He shook his head, hooking his arm around her and pulling her close. “I don’t know, babe. Mr. Mariano is sitting outside in his truck, probably freezing his ass off out there rather than come in with us. I don’t think there’s a way to make up if he doesn’t want it.”
“Makes me sad. She looks like she’d be a good grandma. I miss my grandma.”
She used to talk about her grandmother in Jamaica a lot. “You could call her.”
“No. I lost her when my dad drove away.”
He didn’t agree, but it wasn’t his call to make. So he just held her close. The Horde family could fill a lot of gaps. They could fill the gaps in Adrienne’s life. He thought that, for the most part, they already had.
~oOo~
Time was short after Christmas. Isaac and Len were surrendering themselves two days into the new year. So the day after Christmas, the Horde met in the Keep for Isaac’s final meeting as President. He’d taken the gavel eighteen years ago, at the age of twenty-seven.
With a strike of the gavel on the ebony table he’d made with his own hands, Isaac called the meeting to order. The room was already silent, so it was a formality. The mood on this day was somber.
“You know the main business of this meeting. We’ll end with that. I have some news and a couple of things to talk about before we get to it. First, you all know that with the mother charter of the Scorpions busted, there’s been some discord with the charters since then. Over the past couple of months, they’ve had a full-club leadership meeting, and they’ve given all the charters the chance to reaffirm their patch or go out on their own, no harm, no foul. Hoosier and the LA crew were on their way out already, and even with Sam gone, they don’t want to stick with the Scorps.”
He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. He had new ink on the inside his massive right forearm: words arranged in a circle, with the names ‘Lilli,’ ‘Gia,’ and ‘Bo’ inside, one on top of the other. The words of the circle were in another language. Badger had asked about it. It was Italian, and it had something to do with love and sun and stars. He didn’t remember exactly, but he knew that Isaac had wanted his family with him wherever he was.
There was something almost like excitement in Isaac’s voice when he spoke. “Here’s where it gets real interesting. They’d been talking about starting fresh, their own charter, whole new club. But I got a Christmas night call from Bart, and then another from Hoosier. They’re flying an idea past us. Night Horde Southern California charter.”
Badger whistled. That would make Bart Horde again. But Len was shaking his head.
“Why? What’s the upside for either of us?”
“It helps them start up their bike business again. It turns my stomach to say it, but as Bart explained it, we have a ‘brand’ in LA. Name recognition. The Scorpions had it, because they’re the Scorpions. We have it because of that movie. They can use the name to get whole again. And Bart also wants it for the reason I think most of the people at this table can understand. To make him Horde again.”
Show cut in. “He’ll be Hoosier’s VP, whether they’re Horde or start something new.”
“I thought we were out of the outlaw business.” Badger hated to say it, because he liked the idea of a second charter. And he was impressed that Bart had risen to the rank of VP.
“So are they. With the Perros crushed and the Scorps a mess, they don’t have any relationships that would keep them from going legit, too. That bike business was pulling in big bucks on its own. We’d get a cut of that, as mother charter—that’s our upside.” He leaned back. “It’s a lot to take in. Dom can get some intel, run some numbers, and bring it to the table next meeting. While we’re away, Show has my proxy, and Badge has Len’s.”
There was a heavy, solemn pause as the table was reminded of Isaac and Len’s future. Isaac broke it. “Next up. Leon Seaver, private citizen. He’s off our backs. Question is: do we count that as full payment? He burned the B&B and killed Beth. Hurt Adrienne. Is that debt paid by losing his job?”
“We don’t have proof that he arranged the explosion.” Show said that slowly, as if he was fighting the responsibility of uttering them.
“No, we don’t,” Isaac agreed. “But I think everybody around this table knows it’s true.”
Everyone nodded. Badger believed it absolutely. But even if they had proof, was it right to take Seaver’s life—because that was what they were talking about. He had killed Beth and maimed Adrienne. Horde justice would demand his life. Most likely by fire.
