by Naomi West
Christ, was I wrong.
The way she’d looked at me, the way she’d spoken to me…
Fuck.
It was like I was a complete stranger. No, worse. It was like I was dead to her.
She couldn’t even look at me. And the only time that she did … I didn’t think I’d ever seen anyone that angry. I’d grown up around bikers and gang members my whole life, big burly men who killed people like it was no problem and yet I’d never seen anyone so enraged.
And all of it was directed straight at me.
I may as well have been dead to her.
I’d spent hours while Daria had locked herself in the hotel room pounding on the door and demanding her to open up. She was like a robot, unfeeling, unthinking, uncaring, completely withdrawn. When I realized she wouldn’t answer, whether it was because of me or because she didn’t even realize there was someone even at the door, I collapsed back against the wood and slid down to the ground. I waited there for hours, hoping she would come out. I didn’t move, didn’t sleep. I knew Daria was inside there, hurting. How could I have left even if I wanted to?
Especially since it was all my fault. I knew it and Daria knew it too. I should’ve stopped Corinne. Sure, she’d made up her mind, but what would she have done if I’d grabbed her and locked her in a room or taken the bike keys from her? If I was being honest, I didn’t really want to stop her. She was the only way Daria would have left the Nightmares alive and deep down I knew that I wouldn’t have put up too much of a fight if I were to do it again. Daria would always be my first priority.
I was crazy to think that I’d ever even have a chance with her, though. I’d made the ultimate gamble when I decided that maybe, just maybe, I could have her, and ended up being responsible for her mother’s death instead. I was no better than my uncle.
After Garcia’s confession, all anger, bitterness and notions of vengeance towards the Nightmares were immediately drained from me. They were not to blame after all. I’d let my short temper and delusions of vengeance make me easily manipulated but I wouldn’t let that happen again.
Cameron had been getting away with his deception for too long and enough was enough. Now that I didn’t have Daria, I needed something else to distract me before I went crazy.
My mind kept replaying my actions over the last few months and I was getting more and more irritated with myself. How could I let myself be so easily controlled? Had my father taught me nothing?
Though we didn’t always get along, if there was one thing my father knew, it was how to run the club successfully and with integrity. He’d described it as the ‘old biker way’ and explained that some people would understand and some wouldn’t.
Despite how hard it was to lose Corinne, I knew that Steele had stuck to the old biker way that my dad had so often talked about. It was about honor, respect, and morality, something that Cameron had never understood.
It killed me more than I could ever explain that I’d never realized the true Cameron, especially since it made so much sense if I thought about it for even a moment.
I was so blinded that I couldn’t see what was right in front of me. I had a plan to resolve it though. Something that I should have done a long time ago.
###
Arriving at the Nightmare clubhouse, a place I’d frequented during my stakeouts with Daria, brought up mixed emotions within me. I knew I was doing the right thing at last, something that put me at ease, but a part of me wished that I’d done it so much earlier.
There was a prospect at the front door that stepped forward hesitantly as I stopped my bike.
“Who are you?” he called out.
“Rocky Weston. I need to speak with Jason Steele.”
“About what?”
“Just tell him I’m here,” I growled.
The prospect lifted his walkie-talkie up to his mouth.
“It’s Slim. There’s a Rocky Weston here to see the Prez.”
“Is he armed?” the voice said back.
“No,” I put in. I lifted my shirt for good measure and showed him the lack of gun in my waistband.
“He’s unarmed,” the prospect confirmed.
Idiot, I thought. He didn’t even search me. I remembered how Garcia’s men had gins strapped to their ankles, knives on their thighs and several holsters. Rookie move, Prospect.
“Boss says let him through.”
With the door open, I headed inside. I didn’t get three steps in before I felt something hard press into the back of my head.
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t shoot you.”
“I don’t have one.”
There was a silence and then I could feel the gun being pulled away from the back of my head. I turned around slowly so as not to alarm him and came face to face with Jason Steele himself. I couldn’t help but feel I’d passed some sort of test in Steele’s eyes considering my brain matter wasn’t exploded on the wall behind me at this point.
“You’re brave to show your face here.”
“I needed to see you. I should’ve come a long time ago.”
Weeks, months. For a moment, I imagined what would have happened if I’d come directly here after my father’s funeral, gotten everything sorted out back then so I didn’t have to deal with months of bullshit, and now the loss of the best thing in my life.
“This better be good,” Jason said.
Jason turned on his heel and walked down a hall. With no other option, I followed him until we got to a kitchen area. What was going on?
