I asked a few of them to meet me there to work out a solution to the problem of Rocky’s crazy former boss and ex-boyfriend. When I pulled up to the clubhouse Cross waited around the back where customers weren’t allowed. I walked up and he handed me a cold beer.
“A little early for a beer isn’t it?”
He shrugged, leaning back on the wooden table Gunnar had a few of the prospects put together last summer, a sweaty green bottle hanging from his fingertips. “Never too early for beer and this isn’t even the strong shit.”
I took the bottle and drank in silence for several long minutes, trying to make sense of this shit. Rocky had been with me for three days and I hadn’t found out any more information than I had on the first damn day.
“Remember that redhead chick from San Diego?”
“The best night you ever had? Even better than that night in Kiev?”
“Yeah. Well, she’s about two months pregnant with my kid and on the run from her ex.”
“Shit.” That was Cross, talkative as ever.
“Yeah and she’s not asking me for anything but a few days to come up with a plan, but I can’t just let it go at that. I have to help her, and I hope that means you guys will help too.”
By the time I finished speaking, Savior and Max had come out, along with Golden Boy, Jag and Stitch. Gunnar was still handling personal business and the rest of the guys were taking care of club business.
“Man, this shit is serious.” Jag stepped forward with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. “I know of the Killer Aces. A cousin of mine in Long Beach said these fuckers are crazier than regular crazy. Genesis didn’t make it as an Angel of Reckoning, so he put together a bunch of assholes too crazy for any other MC and created Killer Aces. They’ve taken over Southern Cali with brutal efficiency.”
Shit. That’s the last thing I wanted to hear because I could hear what no one had said yet. What they were all trying damn hard not to say, and that bitter irony twisted in my gut because Rocky had said the same damn thing to me.
“So that’s it, then?” I looked around at my friends, my brothers, and they all looked sorry. “I’m not going to let him take her prisoner and definitely not with my kid!”
“Maybe your kid,” Savior clarified. “For all you know she just figured you were the perfect guy to protect her and a fake pregnancy would make you more eager to help.”
“There’s still a big damn chance it’s mine. You’d leave your kid to that fate? You think that shit is right?”
Savior shrugged. “Yo man, it ain’t about right and wrong. It’s about war. Bloody fucking war, man. All for some chick none of us know at all. Risking our lives, the club, for a fucking stranger?” He shrugged again, his gaze deadly serious. “It’s us or it’s her and I’m choosing the Reckless Bastards every goddamn day of the week, twice on Sunday.”
My throat constricted and acid made my gut turn over as reality settled over me like a hot, suffocating blanket. “Everyone agrees with him?” A few of them, Max and Golden Boy, nodded because they didn’t want their women caught in the crossfire of a war. Others just looked away, unable to even look me in the fucking face.
Fucking cowards.
I shook my head, disappointment and anger boiling inside me. I’d gone to bat for every one of these fuckers, put my life on the line. Hell, my soul, too, with the shit I’ve done. And they weren’t even willing to consider helping me. Or my damn kid.
Suddenly I had to get out of there before I said something I wouldn’t be able to take back. Hell, the way I felt then, I might not want to take that shit back. So I stood and my feet got to moving, putting more and more distance between me and them. Of all the things I’d expected on my way to the clubhouse, this wasn’t even on my list of possibilities.
For the first fucking time since I put Rose Petal and the expectations that came with that huge plot of land behind me, I was on my own. What a sick, twisted fucking irony.
“What aren’t you saying?” Max’s deep voice stopped me, but I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t fucking look at him.
“Nothing, man. Don’t even worry about it.” I kept moving, walking toward my bike and backing it out of the spot, waiting for Max to speak. “Spit it out, Max.”
“You know, if she was your girl—”
“Yeah,” I cut him off and held up my hands. “I fucking heard it the first time.” I understood the need for caution. Reckless Bastards hadn’t gone to war with another club for years, but that didn’t mean not protecting Rocky and the baby would be okay. It wouldn’t.
Max sighed and stepped in front of my bike with his massive arms crossed over his wide chest. “I know there’s something you’re not saying man, so just spill it.”
“Nothing to say. Not that it would matter anyway, right? Club can’t have war. End of conversation,” I shouted over the sound of the engine starting, grabbed the handles and swerved around him, taking off out of the clubhouse parking lot. Away from my brothers in arms, my family.
I needed space and time and distance. There was only one thing I needed when my mind was so muddled like it was now, letting my bike stretch her legs on the open road. After about twenty miles, the white noise left. At thirty-five miles, a bit of clarity came.
At the fifty-mile mark, it became crystal clear.
If my brothers weren’t going to help me, I’d have to do it myself.