I sat motionless as I watched Trix with her arms wrapped tightly around Dragon’s neck. Had she ever held anyone but me like that? I didn’t think so. As soon as she caught a glimpse of me, she wiggled to be let down. Dragon held her a little tighter, and she turned to him with a questioning gaze. He finally gave her back a little rub and set her on the hardwood floor.
“Mama!” she called quietly as she ran to the bed.
Before she could reach me, Pop raised his arm as if to slow her down. “Be careful, lass!”
Trix stopped instantly. It would have been comical if not for the sheer terror on her face, her little arms quickly shielding her head. She looked at me for direction.
“Aw, Pop,” I whispered, “my girl is always careful. Aren’t you, baby? Climb on up here with Mama. I need a snuggle from my favorite girl.”
She hesitated for a moment before rushing toward me again. I felt Pop’s body tense as she stumbled, but she did exactly as I knew she would. As soon as she reached the side of the bed, opposite of Pop, she slowed to a crawl and gingerly climbed up next to me.
“There’s my girl. Mama fell asleep. Did you see that outside? I’m such a dork. We’ve been driving so long, and once we got here, I just fell right asleep in my pop’s arms, just like you do with me! I’m sorry if you got scared, honey. Did I freak you out?”
She was so snug against me, and I couldn’t see her face, but I felt her slowly nod her head into my side.
“Ah, well, there’s nothing to be scared of here. This is my pop’s house. Remember I told you about him and his long beard that’s just like Santa? You can just stay right here by me for a while until you get comfortable, yeah? Then, maybe we can go outside and play for a bit,” I whispered to her.
While I spoke softly to Trix, Dragon watched us from the doorway. I could feel his gaze on me, but I stubbornly refused to look up. Call it cowardice, but I wasn’t ready to see his reaction to Trix. I knew he was pissed, and frankly, I had enough on my plate at the moment.
For a couple of minutes, we all sat in silence, and I used that time to take inventory of Pop’s room. Other than the god-awful yellow walls, things hadn’t changed much. While I was growing up, we’d had a house in town, so I’d rarely seen the inside of this room. The few times I had been in here, I’d tried to memorize everything.
Pop had bookshelves filled to overflowing with everything from Tolstoy to Kerouac. That was how he’d gotten his name. I never knew what he did in Ireland or how he’d ended up here. We didn’t speak of it, but I knew that the old president had started calling him Poet because of the books he carried around folded in half in the back pocket of his jeans. The man may have spent his life running guns, but he sure as hell was well-read.
Trix finally raised her head from my armpit and started talking. I thought she was trying to whisper, but as any parent with a four-year-old knew, four-year-old whispering was her talking at a normal level with her hand covering half of her face.
“Is that Dragon? Like you told me? The Dragon that rides on a motorcycle? He said his name was Dragon.” She paused for a second, her little eyebrows raised to her wispy hairline. “Is it?”
At her words, Dragon took two steps into the room and then stopped. I slowly lifted my head and met his eyes, but I couldn’t read his expression. “Yeah, baby,” I replied, not looking away from his face, “he’s the one I told you about.” For a moment, I thought I saw surprise and a flash of pain, but whatever emotions he was feeling were quickly masked.
“Okay. Who’s that?” she whispered again, pointing at my father.
“Ah, that’s my pop. Your gramps. I bet if you said hello he’d give you a licorice.”
As long as I could remember, Pop had carried around little ropes of licorice, and I hoped that little habit hadn’t changed. Licorice was Trix’s favorite. I loved it that she shared that with Pop, and I’d been giving them to her since she could chew them. When we were away, it made me feel like they had a connection somehow even though I’d never expected for them to meet.
“Well, now, I do believe I have a piece here somewhere…” he muttered, patting his pockets as if searching.
I could tell that Trix was trying to work up the courage to say something. Her little body was wiggling in anticipation as she sat at my side. Finally, Pop grabbed a piece of candy off the top of his nightstand and looked expectantly at Trix.
“Hi, Gramps,” she said quietly and then held out her hand, waiting for her treat.
“Well, there you go, pretty girl. You want another, you’re going to have to get out from under your ma’s arm there. Ya can’t be getting the sheets all messy, or I’ll be sticking to them for a month!” he exclaimed with raised eyebrows.
Trix giggled softly next to me. It was my absolute favorite sound in the world, and I could tell Pop was thrilled he was wearing her down. Trix was funny. She had always been very shy around people she didn’t know until I gave her the all clear. Once that happened, she warmed up to them pretty quickly. Her trust in me was absolute, and after the week we’d had, I wondered if her trust was misplaced. It had always been harder for her to warm up to men for obvious reasons, but the fact that I was so comfortable with Pop must have made her feel secure. She had surprised me with Dragon though. I was definitely not comfortable around him. However, since they walked in and he put her down, she’d been glancing his way as if waiting for him to speak. I couldn’t even wrap my head around the fact that she had been clinging to him like a damn spider monkey when they walked in.
