“Not just yet.” Wizard nods to the enforcer.
As I retake my seat, it’s to see Throttle slicing off the patches, the ones I worked so hard to attain. Each stitch he methodically cuts through wounds me, though I don’t know why. He’s symbolically cutting me off from all that I’d previously wanted from my life. I’m a man without a home, with no anchor. I’ve nothing left.
It’s what I want.
Once the naked leather is on the table for all to see, Wizard instructs, “Leave us, Eli. Lady? Get a prospect to wait with him, please.”
Rock looks up and shakes his head, then points at me. “Get two.”
Drifter snorts.
Chapter Three
Olivia…
I knew something had been going on in Eli’s head, I just hadn’t known how grave it was and the far-reaching effect it was going to have on our lives.
Eli had always been there. There’s only a couple of months between us in age and we’ve been inseparable since then. Eli had been my companion, my first friend, my protector from the moment we could walk. He’d been the one to pick me up each time I’d fallen. I suppose it’s corny, but I never looked at anyone else. I’d always known he would be mine, that I’d marry him when we were old enough. My childish thoughts might have matured into those more fitting to an adult, but had never changed.
While similar to his father in so many ways, there was one major difference between Drummer and Eli. Drummer’s reputation for banging everything in sight had earned him his handle. He’d continued that way until he’d met Sam, Eli’s mother. After Eli had prospected and earned his patch, I had feared he might believe he had to live up to the family reputation. But he hadn’t. He stayed faithful to me. We’d lost our virginity to each other.
We live in a club where sex is all around us. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve walked in and seen men taking one or two girls, or two men taking one girl together. I’d grown up where fucking wasn’t just something done behind closed doors, it was a natural bodily function, nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone did it. Except when it came to the club kids, or, in particular, daughters of the club members.
Dad had been, and still was, the ultimate in overprotective fathers, knowing, as he put it himself, just what pigs men could be, and how little encouragement they’d need to take advantage. He’d have killed anyone, including Eli, who’d touched me or my sisters inappropriately. I’d been seventeen when I was first able to sneak off with Eli for sex. After that, we got together as often as we could, but had to hide from everyone that our relationship had moved to the next step. We were successful, or so it seemed, waiting another four years later until I gave up the pretence, and admitted it to my father. Two years on and I was pregnant which was when my dad figuratively and literally got the shotgun out.
Neither Eli nor I had minded. We were each other’s and always had been. Making it official was just one more step toward the rest of our lives, or so I had thought. We teamed up with Wizard and Amy, went to the altar and said our vows, a double wedding the likes of which the Satan’s Devils had never seen.
At first, Eli seemed over the moon about the pregnancy, as happy as I was myself. But as the months have passed, I’ve sensed him pulling away.
I’d thought it was me.
The good thing about living on the compound is that I always have family around me. Mom, Dad, and Zoey, Eliza and Hilda, my three sisters for a start. Then there are Drummer and Sam who are like second parents to me. Zane, my brother-in-law, Maya, Rose, Hope and all the other kids I’d grown up with. I can’t forget Amy, who’s three years older than me. There’s always someone to turn to, to talk to.
The bad thing about being here is that it’s like living in a goldfish bowl. Everyone knows your business, sometimes it seems even before you do.
Sometimes I wonder whether if Eli and I had lived different lives, would we have ended up together? Our marriage was seen as a fairy tale ending, a natural culmination of a love that we’d shared all our lives.
I know the other old ladies, and my siblings by proximity, all think it’s cute that while we’ve been brought up in an environment where sex was offered and taken freely, Eli and I have remained faithful.
I do feel pressure to maintain other people’s fantasy of a perfect life. So when the cracks started to appear in our marriage, I kept that to myself, maintaining the pretence that I couldn’t be happier. Even though as the weeks have passed since our wedding, it’s become increasingly hard.
