All Sinner No Saint

by Serena Akeroyd

  “He can’t be,” Dagger rasped, telling me he was just as affected by what Flame said. And even though my resident pyromaniac looked like he wasn’t hurting, deep in his eyes, I knew he was ready to set some shit on fire. Which meant Dagger was ready to get stabby with someone if we weren’t careful.

  “He is,” Flame insisted grimly. “You know it, and I do too.”

  “What happened to him?” Axe whispered rhetorically. “What happened to them?”

  “She had a baby,” Flame replied, his tone loaded with a mixture of worry, shock, and awe. “Lucie became a mom.”

  “She’s only a kid herself,” Dagger gritted out. “We made her leave and she—”

  I held up a hand, not able to hear him say the words. Shaking my head, I bit off, “We wait for her to tell us what happened, and we sure as shit don’t talk about this with the others around.” The last thing I needed was our past fueling the MC gossip mill.

  “She’s just as cocky as ever,” Flame warned. “If you go in there like you usually do, you’ll just knock heads. That won’t get us anywhere.”

  “He’s right,” Axe agreed grimly. “Let me talk to her.”

  Because they were both right, I didn’t slam my fist into either of their faces. Lucie and I were too alike. Had she been born a boy, she’d have easily worn this cut, carried the Prez patch, led the Hell’s Rebels with ease, and contained the fury of a brotherhood that was over three hundred members strong.

  She should have been born with a cock, but she hadn’t been, and what was between her legs was like pure heroin to a desperate junkie like Axe, Flame, Dagger, and me.

  Always had been, always would be.

  She was our weakest link and our strongest.

  Well, that was until she’d brought my daughter into the world.

  Trying to maintain a stoic face was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do as my brothers and I headed back up the driveway toward the clubhouse.

  It was an old motel that Bomber had redesigned back in the seventies. I’d seen pictures of the dump before he’d gotten his paws on it, and it had consisted of nothing but bedrooms, but he’d extended it so there was a large annex attached to the side of the building where brothers stayed, keeping the offices, bar, kitchens, and the kids’ area all close by.

  On average, we had over twenty brothers staying on site. I lived in, as did most of my council. The prospects—men who weren’t trusted enough to be patched in and had to prove their worth to us—also lived in so they could be on hand for the shitty jobs we usually tossed their way. Some men lived in Rutherford with their old ladies and families, some even shared houses with other brothers in town. If there was one thing wrong with the clubhouse, it was that it was too small.

  When Bomber had inaugurated this chapter of the Hell’s Rebels, he’d underestimated how popular it would be.

  It wasn’t grody and grimy like some clubhouses I’d seen in my years on runs around the country either. We had too many old ladies and kids around for that shit.

  Though Bomber had been a dick, even more so after Lucie had left, he’d maintained this place too. So the siding was freshly painted and the tiles on the roof weren’t falling off. The garden was even neat thanks to a few of the women who’d started planting basil and rosemary, of all the fucking things, there.

  Even though I was proud of my home, I looked up at it through my daughter’s eyes and scanned it for anything and everything. When it all came up trumps, I sucked down a sharp breath that was loaded with relief and had to admit to myself I was nervous.

  Goddamn nervous.

  Of Lucie being here, the purpose behind the surprise visit, as well as the knowledge I was about to meet my little girl for the first time.

  The car had parked by the time we made it the hundred or so yards from the gate to the building. Lucie was out, that tight ass of hers bustling as she opened the trunk and began dumping suitcases on the graveled drive.

  “She’s here long-term,” Flame, ever obvious, pointed out as he hustled over to help her take her shit out of the back of the cage.

  “She’d better fucking be,” I growled to his back.

  Dagger nudged me in the side. “She could have been here to dump the girl and run like with Wheels’ boy.”

  I shook my head in instant rejection of that. “Fuck off. Lucie ain’t like that. If she was, she’d have had an abortion from the start. You know what she’s like with commitments.”

  The truth of my words settled heavily in my gut.

  Lucie had always followed through on her promises, so why had she turned her back on the Rebels that fateful night?

