A cramping in my gut.
Ten.
Years have passed. My body has aged. Knowledge has been gained, but a piece of my soul has remained frozen.
The board’s right—I’ve never moved past Mom.
“Did you love her?” I ask.
Dad jolts as if the question shocks him.
“You fought,” I continue. “A lot. So tell me if you fucking loved her.”
Dad rests his arms on the table and leans toward me. “I loved her more than I loved anything else in my life. You’re my son, and you’ve gone through hell, but ever question my love for her again and I’ll lay you out.”
I nod and on the outside I’m still as stone, but that ten-year-old boy on the inside collapses in tears. Lots of tears. Tears that I have never fucking shed.
“I was on the phone with her while they chased her,” he says. “I listened to her as she was begging for me to help. I listened as she understood we weren’t going to get there fast enough and I listened as she told me that she loved me and you more than she loved her own life. Did I love her? Yeah, I loved her and I had to listen helplessly as the woman I loved died.”
I drop my head into my hands and wetness burns my eyes. She loved me. My mother loved me.
“Your mother drew the Riot away,” says Cyrus in a quiet voice that’s too sorrowful for the loud noises seeping in from below. “When she came out of work, she found the code stuck under her windshield and she knew the Riot was near. She didn’t know what it meant, but she knew it was bad. She called your father, he told her to get to the clubhouse, but she refused to go there.”
“Why?” My voice comes out cracked.
There’s silence in the room, and when I glance up, most everyone is focused on the table, but Dad’s watching me. “Things were building up to bad with the Riot. It’s why your mom and I fought. Same shit that had gone down with the Riot years before was happening again and she was scared for me.”
Because years ago, Dad almost died in the fight for Emily’s safety. Dim memories of hushed hospital rooms and the man I believed invincible in a bed. Mom in tears by his side, Olivia whispering to me that he was strong and me clinging to Cyrus’s hand like if I let go I would tumble down a dark hole.
“Olivia was watching you and your mother refused to draw them anywhere near you, which meant she wouldn’t come anywhere near the clubhouse.”
It’s too much. Too fucking much and I breathe in but the air doesn’t reach my lungs. “Did she know about the code?”
“Yes and no,” Dad answers. “She saw a different piece of code once in my belongings. Your mom was quick. Realized by my reaction when I saw it in her hands it was related to the Riot, but didn’t know much else. This was that messed-up period after Eli was released from prison. The Riot was pissed he got out on parole and they wanted to renege on the deal made to keep peace between our clubs. They demanded we hand over Eli. We told them to go fuck themselves. So we began negotiating. Communicating through the code and short meetings.”
“Why code?” I ask.
“Law enforcement has always been after them,” Eli explains. “Made them paranoid. They didn’t like putting anything in writing. Face-to-face meetings were risky for both sides—too many pissed-off people with guns. We first used the code when they found out Meg was pregnant with Emily. She knew all their different ways of translating the code. When the stakes between our clubs were being raised and they felt that law enforcement was on the edge of cracking the code we were using, they stole a copy of our bylaws, sent the code to Meg, and she knew how to decipher it. That’s how we’ve always communicated with them. The code worked. Kept our people safe while we tried to keep the Riot calm.”
“Eventually,” Dad adds, picking up the thread, “when it was clear we weren’t handing Eli over to them, they sent the list.”
Cyrus slides a piece of paper in front of me and I recognize my father’s handwriting. Dad must have been the one to translate the Riot’s message. The name at the top is my mother’s. The next Olivia’s, and it goes down the line of the wives of club members. Anger ripples through me. “They were willing to go after women?”
Eli’s seat creaks when he adjusts. His legs are out straight, his arms crossed over his chest, and it’s one of the rare times he won’t make eye contact. “When holy hell broke out over Emily and her mom before I went to prison, the Riot went after club members. After I lost custody of Emily when I went to prison, they decided to make it personal.”
My hand slams on the table. “Why the fuck didn’t you take the warning shot seriously? I saw the message. Breanna broke it. They warned you this was coming.”
He lifts his dark eyes and the regret swimming in them smacks me in the stomach. “Both codes came together and we got it five minutes before your mother called. We didn’t even have it completely deciphered before your mother was being tailed out of the parking lot.”
“Why did they leave the code with Mom? She wasn’t Terror.”
The room falls silent and all eyes are on Dad. Finally, he speaks. “They wanted me to find it. Guess they figured she’d call, figured I would find it in her car if they abducted her, or if they did mean for her to go over the bridge, I guess they thought I’d find it in the aftermath. The Riot wanted me to know that I couldn’t save the woman I loved from them. They wanted to show that they were in control, that they held the power.”
“Razor,” Eli says, “I would have handed myself over on a damned platter for your mother, but I was never given the chance. Your mother was the warning shot.”
My body sways as if I’ve been sucked into an undertow. My mother never had a chance. She never had a fucking chance and she drove away from help to save me. My lips turn down and it’s hard as hell to ignore the raw ache in my throat. “Was she forced off or did she go over to save herself?”
Dad and Eli shrug their shoulders to show that they’re both haunted by the unknown.