No one was surprised that Eli and I became pregnant. It was only a matter of time. My mom had joked she’d expected it to have happened earlier, but I’d waited until I was twenty-five. Then came the wedding, and soon after, my relationship with Eli started to fall apart. Who could I blame but myself? Was I not enough for him any longer? Did he not want to be saddled with a wife and child?
This afternoon’s conversation had been a revelation. It had been a relief to be told Eli being closed off had nothing to do with me, but was down to the last thing I expected. His unhappiness stemmed from disillusionment with his club.
I’d been gobsmacked—the word used by my mom is the only way to describe it.
That he’d disappeared before we could have a decent discussion and left me hanging, but every Wednesday the members congregate for church. I knew he had to leave and attend it.
But as he’d walked out of the door to go to the meeting, I was left not knowing what to think. My first reaction was sadness, that he’d gotten to this point and I hadn’t seen it coming. The second was fear. This club is all we’ve known all our lives.
My only experience of life off the compound was when I’d attended school and that was only a few hours a day, five days a week during the school terms. And even there, club children tended to stick together, mingling with citizens not discouraged, but why spend breaks with people who didn’t understand your way of life?
Now the very thought of living among citizens and not having the support of family around me is so scary it takes my breath away.
In three months we’ll become three. How could I cope with a baby without my mom living so close? Or without Sam, and the rest of the women here?
Our baby will be the first of the next generation born on the compound, but will be joined by Wizard and Amy’s only three months further down the line. I’d thought our children would grow up together, just like Eli and I had. The thought that we won’t be living in close proximity is soul destroying.
The third emotion I feel is anger. A blast of rage that he hasn’t considered me overcomes me. How dare he make such decisions on his own, ones which will have such a far reach for our little family?
It seems he’s given no thought that soon we’ll have a baby to feed, while having nowhere to live, and perhaps no means to put food on our table.
Perhaps he’d lied. Perhaps, despite what he’d said, his unhappiness was down to me. Perhaps when he leaves, he’ll go alone leaving me behind. Because I’ve become baggage he no longer wants.
Have we been growing so far apart without me knowing how serious it was?
“Olivia?” my mom calls from my kitchen.
“In here.” I realise I’m still holding one of his clean shirts and place it down on the rest of the laundry I’ve taken out of the drier.
“Olivia? Are you? Oh, Ollie.” Mom’s arms come around me. “He’s a bloody wanker.”
My eyes go wide as I sob into her chest then pull away and take a deep breath. “You know already?”
“Yeah, we do. Want one of your disgusting decafs?” Eli’s mom’s voice comes from the kitchen.
This is part of why I love living on the compound. We might live in separate houses, but our doors are never locked, and people treat each one as their own home. Sure, it can be a bit embarrassing at times—it wouldn’t only be the once Mom’s walked in when Eli’s been thrusting home. Or me interrupting her with Wraith. I’d had to bleach my eyeballs on that occasion. But when one of us is
hurting, everyone rallies around.
“Yeah, thanks, Sam,” I call back. With Mom’s arm around me, I walk to the kitchen, unsurprised to see Sam’s got three cups prepared. Proper coffee for her, decaf for me, and a tea for my still-after-all-these-years very British mom who hasn’t forgotten her origins.
Mom picks up her cup, then puts it back down realising it’s too hot to sip. She waves to the kitchen table. “Spill. What’s going on with Hawk?”
“What do you know?” I take the offensive, not feeling ready to have this discussion, not overly eager to dissect what a failure as a wife I am.
Sam shrugs. “Not a lot.” She eyes me carefully. “Drummer and Wraith spoke to us for a couple of minutes before disappearing into church. They said they thought Eli might have spoken to you about something that might upset you. They wanted you to have support, if he has.” She waves her hands. “Looks like they were right.”
I hadn’t wanted to speak to anyone until I’d processed Eli’s revelations myself. Now they’ve confronted me, it all spills out. “You mean that brief conversation where he told me he wanted to leave the club and live off compound? Yeah.”
