Before I Wake: A Kimber S. Dawn MC Novel

by Kimber S. Dawn

“I’m sorry, brother.” Gordy’s voice pulls me from my racing thoughts, and I try so hard to focus on it. “I talked to the guy in charge at the coroner. That’s why I’m here instead of on I-95, hightailing it out of here. Getting the hell away from you, like I should. If I were smart, like the rest of the guys. If I didn’t respect the fuck out of you. Out of your pops. Because of the NNNC brotherhood he and my father created. The one we’re evolving as we speak! I wouldn’t still be here. But I am, as it stands. And I’m sorry, Ben...but Rox.” His throat wobbles before he swallows. Hard. Then he shakes his head.

  After he awkwardly steps forwards and hugs me, slapping me on the back, he mutters, “You have my number, Bentley. You know how to reach me, yeah?” Then he steps away and turns to leave.

  “Say it, you pussy,” I growl, pain slicing through me as the realization of my life and living it alone dawns… “Say she’s fucking dead. Tell me he fucking killed her. Tell me HOW he fucking killed her!” I shout, spit flying off my lips while I lose the little bit of regard I’ve reserved for myself up to this point. Up until this moment, when I’m forced to acknowledge the truth. That Rox and I may not make it out of this. We’re not gonna get to the end of this story with both of us together, safe, and happy.

  Suddenly, making it to the end doesn’t seem as important as it did just moments before. Not if Roxy isn’t in the equation, anyway. And, for me, even before I knew the truth about Eden, Rox was always in the equation. Her roles may have changed, or I may have moved her around in my life. But she was always supposed to be there. Here, in the end...I always planned on Rox being here with me.

  “But, now, she’s not,” I whisper as tears blur my vision, looking up at the only friend I have left in the world. “She’s not okay like Jacques said. Is she?” My voice wavers, and it causes me to wince. But, despite the pain, I need him to tell me the truth. “Is. She?” I bark, growling out the last word.

  “No. I’m sorry, Ben. She’s not okay. And, yes, your brothers at SOS are responsible. They’re responsible for her torture and her subsequent death. I’m not certain whose hands she died at, but...it was her. In the casket. No matter what Jacques Cain says, it was her, man.” He shakes his head before finally leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  Not that it helps. Not that any of it does.

  I snort before slumping into the recliner off to the side in the living room. “Nope, none of it matters. Not anymore,” I mutter, pulling my phone from my back pocket. After I’ve pulled up Clutch’s number, I try to bob the crazy onslaught of thoughts that accosts my fragile mind frame.

  For the first time since Rox stopped me from doing something stupid—like marrying my sister—and since I saw her step out of her black, jacked-up Jeep and glance over her shoulder before smiling as she brought her hand up to her face to block the sun’s glare, I realize I truly am alone this time. And there’s not even anything left to fight for. Not without Rox…

  I concede. Bowing out a bit early—I, too, concur. But it’s at this juncture that I see no other way. Nor did I when I initially decided to come here, I think. At least on some level. I knew King or Jacques or one of the other chapters’ presidents would wise up, remember the first place I stashed Eve, and come back to double-check.

  Had I known it was gonna be both King and Jacques, however, I’d have at least made sure my Glocks were within reach. But I didn’t have time. And I wonder if Eve and her kid had time. I wonder if they got the time mine and Eden’s kid didn’t.

  I’d know the sound of Jacques’s bike any-fucking-where. The one I don’t recognize, I instantly assume is King’s, as it doesn’t sound like anything that’s ever come out of Jacques’s garage. And the only other bikes he’s been playing with besides his own are DDDs.

  Other than the two bikes, I don’t hear anyone else pull up. No other cars, no trucks, no vans. After their wheels steady to a stop on the gravel, I hear both men slowly step off their bikes. Then I hear whispering, and someone snaps.

  When the front door slams open, the setting sun shines through, blinding me and everything in the room for a split second. Then I hear the sound of bullets being loaded into a chamber just before I smell and taste gunpowder. My ears feel as though they’re going to split open when the bullets begin cutting through the air.

