by L. Wilder
“Please… Please don’t do this,” she begged as she grabbed my arm. Her eyes pleaded with me to listen as she said, “This is a mistake. You’re going to regret this for the rest of your life!” I couldn’t listen to her anymore. Trying my best to block out her cries, I walked past her and out the door.
I was relieved to see that the parking lot was empty as I sat John Warren into his car seat. When I clicked his seatbelt around him, he reached for my hand and smiled. That smile would be forever burned into my mind. I took his little hand and brought it up to my mouth, gently kissing the fingers that wrapped around mine. “I love you, JW. Always will.”
I handed the little guy his giraffe as I put the rest of the bags on the seat beside him. I closed his door and got into the car. I sat there for a few minutes in the silence, trying to pull my shit together. Everything was so quiet. It was like I was stuck in some kind of nightmare, lost in a deep fog, and then JW started to babble. He was talking to me like I knew exactly what he was saying.
I turned back to him and said, “I know, little buddy. I know.”
I wiped the tears from my eyes and started the engine. It didn’t take him long to fall asleep, leaving me with a whirlwind of thoughts and questions. I still couldn’t believe how much had happened over the past year. If I had just known… if I hadn’t been so stupid and realized everything that was really going on with Hailey, maybe things could have been different.
I’ll never forget the first time I laid eyes on her. I’d pulled my bike into an old diner out on Highway 19. It was an out-of-the-way spot, but it was raining, and I was wet and cold. The moment I saw her walk across the floor, I wasn’t cold anymore. She was waiting tables, and I wondered why a sexy woman like her was working at a place like this in the middle of nowhere. She had a figure that made a man want to peel her clothes right off, and I would’ve done just about anything to do just that. I instantly craved the touch of her skin against mine. Fuck… my whole body tensed and my dick jumped up in need every time she even passed by me. Her long, black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, showing off the most beautiful blue eyes I’d ever seen. Her smile though, that mouth, those lips… damn, she was perfect.
One date was all it took. After that, the months rolled by so fast I lost track of time. It was a whirlwind. She was everything I ever thought I wanted and more. She liked being on the back of my bike and enjoyed hanging with my brothers at the clubhouse. We spent hours talking and drinking with them. She fit in, and I loved that. We were happy. We’d even started talking about our future, making plans for our life together. She had enrolled in a nursing program and worked every day at the diner to pay for her tuition. Life was good.
Then the nightmare hit. Everything went up in smoke. It was hell. A stupid drunk crashed into Hailey’s car, leaving her severely wounded. The dashboard crushed in on her, breaking her leg and fracturing several vertebrae in her neck. It was my fault. I was being selfish that night. I just wanted to be with her every second, and I didn’t listen when she told me she was too tired to come to the club. She’d been working all day and just wanted to go home. I should have listened to her, but I was too selfish. I’d had a long day and just wanted inside her.
That crash stole her spark and replaced it with pain and anguish. Her injuries were so painful that the doctors prescribed her strong pain medication, and it seemed to help, giving her some relief from her misery. After she’d been home for a while, I noticed that she was taking too many pills. I figured she was just hurting, and since she was going to school to be a nurse, I thought she knew what she was doing. A month later, when I saw her taking three at a time, I confronted her about it. She became defensive, but finally admitted that she might have a problem. As time went on, I tried to get her help, sending her to rehab and trying to find doctors that could stop the pain. But nothing worked. The pull of her addiction was already too strong. She tried to hide it from me, over and over again. Each time I discovered that she was still using, she’d promise to try harder. She’d swear she loved me, and would do whatever it took to get better. I believed her, until the day I found another hidden stash of pills. That day, I knew I was done. She chose the drugs over the life we shared, and I refused to be a part of it.
The day I walked out of her life, I prayed that she would straighten herself out and find her way back to me. Instead, she became more and more determined to get her hands on her next fix. When her desperation took hold, she decided to give information about our club in exchange for more drugs. Her betrayal to the club was a decision we’d both come to regret. I should have known that if she would do something like that, she was way past just being in trouble… her life was in true jeopardy. I should’ve seen she was still struggling, and tried harder to help her. But in truth, it was too late… her lies would send her to her grave. All of her damn lies.
She disappeared for months. No one knew where she was. The club never lets a betrayal go. They searched for her and finally found out she had been living in a small town just outside of Washington. It looked like she was finally getting her shit together. She’d gotten a job and had a nice place to live. She’d even had a baby. Her neighbor said Hailey was really trying, but it all fell apart. It was just too much for her, and she ended up taking the baby to her mother. My brothers found her dead in her apartment from a drug overdose. It was obvious that it was no accident. Her death hit me hard. I couldn’t help but blame myself for what had happened, and the guilt of her death was crippling. But it was nothing compared to the hurt I felt when I discovered the mountain of secrets she had kept hidden from me.
