Something I’ve most definitely learned is how many different sides there are to every story. How many different ways each story can be told, and just how incredibly vital each angle is. Yet to hear one and only one facet of a tale almost always makes it seem complete. Does it not?
Think about the last time you heard a story. Then think of the last time you listened to two different sides of the same story. Now, ask yourself: Has the one ever felt as fully complete as it did before hearing the second viewpoint? And, after hearing both, have the two ever been the same? Ever? Even once?
No. You know why?
Because, like us, our stories are just as important individually. And they are just as unique as we are ourselves. Like mine, they’re not like yours. And like yours, mine won’t be the same. There are no two identical sides. None. And no story is ever really complete, is it? Because there’s always one more fucking perspective out there that hasn’t been told. There’s always more story to be heard.
Having the patience to listen to all sides, in some instances, can allow you more of an advantage. And, even though you may believe that the story is finished, the point is that, like seeing beauty, reading a story is also all in the eye of the beholder. Just as with all things in life, this is no different. There is always a balance. And there’s always another side. To everything. If we don’t kill ourselves trying to find the answers to all of our riddles, we’re gonna kill each other as our world becomes more emotionally unstable. We shouldn’t be angry for not having found true happiness in life. We should delight in simply seeking it with the ones we love, the people in our lives who make us the happiest.
That is what I have learned in my life. This is my hard lesson. My hard life lesson.
And so, as the story finally comes to somewhat of a close, I’ll leave you with this side of the story.
There is an abundance of elation and happiness in the air the day we walk into the compound with our newest bundle of joy. The baby boy is clutched tightly to his mother’s breast. And the people in the room cheer as loudly as they can when I come to a stop in the middle of the room with Eve smiling up at me from my side. Our older two rug rats are also in tow, positioned on each of my hips. Two-year-old Bishop and four-year-old Apple both smile, waving as the gathering of MC members huddles closer to get a peek at their new baby brother.
We’re all standing shoulder to shoulder in the common room as King steps forward, his pride almost tangible as he holds both hands out to me. And, from one proud poppa to another, newer proud poppa, Apple exchanges their loving embraces.
Both King and I, as unalike as we are the same, unconsciously move closer around the new mother, visibly protective of who and what is ours. We smile down at a beaming Eve, who’s holding her new son and tucked into my side.
The glee in the jubilee surrounding us is palpable, and the crowd is joyous as my happy new and even bigger family is welcomed into the enveloping crowd as we officially introduce our third child to both of our families and both MCs.
“I want everyone to meet our newest addition and my youngest son, Jacques Archer Cain, the second,” I say. “He, ahh... Well, we didn’t know it till it was too late, but my boy here—my namesake—obviously didn’t get the exit manual. That or he’s more like his maman than me and don’t know a damn thing about policy and procedure.”
A low hum of snickers and chuckles blanket the crowd as King slaps me on the back, barking out laughter while settling his granddaughter on his hip.
I keep my eyes in the direction of the older man and a sly smirk on my face. “He decided to hit this planet feet first. No need in pulling into it headfirst like a parking spot. He had his own map, and my Vagabond here paid the ticket.” My entire frame shakes, laughing as I tuck my arm closer around Eve, bringing her tighter into my side.
When I look over her head, my eyes lock with my father-in-law’s. I wink at King just as he comes to stand on the other side of Eve with Apple in his arms. The room quiets other than a few ‘aww’s’ when my lips brush across the top of Eve’s head, and only the handful of people standing around us are able to hear me as I mutter the pained words against her temple.
“Thank you, Pipsqueak. For blessing me with every child, for being the ‘one’ I get to share my life with. But, mostly, thank you, Eve, for not giving up on me. Well, for not really giving up on me.” I smirk around my dimples and wink at her before lowering my face to hers and inhaling her scent. “Hmm...you smell just like home,” I mutter against her hair, smiling as Nails and Phil stagger in looking like they’ve both just seen a ghost.