“We call it paid.” He’d spoken before he’d fully thought the idea through, but now he had the attention of table, so he went on. “Not because he doesn’t deserve to die. He made that fire happen, and he slowed four of us—all firefighters—down on our way to it. He killed Beth, and he hurt my old lady. He deserves to die. But damn, there’s a lot of blood on our road. So much blood. It gets even deeper when we go out to avenge a wrong—when we’re most right, we pay dearest. It’s got to stop. Our best guess is that Seaver climbed up our ass because we leaned so hard on his cousin. Who deserved everything he got. Hav is dead because we avenged his sister’s murder. She was killed because we avenged Daisy’s. We’re losing Isaac and Len for years because of all this shit. It has to stop.”
He’d straightened his spine and risen tall in his seat as he’d spoken; now, seeing the eyes of his brothers on him, steady and silent, he slouched, sure that he’d said too much.
But Isaac turned to his Vice President. “Show?”
Show’s eyes didn’t leave Badger. His look was not, in Badger’s estimation, appreciably softer than the look he’d given him months ago, when he’d sat across from him at a small table in the Hall and heard Badger tell him that he wanted to be with Adrienne.
Who was now his wife. He held his gaze on Show.
“Badge’s right. We keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t get into more mischief. But we can’t start this new peace off with blood.”
“Vote it.” Len’s voice was gruff.
“Len and I vote last. We won’t be here to take our share of any burden, so we vote after those who will.”
Show shook his head. “You’re taking on more than your share of the burden.”
“Be that as it may. Len and I vote last. On the question of whether Seaver’s debt is paid. ‘Aye’ says it is.”
Show, Badger, Dom, Tommy, Zeke, and Double A all voted ‘Aye.’ Then Len and Isaac did the same.
“Okay, brothers. We got one last piece of business. It’s time for me to step down. Len, too. We can’t hold our offices from inside a prison three hundred miles away. We’ll be gone too long for this to be an interim change. I am handing over the gavel today. Show is my choice for successor.” His grin was sardonic and sad. “Had to beat him unconscious to get him to agree. But it needs a vote. First, we should hear Show’s choice for officers to sit with him.”
Show nodded. “Gotta admit, I’ve been remiss. I don’t want this office. I don’t like the reason I would take it. So I haven’t asked anyone to sit up here with me. But I’ve thought about who I’d want. And if they’ll sit with me, I think we can manage not to fuck up what we helped Isaac build all these years. Tommy—I’d like you to have my back as SAA.”
Badger thought Tommy was a good pick. He was bull strong and watchful. He wasn’t a big thinker, but he paid attention to his surroundings, and he was damn good in a fight. Tommy was clearly surprised, but he nodded. “Yeah, Show. I got your back.”
Zeke was the right choice for VP, and Badger waited to hear his name. He was quiet, and Badger couldn’t see Show and him having the easy rhythm Show and Isaac had always had, but he had thirty or more years of experience. And he was smart and steady.
But Show turned to Badger. “Badge. Be my VP.”
“What?” Despite all the talk in the past several months about him being ‘the future of the Horde,’ Badger hadn’t expected anything like an officer position for years. He was the ‘little brother.’ Even now,
with Double A the youngest patch and Dom the smallest, he was still ‘little brother.’
Isaac answered. “It’s a good choice. You’re smart, Badge. You think far, play things out. You’ve got a good heart. And you’re tough. You’ve been through the shit, and you came through it strong. You’re a lot like Show.”
Show laughed. “I was gonna tell him his was a lot like you.”
Badger remained speechless, managing only, “But…”
“I was twenty-seven when I took this gavel. Double A’s age when I took the VP patch. You’re the right choice, Badge. I told you I think you’re destined for this seat. This is a step on that path. I’d feel good knowing you and Show were at the head.”
“Show?”
“Wouldn’t’ve asked if I wasn’t sure, brother. You’re my choice.”
“Okay. Okay.”
Isaac grinned sadly. “Let’s vote it, then. All those in favor of Show taking the gavel and becoming the official third President of the Night Horde Motorcycle Club of Missouri.”
