When we finally made our way downstairs and I opened the sliding bookcase to the outer armory — the one that’s supposed to fool people into thinking they’ve found my stash — she opened and closed the bookcase doors several times until she understood how the unique mechanism worked. However, when I slid a recessed hidden panel open and keyed in the code before giving my palm print, and gave her the code and recorded her palm print to give her access to the true hidden arsenal behind the first hidden room, she burst into tears.
I looked around the room at the dozens of weapons mounted for easy access, looked at my neatly organized stash of ammo, and pulled her into my arms as I asked why she was crying.
“I know what this means, Gonzo. It means you trust me. I never thought you’d trust anyone this much, and I’d told myself it was okay, but…” I could smell her grief and pain, and realized in that moment how much my past baggage affected her. I’d thought I was looking forward and doing okay, but there was one more thing I had to do before I could marry Connie. One more place to clean so I could walk down the aisle looking forward, with nothing from my past I’d refused to face.
Chapter 42
Connie
I was dreading what the day was going to bring, but I knew Gonzo had to do this before he could move on and I was glad he wanted me by his side for it.
Apparently, he’d gotten rid of most of his belongings before he took off on the Appalachian Trail, but he’d put some of his things in storage. He hadn’t opened the door since he’d locked it the day he moved everything in, and he said other than having to think of it once a year when he paid the storage fee, he’d managed to put it out of his mind.
We were in his truck while Brain and Harmony were on Brain’s bike. They peeled off away from us once we reached Charlotte because they were going to spend the day at the local clubhouse while we went to the storage unit. I knew they’d come just so they’d be close if Gonzo needed more emotional support, and I appreciated how much Gonzo’s brothers looked out for him.
My first surprise was finding out he’d been paying for climate-controlled storage for so long, but I didn’t say anything as he looked at the three combination locks on the door.
“The top one’s Nicky’s birthday, then Clara’s birthday, and then the day they were murdered. God, but I was fucking morbid when I sealed this place.” He shook his head as he reached for the first one. “So much hope and love when I watched them come into the world.”
I could see the tears forming, could see and hear him trying to swallow the grief to keep it from coming up, and I felt helpless to do anything to help him. Logically, I knew just my being here was support, but I wanted to be able to take the grief away from him. If just remembering those three dates hurt him this badly, how was he going to handle whatever was inside?
His tears finally fell when he opened the third lock, but he quickly wiped them away and got down to business once we were inside.
He opened each box and looked inside quickly before making a decision of whether to load it in the truck or leave it for now. The things we were loading now would go to the Salvation Army, the things he left would be the boxes we’d take home with us. He’d told me ahead of time he didn’t plan to keep his old clothes or knickknacks, but he planned to keep a few rifles, a coin collection, some tools, and the thing he was most dreading going through — old pictures.
I hadn’t expected one of the rifles to be child-sized, and my heart broke for him as he lifted it from the padded gun case. His little Nicky must’ve shot this, and Gonzo closed his eyes a good ten seconds before he settled it back into the waffled padding.
“There aren’t many things I’m going to want Declan and Chloe to use that were once Nicky or Clara’s, but I think this is one of them. I may change my mind and buy them a new gun when it’s time for them to learn, but…”
“Whatever you feel is right when we get there, we’ll do. You have to know my dad’s going to want to be a part of their first experience shooting a gun, though.”
He nodded. “Your dad expected he’d be the one teaching them. I can’t take that away from him completely.” I saw the first smile I’d seen in a while as he said, “I’m glad he helped me show them what a gun can do. Having both of us shooting watermelons and making them explode pretty spectacularly before we explained how the gun works — and why they should never touch one unless an adult they trust puts it into their hands — made more of an impact than if it’d just been me.”
We worked most of the day before taking the pictures with us to check into our hotel. All of the big boxes would stay in storage their final night while we went through pictures and my dad stayed home and let the kids stay up past their bedtime.
I’d known Gonzo had gone into foster care at fourteen, but I didn’t know his last foster father had slapped him around, so he’d stayed with friends as much as possible until he’d turned eighteen partway through his senior year. He’d moved into a tiny apartment before he’d graduated high school, working thirty plus hours a week stocking a grocery store at night and still managing to keep his grades high enough to graduate, though apparently just barely.
He’d had no family ties to keep him in the sticks of South Carolina, so he’d moved to Charlotte, North Carolina because skip tracers need to live in populated areas to make a decent living.
I hadn’t expected he’d have pictures of his parents and brother in the box, but I noted he had his emotions under control as he pointed them out and told me about them. It didn’t take long for me to realize he’d once done the work necessary to deal with that part of his life and put it behind him. He still missed his parents and brother, but the grief was manageable.
When he opened the album with pictures of his first wife when they were dating, he still managed to hold it together.
Until we reached the first images of her pregnant. “Maybe it was a bad idea for me to bring you,” he said as he wiped his eyes.
