A Love So Hard (Aces High MC - Charleston Book 2)

by Christine Michelle

  Out of respect, I still didn’t drink around him, but the other men of the club had slowly laxed and he had gotten control over himself and his addiction enough to handle that shit. “Hmm,” Merc hummed as he flashed his cards. He had three of a kind and they were fucking Aces. I narrowed my eyes on him as Crow threw his hand down grumbling about Merc being a cheating bastard.

  “What was the ‘hmm,” for?” I asked Merc.

  He brought his eyes up to me and then grinned. “I wonder what it’s going to be like to watch you be a grandpa.” That brought me up straight in my seat.

  “A what now?” My phone was in my hand, our previous conversation forgotten. When Merc realized exactly whom I was calling he slammed his hand down on my phone before I could hit the call button. “What the fuck?”

  “Not them, idiot!” He laughed as he said it. “Your boy is bringing his woman home, for the first time since they got together which has been a long while in the making. She was special enough that he kept her separate from everything here this long. Now, he’s headed to your place to set up a surprise for his mom? As if bringing a regular woman home wasn’t enough? I bet you twice that damn jackpot they’re popping a baby on you.”

  I sat staring at my best friend and taking it all in. “My boy, a dad?” I asked suddenly.

  Merc chuckled again. “Thought mine would be the first to give one of us a grandkid.” I frowned at my brother then. “Calm your tits, asshole. I meant J-Bird, not Deck. Although,” he added to torment me, “he is married now. I’m surprised there hasn’t been an announcement from them too.”

  “Fuck you! My little girl is too young for a baby.”

  “They’ve been married going on a year now,” he informed me like I wasn’t aware of that.

  “And I like to think they’re still being chaste about it. Pretty sure they’re waiting until she’s 21 at least before they even think about…”

  All of the men in the vicinity started laughing their asses off. “Keep telling yourself that, Papa Bear,” Crow cried out through his own laughter. Then he turned his attention to Merc. “I think you’re right. Sounds like baby news is happening.”

  “Well shit!” I finally grinned thinking about how my son was going to do this dad business way better than I ever did, and he’d be there with his woman from the beginning. He was already getting a better start than I had. “Lucy’s going to be beside herself once she gets over being mad for finding out on the day she meets the girl.”

  “Yeah, T-Bone didn’t think that shit through, did he?” Sandman added his two cents from where he was sitting on a couch just off to our left. He had one of the newer club whores on his lap. I rolled my eyes at him. I thought he would have finally gotten shy of that shit and started looking for a woman since he had so obviously been craving the steadiness of a good woman. I wondered what kept him from seeking it out instead of diving into the easy pussy at the club all the time.

  My phone started vibrating under my hand and I glanced down to see the hospital’s number flash across it. “Lucy must have forgotten her phone again,” I offered up with a grin plastered on my face as I answered. “What’s up, babe?”

  “Um, I’m sorry, this is Chandra Ellington from the Medical University’s Emergency Room,” she offered.

  “You reached Charles Brothers,” I called back to her.

  “Sir, there’s been an accident.”

  “Lucy?” I questioned immediately coming to my feet. The men around me responded likewise, picking up on my elevated tension.

  “We have a Tobias Brothers here,” she stated and my stomach dropped out from under me. He should have been at my house setting up a surprise for his mom. “He’s been in a an accident involving a motorcycle. He and the young lady that was with him were brought in. The police are here waiting to question them as well,” she hinted. “We need you to come down and give permission for care.”

  “My wife is there, in the hospital now. Have her paged. I’ll be there as soon as I can get there. What the fuck happened that the police are on standby?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s not something your son did though. I know that much. They’re here because witnesses said the accident wasn’t an accident.”

  “What did you just say?”