  But, somehow...someway, I must've been wrong all this time. Because not a single bullet so much as grazes me. I always assumed that there was no God. There was no Satan—well, I mean other than my dad, I suppose. And my uncle Arch. I’ve always believed there was no punishment or reward for doing it right or wrong here on Earth. And maybe...I might have been wrong. Especially seeing as about a hundred bullets just entered before tearing through this room and not one of them hit me. Coincidence? I don’t believe so.

  If it isn’t my father’s saving grace, which I highly doubt, it must be Roxy’s. And a split second later, that thought spurs me from my seat, and I slink around the corner before crawling down the basement stairs.

  In search of the hidden tunnel behind the utility sink. It’s small, but it will work. At least unless they smoke me out.

  One Year Later:

  I believe I once told you that it’s funny how time only flies by when everything seems so perfect that it’s still. Time, I’m finding since life settled down after I’d had Apple, is just as precious as each passing second we live in. We just don’t realize how much so until it’s already passed.

  I can’t explain to you where the time went…

  I can’t explain to you how Apple went from struggling to hold her head up and nurse, to crawling, then to walking just a few short weeks ago. I just simply…can’t. Much like I can’t explain how I once thought this, being a mother, was such a bad idea. For me. The last of the unwanted thought settles around me.

  I can’t help but giggle as my daughter wobbles after the balloons my pops filled his hotel lobby with for the celebration of his first granddaughter’s first birthday. Apple’s long, black curls bounce like little springs as she hops, trying to catch the purple string attached to the yellow balloon.

  “Maman, want it! I want it. Pweese!” Her sweet little cheeks puff out when she pokes her red, pouty bottom lip out. Her navy eyes cast downward before looking back up into my mine.

  My pops taught her the proper Cajun term for momma before she first started babbling baby talk, and it stuck, I guess you could say.

  “I’ll be you vewy best friend, Maman. Pweese catch him for me.” Her chubby finger points at the balloon.

  But it isn’t necessary for me to do as she asked. Like most things where my father is concerned, not much is—necessary from me, that is. Other than build my client list by coloring and cutting damn good hair in the salon he, Jacques, and Dreads renovated for me.

  My father stepped in like a true-blue pops-in-shining-armor once he returned almost a month after Apple and I had settled into the top floor of his hotel. Which was my pops’s floor—all of it. At his insistence, he had his prospects remodel his living quarters prior to when Apple and I were discharged from the hospital. The damn pale-lavender paint in her room off to the side of mine was still wet when I slowly entered the place we’d call home for the next few months, a sleeping Apple cradled in my arms. I could barely catch my breath as I took in the final product of my father’s love and his club members’ hard work.

  The lengths my pops had gone to—the lengths he continues to go to—still makes my little broken heart squeeze with appreciation. Aside from Grams, I’ve never had anyone who truly loved me for me. Who truly wanted to care for me no matter how much of a burden I was.

  I still can’t explain Jacques’s involvement in my salon, however. King says that it’s because Dreads needed a place to sling ink while Ben was still MIA. And Jacques said that it was ’cause he had another Eve’s Apple Salon opening four months after mine had its ribbon-cutting ceremony. Which makes absolutely no sense to me even now. Why would you name a salon something you want to have in NYC as your own? Why replicate the
vintage 1920s look my salon boasts? Why take my second baby, the hair salon I’ve poured my ideas and dreams into day in and day out while I waited for Apple to get ready to be born in the hospital? Why take all of that and recreate it in the place I used to call home? When I’m trying to build a new one away from it in New Orleans? Dreads can’t go back to doing tattoos at the MC when Ben is finally found? He likes doing it next to my salon in the vintage tattoo parlor?

  No, he doesn’t. I smirk, thinking of Dreads bitching about the foil-headed women who stand in front of his tattoo place, peeking in while they smoke as their hair processes.

  Then a bigger smile crosses my face when my pops sweeps into the room and snatches the balloon from the air before handing it to Apple. It dawns on me how similar he is to Grams when I hear him tell Apple, “Here, sweet pea.”

  A giggle escapes my lips when she squeals in delight just before running towards him and crawling up into his lap the balloon still in tow.

  “You da best! Maman, my pops da best, huh?!”