“Jesus!” Mom cries. “It’s true. I was hoping Wraith was wrong.”
Sam looks more resigned, as though she’d been more convinced by Drummer. “I’m so sorry, Ollie.”
“It’s worse than that,” I admit. “Mom, Sam, I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t want to leave…”
Sam gives me a sharp look. “He may be my son, but you’ve always meant as much to me as a daughter of my own, Olivia.”
“I’d have said I looked on Eli as my son,” my mom remarks. “Though now I might just have to disown him.”
“He’s an asshole. Your place is here, where you’ve always lived. His too.” Sam purses her lips. “What the hell has gotten into him?” She sits, pulling me down beside her and takes one of my hands in hers. “How have things been between the two of you?”
I press my lips together. There are things you can’t say to your mom and mother-in-law. I can’t tell them he’s not touched me for weeks, or that I’ve been walking on eggshells around him. “Fine,” I lie. “He’s been a bit preoccupied, but I thought that had something to do with club business.” Both women roll their eyes and nod sympathetically. “But to find out it’s his feelings about the club?” I continue, “This has hit like a bombshell. I hadn’t a clue what he was thinking.”
A tear runs down my cheek. I wipe it away, uncertain whether the man I’m crying for deserves it. The man I’ve known all these years, well, I’d have said he does, but tonight I was faced with someone new. Someone I didn’t feel I knew at all. Had there been signs that I’d been ignoring, that my fairy tale life was already broken?
“Oh, sweetheart.” Mom sits to my other side. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I can’t believe it,” Sam says. “He’s not acting like the son I brought up.”
“Is it the baby?”
“Maybe it is,” I answer Mom softly. “Perhaps Eli’s been pulling away ever since I found out I was pregnant.” Previously, we’d both been insatiable, but while my appetite for sex has increased, Eli’s has diminished. I had told myself it was because he was scared of harming the baby, but maybe it was something else? Maybe he didn’t want me as his wife anymore. Maybe my pregnancy belly is a turn-off. It clearly isn’t a turn-on.
Mom looks annoyed, but Sam looks confused. “Eli always spoke about eventually having a family with you,” she tells me. “I can’t believe my son would walk away now. And from what you said, he wants to leave the club, not you. Will you go with him? You know you’d be welcome to stay here if you want.”
The direct question—me having to confront a decision I won’t want to make—has me flinging myself at my mom, tears flooding again now, and me unable to stop them. “I don’t want to leave,” I wail. “I want to stay here, close to you two, close to everyone else. The compound is all I’ve ever known for the whole of my life. How will I survive without it?”
“Then stay,” Mom says firmly. “That Eli wants to leave has nothing to do with you. You’re club, Olivia, with or without him.”
I do have that choice. I won’t be ostracised just because my husband has left me. But all my life, my fortunes have been intertwined with his. If he still wants me, how could I abandon him?
“If he does leave, I’ll have to go with him,” I sob. “I promised to love him, to support him, through good times and bad. Unless he doesn’t want me with him, I don’t see how I can do anything else.”
Sam’s eyes soften. “Leaving the club is serious, Ollie. He won’t be welcome back.” The sadness in her eyes shows she knows she’ll be losing a son if he throws in his patch. Or, at least, have a very different relationship with him. I feel sorry for her as well. “If you go with him, remember, you can always come back if you need to. You’ll always have a place with us here.”
I raise my head enough to send her a grateful look. When Drummer was prez, she was the first old lady. Now Amy’s married Wizard, Amy’s taken that place now, but Sam still speaks with authority.
But to not go with my husband, or to rely on the safety net they’ve just offered me, means I’m not putting effort into making my marriage work. It might be a shock, but I have to deal with it. I married Eli for better or worse, for the bad times as well as the good. My place is with him, without question. I’m just scared as I can’t envision what a life off compound would even look like.
“You’ll always be welcome here,” Mom starts. “Even if you move away, you can visit all the time.”