  “Someone did this on purpose,” she explained. “That’s all I know, Mr. Brothers.” The line went quiet for a moment before her voice, much smaller now, came back. “You should get here as quickly as you can.” I hung up and was moving out the door. Didn’t bother to say a word to any of my brothers. I vaguely heard them calling out to me as I fired up my bike and took the fuck off for the hospital. I needed to get there quick like. I couldn’t leave Lucy there to deal with this on her own.

  By the time I showed up Ever and Deck were on their way inside as well. “Dad,” she called when she saw me. “What’s going on? Mom called crying, said to get here. I thought,” she choked back her emotion as I watched Deck pull her closer. “I thought something had happened to you.”

  “Toby’s here. He was in an accident.

  “No!” She cried out. Nothing else was said as we made our way inside and to the nurse’s station.

  “Toby Brothers,” I called out to the nurse sitting behind the desk. Suddenly, Lucy was there by my side.

  “Come on,” she grabbed my hand and pulled me through the double doors that led back to the treatment rooms. “He’s in surgery right now, but they set up a room for us to wait in back here,” my wife told me. We moved through and along the way Ever stopped.

  “Gretchen?” She called out as we were passing one of the treatment areas closed off by just a curtain that hadn’t been fully closed.

  “Ever!” Gretchen called out and then broke into tears. The woman had a hell of a road rash across her right cheek and her entire right arm was bandaged up. I was putting two and two together as we stood there. Lucy tugged on my hand, not realizing why everyone had come to a stop.

  “Ever!” A tortured voice called out before the sobbing started. “Please, they won’t tell me,” she hiccupped out through her sobs. “Is he okay?”

  “Is who okay?” Ever asked.

  “Toby,” Gretchen whispered, but we all heard her and then we converged on the girl that was being swallowed up by the hospital bed she was sitting in. “We were on our way,” she started. She glanced over at Lucy’s puzzled face. “Your house, we were headed there to…” Her hand moved to her belly and our suspicions were confirmed. It was then that noticed we had Merc and Crow standing there with us. Her tears swallowed her up again as my eyes met Merc’s. His grim face said it all. He understood what had just happened. I did have a grandchild on the way, but maybe not anymore.

  “I am…” she cried harder then. “I was pregnant. We were going to tell you.” When I turned back around the woman was engulfed in the arms of both Lucy and Ever.

  “Oh, sweet girl,” Lucy cooed.

  “Gretchen,” Ever’s voice broke on the woman’s name. It hit me then where I’d seen the woman before. She worked in at Permanent Marks with Ever. I flashback of my son flirting with her back when we were there to talk about the tattoos we all received hit me. Jesus. Had they been together all this time?

  “What is going on in here?” a male voice asked. “You all need to leave.” Lucy stood, leaving Gretchen to lean on our daughter.

  “We are her family,” she stated coolly.

  “Lucy?” The man asked as he moved around Merc so he could see who all was in here with his patient. “What’s going on? I was told the young lady didn’t have family here to call.”

  “My son is her man, so she has his family here with her, and you will update her on his condition as if she was one of us.”

  I was so damn proud of my woman. She just found out this was Toby’s girl, and she was giving her the same due as anyone’s old lady would get. “Yeah, okay, we’ll see to that,” the doctor agreed. Then he turned to Gretchen. “Are you okay with these people being here when we talk about your conditi
on though?” He asked, ignoring the rest of us. Ballsy fucker, but I had respect for that. He wasn’t going to roll over and just assume.

  Gretchen nodded her head that was resting against my daughter’s shoulder. A beep sounded somewhere in the room and Deck spoke up. “Jay’s here with Anna. I’ll go get them,” he said and then he was gone from the room.

  “Ms. Tierny,” he sighed. “We have an OB coming down to check you over and make sure that everything is as it should be.”

  Her tear soaked face glared at the doctor. “Everything isn’t as it should be,” she hissed at him through gritted teeth. “I shouldn’t be here. Toby shouldn’t be in surgery. My baby shouldn’t be gone. What more do you want? Is there something else you’d like to take?”

