Shit like that mattered when you had a woman and a child.
She cuddled into him, letting him prop her up as he slipped one hand around her waist, then reached for the bottle of Patrón that was doing the rounds. As he took a sip, I cocked a brow when I realized his trusty lighter wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity.
“What is it?” he asked, tilting his head to the side as he stared at me.
“Nothing,” I replied, not wanting to raise the subject when it wasn’t necessary. I just hadn’t seen him without that damn thing for… fuck. Years. I wasn’t even sure how often he filled the damn thing, but it was constantly being flicked on and off.
“You okay, baby doll?” Flame inquired, pressing his mouth to her ear. He had to speak over the music, so that was the only reason I heard him.
She sighed. “Amaryllis had another nightmare.”
I frowned. “Another one?” I hadn’t been aware of the first, but seemed like Flame was…
When had that happened?
“She’ll be okay, sweetheart.”
“I know she will. I just… I don’t want her to be like I was.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I lost my mom, it wasn’t just her running off. It was like my dad eradicated her. I mean, it makes sense now, but back then it didn’t. I don’t talk about Ryan that much because it hurts, but I don’t want her to forget him, or for her to feel like she can’t talk about him. You know?”
I didn’t, but I could piece shit together. “Maybe we could talk about him? Like, how he was when he was growing up?”
She licked her lips and peered at us through her lashes. It was weird seeing this side of her. Little Lucie was all grown up, but her maturity level was beyond anything I could have expected. In some small way, we were all still big kids around the MC. Sure, we had deadly responsibilities, but we fucked who we wanted, drank when we wanted, smoked, partied, and lived life in the fast lane as we roared down highways at speeds that would have us arrested if the local PD wasn’t in our pocket.
Lucie had been reared among that, but she’d changed. Motherhood had made her responsible.
“You’d do that? For us?”
My brow puckered. “I’d do anything for you, darlin’.”
Her jaw clenched for a second, then she shook her head. “Why didn’t you believe me all those years ago?”
She might as well have grabbed my dagger and stabbed it in my thigh.
I cut a look around the orgy going on behind us and with a sigh, murmured, “Come on, let’s go outside, yeah?”
She shrugged, but I could see the hurt in her eyes. Saw it and wanted to scream at myself for having put it there.
This was not a conversation I wanted to have, but it was one that was way past its due.
❖
Axe
“Lucie’s back.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose as I spoke.
“Lucifer? Bomber’s daughter?” my mother squeaked.
“Yeah.” When she fell silent, didn’t utter another word, I murmured, “Momma?”
She sighed. “You and she always were like fire together.”
Christ, if only she knew. There was no way I could tell her about us sharing Lucie. No way, no how. After my pop had died, momma had turned against the MC, staying long enough for me to turn eighteen before moving over to Jacksonville.
My once sweetbutt momma had married a minister of all people. It surprised me to this day that she maintained contact with me, but I guess that was part of her new creed now—turning the other cheek and all that shit.
I wasn’t a believer, but I wasn’t about to dump on her beliefs either. I was grateful for the contact, grateful because I loved her and wanted to be a part of her life, even if that amounted to nothing more than a phone call every few weeks.
“We were… she came back with my daughter,” I told her hesitantly. I was always careful around her, careful not to upset her. After what had happened to my father? My momma had had a kind of nervous breakdown, and hadn’t kept shit together well at all.
It had turned into a habit that I spoke to her like she was glass that was on the brink of shattering. When she sucked down a sharp breath, I winced and awaited the fallout.
“She kept that from you all these years?” Jacinda snapped, surprising me with her anger.
“Wasn’t like she could keep me in the loop, momma, was it?” I chided. “Anyway, I don’t want to focus on the past. I’m focusing on the future.”
She harrumphed. “It’s the Lord’s work that you can forgive her, I suppose.”
That made me cringe but I just mumbled, “Yeah, sure. How’s Brian?”
“He’s fine. Having trouble with his knees again.”
