by Trejo, Erin
“I’m just glad you’re back. I was lost for so long Mols. I didn’t know what the fuck to do or where to turn. I tried to find you a few times, but there was nothin’. It fuckin’ kills me that you were so close and there was nothin’ I could have done.”
I reach up and brush his hair out of his eyes and smile while saying, “Thank you for being you. Thank you for accepting me back into your life. Thank you for understanding the reason I had to go. I know it can’t be easy to forgive me for keeping him from you.”
“Shh. You’re here now. He’s here now. I was pissed at you at first, but God I can’t picture not havin’ the two of you.”
With another kiss to my lips Roland climbs to his feet and drags me up with him. He tosses his arm over my shoulder and leads me back toward the house. All of the guys are gathered around the grill and the girls are on the back porch talking and laughing. Roland stops walking. I take the chance to glance up at him. The look of pure happiness is all I can see.
They were right, all of them. This is what a family looks like. They come together in the best of times and fight together through the worst. And the most amazing things about it all is that they do it all together.
“They love you,” I say still looking up at him. He glares down at me and nods.
“They’ve been everything to me for a long time. They are closer to me than brothers.”
“They’re good people.”
I nod my head because the more I watch them all together, the more I can see it.
“You remember we do illegal shit, yeah?” he asks with a chuckle.
“I know, but they’re good to you and that’s what matters the most.”
With a smile he leans down and kisses me once more.
20
Reaper
“Come on Reaper. You don’t have to do this,” the prick screams as I hold his cracked out girlfriend by the hair in front of him.
“Why the fuck not? You won’t tell me what I want to hear. I think it’s only fair,” I say laughing in his face.
I drag the girl around so that her back slams into my chest which knocks the air from her lungs. She huffs but doesn’t try to fight me.
“She doesn’t know shit Reaper,” he yells out.
I’m really getting tired of hearing him repeat the same shit. I should shoot her in the head and just get it all over with. Mason chuckles next to me with a cigarette hanging from his lips. Ink just shakes his head as he’s clearly annoyed with this bullshit too.
“Well, the problem with all of this is that you do know. I know you know. I don’t know why we have to play these little games. Just tell me where the fuck Tom is. That’s all I need to know. You and your slut here can walk free if you’ll just tell me,” I inform him.
His eyes move to meet hers before snapping back to mine. A pained look crosses his face and I know what the answer is going to be. I’m not sad that I’m going to have to kill these two assholes. It aggravates me that I have to waste more time trying to find that bastard Tom. He’s out there somewhere and I know he’s close by. I can feel it in my bones.
“Hey Ink. You like red heads, yeah?”
I glance over at him and he grins and moves toward me. He pulls the girl from my grasp and moans as he pulls her body against his. One of his hands snakes around her waist while the other goes around her neck. He slowly slips his hand into the front of her tiny shorts and straight between her thighs. She tries to fight him, but with the grip he has on her neck she isn’t going anywhere. Larry, the fucking idiot, is on his knees in front of me as he screams and hollers.
“Shut the fuck up!” I roar.
Ink doesn’t stop what he’s doing, not that I expected him to. Larry’s eyes move from me to his girl and back again. The fear you can see in his eyes is what’s pushing me forward. Something about seeing a grown man brought to his knees excites me.
“Last chance before Ink here squeezes the life right out of her,” I offer him one last chance. I offer a way for this to end. Now we just sit back and watch to see if he takes it.
“The Brotherhood isn’t as big as they want people to think it is. Everyone thinks it’s some old ass MC that’s reuniting,” he finally says.
“Isn’t it?” I ask as I cock my head to the side to study him.
Put a man in the situation he’s in and a majority of the time they’re going to tell you the truth. Whether it’s out of fear for their loved one or fear for their own end. Either way, they end it.
“No. A few might be from there, but a majority are some ape shit crazy ex-cons. Ramirez knows all about it. That son of a bitch orchestrated it all,” he chuckles harshly.
“No fuckin’ way,” I mumble.
Larry looks up at me and his eyes are wild like he thinks I don’t believe him. In this moment I don’t know that I do believe him. Ramirez told me they killed his guys. He told me to my face that he wasn’t a part of this shit.
“Fuckin’ liar. You son of a bitch,” I scream even louder.
He’s been playing me, this whole fucking time, he’s been playing me against the other side. He used me to get what he wanted. He fucking knew that I would never let him in on our guns. That bastard!
“I didn’t lie. I swear to Go--”
I pull the trigger. His body drops to the floor.
“I never said you were a liar,” I tell his dead body.
I glance at Ink and he slides his hand from the slut’s shorts and shoves her forward toward her dead boyfriend as she cries. I raise my arm and pull the trigger for the second time tonight.
She falls to the floor with him with her hand resting across his chest. I tilt my head and study the two of them for a second. How perfect was that shot? It allowed them to fall to their deaths while still being connected to each other.
“Well, that fucked up the plan slightly,” Mason chuckles and kicks the dead girl’s foot.
“A little? No, that fucked me a lot! I already knew that if I ever got sent back to the pen I was a dead man, but now I’m a dead man walkin’ the streets too. Ramirez fucked me over,” I say through gritted teeth. My jaw is locked so tightly that pain radiates through it.