“No. You set Dwight aside and became Gonzo all those years ago, but you never really dealt with all of Dwight’s pain. I love all of you, and that means I love the sad parts, too. I know how much you loved them, but I also know how much you love me, Declan, and Chloe. Keep going, you aren’t going to hurt my feelings by crying over this. I know you loved them, and I love you all the more for it.”
He nodded and went quickly through the months of pregnancy until he got to Nicky’s birth. I instinctively knew he had to open up these wounds and cry over them before he could move forward, but I so wished he didn’t have to.
By the time we reached the picture he’d first shown me — the one taken shortly before his wife had been diagnosed with cancer — I think I may have cried as much as him.
He told me a whole lot of happy stories as we made our way through the album, but I knew we didn’t have a lot more happy to go before the saddest ending, ever.
There weren’t many pictures between when his wife had stopped putting them in the album and when his second wife had started making one. I guessed his kids had added birthday pictures to the end of the last one started by their mom, or perhaps Gonzo had. I didn’t ask.
The new ones were put together with a different eye. I’m not sure how to describe the difference, but it was obvious their mother hadn’t put this album together. Perhaps it was because the focus was more on things the kids were doing than the kids themselves, or perhaps I just saw what I wanted to see. It hurt me to see pictures of him happy with his second wife, knowing what she’d done, but he skipped over her images and focused on the kids.
When we reached the final page, a CD was tucked between the pages and he burst into tears as he told me the kids had been killed before he’d had a chance to print out the last images taken of them.
I went to my luggage to get my laptop, and made a stop in the bathroom while it was booting. The CD had pictures of the four of them swimming at an indoor hotel pool with several large waterslides, then images of them at a zoo I didn’t recognize, pictures
of Nicky playing baseball, and finally pictures of Clara dancing on stage, so cute you just wanted to hold her and hug her and kiss her all over.
And Gonzo was… well, he looked like a bad-ass Dwight. He hadn’t yet gone crazy from grief, hadn’t been shot and nearly died, hadn’t built a fortress around him to keep him from getting hurt again. His eyes were softer, his hair shorter, and there wasn’t a beard. If I hadn’t recognized the tattoo sleeve, I might’ve argued whether it was even him.
I’d texted Brain from the bathroom to let him know it might be good if he showed up with beer and food in about forty-five minutes. Gonzo was telling me about Clara being so nervous before the performance and then so excited when it was over, when he must’ve heard Brain’s motorcycle. I didn’t hear it, but he hugged me and said, “I don’t know when you texted him, but thanks.”
“When I got my laptop, and you’re welcome.”
He showed the images on the laptop to Brain and Harmony, and didn’t hide his tears from his friends. I’d once been jealous when he hugged some of the other woman, but I was glad he was close enough to Harmony to get emotional support from her, and it didn’t bother me at all when she hugged him and told him, “Your past has made you who and what you are today. I love you, and I’m so glad you’ve found a way to be happy again.”
Brain watched them hug and then joined them, and Gonzo motioned for me to join in as well. I’ve never been part of a four-person hug before, but it was just what we all needed — tears and all.
This day was the hardest, saddest day of my life, and yet it had to be done. When we arrived home late the next day and Gonzo found a place for the few tools, weapons, and knickknacks he’d chosen to keep, it was with a wistfulness instead of the deep sadness of the day and night before. Yes, his little Nicky had once used this hammer to help make a tree house, and his little Clara had bashed her thumb when she’d played with it without permission, but now he could hold it without crying. He could see the good days without only thinking of the terrible day they’d been murdered.
We put the picture albums away, and put two pictures in a frame on the wall with other family pictures — the one Gonzo had originally shown me, and then one Gonzo had taken of Nicky and Clara before her final performance, with Nicky in a little shirt and tie, and Clara in a beautiful little ballet costume. The twins knew their names and knew they’d been killed. One day they’d have to know more of the story, but they weren’t ready for it yet.
Epilogue
Gonzo
Bash and Bobcat regularly call on me to set people straight when they get rough with our working girls, and in this case I was especially suited to the job since the asshole had beat up one of our girls and left town. It’d taken me two days to find him, but I’d eventually tracked him down in Nashville and brought him back, and he was currently spending time in a locked room with concrete walls beneath the bike shop until we figured out how he was gonna make restitution. I’d beat the hell out of him, but I’d left him alive so he’d have a chance to make things right.
I took a shower and changed clothes at the clubhouse before returning home because I didn’t want any of that energy to follow me home to my kids.
I heard the twins splashing in the pool as soon as I shut my bike off in the garage at home, and I walked around back to see my pregnant wife on a float in the pool watching for me.
Gen was beside her, holding onto pool noodles with her body hanging in the water, while Duke was in the shallow end playing with the kids. Gen was eight months pregnant to Connie’s five months, and the women were together more and more as the weeks went on.