Unanimous.
Isaac stood and took his kutte off. Laying it on the table, he pulled his blade and sliced the threads that had bound the President patch to his chest. Len stood and did the same to his Sergeant at Arms patch. Badger and all his brothers looked on sadly.
When Isaac’s patch was free, the tatters of threads making a frail fringe around its blood-red border, he laid it on the gavel, shrugged his now lighter kutte back on, and stepped away from the seat at the head of the table he’d built.
~oOo~
The second day of January was clear and bitter cold. A hard frost was still on the ground, glazing the remnants of the Christmas snow into a crisp, glassy crust. The whole Horde family stood on the clubhouse lot, saying goodbye to two of their own.
What they were doing had saved the Horde, and probably Signal Bend, too. They were free of the blood and death, of the danger and fear for their loved ones. Isaac and Len had offered themselves up as a kind of penance for mistakes and deeds for which they were all responsible. They had tried to make something good from something bad. Because Isaac and Len were going away, they had succeeded. But the cost was high.
Badger, wearing his new Vice President patch and feeling it like a searing ache in his chest, stood back a bit with his arm around Adrienne’s shoulders. He’d said his goodbye to his President and to his mentor. Show was in the van, the engine running, waiting to drive them to St. Louis, where they would surrender at least six years of their freedom.
Isaac and Len were saying goodbye to their most intimate family—their old ladies, Isaac’s children. Len and Tasha were standing at the side of the van, wrapped up so tightly that, were it not for Tasha’s ginger hair, it would be hard to see where one started and the other ended.
Isaac squatted in his odd way near the passenger door, both of his children in his arms. Bo was only three and did not understand. He’d given his father a cursory hug and now was trying to extricate himself from Isaac’s arms.
Gia was five and smarter than her age. While she might not have understood all of it, she clearly understood enough. She’d laid her head on Isaac’s shoulder and would not let go. When Isaac finally went to stand, Bo skipped away, relieved, but Gia had to be pried away, crying, “No, Daddy! No! No!”
Lilli stood there with her head down. Shannon came and collected a wailing Gia. She kissed Isaac’s cheek and led his daughter inside, grabbing Bo’s hand as she went and taking him along, too. Isaac watched them go until the clubhouse door closed between him and his children.
Next to Badger, Adrienne sobbed. Just once, but he looked down to see her face wet with tears. “This is awful,” she whispered when she saw him looking.
“I know.”
“Why are we watching? We shouldn’t be watching.”
“They don’t leave this lot alone. We see them off. We don’t turn our backs until they’re out of sight.”
With a sad nod of understanding, she took a breath and turned back to the scene.
Isaac put his hands on Lilli’s hips and drew her near. She seemed to come reluctantly, her head still down. She hit his chest with the side of her fist, once. Twice. And then she was beating him with her balled fists. Isaac withstood the assault and then overpowered her, pulling her hard against his chest, yanking her ponytail until her head came up, and kissing her fiercely. It was brutal and loving and passionate and completely fucking devastating, and Badger had to drop his eyes. He’d never seen Lilli give in to any weakness before, and he understood the depth of pain she must be feeling. She wasn’t fighting Isaac; she was fighting the loss of him.
“I can’t stand this.” Adrienne barely whispered the words.
“You don’t have to stay, babe,” he answered without opening his eyes. “The Horde stays. But if you need to go in, it’s okay.”
“No. I…I’m with you.”
He squeezed her tighter and lifted his eyes again. Len was climbing into the side door of the van, and Tasha had walked back to the loose line everyone else had formed. Isaac stepped back from Lilli and cupped his hand over her cheek. He leaned in and kissed her forehead, then turned to his brothers. He nodded, then got into the van and closed the door.
When the van was out of sight, Lilli dropped to her knees on the gravel lot. She didn’t cry or yell or anything. She just knelt there. The Horde stayed where they were. Badger figured they all felt like he did—unsure what to do. Then Cory, the only old lady who knew for a fact she would never see her old man again, went to Lilli and got her to stand.