But if Eli’s intent on building a new life, isn’t that what I should also be doing? When the baby’s born, I should join a mom’s group or something. Find new friends who don’t live and breathe the scent of leather and motorcycles. But where would I start? Even at school I’d found it hard to form friendships with people who didn’t understand our lifestyle. Citizens tended to be nervous around those picked up on motorcycles.
Though if we leave, it won’t be my lifestyle any longer.
I pull away from the comforting arms of my mother and blot my tears once again. Maybe if he sees I’m so worried about leaving, he’ll change his mind and stay. Or at least, put off any decision until after the baby’s born. Perhaps, instead of giving in and letting him have everything his way, there’s a chance I can stop this happening.
“I need to talk to him,” I say decisively. “This has come out of the blue. Maybe I can change his mind. He could step down as VP, but stay in the club.” I start to stand, but Mom pulls me back down.
“Olivia.” Sam comes over and kneels in front of me. My attention is caught by the serious look in her eyes, and the wetness that threatens to fall from them. “Listen to me, will you?” When I raise and dip my head, she continues, her eyes hardening slightly as befits the ex-first old lady, “Remember what this club is about. It’s about respect and loyalty. When Eli accepted that patch, he vowed allegiance to the Satan’s Devils. If he turns his patch in, it will be seen as a sign of disloyalty. The brothers won’t be able to trust him anymore.”
I nod once again. “That’s why I’ve got to make him see sense. See how serious this is. Because once he’s gone, there’s no coming back, is there?”
“No.” Sam sniffs, and Mom hands her the box of tissues now.
“So, I’ll go talk to him. He should be out of church now.”
Again, Sam stops me. “Olivia, it could be too late.”
“What do you mean?” My brow creases. Surely it’s never too late for talking?
“The decision may already be made. Drum… Drum warned me. Eli is going to be asked about his intentions in church.” Her lips press together. “The brothers will think even the thought of leaving shows a lack of respect. He’s got to be called out on it. If he tells them he wants to go, then…” She sobs, and sends a pleading look my mom’s way.
Mom swallows back a sob of her own. “I’m so sorry, Olivia.” Her e
yes glisten with tears. “I came to this club twenty-six years ago. I was a fish out of bloody water at the start. Of course, I’ve been shielded from club business. I might not like that part of it, but it’s how the club works. It works because it’s a closely bound family. We might live outside the citizen rules, but that doesn’t mean we don’t abide by our own. Following the club regulations keeps the club knitted together. If Eli wants to walk away, he’ll be shitting over an important part of our lives. He’ll have to take what’s coming.”
What’s coming? I look from one to the other, seeing, understanding their distress for the first time. I’d been so wrapped up in my own, I didn’t realise the pain they, themselves, were feeling. Sam, because Eli is her son, and on Mom’s part, she’s regarded him as her fifth child. A feeling of dread settles inside me, as I recognise I’m seeing another side of Sophie and Sam. The determination of these old ladies who’ve accepted this way of life, and who would condone, while not like, any retribution that’s coming to one who’s threatened it. Whoever that might be.
“What do you mean?” I ask, holding my breath for the answer I don’t want to hear.
Sam struggles, but puts it into words. “There’s no retirement plan for Satan’s Devils. A man who steps down won’t be welcome on the compound.” Her face hardens as if readying herself to accept it.
I protest, “Jacob lives here, he’s not a Devil. Neither’s Zane. It’s home to Mason and Aidan.”
Sam looks at me sadly. “You’re right. The difference is they’ve never made promises that they’ve now decided they won’t keep. They’ve never sat around the table and learned the inner secrets of being a Satan’s Devil. Blade’s son and Rock’s are serving as Marines. When they’ve done their time, they might become prospects. Zane does work for the club.”
“Eli had to have known,” Mom interrupts. “Men don’t walk away from the club unscathed. It’s you I’m worried about. He bloody knew what to expect.”
Hawk's Cry : Satan's Devils MC Second Generation #2 Page 3