Eli abruptly stands. His chair rocks, then hits the floor. “It means Mom’s mental stability was more fragile than we thought in those last few months.”His hand hammers the screen door as he leaves and the door comes back and slams into the wood. I glance at the bylaws. Olivia was a lot of things toward the end and one of them was lucid. Eli’s hiding something, and when I peer over at Cyrus, the pensive stare in my direction confirms he’s hiding something, too.

You could have come to me,” he says in a voice barely above a mumble. “I understand why none ofyou went to Eli. He feels too much, loves you all too much. But I don’t understand why you didn’t come to me.

Eli and I are the only ones left standing.Eli curls his fingers around the back of his chair and focuses on the mahogany wood in front of him. His knuckles are red and swollen. Two of them have been sliced open and are scabbed over with dried blood. He’s been in a brawl recently. Not a bruise on his face so that means he was the one doing the hitting.

While Eli may never be an official board member, he is part owner of the security company, and, besides Cyrus, the most respected man in our club. As Cyrus explained once, while Eli will never vote, he’s part of the board as a consultant and when he talks, people listen

In the seven years I’ve known him, Eli’s never ignored me.

He’s [Eli's] a lot like his father, Cyrus. He’s big and he’s strong and basically has an entire army of scary men in black leather who ride motorcycles and carry guns at his disposal.

I haven’t seen him in a couple of months, but Eli always looks the same: dark brown hair cut short, plugs in both ears, T-shirt, jeans and a smile that, for some insane reason, can make me smile.

Sometimes people choose the harder path just to prove they can do it.

Besides me, Pigpen is the youngest guy in here and then there's Eli.