“Beer?” he asked.
I was thrown for a moment but kept my cool.
“Thanks.”
He passed me a beer and leaned against the counter, lifting it up to his mouth and taking a long pull. I assumed he was waiting for me to speak so I didn’t delay any longer.
“I came here to apologize.”
Jason didn’t respond in words, just raised an eyebrow at me and drank his beer.
“I was played. I thought you’d killed my father and I was consumed by my need for revenge. I’m sorry I tried to kill you.”
Jason scoffed. “Took you long enough to realize I had nothing to do with it.”
Yeah, it had. I would have given anything to go back and change it. Trying to control my scowl of regret, I continued. “It was my uncle. He’s been lying to me for months, trying to get me to start a war so he could take over your club.”
Though I wouldn’t have understood it before, Cameron’s plan would never have worked. The Nightmares were too tightly knit, too close and too solid. He didn’t stand a chance at whatever he’d been planning and Jason probably knew it too.
“I’m not surprised. Cameron Weston was always jealous of Billy. I’m surprised there’s even a Satan’s Wings left with what I know of him.”
I was surprised as well. The club should have collapsed ages ago but it was narrowly staying alive. It needed a president that was less like Cameron and more like Jason —calm, determined, driven and intelligent. In saying that, Jason was a lot calmer than I’d expected and I took this as a good sign.
“I’d like to offer a truce.”
“A truce?”
“Yes. There’s too much animosity between our clubs. You’re the closest club to us and we should be using it to our advantage. Teaming up and covering more ground, opening up charters elsewhere, opening a trade link between our clubs and others. We don’t need to be rivals.”
“You know, your dad had been nagging me about the very same thing for years. Difference was, we didn’t know if either of our clubs would go for it.”
I was taken aback at this news. Had my dad really been all about peace and harmony with the Nightmares? Cameron had always spoken of how much Jason had hated my dad, but I was starting to doubt even the smallest things he’d told me over the years.
“Would you try it now?” I asked. I held my breath for the rejection that I was sure would be coming.
“I think I will.”
I released my brea
th. “Thank you.” I held out my hand for Jason to shake and for the first time in a long while, I knew I was doing the right thing.
“What about Cameron?” he asked.
“Don’t you worry about him.” I smiled bitterly. “I’ll be taking care of him.”
With our discussion over, I thanked Jason one more time and turned to leave the room.
“Hey, Weston,” he called out.
I spun around to see him gaze at me with a contemplative look in his eyes. Something about that look made me feel like he could read my mind.
“You're a lot like him, you know. Like Billy.”
Inside, I was shocked, but I remained calm on the outside. My whole life I’d been told I looked like my mom. People barely mentioned anything about my dad. Somehow though I knew he wasn’t talking about appearances.
“Don’t you forget that.”
I wouldn’t. The club was all I had left now and I knew it could be great again with Cameron gone. I was going to pit everything I had into restoring the club to its former glory, to the way my dad had always dreamed it would be.
Giving him an appreciative look, I turned to leave the room but stopped suddenly.
“Hey Jason? One more thing,” I began. “Who was the bastard that kidnapped my girl?”
Jason sat silent for a moment before he shrugged.
“Dex!” he called out.
A moment later someone stuck their head into the kitchen.
“Yeah, Prez?”
“Escort Mr. Weston to the exit, would you?”
“Of course. Let’s go Weston.”
“Thank you,” I said to Jason, following Dex out of the room.
He walked me to the exit of the clubhouse and stood there expecting me to leave. Clenching a fist, I punched him dead in the nose, the telltale crack of bone breaking sounding out in the air.
“That was for my girl,” I told him, leaving him groaning on the floor in agony.
Feeling marginally better, I climbed onto my bike and prepared to head home.
I’d spent too long avoiding what needed to be done but I would do that no longer. There was no stopping what I had planned now.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Daria
Packing had always struck me as a strange affair. How could anyone fit their whole life into a suitcase? How could anyone decide out of every single thing they owned what was important and what could be left behind? Packing up someone else’s life was considerably harder. It felt like a strange sort of betrayal, deciding that the most important things of Mom’s were a few odd items that I would take with me while the rest would be discarded. If Mom were here, then she may have kicked up a fuss and demanded I take more things of hers to remember her by but she wasn’t here. And I couldn’t take everything, no matter how much I wanted to.