My gaze shoots over my wife’s head in Dreads’ direction, and once I’ve got his attention, which is never hard, I jerk my head towards the two men who just entered our happy welcome-home party.
Vagabond may be a lot of things, but oblivious to her surroundings, she is not. It’s like a sixth sense, one only she and I share. She feels my hackles rise, and a few seconds after making eye contact with me for a few beats, she’s already in motion, handing our newborn son off to Lulu, the house nanny Renee and I brought in after Bishop’s birth.
Eve’s black dress strap slides over her shoulder as she stoops down to Apple and Bishop’s eye level, smiling brightly up at them. She reaches for both of them before circling them in her arms.
“Maman and Pops need you two to run downstairs to the basement with Lulu and baby Jax, okay? Apple, I need you to get the table set. Lulu will need help making your favorite peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with your new baby brother fussing. You think you can be a good girl and help when she asks?”
My daughter and my son eagerly nod and glance at each other before looking back up to their maman.
“Yes, Maman. We promise!”
“Okay.” My wife kisses the tops of our children's heads.
I come to stand directly beside her and ruffle Apple’s hair first, then little Bishop’s. “Listen to your maman, kiddos. And Lulu. Maman will be down in a little while.” The last part earns me a glare from my wife.
Then she interjects with, “We will be down in a little while, before dinner for certain.”
When Eve’s eyes land on mine and her eyebrow rises, I read the look written across her face. She’s daring me to question her authority. And, for the time being, I’ll concede.
“It won’t be long, little ones.” I smile before scooping my daughter up and handing her to her grand-père. “Renee, I’ll text you as soon as I know something. Please, I need someone here I can trust, and they’re your blood just as they’re mine. I know you’ll protect them. With your own life, if necessary.”
The older Cajun man nods once before changing his dead-serious face and smiling like he hasn’t a care in the world. Then he looks down at his two youngest grandchildren.
After Lulu and Renee have ushered our young ones to the safe confines of the bunker beneath the basement, Dreads, Eve, and I storm from the common building’s open bay doors, heading straight for the church, where I’m hoping Nails and Phil had the common sense to take whatever big-ass news they were about to deliver.
Only we’re stopped short about fifteen feet when a man I hardly recognize steps from around the side of the building. In one of his hands, he has a pistol pointed at Nails and Phil, and in his other, he has a detonator of some sort, which I can only conclude must control the multiple packs of C4 he has strapped to his chest and back.
His wild eyes keep glancing around, and I realize the weight loss, the physical state of his apparent bad health, as well as his obviously slipping mental wellbeing. All of it is only being fueled by two things: the crystal meth pumping through his veins, which has his tongue rolling in and out of his mouth, and his revenge—against me.
“Where’re they at? There’s gotta three of four of them by now. Where’re they at, Jackie boy? Huh? After I force them and you to watch me violate the fuck outta their mother, I want all of you, even her father, out here so everyone can witness that bitch’s final demise as I slit her thr
oat from earlobe to earlobe.”
His maniacal laugh causes chills to skate across Vagabond’s skin, but it only makes my hackles rise higher. He’s juggling the remote detonator and the gun back and forth between his hands, and I realize just how hard he’s tweaking. Even Phil and Nails let out a silent sigh of relief. But I don’t, because I can’t afford to. He may be tweaking, but to me, that only makes him more dangerous. All of his actions are gonna be random now. Just like they have been. And that’s why I couldn’t ever fucking get him.
Look at the squirrelly bastard. Look at him twitching. There’s no telling how long he’s been getting strung out on this shit.
“Bennie, what the fuck, brother?” I shake my head and slowly step closer to him, putting myself between him and Eve. “Dope? Really? That’s where you went to lick your wounds? Into the arms of crystal meth? I mean, I get it, as seductive as it is of a drug, but still, man. How’d you let it get you by the balls like this? Consume your every waking thought like it does? Well, aside from killing me and what’s most precious to me. Didn’t your pops teach you anything?”