“Should tell him to stop playing golf.”
My dad would be rolling around in his grave if he knew his old lady was married to someone who played fucking golf. Jesus.
“He won’t, plus, it’s good exercise for him.”
I kept the subject light and was relieved when someone rang her doorbell and she had to leave the call earlier than usual.
“Don’t know why you bother,” Wolfe grunted.
Twisting around to look at him, I saw he’d made himself comfortable in the doorway to my room as he listened in.
“She’s my mother. Shouldn’t I at least try?” It was a mostly rhetorical question because I was the only one of us that actually maintained some contact with my surviving parent.
He snorted. “Some mother. Left the second she could. Plus, I bet she don’t wanna meet Amaryllis.”
That had me tensing, but I wasn’t about to get defensive. Not with Wolfe. He was my brother. No, he hadn’t popped out of my mother, but to me, he might as well have.
“No. She didn’t mention a visit.”
“And she wouldn’t. She’s stuck in the Twilight Zone over in Jacksonville with that creep of a husband of hers.”
I pulled a face. “We don’t know he’s a creep.”
“Fucker looks like a serial killer.”
That had me laughing. “We’d know.”
He grunted. “True. Surprised she didn’t harp on about you marrying Lucie.”
I shrugged. “She wasn’t interested.”
“Never is. Selfish bitch.” He grunted again. “None of us were all that lucky where family was concerned, were we?”
“No, but that’s why we’re close. We made our own family.” And I wasn’t just talking about within the MC.
I watched him from my position on the bed. He stalked past me, over to the sofa, and passed the Fender guitar that was leaning against the wall to peer out at the grounds beyond.
“What’s up?” I asked him quietly, knowing he’d only shown up because he wanted to talk.
I was pretty much Wolfe’s sounding board. The man was capable of a lot of reason, but sometimes, he liked to talk shit out.
“Surprised today happened is all.”
“Me, too.” Lucie had come back all guns blazing, but she’d shown a side of herself that I hadn’t anticipated. I was grateful for it, but surprised nonetheless. “Glad, though.”
He sighed, pressed his forehead to the glass, and mumbled, “She ain’t gonna let me stay behind these walls.”
I knew he meant metaphorically. “That’s on you. Not her.”
“Bullshit. You know what she’s like.”
“Yeah. I do. I guess I’m glad she hasn’t changed though. Always was a tornado. Always was willing to wreck shit to fix shit.”
Wolfe snorted. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“You okay, brother?” I tried again, trying to get him to talk about the reason he’d barged in the way he had.
“Ama’s messing with my head. Won’t let me get close to her.” He sucked down a breath. “Lucie’s got me all rattled too. Crap used to be simple and now it’s all over the place. Then there’s the shit with the council. We’re behind on too much, need to get on track thanks to those fucking Knights.”
“No
point in sweating over it. We’re allowed a personal life, Wolfe.”
“Not in the middle of a war,” he rasped, rearing back to press the base of his palms into his eyes. “Here’s me talking like a pussy.”
“You ain’t,” I assured him. “You called it, Wolfe. You’re talking like someone who’s rattled. She’s shaken us all, man. Stirred everything up until we don’t know what’s up or what’s down. Plus,” I said on a sigh, “there’s the situation with Kid to think about.”
Wolfe’s jaw tensed. “Can’t believe he’s dead.”
“I need to arrange his wake. Can’t believe we’re having to celebrate his life when he was one of the good ones, Wolfe. He should still be around, but he ain’t.” I rolled off the bed and headed over to him.
As we both stared into the darkness, I raised my arm and leaned against the wall. Beneath our feet, the hardwood floor rattled as the party going on down below throbbed.
I didn’t mind the noise, if anything, I was used to it but I knew Amaryllis wouldn’t be. Poor little thing. She’d gone from a regular old house to this madness.
“I’m just glad he kept them both safe,” Wolfe rasped, and I forced myself to focus on what he was saying.
“Me too.”
