“After a while… yeah.” Mike inhaled and let it all out before he continued. “I would come home from dealing with drunk assholes and chaos at the club, and he’d have dinner ready for me and shit. You’d be tucked in your bed and safe. While I ate, he’d tell me what you and him did that day, and I just remember looking forward to that small moment of peace I got every night… from him.”
“Did you love him?” Bishop asked, again getting straight to the point.
“When I think about it now, I believe I did,” Mike could admit. “But back then, I wasn’t ready to be a father, leader in a gang, and in love with a man at twenty-two years old.”
“So…”
Mike threw his hands up as if he’d given up. “So, I blew it.”
“How?” Bishop was pacing now.
“Slick wanted out of the club. He wanted to move far away and live as lovers someplace where no one knew us.”
Bishop stopped.
“I wanted to so fuckin’ much, but I got scared, I don’t know. Yeah, I had a kid, but I wasn’t ready to be a family man. The way Jameson was talkin’ terrified the shit out of me, B. Going legit, buying a home together, starting a joint business, paying taxes… fuck. I mean, who does that in their twenties?”
“So you just let him leave?” Trent asked.
“Let him! He was grown. I didn’t want him to, but… I…”
“You what?” Bishop dug harder.
“He said he had to go and I could stay if I wanted to, but he wanted to take you with him so you’d have a better chance in life… and I snapped. I told him I’d kill him.”
“Damn,” Trent sighed.
“He knew about all the illegal shit I was doing in the club, and you and him had grown so close I thought he was going to try to go through social services or something to take you away from me. But after I said everything I did to him, he left quietly.”
Bishop came and stood in front of him, and Mike wasn’t going to remain sitting while his son towered over him. He met Bishop’s disappointed glare and told him what he wanted to know.
“I told him if he took you, I’d hunt him down and kill him slowly… in front of you.”
“Jesus fuck, Mike,” Bishop said through clenched teeth.
Mike absorbed the justified disappointment in his son’s eyes. He was sure Bishop and Trent knew that he had to do some deplorable, evil shit as the enforcer of the Devil Wreckers, but Mike hated that his boys knew just how vicious he could be if he was upset or, god forbid, if someone threatened what he loved the most in this world.
“That was the first and only time in my life I ever bluffed,” Mike growled. “I didn’t mean it, B. But I was so mean and ruthless in those days Jameson didn’t know whether to test me or not. But I never would’ve laid a finger on him, ever. But I knew I was losing him; I couldn’t lose you too, Bishop. I wouldn’t survive that.”