It was several months after her death when I got an unexpected phone call from a hospital in Paris, Tennessee. A nurse called to tell me that my son had just been in an accident. My son. I felt like someone had knocked the wind out of me when I heard those words. My name was listed on his birth certificate, right under Hailey’s. It was right there in black and white. I never dreamed the kid she’d had was mine, and now I had missed almost a year of his life, because Hailey never told me about him. Instead, she took our son to her mother, asking her to protect him from me. Trying to keep her promise, Hailey’s mother sent John Warren away. She decided that Lily was the only one who could keep him safe from me and my club. Lily packed him up, and took off for Tennessee. I would have never even known about my son if it hadn’t been for his accident. Her mother prayed I would never find out. She blamed me for Hailey’s death. In truth, she was right. Hailey would still be alive if she hadn’t been with me. I will never forgive myself for what happened. I had failed her then, but I wouldn’t fail her again. I wouldn’t let anything happen to our son. I would make sure he had the life I couldn’t give his mother.
I could barely keep my eyes open by the time I pulled into Lily’s driveway. It was Christmas Eve, and the house was lit up with lights, making what I was about to do feel even more impossible. I tried to shake it off. This wasn’t about me. It was about John Warren and giving him a life like this… filled with Christmas trees and family. The life I’d never be able to give him.
Goliath lived the club life, and although his club was different, safer, he understood the danger that came along with it. He would know better than anyone why I had to do this. As VP of the Devil Chasers, he’d seen the hard times of living in a one percenter’s club… the uncertainty… the danger. They had put that all behind them, and his club had worked hard to become a legitimate club that was focused on the brotherhood and their families. It was one of the things I respected most about these men. Nothing was more important than keeping their families safe. I put the car in park, and by the time I turned off the engine and opened the car door, Lily was standing on the front porch.
“What happened to you? Are you ok?” she asked. Her eyes filled with fright as she studied my cuts and bruises. I knew I looked like hell, but I had no intention of telling her what had happened. When I didn’t answer, she asked, “What are you doing here, Maverick?”
“I need to
talk to you and Goliath. Is he here?” I asked her. I knew I was the last person she expected to see tonight, and I hated that I had scared her.
“I just got off the phone with him. He said he’d be here in five minutes. Come on in, and we’ll wait for him inside,” she told me as she turned toward the front porch.
“Give me a second. John Warren is still sleeping in the car. Let me get him,” I said as I reached for the car door.
“John Warren? He’s here with you? Is he okay?” Her voice was high pitched, almost breaking into a cry as she spoke. Her eyes widened with dismay as she watched me pull John Warren out of his car seat. The second I got him out, she raced over to me and took him from my arms. I instantly felt the loss of his touch, and fought the urge to take him back from her. The look on his face stopped me. His eyes lit up with excitement as he reached out to her, making me realize just how much he loved her. He was where he belonged.
“He’s here. I can’t believe he’s really here!” she cried, tears streaming down her face.
John Warren looked up at her and smiled. He reached for the collar of her shirt and squealed. Lily’s eyes danced with excitement as she looked at him. I took a deep breath and began to feel a sense of relief. Lily loved him. There was no doubt in my mind that she would care for him like she was his own mother.
“I don’t understand. You have to tell me what’s going on, Maverick,” she pleaded.
“Let’s go inside and wait for Goliath.”
I reached into the backseat and grabbed John Warren’s bags, and Lily followed me through the front door. She cautiously watched as I set his bags on the floor. We were just sitting down on the sofa when I heard Goliath’s bike pull into the driveway. Lily jumped up and met him at the front door.
“Goliath….” she said stopping him at the front door. He looked down at John Warren in Lily’s arms, searching for any sign that something might be wrong. He finally looked over to me, noticing my broken arm and all the bruises that marked my body.
“Maverick, what the hell is going on?” Goliath asked as he stepped inside.
“I really don’t know where to start.”
“Start with what happened to you,” Lily said as she walked over to the sofa and sat down beside me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah… it’s nothing. I trusted the wrong person, and it cost me,” I said as I looked down to the floor, unable to look at her. The irony of it being her sister that I’d trusted was too much for me to bear.
“You gonna tell us why you’re here?” Goliath asked.
I laid my head in my hands, trying to search for the right words to say. After a few seconds of silence, I dragged my fingers through my hair, trying to calm my nerves. I looked over to Lily and said, “I just can’t do it to him. I love him, Lily. I really do. I love him enough to know that he needs more than I can give him right now.” Overwhelmed with all the mixed emotions churning inside me, I stood up. My heart was racing, and I began pacing back and forth. I needed to make them understand. They needed to know why I had to do this. “I let Hailey down. I should’ve done more. Should’ve protected her, but I fucked up. I don’t deserve to have JW. I’ll just fuck it up.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself, Maverick. Hailey made those choices. Not you. No one blames you,” Lily told me, trying to calm me down.
“I do,” I stopped pacing and looked directly at her. “I should’ve been there for Hailey. Instead, she sank into the darkness where no one could save her. I can’t let that happen to JW.”
“I don’t understand. What exactly are you saying?” she asked me.
“I came here to see… to ask if…” I swallowed my pride and my own broken heart and said, “I wanted to know if you and Goliath would take John Warren… raise him as your own. I want to be everything he needs, but I know I’m not. I can’t give him what you can.”