“We have a daughter, Axe. A fucking daughter,” he breathed. “When the fuck did that happen?”
“When we weren’t looking. I’m grateful she takes after him,” I replied quietly. “That way he’ll live on through her.”
He dipped his chin. “She looks like Tara.”
“That she does,” I agreed, then I cut him a look. “How’s that feel?”
He gulped. “Weird. Hard to believe. Makes me think about how I failed her.”
“Screw that. You didn’t make her get mixed up in drugs.”
“No. But still, makes me think I should have protected her more. Shouldn’t have let her get mixed up in that crowd.”
“Technically, that crowd wasn’t full of bad people, Wolfe. You know that, in the scheme of things, anyone who ran with us was considered the ‘bad ‘uns,’” I told him wryly. Not that Tara’s overdose was anything to joke about, but hell, Wolfe making himself feel like shit wasn’t going to get us anywhere.
“No, I guess not,” he said sadly.
“You know what you need?”
He turned, cocked a brow at me. “To stop being a pussy?”
I snorted. “No. You need to accept Lucie. Stop fucking around with this. Stop fighting it. She’s ours. Just let her have what she wants.”
“The club won’t—”
“The club’ll do shit,” I rasped. “She’s ours. Let’s make her fucking happy after making her fucking sad all these years.”
He clenched his jaw. “I need a smoke.”
I cocked a brow at him but didn’t fight him. He’d only take so much of my counsel. “Thought you quit.”
“I did, but I need something.” He sighed, then shot me a look. “I’m going outside. You coming with?”
“Nah. I got work to do.”
He hitched a shoulder then strolled across the room as silently as he’d come in. I wasn’t sure if that talk had cleared his head any but I hoped for all our sakes it had. Lucie wasn’t going to back down, neither were the rest of us. We knew what it was like to live without her, knew what it was like with her… he had a fight on his hands if he thought any of us were going to roll over and play dead.
❖
Lucie
Being around the clubhouse was confusing.
It hadn’t changed much since I was a kid, but it was different too because I saw things differently now.
Most of the kids didn’t live in, but I had. Wolfe, Flame, Dagger, and Axe had as well because their fathers were all Originals like my dad. When their pops had been shot up in a drug bust that happened when I was eight, and they were on the brink of turning fourteen, my dad had moved them and their mothers into the clubhouse for their safety, but also so he could rear them to take over their fathers’ positions on the council.
Back then, I hadn’t been allowed downstairs on a night, but they had. Though I’d known what was happening, seeing it was another matter entirely. I’d sneaked down and happened to see Wolfe getting sucked off by a sweetbutt one night, while another rode his mouth.
He’d been sixteen at the time, and my heart had nearly exploded in my chest with jealousy at the sight.
I’d only been eleven, but shit like that stuck with a person. We were all used to sex. It was everywhere. Unavoidable. And I’d never had a problem with it until now. Until I was a mother myself.
I didn’t want Amaryllis growing up around this shit.
I wanted her to know the clubhouse, because it was an intrinsic part of the life, but I didn’t want her walking in on shit no child should see.
The common room was a huge space, large enough to fit over two hundred people. It could have been a fucking ballroom if we were the kind to throw galas instead of goddamn raves.
Originally two rooms, my dad had knocked down the connecting wall so it was two rectangles joined together at the top left on one and bottom right corner on the other. One rectangle housed the bar and the pool table. There was the framework of a hog on the wall, and there were a shit ton of pictures of the old days on there. Some in black and white, others in color—anything from past parties to funerals, and even the odd biker wedding.
The floor was gross. My feet stuck to the wooden boards, but everywhere else was kind of clean. The counter was scarred and scratched, behind it were too many bottles of liquor, and three prospects manned it when they weren’t gaping at the strippers who I’d told to fuck off before I’d taken a seat next to Dagger.
In the other room, there was a mass of sofas and chairs. Mostly comfortable, but you sat on them at your own risk. The amount of DNA on there was enough to make me want to puke, but I knew the guys didn’t think anything of it.