  Shoving those thoughts aside, I headed to the trunk and bit off, “What the fuck, Lucie?”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Axe growled, elbowing me and pushing me out of the way. He grabbed Lucie, and though there was danger in her eyes, he ignored it and hauled her into his arms.

  The hug was long and heartfelt.

  Some might say most bikers didn’t have a heart, and a lot didn’t. Neither did we, because we’d lost ours to Lucie all those fucking years ago, and she’d always owned them. Always.

  Her hands gripped Axe’s cut and she nuzzled her face into his throat. “God, I missed you,” she whispered, and I was surprised by the admission. Surprised because it wasn’t like her to own up to any weaknesses.

  “Missed you too, sweet pea,” Axe rasped, the words choked.

  I gritted my teeth when I heard the door to the car open, and the scuffed sound as little feet crunched the gravel.

  “What’s her name?” Axe asked, and I silently thanked him.

  “Amaryllis.” She moved her head, and tilted it so she could look at me over his shoulder.

  My mouth trembled for a handful of seconds before I clamped my lips down and smashed them into submission.

  Amaryllis.

  My mother’s name.

  For a second, I was speechless, fucking speechless, and then, because I wanted to run away, head for my bike and take off like I was eighteen again, I forced myself to squat down onto my haunches when Amaryllis clung to her mother’s legs.

  “Hey, Amaryllis,” I whispered, incapable of speaking with a louder voice.

  “You’re Daddy Wolfe,” was her retort, and I swear to fuck, whatever I’d expected her to say, it wasn’t that.

  Speechless once more, I gaped at her before nodding as she frowned at me, the clear, milky skin of her brow puckering as I just stared at her in silence.

  Lucie’s hand dragged through her daughter’s white-gold hair, and she explained, “She knows you all. We made sure of that.”

  Axe cleared his throat, and though my eyes were focused on nothing but Amaryllis, pain hit me when he questioned, “Ryan? Where is he?”

  A choked sound escaped her throat. “Died. Two months ago.”

  “Why? What happened?” Flame demanded, and before I knew it, Lucie had been passed from Axe’s arms into Flame’s.

  Almost like nothing had fucking happened.

  As though this was a reunion or something.

  Like we weren’t welcoming a traitor back into our midst.

  But what could I say?

  Lucie was the mother of my daughter, for fuck’s sake. I couldn’t toss her out on her ass, even if Bomber had been able to, I wasn’t him.

  Lucie began to cry, and Flame rubbed her back with a finesse that would make the clubwhores whimper in disappointment. Usually, he was useless with women. He fucked them and left them watching after him, all of them wondering what it would take to make it into his bed on a permanent basis. They didn’t realize he was a lost cause.

  Had been since the day Lucie had been born.

  “Cancer,” she whispered, and fuck, if my own eyes didn’t water.

  “How’s that possible?” Dagger growled, hustling in and dragging Lucie into his arms too. “He was only twenty-seven.”

  “It was aggressive. A brain tumor,” she whispered, then pressed her face into Dagger’s cu
t. “We did what we could, but it was—” She rocked her head. “It just wasn’t enough. No matter what the doctors did, it just grew. In the end, it was a blessing.”

  “Did you bring his ashes?” The words were harsh, and I regretted my tone, but not enough to temper it with a smile to soften things. There was no smiling now, not where the loss of a man who was like a blood brother to me was concerned.

  “Of course,” she snarled. “Ryan was true to the Rebels even if they weren’t true to us.”

  I didn’t even flinch when I tilted my head to glare at her. “You were the one who broke us, Lucie. Not me, not Flame, Axe, or Dagger. You. And you’re the reason Ryan didn’t—” I cut off the angry words when Amaryllis came at me. Her little hands everywhere as she slapped me, punched me, and balled her hands into fists as she launched herself at me.

  She was little, too little to cause any damage except to my heart.

  “You leave my mommy alone, Daddy Wolfe!” she hollered with each pounding, and what the fuck could I do but let her carry on? Let her burn off her anger?