  I stand and make my way towards my pops, praying that my sweet, young daughter doesn’t see my eyebrows slightly furrow or the sad expression marring my face. “Grand-père isn’t your pops, sweet girl. He’s my pops.” My smile falters when her confused face looks up from where King is tying the balloon’s string around her wrist.

  “What her say?” She looks back at him.

  “Nothing, ma cher bebe. Nothing at all.” My pops glances from my daughter to his, and then black eyes settle on mine. “Apple’s cake just arrived. The chefs have it downstairs in the kitchen. Did you want to give it a look-over before the guests begin arriving?” He smiles at Apple when she pulls a little box from the inside of his suit jacket.

  Then she squeals again and claps her little hands around the small box, I cut my eyes at my father.

  “What else did you get her? What’s that, Pops? Gift number ten now?” I chuckle as I head towards the exit. “Mmm hmm. No, old man. You’re not going to spoil her or anything. Didn’t we just discuss this last night? Dad, you do too much. Really.”

  “It’s ’cause I can. And you’re mine, so I will, yeah? As long as I’m able to. You’re my family, Eve. You and Apple. When will you understand that? I love you. Both.”

  Once I’m at the room’s exit, I turn, placing a hand on the frame and. “I know you do, Pops. And I’m trying to learn.”

  He clasps the small, gold bracelet around my daughter’s chubby wrist next to the balloon string, and by the time her face lights up and looks up at her grand-père before thanking him, the smile on my face is just as bright as hers.

  She doesn’t mention him. Jacques. In case you were wondering.

  She doesn’t mention the absence of her father. And, to be completely honest, even I don’t know how I feel about the lack of subject. This won’t last forever. As long as she’s with me, I’m either here at father’s hotel or at my salon, and I can distract her, she won’t notice. But then what happens in four years?

  What happens when she starts school? What happens when she’s around other children? What happens when my father’s money and my affection are no longer enough to distract her from the fact that she doesn’t have a father like the other kids do? What then? I was raised as a child without parents, and I don’t want the same for my own. And the older she gets, the more I try and cozy up to the idea that maybe Ty and Phil are right…

  Maybe I should give Beau a chance. He’s been after me for a date since about a month after Apple and I moved back to my pops’ club. And no, I really didn’t mean to sound like a complete and utter bitch when I responded to Beau’s question when he called last night.

  But I’d just gotten into bed after getting Apple to sleep. And I was dog tired. No, I was more tired than dog tired. I was dead-dog tired after ten hours on my feet, doing hair. I hadn’t planned on how much time on my feet it’d take for me to get a successful salon started! I’d hardly gotten the T-shirt over my head after my shower and laid down when Beau’s number lit my iPhone up at nine thirty. Which is way past my bedtime.

  “’Lo?” I answered with the shortened version of the word hello like I’d heard Jacques do a hundred times. I hate how he keeps popping into my daily thoughts. Almost as much as I hate that I keep doing shit that reminds me of him.

  “Hey. Eve?” Beau said, his beautiful Cajun lulled voice reaching my ear through the phone

  I sighed, remembering Ty squawk our entire lunch break earlier that day about how fine Beau Landry is. “Beau, it’s late. Why are you calling me? Much less at this late hour?” I couldn’t help but give him a hard time. He’s one of my father’s youngest patched-in members. Surely, he expected it. “How many times do I have to threaten to tell my pops you won’t leave me alone?” I snickered at my horrid excuse of flirting, but his deep voice stilled the chuckle when he responded.

  “I’ll leave you alone when it’s meant as more than a threat. I’ll leave you alone, Eve…” He dragged out the first E in my name. “When you fucking really want me to. Until then, I’m not gonna stop comin’ for ya till you’re mine. Understood, pretty lady?” His laugh sends goose bumps across my skin.

  But I narrowed my thoughts on my priorities. Cutting to the matter at hand, I said, “Right. You keep saying that.” I coughed to clear my throat. “Umm…I’m sorry. Did you say why you called? I’m tired, Beau. I just got in from work…” I hoped that one complaint was enough and I wouldn’t have to provide any more.

  Score. He picked the conversation up. “I just wanted to ask if you’d be my date tomorrow. To little Apple’s first birthday. It’d be an absolute honor, pretty Eve. Please. At least think about it. I can hang up and call back in a few hours...err, tomorrow morning. To see what your answer is, if that’s okay?”