For me, I just wanted to Lysol the fuck out of everything. Either that or burn it down and start fresh. Still, that wasn’t my place. Even when Wolfe claimed me as his, I wouldn’t be able to change how the MC worked. Not only because the men would never stand for it, but because I didn’t particularly want to.
This wasn’t for me. Even if my dad wasn’t my dad, even if he’d loathed me and had been waiting to get rid of me for years, I’d still been a princess in the rest of the MC’s eyes. This room was for sweetbutts and clubwhores, adventurous chicks who came in from Rutherford for a dirty night with a raunchy biker, and maybe the odd old lady who got off on the whole exhibitionism shit.
Princesses weren’t welcome in here.
Sure, tonight’s ‘welcome’ had been because of the poison my father had spewed about me, but it was also because women like me weren’t supposed to be in here.
That was a fact of life.
Sure, it chafed me, but also, I didn’t want to see bobbing asses, or tits and pussies belonging to strangers.
Call me weird, but I had four men of my own I’d need to be taking care of in the future—I figured that was enough.
As we stepped past a scene that was like the one I’d seen Wolfe take part in all those years ago, I averted my gaze as we headed out of the common room and into the main foyer.
From here, there were stairs to the upper levels and the bedrooms. Amaryllis was in one that we were sharing for now, but tomorrow, I was going to head into Rutherford and sort something out. I couldn’t stay here much longer, not without her being tainted by the place. She had enough shit to contend with without me adding to the strain on her.
I rubbed my forehead as I thought about my to-do list tomorrow, but I let Flame, who was by my side, shepherd me outside to the verandah that ran around the hotel.
There were swinging sofas that were attached to the porch’s roof, and I plunked myself down on one and stared out at the yard ahead. To the right, there were a hundred hogs all neatly lined up. To the left, there was a patchy lawn that held evidence of scorch marks from previous bonfire
s.
When my men sandwiched me on either side, I murmured, “I’m going to find somewhere to rent in town.”
They tensed, but Flame was the one who asked, “Why?”
“Because I don’t want Amaryllis seeing the shit I saw when I was growing up.”
“Didn’t do you any harm,” Dagger argued.
I snorted. “I love five men. You want her loving five brothers too?”
A hiss escaped Flame. “Fuck.” Then he grunted at Dagger, “You even spoken to her yet?”
My lips curved, because even though I wanted Amaryllis to start getting to know her fathers, I was also amused by their reactions. Flame, crazily enough, was the one who was most at ease with Ama. He didn’t talk much to her, but she didn’t seem to need him to speak. They just sat together in the family room, him flicking that fucking lighter as he watched cartoons, while Amaryllis played with dolls or read the books she loved.
Wolfe kept trying, but she kept snubbing him—something I’d have to work on with Amaryllis. Axe was a bit like Flame. He sort of hovered, watched cartoons and shit, but his silence wasn’t comfortable. I could see the words bubbling in his mouth. He wanted to speak with her, wanted to talk, just didn’t know how.
I hadn’t seen Dagger around our daughter, but because I knew him, I wasn’t offended.
Flame was particular about certain things, but he was also the most easygoing in some ways. Amaryllis was his daughter, and therefore, he’d sit with her. She didn’t have to like him, he didn’t have to like her. But they could just be together, him watching the TV and her reading because that was it. They were linked, tied intrinsically together.
It was a simplistic way of viewing the world, but Ama was young. I knew—for a fact, because it was how Flame had been with me when we were kids—that she’d get so used to Flame being there, her second shadow, that he’d seamlessly become a part of her days until she couldn’t actually think of one when he wasn’t there.
Dagger, on the other hand, wasn’t like that. He overthought shit, and his father had been a crappy role model. He’d beaten the fuck out of Dagger and his mom, and making friends had been hard for him. If it weren’t for the fact that they’d all been councilors’ sons, I wasn’t even sure if Dagger would have hung around the others.
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