  I was her dad.

  As I dropped to my knees, I recognized that it was about time I manned up to the job that Ryan had filled for so fucking long.

  ❖

  Axe

  It should have been amusing watching our Prez, my brother, being slapped by a little girl, but it wasn’t. It was painful.

  Not because it was shameful or embarrassing, but because his daughter was full of rage. Full of anger and hurt and confusion, and she didn’t know how to control any of that. She’d lost Ryan, she’d lost whatever home they’d had, and she’d been moved from only the fuck knew where to Rutherford.

  All of us just gaped at her, Lucie seeming to be in a stupor as she watched her daughter attack her daddy. Then, she shook herself, waking up from wherever she’d gone mentally, and hauled her arms through Amaryllis’s, curving them around her waist so she could drag her away.

  All the while, Amaryllis’s arms were windmilling, like she wanted to carry on, like the fight hadn’t burned out of her, and maybe it hadn’t. And maybe Wolfe deserved that.

  He couldn’t treat Lucie like shit, not when we had Amaryllis to think of now. Hell, not just because of Amaryllis either.

  I’d never believed the shit Bomber had spread about her. I knew Dagger and Flame hadn’t either. It was why none of us had married or tied ourselves to old ladies. Why we only fucked clubwhores, never bothering to search for more, to make a family like most brothers our age did.

  Wolfe had believed it though, that was why he was so angry. It was why his marriage to Kim had gone up the wall after three months, and why he hadn’t done more than grunt, ‘good’ when he’d learned she’d overdosed.

  “Amaryllis! You stop that now! Am I raising you to be anything other than a lady?” Lucie scolded, sounding the exact opposite of a lady.

  I shot Dagger a glance and saw he was grinning just as widely as Flame.

  Fuck. I hadn’t seen either of them smile like that for a long time.

  Six years, three months, two weeks, and four days to be precise. And yeah, like a pussy, I’d counted. Knew how long she’d been out of our lives, and had hated every fucking moment without her.

  I’d never say any of that shit to my brothers, but fuck, to myself? Why the hell would I lie?

  The second Lucie had walked that sweet ass out of the gates, the sun might as well have stopped shining. For all of us, Wolfe too, even if he wanted to deny it.

  Amaryllis growled under her breath, arguing, “Ladies defend themselves. And their mommas too.”

  “She’s got you there,” Flame said with a chuckle.

  “Not helping, Mason!” Lucie snapped. Then, to her daughter, grumbled, “I didn’t need defending, baby girl. But I appreciate it. Daddy Wolfe can’t help that he’s a grouch. What have we always said? That he’s called that because he tries to huff, puff, and…”

  “Because he wants to blow all the houses down,” Amaryllis parroted, her face still screwed up with anger as she glowered at her birth father. “Like the wolf in the story.”

  I had to cough to hide a laugh, but Flame and Dagger weren’t even trying to. “Who were the three piggies in that scenario, Lucie?” I demanded, curious as fuck.

  She shrugged. “You, Flame, and Dagger of course.” Then, she winked. “Naturally, it’s not their houses Wolfe wanted to—”

  “That’s enough!” Wolfe growled, but his cheeks were pink, his ears too as he glanced around the lot.

  No one was watching. I knew that because Flame had demanded everyone fuck off inside when he’d gone to help Lucie with her bags.

  There was a reason he was the Enforcer.

  Everyone who was sane was terrified of him.

  And that was why Lucie wasn’t. She wasn’t sane. She was fucking nuts, and that was why we loved her.

  She smirked at him then hauled her daughter up and around. It was something both girls were used to, because Amaryllis instantly clasped her mom’s hip with her thighs, sitting there with a pout as she cuddled into her.

  “Seems you have a little protector,” Dagger whispered, his eyes glued to Amaryllis’s angry features.

  “Born and raised in her parents’ image,” Flame agreed. “You always were so angry. I wonder why Ryan didn’t rub off on her more.” He had a point considering Ryan had been the most chilled of us all, relaxed to the point of always being horizontal.