  “Umm…” I muttered, hesitating while quickly trying to come up with a reason why. Why he was so persistent and why I was so...not interested. At all.

  “Never mind. You already said it was too late. I’ll ring you in the mornin’, pretty lady, yeah?”

  And then the line went dead. That was it.

  I knew he probably fancied me. Hell, he’d made comments when I was pregnant and just beginning to show. What I wasn’t prepared for was his insistence when I wasn’t pregnant anymore. It’s like, as soon as Apple was old enough and could sleep in her own crib in her own room, he just decided he wanted me as his old lady—and he would stop at nothing until I was.

  Although he hasn’t gone to my pops yet. And, until that happened, not a word he says will be taken with more than a grain of salt. But, between you and me, I would like to start moving forward…

  I would like a father figure in Apple’s life. I’d actually like that role filled, the more I think about it. I’d like to find that someone for myself as well. And, even with all the new people and living in a new state, it’s still hard to meet people. But that’s mostly ’cause Dreads stays up my ass twenty-four-seven. And, when it’s not him, it’s usually Ty situated there.

  It gets uncomfortable—not having the alone time like I used to. I’ll admit that.

  My face, I’m sure, lights up when I walk into my father’s ostentatious excuse of a kitchen. The gold veining the stark-white marble is extravagant, to say the very least. But Apple’s first birthday cake themed after her favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz, proudly standing on top of the center baking island in the kitchen pulls my attention back towards the importance of today versus the hurdles of tomorrow. Which is also the time Ty saunters into the room from the door on the opposite side from where I entered.

  “Hey, dove! Where’s my baby squab at?”

  “Squab?” I spit in a harsh tone, interrupting his usual dramatics right when he enters a room. Then I laugh.

  He looks as though he’s tasted something bitter. “Squab? Like the baby dove? It isn’t a cute word, is it? Damn, when will I find the right nickname for that child? She’s a year old! The hell did you have to name her after a lame-ass fruit like Apple for? I’ll neve
r know.” He brushes away what I assume is imaginary dirt from his shoulders before settling next to me. He scans the cake I was assessing when he came in. “This the baby girl’s cake?” He jerks his chin towards it, and I nod. “Wizard of Oz? Really, dove? You couldn’t get any more damn gay?”

  I cover my mouth with my hand, and laughter spills out behind it. “That’s not PC. Or something... You’re not supposed to say shit like that, Ty.” I continue laughing even though he doesn’t.

  “No,” he simply states around my giggles. “You can’t.” Then he nods towards the cake. “It’s cute as hell, as gay as it is. And I wouldn’t want it any other way. That child’s just as much mine as she is yours. As far as I’m concerned, anyway. Where’s the lil’ chick at?”

  He and I sample one of the petit fours surrounding the cake resembling the yellow brick road.

  “Now, she’s little chick, huh? What’s wrong with ‘baby girl’?” I ask around heaven melting on my tongue and then literally moan.

  “I like it too. But don’t you think it sounds…I don’t know, so blah?” He takes the bite my fork. “God, this is good. This yellow cake?”

  “Blah? How? No—and it’s a petit fours.” I laugh before wiping the icing from his chin as Dreads makes his first appearance of the day.

  “Good mornin’, Sir Ty. Miss Eve.” He tips his imaginary hat before walking to the fridge and opening it. After guzzling half the gallon of milk straight from the carton, he wipes his mouth with his wrist and sets it back in the fridge. Then he closes the fridge door. “Oh, shit.” He reopens the door, pulls the milk back out, and heads to where Ty and I are standing. “I forgot!” He laughs before his big paw tries to swipe a piece of yellow-brick-road cake. Or petit fours. “Kids under three can’t remember shit. So we can eat their cake before—“

  I press the cake cutter licked clean of icing against his wrist, and he screams.

  “Ouch! The hell. Fine. Sorry!” After putting the milk back in the fridge, he slams the door shut. Then he spins back around, facing us again. “Thought it was fucking cake time. What are y’all in here doing in here anyway?” His eyes narrow before he looks back and forth between Ty and me.