  Lucy was back on the side of the bed Ever wasn’t taken up and she took hold of the angry woman, whispering words in her ear that weren’t meant for the rest of us. Lucy stroked down the woman’s hair that was obvious a mess from a combination of helmet head and everything they’d gone through in the accident. I didn’t miss the fact that the ends of her hair were coated in a brownish red color.

  “We need to check to see if your body needs help with the,” the doctor cut himself off and glanced around at the angry faces watching him. “I’m sorry,” he offered. “There isn’t an easy way to do something like this.” I clamped a hand down on his shoulder and squeezed, because he wasn’t wrong. He was basically telling my daughter in law that they might need to suck her dead baby out of her body. No, there wouldn’t be an easy or tactful way to say something like that. Lucy and Ever held onto the girl who was shaking through her sobs again.

  “Doc, how about you give the women a few minutes. You know who Lucy is?” he nodded his head. “Let her work her magic,” I suggested.

  “Use the call button for the nurses station,” he informed me.

  “Yeah man, make sure that they bring any news of Toby to us here. We’ll be sitting with his woman until he’s brought back down.”

  I felt the man flinch under my hand and I wanted to roar out my rage at what that might mean. He would have seen my son when he came in. He would know what kind of shape he was in. I was about to step out of the room with the doctor and make him tell me exactly what was going on with my son, but I was stopped by the words the girl had been mumbling.

  “She tried to kill us. She did this. She took my baby. I warned him she’d been coming around more and more. My baby is gone now. What am I supposed to do? I want to take everything from her the way she took it all from me.”

  I turned and marched my ass the few steps it took to come up to her bedside, then I knelt there on the floor beside where my wife held the woman on the bed. “What did you just say, darlin’?”

  “She killed my baby!” The girl wailed hysterically.

  “Who?” I asked, thinking I might already know considering the conversation I’d had with both my wife and son just days ago.

  “Seneca,” she hissed out. “Your fucking club whore killed my baby!”

  I stood and moved away from her anger even as I understood it. I turned to Merc. “Find her,” I ordered. Sandman looked as though he was going to be sick. He was the one who had brought that particular whore into the club. That wasn’t fair. She had come in with another hang around, but he sponsored her staying on as one of the club’s regular women.

  “I’ll find her,” he insisted and then he took off. I turned back in time to see the devastation and anger written all over my old lady’s face. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I’d let Toby talk me out of how serious the situation might have actually been. I should have known. My son was so much like me. I hadn’t wanted to admit to myself, let alone out loud, that fucking club whores had raped me all those years ago. I still had trouble spitting out those words on the rare occasion I needed to speak on it. Which was twice in the past 23 years since it happened.

  A throat cleared behind me. “Excuse me, I need to be able to speak with a Ms. Gretchen Tierny,” the man called out as I turned to see who it was. A police detective, who seemed familiar to me, stood there in jeans and a polo shirt with a badge hanging around his neck from a chain.

  “Did you find her?” Gretchen asked, her voice husky from all the crying.

  “We have her in custody, ma’am. I just need to go over things with you one more time.” Gretchen nodded her head. The man glanced around and then ordered us all out. “You all can wait out in the hall while I speak to Ms. Tierny.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” my wife snapped.

  “Excuse me?” The detective responded.

  “This girl just lost her baby, my grandbaby, and we are still waiting to hear news about my son who is currently in surgery.”

  “Your son is Tobias Brothers?” The man asked as he glanced around at the other people in the room.

  “Yes, and we are all family so don’t even think about dismissing anyone.”

  “Shit,” I heard him hiss under his breath. He wasn’t stupid. We might not wear the patch of the one percent anymore, but our club’s history was still marked in the eyes of the law around these parts. They all knew what we’d pulled ourselves up from. They also weren’t stupid enough to think we wouldn’t be seeking our own club justice for this. He pulled up a chair, and then took a tablet out of the bag hanging from his shoulder that I was just now noticing.