  “He did,” Lucie stated, but this time, the words were sad and her eyes were haunted. “In so many ways that it’s a joy to see now.”

  “She love reading?”

  Her gulp told me that was a yes.

  “What about the piano? He teach her that?”

  She nodded.

  “We always gave him shit for that piano,” Flame whispered, and I didn’t even have it in me to slap him upside the head for cursing.

  It was true.

  Ryan wasn’t the average brother of an MC.

  Sure, he’d earned his patches like any prospect had to, and with a knife? Fuck, he made Cujo look like he killed clean. But he played the piano thanks to his grandmother who’d insisted boys learn that and ballroom dancing of all fucking things, and he’d done more than just graduate high school—he’d been clever enough to head off to college if he’d wanted.

  But he hadn’t.

  Unlike most of us, Ryan hadn’t been raised in the MC.

  He’d come from the regular world. His parents were churchgoers, his mom stayed at home and raised the kids, and his dad worked at a boring insurance job. They were older though. Ryan had been a late baby, and when his dad had died the day before he was due to claim his work pension and they’d refused his mom’s petition?

  That was it.

  He’d lost his shit, and that was when he’d become a prospect for the Hell’s Rebels.

  Of course, by that point, he’d known us since kindergarten, and if we hadn’t influenced him already, it hadn’t been for lack of trying. But what regular old society had done for his family had taught him that this way of life was better.

  You made your own luck in this world, and you did it with a family of three hundred at your back.

  “Why are you here now, Lucie? Why not two months ago?” Dagger’s question was softly posed, and Lucie pursed her lips as she pressed them into Amaryllis’s hair.

  “After he… went away, things were tough.” From the pain in her face, that was an understatement. “Then it took some time to close up our lives in Lubbock. Ryan had bought us a house and I had to sell it. Then there was just…” She blew out a breath. “I had a life to settle, but I was always coming home. I wanted to bring him back before, Bomber be damned, but Ryan wasn’t—”

  “Ryan wasn’t what?”

  “He’d been told there was nothing more that could be done, and moving him wasn’t going to be good for him.”

  “He’d have been with his family.”

  She shook her head. “He was with his family, and truthful
ly, he needed peace and quiet. Not raves every Saturday night, and weed in the air all the time. But I’d still have come if he wanted. He didn’t, though. He was happy where he was.”

  Her critique wasn’t wrong, but it did make me frown at her.

  “Why come at all if it’s so crappy here?” Wolfe snapped at her, still on his knees, the joints still burrowed in the gravel from where he’d dropped down to come face to face with Amaryllis.

  There was fire in her eyes, fire that was more than enough to match the heat of Flame’s, as she stated, “I’ve come back to my rightful place. You’re the Prez, but I always should have been the heiress.” She smirked. “It’s time we started working together. As a team.”

  2

  Lucie

  They gaped at me because they knew I was serious.

  Deadly.

  And they knew that if they laughed, then just as I’d done with the prospect, I’d make them pay for it.

  Wolfe, because he was the biggest asshole, ground out first, “You have to be joking.”

  “No. Do I look like I just dropped a punch line?”

  “The men won’t answer to a woman.”

  “Behind every strong man is a strong woman.” I smiled at him. “I’m here to be your old lady, Wolfe. You should never have married that slut—yeah, Ryan and I heard about Kim.” God, I’d always hated that tramp. “You knew you were mine. Always was, always will be.” I cut them all a look, one that said they were all mine.

  Each of them.

  Once upon a time, there’d been five. Now there were four, and though the hole Ryan left behind was a gaping wound in my heart, it was time I took back my life.

  Took back what was rightfully mine.

  After months of grieving, of not being the mother I should be to Ama—something that would shame me until my dying day—it was time for me to hold onto the reins once more.

  Wolfe snarled, but before he could say a word or, ya know, probably insult me, Dagger punched him in the shoulder. “Shut the fuck up, Wolfe, before you wreck this before it even has a chance to begin,” he snapped, and I didn’t bother telling him not to curse. Amaryllis was used to curse words, but she knew not to say them herself.