My gaze met Connie’s as the twins ran from the pool, and I squatted to hug them both as they crashed into me. A single nod told Duke I’d accomplished my task, and I stood with a child on each hip as I walked toward the pool and listened to my kids tell me how much they’d missed me. They’re used to me being home for either bedtime or breakfast — it’s rare I have to miss both and I’d done so two days in a row. I hugged them and told them how much I’d missed them, too, and then tossed them in the water one at a time, in the vicinity of Duke so he could intervene if they needed help. They were fine, of course — they’re like little minnows in the water, swimming all over the place as if it were nothing.
I asked Gen how she was doing, told Connie I loved her, and stepped into the pool house to change into swim trunks.
My weapon went in a safe I could easily get into from either side of the wall, and I noted Duke’s was already in. If we’d thought he was protective of Gen before, he was ten times as much now that she was carrying his son.
I originally hadn’t cared whether this baby was a boy or girl, but once I knew what Duke and Gen were having I’d hoped for a son as well because I had a feeling things might get messy if his sixteen-year-old son decided he liked my fifteen-year-old daughter. Living across the street from each other might give them just a little too much access for my comfort.
But someone had been smiling on us, and in less than four months I’d get to hold my third son. I hadn’t been able to hold my second son at birth, and I’d never again hold my first son. I couldn’t change the past, but I could revel in the present.
I never expected to be happy again, but as I ran across the diving board and drenched everyone in the pool with my cannonball, and then surfaced to happy squeals from my kids, I soaked in the joy and delight of the twins, the woman I loved carrying my child, and good friends.
My MC family had pulled me through a dark decade, but I was alive again with another family of my own. With both families at my back, I looked forward to the future in ways I hadn’t imagined would be possible.
My life is full of love and laughter, and I couldn’t be happier.
Also by Candace Blevins
If you enjoyed Gonzo, you may also like the other books set in the same universe, though in different series.
Chattanooga Supernaturals series, paranormal romance:
The Dragon King (Aaron Drake’s story, and the first time we meet Duke and Brain)
Riding the Storm
Acceptable Risk
Only Human series, urban fantasy
Only Human
An Unhuman Journey (Summer 2016)
Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Series
Duke
Brain
Bash Volume I
Bash Volume II
Bash Volume III
Horse
Gonzo
Nix (summer 2016)
Ghost (2016)
Dark Erotica Shorts from the world of The Chattanooga Supernaturals
Pride (A short story featuring The Lion King)
Indentured Freedom: Owned by the Vampire
The Safeword series, intense BDSM contemporary romance
Safeword Rainbow
Safeword: Davenport
Safewords: Davenport and Chiffon
Safeword: Quinacridone
Safeword: Matte
Safeword: Matte – In Training
No Safeword: Matte – The Honeymoon
No Safeword: Matte – Happily Ever After
Safeword: Arabesque
Safeword: Mayday (TBA)
Check out other books by Candace Blevins at candaceblevins.com.
Keep reading for an excerpt from The Dragon King.
The Dragon King
By Candace Blevins
Prologue ~
Aaron
Sophia is the most adorable two year old I’ve ever seen. Fluffy blonde hair, rosy chubby cheeks, and a laugh that makes my heart sore.
I turned to her father, the Swan King, and chose my words carefully. “Raul, you’re sure this is the best course of action? I know you’re still grieving over Angelique’s death, but can you truly prepare Sophia for a life of leading your people if you keep her a prisoner in your home her entire life?”
I could only get away with asking this question because I’d helped raise and train Raul, helped prepare him to take the crown when he
beat his brothers and won the throne.
“I did my best to protect my wife from supernaturals, and a damned human hunter took her out. Sophia won’t leave the walls of the castle until she marries, and hopefully whoever wins her will follow my lead and also keep her behind protective walls. She won’t see the same fate as Angelique.” His voice was firm, didn’t waver, and let me know further conversation on the matter would be met with hostility.
Sophia is the first Swan Princess without at least one brother since before I was born, and by my best guess I’m around nine thousand years old. Give or take a thousand.
Swan Princesses are usually given to other royalty as a way to unite families and sometimes species, but they never have a hope of the throne. Their brothers are required to fight each other for power, the strongest and most cunning winning the crown.
Instead of finding another wife to give him sons, Raul is arranging for a contest between the other Swan royalty, with the strongest being allowed to care for her until she turns twenty five, and then marry her and eventually take the crown. Personally, I think Raul wants to step down and find a way to join his dead wife. The grief of her death still holds him.
I’ve trained the past seven Swan Kings, including Sophia’s father, Raul. I know him well, and I know he loves his daughter. However, he’s still feels such pain over his wife’s slaughter, I worry about the decisions he’s making.
Gonzo (Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club Book 7) Page 30