  “Okay, let’s start from the beginning. You said this woman had been following you around?”

  Gretchen shook her head. “She wasn’t following me. It was Toby. She’d gotten it in her head that he was going to be hers.” Her nose scrunched up in distaste. He had been with her once before, at the club.”

  The detective threw a look over his shoulder at the men standing at his back. “The Aces High Motorcycle Club?” He asked for confirmation.

  “Yeah, she was one of their whores,” Gretchen insisted.

  “A hang around who fucks the men when it pleases them,” Merc insisted. “Not paid for services, and not against her will.” The clarification was important when you started using the word whore with local law enforcement.

  The man nodded. He knew. I was pretty sure he was part of the local Blue Ride Chapter. Cop bikers. From what I understood they had their own form of groupie bitches that hung around their place too. “You mentioned she followed Toby around,” the man prompted.

  “It’s been months,” she whined. “It started when Toby and I began dating. I didn’t want to get involved with him then because of,” she glanced at Ever and offered her a sad smile. “I met him when he was there about the tattoos,” she informed Ever.

  “I know that,” Ever returned with her own hint of a smile.

  “Tattoos?” The detective questioned.

  “We work at Permanent Marks,” Gretchen informed him. “Ever tattoos there and I work the front desk. Toby is her brother.”

  The detective glanced at my daughter appreciatively and then moved his eyes back to Gretchen. “Why didn’t you want to date him?”

  “That’s a family matter,” Ever stated. “It has nothing to do with this. It was about me.”

  “Still,” the man prompted.

  “I was angry at my brother then. We’ve since reconciled. I’m guessing Gretchen was feeling a bit disloyal to me when she took a liking to my brother. She shouldn’t have felt that way. My brother is a charmer, but he’s also a good man.”

  Gretchen’s breath hitched with Ever’s words. “We had gone out a handful of times, and I liked spending time with him,” she admitted with a blush on her freckled cheeks. “Then we were coming out of the movies one night and this woman was standing there by his motorcycle, waiting for us. She started making claims that Toby was hers and she simply didn’t mind sharing, but that it was time for him to come home to her now, because I’d had my turn.”

  Lucy’s gasp of surprise caught everyone’s attention. “When was that?”

  “About six months ago, I guess,” Gretchen answered.

  “Six months,” Lucy whisp
ered back. “She’s been following him around and causing trouble that long? I thought it was something new.” Her eyes found mine and I saw the despair in them. I knew what she was feeling, because it was hitting me square in the chest too. We should have known this was going on. He hadn’t told anyone until it was so much that he had no choice but to tell them.

  “What happened after that?” The detective asked Gretchen.

  “We broke up for a while, but then he sweet talked his way back into my life. He told me about how he had been with Gretchen once, what her purpose was at the clubhouse, and that she was just crazy because he wouldn’t be with her. We spent that night together, making up.” The furious blush on her cheek that wasn’t ravaged by the road rash made me wonder how uncomfortable that must have made the side that was hurt.

  “The next day, she saw us out together and tried to pull the same shit. Only this time, she must not have been following him that night. She really did accidentally run into us that day. She tried to tell me she had been fucking him all night long, and asked how I enjoyed her sloppy seconds. I laughed at her, which pissed her off in pretty serious way. I knew she was lying because I’d been with Toby all night.” She was busy picking non existent lint from the blanket covering her legs. “After that, we would see her places she had no business being. A few times it was outside Permanent Marks. Sometimes it would be when we were walking through the grocery store. She didn’t approach us again, but she was always there. Most of the time it looked like she was legitimately there, you know. So, we couldn’t really say something to anyone about the fact that she happened to be shopping in the same store when she had a cart full of crap. We would see her at a club, but she would be dancing with someone. I thought it was just me going nuts, jealousy, or something.” She shook her head. “Then Toby told me he’d seen her car following him one day a couple months ago.”