Eve steps forward behind me, just before she whispers, “Don’t talk to him, Jacques. Don’t tell him anything. He doesn’t deserve anything other than a bullet between his eyes. Do you hear me? Pull out your fucking Kimber!”
I quickly shake my head at her, praying to God that Ben didn’t hear her or see her moving behind me. Then I get back to my task at hand: taunting the ever-loving fuck out of this little, skinny, cracked-out motherfucker standing in front of me. The one who looks a whole hell of a lot like a brother I loved so long ago but I can hardly remember. Yet I do remember.
And I also remember the C4 he strapped to himself before walking onto my property. Where my ENTIRE world lives and sleeps.
“Obviously, he never taught you a damn thing about policy and procedure—that’s for damn sure. You just interrupted something very important to me. A very important, once-in-a-lifetime celebration. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Nails and Phil move closer, almost circling Ben, which makes his concentration divert from me and my taunts back to them. He keeps his pistol pointed between the two of them.
“S-stop! Both of you stop moving!” he yells.
His high must be a shitty one, because it quickly dissipates—as does the huge bravado he carried with him only moments before.
“Jacques, please! I don’t want to do this, either. I just needed your attention for a second.” His voice gets higher the closer Phil, Nails, and I encroach in his space.
I’m still conscious of my wife and her presence behind me, and I feel safe with the distance between the two. However, Ben’s shaky left hand on that detonator is another vastly growing concern altogether. When my hand rests on the butt of my Kimber strapped in my holster, he flips his shit. Like, really flips his shit. Immediately, my hands go up in surrender.
“Sorry. Just making sure it was there. I couldn’t remember if I’d taken my straps off when I first walked in. Guess not.”
When Ben jerks back towards Phil and Nails, King and Beau join the circle of men around my cousin.
“H-hey! Fuck!” He looks at me almost as if he’s pleading for me to make them stop. “Fucking stop!” He holds both hands out, shaking like a leaf.
I’m almost afraid he’s going to drop the remote. Then I hear the gravel crunch behind me and Vagabond mutter, “Fuck this crazy motherfucker.”
A split second later, Vagabond is headed straight for the backside of Bentley Cain, launching herself at him without a single regard for herself or her safety. Then everything begins to move at the speed of light, yet slow to the slowest of slow motion. Words are being screamed, yet they sound as if they’re being dragged out of the screamer’s mouth.
It’s funny. In moments like these, moments that take our breath away with fear, you finally appreciate all the little moments you were just breathing. Living day to day. Going through the motions of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday just to get to sigh a breath of relief on Saturday and Sunday. Only to start all over again. But we love it. We yearn for it. To feel complete. To feel at home. To be a part of something, be it a family, an MC, anything. Everyone just wants to feel needed, and everyone needs a place to call home.
Eve Of’May O’Malley Cain is my home. She always has been, and she always will be. Now, if I can just get her to stop choking bastards and roughing them up when they piss her off, maybe then... Nah.
I wouldn’t have that woman any other way.
We never got a chance to get her to a range and find out what type of gun she prefers to hold. Even between King and I, we never got a chance. So Eve wasn’t allowed to carry. That and who needs a 9 mm Glock next to some diapers and wipes in a Vera Bradly baby bag? No one—precisely. Especially Eve.
So what was my little wife’s weapon of choice when she landed on Ben’s back like a goddamn Amazon barbarian woman? None other than the chain that belonged to my mother, the chain that held the crucifix Eve has always loved.
I later found out she’d hurriedly gotten the cross off the chain and shoved it in her bra. Then, with one fist on either side of that chain, she jumped on the man carrying enough C4 to put a hole the size of the nearest mall into the ground under the compound and hung on for dear fucking life. She rode that man from behind, the chain pulled as tightly as she could around his frail, thin neck. And the more his fight began to wane, the tighter that chain choked around his neck. Until his bulging eyes were completely bloodshot and rolling back into his head.