They walked into the clubhouse together, and the rest of the Horde family followed.
~oOo~
Later that night, Badger came home to find Adrienne behind their little rented house, standing on the porch in her bare feet, wearing only her old sweater over one of his flannel shirts, which skimmed her mid-thigh. She was watching Hector root around in the yard. He and all his littermates were smart pups. They’d all been housebroken within a couple of weeks, and they were learning commands. At about five months old, they were already big dogs. Delia had estimated that all but Len and Tasha’s runt girl would clear a hundred pounds. Kodi, Isaac and Lilli’s dog, was already almost seventy pounds. At five months old.
Hector was more than fifty pounds. He was a good boy and devoted to Adrienne in a way that sometimes made Badger a little jealous—stupid, but true. He obeyed Badger’s commands, but it was clear that he was only doing so to please his mistress. Hector thought Badger was in his way. The pup was too big to sleep in bed with them anymore, so he had his own memory foam dog bed on the floor near Adrienne’s side of the bed. Every night, he sat staring forlornly at their bed, then, eventually, huffed, puffing his jowls in misery, and dropped himself on his pad.
Drama queen.
Badger went out onto the porch now. Adrienne turned her head at the squeak of the screen door and smiled when he put his hands on her hips, standing behind her and looking over her head at the goofy dog snuffling through the little bit of snow left like a pig looking for truffles.
“It’s cold out here, babe. You’re gonna catch your death, out here in that ratty sweater and your feet bare.”
“You sound like an old lady. ‘Catch your death.’ Really?”
He laughed. Come inside, Adrienne. He’s not doing what he’s supposed to be.”
“Oh, he did his business already. I was just…I don’t know. Stuck, I guess. I keep zoning out. I can’t get Isaac and Lilli and Len and Tasha out of my head. I don’t know how they’re going to do this. Six years? At least? I don’t know how I’d make it if you went away like that.”
Turning her in his arms so that she faced him, he lifted her chin and beamed a promise into her blue eyes. “I’m not. I won’t. We’re out of that business. Lilli and Tash will get through with our help. We’ll stand with them and give them whatever help we can—what they need to hold on. It’s what we do. If something ever did happen to me, they’d hold you up, too.”
“I m
issed my period today.”
It took him a minute to catch up with the sharp turn the conversation had taken. “What?”
“I was supposed to get my period today. It didn’t come.”
“Did you do a test?”
She shook her head. “Today was…busy. My head was elsewhere.”
“Can we do one now?”
“I don’t have one.”
He grinned, feeling an electric zing in his blood at the thought. “I will ride all the way to Springfield and back to find an all-night drugstore if you want me to.” Holy fuck—she could be pregnant. With his kid!
“I don’t. I don’t want to know either way yet. I don’t want to be sad if I’m not, and I don’t want to start thinking about babies tonight if I am. I need all your attention tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how sex makes the noise in your head get quiet? It calms you down?”
“Yeah.” He still felt guilty about that sometimes, that he could get so avid with need that he almost—almost—forgot about everything but sating that need.
“My head is noisy. I still hurt so bad from this morning.” She started to cry, and he pulled her tight to his chest. She was freezing. “I didn’t even lose you. I get to keep you, but I feel this hole inside. I don’t understand it, and it scares me. Please don’t leave me alone, Badge. Please don’t. Please don’t.”
“I’m not, babe. I’m here. I’m staying here and loving you. We’re gonna get old and crabby together.”
With her face tucked against his hoodie, she whimpered, “I need you to fuck me tonight, Badge.”
He lifted her up, and she wrapped her legs around his hips. He whistled quietly, and Hector came running back to the house, ears flopping. Badger took his family back into the house.
When they got into the bedroom, Adrienne dropped her legs from around his hips, and he set her on the floor. She went for the bottom of his hoodie right away, and he raised his arms and helped her pull it and the t-shirt under it up and over his head. Then she wrapped her little hands around his neck and pulled his head down. Their lips met, and she kissed him, her mouth open and moving on his with a savagery that was new for her.
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