“But why now?” Lily asked as she looked down at my son, her hand softly brushing over the top of his head.
“Lots of reasons. More than I care to explain. Let’s just say a baby doesn’t exactly fit in the life I’m living right now.” The thoughts of them beating me with that crowbar flashed through my mind, and I winced in remembrance of the pain they inflicted. It didn’t come close to the agony I was feeling at this moment, but it reassured me that I was making the right choice for him.
“Are you sure about this, Maverick? You have to know that I want him, but I need you to be sure. I couldn’t take losing him again,” Lily said.
“He means the world to me. He’s the one truly good thing I’ve done in my life. I hate the thought of losing him, but I just can’t do this to him. He deserves more.”
“Maverick, we’ll want to adopt him if he stays with us. You gonna be okay with that?” Goliath asked. Lily looked over to him with surprise, and I could see the love and wonder in her eyes. A small smile spread across her face when she realized what he was saying. Now I knew Goliath wanted him just as much as she did.
“I get that. Yeah, I’d be okay with that, but I still want to see him. I want him to know who I am, so that one day, when he’s older, he’ll understand why I did this,” I explained. I knew it was a lot to ask, but I couldn’t imagine never seeing him again. I needed to know that I could still have some kind of contact with him, or I wouldn’t be able to survive this.
“You will always be welcome here, Maverick. I want John Warren to know you, too. It takes a special kind of person to love someone enough to let them go,” Lily told me with tears in her eyes.
“I wish I could be more for him. I wish I could be the father he needs, but I know you both love him. You’ll give him the kind of life I can’t.”
“We’ll do our best. I can promise you that,” Goliath said confidently.
“Thank you for trusting us with him. We’ll do everything we can to make him happy,” Lily promised. JW reached out his hands for Goliath. He walked over and took him from Lily’s arms. He rested his head against Goliath’s chest like he was meant to be there. Goliath ran his hand over his little head and down his back as he hugged him closer.
Goliath kissed JW on the head and said, “Glad you’re back, Little Man. We’ve missed you.”
I couldn’t take it any longer. One more second of this, and I was going to fall apart. “I’m going to head back.”
“You can stay here tonight,” Lily offered.
“Thanks, Lily, but I need to get back. We’ve got some shit going down back home, and my president needs me to get back. I’ll be in touch.”
“Okay, but you are more than welcome. The door is always open. Just let us know when you want to come back for a visit.”
“I’ll be back. You can count on that. If you ever need me, I’m just a phone call away. Thank you both. I know in my gut that this is the right thing to do.” I walked over to JW and kissed him on the side of his head. I laid my hand on his back and stared at him for a minute. I leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Don’t hate me for this. I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t the right thing to do. I love you.” I couldn’t stop the tears from filling my eyes as I walked out to my car.
Chapter 2
Henley
Six Months Later
“Are you really going to keep your face buried in that book all night?” Cassidy asked.
“You know I have my final tomorrow. I need to make an A in this class,” I told her without looking up from my book.
“You have to make an A in every class. It’s like you’ve forgotten how to have fun. I miss ‘fun’ Henley. What happened to her?” she said as she looked in the mirror and played with her hair. “You need to go out with some friends and have a good time.”
“Yadda, yadda, yadda… I’ll go out and celebrate when I finish my finals.”
“Why don’t you come to the club with me tonight? The guys are having a party, and I know they’d love to see you. I miss hanging out with you. Let’s go out and have some fun like we used to.”
“Ummm… how about NO?” I a
nswered sarcastically.
I had nothing against going to the clubhouse with Cassidy. I actually kind of liked going there from time to time. The guys were a little rough around the edges, but they all seemed like pretty decent guys. It didn’t go unnoticed, however, that they all liked Cassidy… a lot. The way they pawed all over her made me feel a little uncomfortable sometimes. But I’ve done my best to avoid asking her questions about it. She’s not one to talk about what really goes on at the club. Besides, I learned a long time ago that Cassidy has a mind of her own, and it’s best to just leave her to it. She was happy—that was all that mattered. The Satan’s Fury MC had become like a second family to her, and I knew she loved them… all of them. I’ll admit I’ve even found myself a little jealous of the life she has created outside of ours, but I’d never tell her that.
“Oh… come on. Don’t be a ‘Debbie Downer’. It’ll be fun. We can have a few drinks and dance on my break…” she encouraged as she shook her hips from side to side. The bangles on her wrist clanked together as she tugged at the hem of her mini skirt. As she looked in the mirror, Cassidy pulled her hair up in a messy bun and touched up her make-up. She was club ready. I smiled to myself, thinking how different she looked an hour ago when she was sprawled out in front of the TV eating potato chips and chocolate chip cookies in her pajamas. Her transformation was complete.
“Maybe some other time,” I told her as I flipped through the pages of my textbook. “I’m just not up to partying tonight. Besides, you know I’ve got to get up early in the morning.”
“Okay, let’s do something else then. We could go grab a burger and watch a movie? I’ll get one of the girls to cover my shift. You know I hate leaving you here all alone, Lee Bug.”