I was several hours into packing up the hotel, a job that should’ve taken less than one hour. It didn’t help that every third or fourth item I picked up was associated with strong memories that I wanted to relive for a moment before I was willing to pack it away. It was a long process and despite how often I kept reminding myself that it was necessary to leave town, I still wanted to delay the inevitable.
Deciding what to keep and what to throw away was made harder by the fact that Mom never really had much of an attachment to material possessions, especially considering how quickly we’d had to flee from my stepfather. The only things of real value in the hotel were photo frames, albums and mementos.
That didn’t at all take into consideration the other little things in the room that weren’t particularly valuable in anyway but things I associated with strong memories of my mother and so I couldn’t bear to part with.
Probably the worst part of the entire packing experience was the moment I realized how few photos I had of my mother. It was saddening but also exactly what is should’ve expected from my mother.
She was beautiful, and not just because she was my mother. But there was something about capturing herself in the moment with a camera that she hated. On the other hand, she had practically glued a camera to her hand when I was a kid. There were hundreds of photos of me growing up. The first tooth I’d lost, riding a bike for the first time, my first day of school. Not all of them marked special events either. There was one that Mom had taken because I’d woken up and she thought the lighting was nice. There was one when I had a fever and Mom was scared I would die. There was one when I tied my shoes for the first time but had put them on the wrong feet. All of it was photo documentation of my entire life until now, but sadly there were only a few scattered photos of my mom.
Oh well. Nothing I could do about it now. It was just another thing to add onto my list of regrets.
I was finally done packing a single suitcase of things that I would take with me to start my new life. It was going to be harder than I’d realized to leave Springville.
All my happy memories of Mom were here. It was where I grew up, the first home I had. It was where Mom was born and where she spent most of her life. It was where we’d fled back to when we needed to be safe again.
But it was also where we’d fled from in the first place. It was where she’d died. It was where she’d sacrificed her life for mine.
Did she not realize how destroyed I would be?
What was she thinking?
She’d died so that I could live. What kind of horrible logic was that? How could she do … I trailed off as the thought continued to grow in my head.
How could she do what every mother would do? How could she protect her only child until her death? How could she put my happiness before her own life?
Mom had spent her entire life trying to keep me safe and she’d died doing the same thing. Like a ton of bricks crashing down on me, I realized just how stupid I was being. Of course, she would trade herself for me, didn’t I know my mother at all?
This was exactly the kind of thing she would do with no hesitation. How many times had she flung herself in front of my stepfather so I wouldn’t get beaten? How many times had she lied to protect me, how many times had she warned me away from dangers and tried to mother me in an overprotective way that I would complain about?
Of course, she’d done what she did.
That didn’t mean I had to like it, though.
“Mom,” I said aloud. “I wish you weren’t so quick to protect me. You could’ve been alive right now.”
As I expected, there was no answer, but I did feel slightly better talking aloud than in my head.
The last words she’d said to me were ‘I love you.’ I wished now that I had returned the sentiment. At the time, I was too busy trying to get away from my captor. What had she said before that? Something about going to Rocky?
She must have been confused in her last moments. She’d never want me to go back to Rocky. Mom didn’t even want me around him in the first place. And she was right. The club was more dangerous than I’d ever know, and it had proven that time and time again.
I should’ve left town then and there, as soon as Mom had told me to run, instead of going back to Rocky. It just made everything more complicated than it needed to be. With any luck, Rocky would’ve thought I was dead as well and now I wouldn’t have to deal with the guilt of leaving him.
The selfishness of the thought made me frown. In reality, I knew Rocky wouldn’t get over my death at all. In fact, he would’ve raged an all-out war with the Nightmares, charging right over there, guns blazing. Whether Mom knew it or not, she’d saved quite a few lives with her sacrifice.
Who was I kidding? Of course, Mom knew that. She’d probably calculated the risks, the problems, the potential outcomes and all the hundreds of variables that might affect the future.
“Shit,” I muttered aloud.
This whole time I’d convinced myself that it was Rocky’s fault for letting my mother go off to her death just to save me but that wasn’t entirely the truth. Mom would’ve gotten her way eventually, even if Rocky had tried to stop her. She’
d known that he would have gone crazy and started a war. She’d known that something had to happen to prevent that. She’d known that by sacrificing herself she’d not only save me but the club that she’d grown up in.
Rocky wasn’t to blame for my mother’s decision. It was more my fault than his anyway. If I hadn’t chosen to get caught up in Rocky’s life, then maybe they wouldn’t have taken me to get back at Rocky.
