haven't forgotten a damn thing, Dutch," Thomas replied evenly, his hazel eyes narrowing as he stared down the man on the porch. "What I do on my own time isn't club business anymore. You boys need to turn those bikes around and head back to the lot."
"It becomes club business when a full-patch rider goes ghost in the middle of a rally to chase ghosts from twenty years ago," Dutch said, spitting a bit of tobacco off the porch edge. His eyes flicked past Thomas's shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of the kitchen where my mother and I stood watching. "The Syndicate doesn't like loose ends, and it likes sentimentality even less. You coming back with us now, or do we have to remind you who carried you through ’98?"