Just before the life left him and his thumb came off the remote detonator button, I easily swiped it from his grasp. More than twenty-five of her father’s and my men swarmed us before lugging Ben’s lifeless body to the nearest truck. Then they took it as far away from civilization as possible.
Now...how’s that for happily fucking ever after?
The End.
Before I Wake: A Kimber S. Dawn MC Novel
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank my PA Lani Peters, first and foremost! Thank you so much for being my own little life cheer leader! Thank you for your daily reminders to keep my chin up, and thank you for being my friend. For not letting be alone, no matter how bad I think I want to be :* I love you more than you know, my Lani <3 your Koala bear
To my girl, Kat! Katrina Arthurs, I love you to the moon and back! Your creativity and ideas for my covers never seem to amaze me. YOU ROCK, BABE! And I will hug your neck one day soon and have copious drinks afterward!!! Thank you, for yet another BAD ASS cover! :*
Mickey Reed, I had a blast working with you again!!! Thank you so much for helping me polish my baby for the world to read ☺
To my Kylie, thank you so much for still believing in me. You’re the best friend, sister, mother, EVERYTHING! And now…my formatter. Girl, you killed it! I am so proud of you. SO proud! Thank you so much for making my book beautiful! :* And I don’t tell you enough, so I like to make sure to mention how much you mean to me every acknowledgment chance I get! I freaking love you, Kylie bug!
To the readers—I so hope you enjoy Jacques and Eve’s story. It was so fun to write and I really hope there’s more to come from these characters soon! Thank you so much for giving me a chance and your continued loyalty. If it weren’t for the readers, I’d be writing for no one at all. Thank you for letting me live my dream as an Indie author.
To my new little family at Specialist in Pain…thank you. Thank you for taking me into your family and making me feel apart of something again. To Molly, Michelle, Tanya, Julie, Sarah, Cindy, Anna, Kristin, Apple and Mr. Ron.—you don’t know how much I enjoy spending my week days with such a great group of awesome, caring people. <3 Thank you for being the bright part of my day in these last few months.
And last but not least, to my kiddo’s: Lauryn, Megan, and Brian—you three are my heart and soul. Everything I do in this life, I do for you. Thank you for being you. Each of you, are so special to me for such d
ifferent reasons. You each make me the proudest momma ever, in your own little ways. I love you, all three, so so much! <3
About the Author
I was born and raised in Louisiana… and No, I do NOT live in a bayou, I actually see the beaches on the gulf coast more than I see a bayou, lol. I started writing poems and short stories very early in my life. You know, for the Michael’s and Leo’s and Nick’s in my life. I've been a book hoarder since I was eleven years old, but then a couple years ago something wonderful happened! The 50 Shades of Grey craze brought to life my inner smut whore and I commenced to read anything and everything smut affiliated. When reading wasn't enough anymore and I noticed that so many of the authors of my favorite indie authors and their books weren't getting the exposure their work deserved, I turned it into a mission, starting my own blog, buying their books and reading them one by one. I then wrote my reviews for my blog and didn't hold back in writing them (Hell yeah those motherfuckers are profanity laden). I've never done a single thing in my life halfway. I always go all in. After the success of my Blog, and the insistence of one of my bestest friends, my sister from another mister, Trina Taylor of Bad & Dirty Books, I was ready to finally take the plunge and see if I could write a book that was worth a damn. I'm a Southern girl to my core, a self-proclaimed smut whore, and I keep hearing that I’m an author, but honestly… I don’t believe the rumors, lol. I don’t feel like a kickass bitch spittin’ out lyrics, or stories, like a motherfuckin’ rockstar.
Tattooed across my ribs are the words I have always lived by: 'Aut viam inveniam aut faciam tibi.' Latin for: If I cannot find a way, I will make my own.
Kimber’s Links
Me on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/KimberS.Dawn13
My Author Page
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorKimberSDawn/
Before I Wake: A Kimber S. Dawn MC Novel Page 22