Ink walks over and rests his hand on my shoulder and says, “Hey, we’ll get that bastard too. He ain’t the only one with connections in the pen brother.”
I nod my head and reach into my pocket for the pack of cigarettes I carry around with me. I pull one out and light it up.
“This is complete shit. I just want my family safe man. I want the motherfucker that took my family away from me dead. Why the fuck is it always so fuckin’ difficult?” I ask this mainly to myself.
“Because this is our life brother. This is what we signed up for. This is who we are. Shit doesn’t change just because we have kids or an old lady. This is what we are. We are the fuckin’ Soulless Bastards,” Mason bellows next to me.
I take one last look at the death that I just caused before I look at him. Fire is dancing in my veins.
“You’re goddamn right we are. We fight until the end. Until death and that’s exactly what the fuck I’m gonna do,” I tell him.
A new plan begins to take shape in my mind. A brand new idea. A way to get both of those fucking bastards.
Obviously finding Tom is the first thing on my list, but when I find him and take his ass out, I can arrange it so that I’m caught. Prison might not be a place a normal person wants to go, but a man with a death wish? Hell fucking yeah. I don’t want to leave my family. I don’t want them hurting over me, but if it means saving them from Ramirez, then that’s what I’m going to fucking do.
“What the fuck is that look?” Ink asks as a smirk curls the corners of my lips.
“What the fuck Reaper?” Mason calls out to me.
I don’t stop until I’m outside in the fresh air again. I inhale deeply and clear my head of everything else.
“Just what the fuck I said. I have a new plan. I’m gonna get Tom then I’m goin’ after Ramirez,” I say as if we’re
having any other normal conversation.
“You do realize that Ramirez is never leavin’ the pen, yeah?” Mason asks. I nod my head with a grin still on my face.
“No. Fuck that! You aren’t goin’ back in. Your woman and kid need you,” Mason says as his face turns to stone.
He’s pissed, but there is no stopping me. I’m going to do this. I’m going to make sure that he never fucks over another person that I love.
“I got time Mason. Don’t fight me on this shit. It’s the club’s ass that’s on the line with him. If he gets the guns runnin’ who’s to say that he doesn’t use that shit against us? He used Tom against me. He used my kid, my woman, my club, my fuckin’ family. Fuck him!” I roar as I flick my cigarette through the air. I watch it fall to the ground and slowly burn out.
21
Molly
I watch as my son lies in bed sound asleep. His ailing body is slowly losing all of his energy. Fin called the doctor in to look at him while Reaper was on his run. He said it’s all a part of the disease. It will wear him down until there is nothing left.
His eyelids flutter as he sleeps which makes my heart break in my chest. He’s such a strong, brave kid. I hate that there is nothing I can do to fix this. I want to make him better. As a mother that is something that we should be able to do for our kids. We are their safety. We are the ones that kiss away the pain and hug them tightly. I feel helpless knowing that I can’t do any of that for him.
“You got a minute? I found out somethin’ that I think you should know,” Fin whispers behind me.
I glance over my shoulder and nod before I follow him out into the hallway. Viking is leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. My eyes go from him to Fin and back.
“What’s going on?”
“I did a little diggin’ into the kind of cancer that Drake has. Did you know your dad?” Viking asks me.
I shake my head and look to Fin, but he doesn’t say a word.
“Not really. Why?”
“Did you know that he used to live in California?” Viking asks me while looking me directly in the eye. What the hell is going on? What does my dad have to do with any of this?
“No, I don’t know much about him. What is all this about Viking?”
“You had a brother Molly,” Fin says quickly.
My heart nearly stops in my chest. There’s no way.
“No, I would have known that,” I protest as I wrap my hands around myself.
“You didn’t. It was a fling he had. The cancer Drake has, fuck,” Viking says as he runs a hand through his hair before looking back up at me. “It can be hereditary. I had the doc run some tests. Crow was your brother, well your half-brother at least.”
I don’t understand any of this. “So, he’s in California?” I ask confused more now than ever. I have a brother?
“No darlin’. Crow killed himself a little while back. He knew he was dyin’,” Fin says. He rests his hand on my shoulder.
“Why did he kill himself? Did he seek treatment? Was it too late?” There are a million questions I want to ask, but I can’t focus. I had a brother.
“He didn’t want the treatment. Crow was a different kind of guy. He lost his son when he was a kid. He couldn’t live with it anymore. They all thought he was gettin’ better when he met his old lady, but it didn’t last. Crow never got over his boy’s death,” Viking explains as Fin keeps a firm hand on my shoulder.
A gasp escapes me followed by a sob. I had a brother and a nephew that I never got to meet? How does something like that happen? How did I never know? This is so messed up. This whole situation is just a mess. As the tears start to fall in earnest, I feel myself falling. Fin pulls me into his arms as I cry. I cry for a brother I never knew. I cry for a nephew that never got the chance to meet his aunt. I cry because my life is crumbling right in front of me, and there isn’t a thing I can do to stop it.
“It’s okay Molly. It’ll all be okay,” Fin says softly trying to reassure me. Viking kneels in front of me with his hand coming to rest on my cheek.
“I’m gonna get you some of his pictures and things, yeah?”
Nodding slowly he wipes my cheek before he moves away from us. I watch as he walks away before I hear Roland.
“What the hell is happenin’ here?”
His voice is hard and even. I look up at him and when he sees my tear stained face his face falls. He drops to his knees and grabs me from Fin’s arms to pull me into his.
“What happened babe?”
I can’t speak. I don’t know what to say.
“We… uh.. we found some shit out. Asked doc to pull a few strings. It turns out the cancer Drake has is hereditary. Seems to run in the family. Crow was Molly’s half-brother.”
The more he says it the harder it becomes to breathe.
“Fuck. Are you kiddin’ me?” Roland asks still holding me tightly.
“Wish I was brother.”
I can hear movement behind me, but I don’t look up to see Fin walking away. Roland just sits with me in his arms and rocks me slowly.
“I met him a few times. He was a good guy,” he whispers into my hair. I pull back and look up to him.
“Did you ever meet his son?” Roland shakes his head sadly.
“Never got the pleasure. I think he was maybe five or six when he was killed. It ruined Crow. His old lady Lyric brought back pieces of him, but it wasn’t enough,” he says choking on his words.
“Is that going to be us when Drake dies? Are we going to be able to handle it Roland?” I sob even harder and bury my face into his shirt. My body trembles as the tears just keep falling.
“We have to be stronger. We don’t have a choice Mols. There’s a lot more life to live and Drake wouldn’t want you to waste it. That boy loves life too much,” he reminds me.
“I don’t know what to do without him. I had a brother that I never got to meet. I had a nephew I never got to see. This is so fucked up Roland. Tom ruined it all. He ruined my whole fucking life!” I scream loudly.
“He’ll pay for it too baby. I promise.”
As I sit in his arms and think about my past, I know that I’ve ruined it all. It’s all because of me. If I would have just talked to Roland and told him about what Tom was doing. If I would have just run harder and further. Why didn’t I fight him? Why didn’t I try harder? This is all my fault.
“It’s my fault,” I cry even harder still.
“No, it’s not. Don’t blame yourself Mols. There isn’t anything we could have done. If Crow had of known about you it wouldn’t have made a difference to him. He was a lost soul.”
“I could have tried Roland. If I’d known I could have tried!”
He rocks me in his arms and I just fall apart. How can any of this be happening? How do you not know about your own family? One man. That son of a bitch stole it all away from me. The first chance I get to go after him and I’m gone. I will make good on my promise to myself. I will kill him. I don’t know how, but I will figure it out.
22
Reaper
“Your shirt is bloody,” Molly says after I carried her into my room at the clubhouse. Drake is sleeping peacefully in one of the spare rooms.
“It’s not mine.”
“I didn’t figure it was,” she says as she slowly pushes my cut down my arms.
I watch her face which is red and swollen from crying, yet so goddamn beautiful at the same time. I’ve missed her. The woman that stole my heart so long ago. The one person that saw inside me and saw my soul. The one that held me close at night and whispered how much she was in love with me.
The world has a way of changing us. It changed me, and when she looks up into my eyes, I can see just how much it’s changed her as well. In some ways it’s weakened us. It shows us just enough of the light to give us hope. It keeps us in that middle ground of grey area where we never know what’s going to happen next. That’s my entire life summed up, the grey area.
When I los
t her the first time I swore I would never find my way back out of the black, but slowly the guys and my club brought me back. Finding her that day outside of the clubhouse, fuck, I thought the light was finally coming back to me. I thought I was redeemed and given a second chance to love, but it’s all slowly slipping back out of my grasp.
“Kiss me,” she says softly as her fingers run under the hem of my shirt.
Her nails scrape along the muscles on my chest and down to my abs. I lean in and capture her lips with mine. A slow heated kiss turns into so much more. I grab her around the neck and hold her as close as I can get her.
Molly breaks away first and takes a step back as she pulls her shirt over her head. I’m totally enraptured by her. She has me under her spell just like she did all of those years ago. She tosses her shirt to the side and slides out of her shorts. My eyes run a line up and down her body. I unbuckle my jeans as she slowly works her way out of her panties. Trying to control my cock is another story. That fucker is begging to be released. When we’re both completely naked and exposed to each other I see a tear slip down her cheek.
“I always wanted a family. A real family that loved each other so much and cared about what happened to the others,” she speaks softly. I nod my head and step into her embrace.
“Crow was a good man. He would have loved you and Drake, Mols.”
I run my fingers up and down her arms. She trembles.
“Do you think we could talk to her one day? Lyric.”
I wasn’t expecting her to ask that.
“I think she’d love to meet you and Drake. It would be good for her.”
She nods her head and leans into my chest. Her lips on my skin ignite a need that I can’t deny. Her tongue sweeps out which causes me to suck in a breath.
“I need you to fuck me Roland, hard. I don’t want easy.”
The begging in her voice has my cock jumping between us. The way she can make me feel with her words alone is indescribable.