After a few minutes of talking to each other, Pop and Trix decided it was time to go get a soda and find something to do outside.
“Give your mum a kiss there, Trix, and we’ll go find ya something to play with. Your mum needs to rest.”
Panicked, I looked at Pop, trying to find a reason for them to stay with me. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but Pop stopped me with one look. Shit. He wasn’t going to let me put this off. I realized then that Pop had said Trix was “out with the boys” earlier, but she had really been outside with Dragon. He had lied, and I knew there had to be a reason. He knew. I thought I’d have more time to prepare myself—to prepare Pop—and then ease my way into telling him. He must have been pissed when he realized. Screwing a member’s daughter was one of the worst things a brother could do, right behind being a rat and screwing their old lady. It was an issue of respect. You didn’t touch something that didn’t belong to you. Dragon was in huge shit, and I’d just put him there. Well, to be honest, I’d put him there five years ago.
Once Trix and Pop left the room, the silence was deafening. I wasn’t sure what to say without sounding like a complete idiot, so I just kept quiet. However, the longer I stayed quiet, the more oppressive the quiet became. I looked anywhere but at the man standing inside the doorway. I was hoping if I just ignored him, he’d go away, and I wouldn’t have to deal with anything yet. When he finally spoke, I jumped in surprise and clenched my teeth.
“She’s mine?” His voice was low and guttural.
“She…” I whispered then cleared my throat. Then, I cleared it again. Why couldn’t I just say it? “She’s…yes, she’s yours.”
We both knew the answer before I said it. It was obvious by looking at her, but when he heard my confirmation, he lost it. He swung around and punched right through the drywall next to the doorway. He punched it twice more before turning back around. Then, he stalked toward me. I had never been afraid of him even though I knew the life he’d lived. This club was my home, and anything that happened behind the barbed wire fences was familiar. Violence was a way of life here, but it wasn’t the out of control madness I had been living with. It was passionate, not methodical, and always, always under control. It was a violence that I understood. Only the strong survived here, survival of the fittest. That was why when he grabbed me by the throat and pushed me against the headboard, I just swallowed nervously and waited.
“You fuckin’ cunt! You come back here, shaking your
college ass, begging for a fuck. You don’t tell me who the fuck you are. So, I wake up the next morning to find you out with your fuckin’ daddy, who happens to be my vice president. That shit is so fucked. It might as well be a death sentence, and you fuckin’ knew it. But as scared as I am, I’m willing to fuckin’ lay it all out. Make you my old lady. Make it right. All of a sudden though, you’re fuckin’ gone. You just leave without one fuckin’ word to me. I’m left here, holding my dick and thanking fuckin’ Christ that I didn’t say anything to Poet. Fuckin’ gone for five years. No one hears from you. Now, you come back, and I find out you had my daughter and didn’t tell me FOR FIVE FUCKIN’ YEARS?” His voice was steadily rising, and by the time he finished, he was roaring in my face.
“Some other guy has been playing Daddy to my daughter?”
I could feel my pulse pounding under his fingers where his hand had slowly tightened. In all my years growing up surrounded by badass bikers, I’d never seen anyone so angry. Tears were silently rolling down my face. I knew why he was so angry. I knew, and I had always known what I’d done when I left. He’d never had a family until the club, and when I left him, I’d left him not only on shaky ground with the only family he had, but I’d also taken his unborn child with me. It was an unforgivable sin, and in that moment, I was completely ashamed.
His hand was still around my throat, his face inches from mine when we heard a throat clearing from the doorway. I was afraid to look away from Dragon’s face as I heard an old familiar voice.
I could barely see Grease from the corner of my eye, and with what little thought I could spare, I was surprised at how big he’d grown. The boy I’d remembered was never scrawny but definitely lean in build. The guy was now built like a tank. His shoulders barely fit in the doorway.
“Dragon, brother, we need to ride. We need to be in Boise by morning. We just got the call.” Grease paused like he wanted to say something else, but instead, he just told Dragon, “I’ll meet you outside.”
The hand at my throat loosened a little and then tightened again as if it had a mind of its own. Then, I felt each finger slowly loosen again until he completely let go.
“Don’t you fuckin’ go anywhere, Brenna.” He pointed a finger inches away from my nose. “I might have let you go before, but that was before I knew about her. If you leave, I’ll find you. You don’t want me to fuckin’ chase you. You don’t wanna see what I’ll do if I have to chase your ass.”
With those parting words, he stormed out of the bedroom.
It was official.
I was screwed.
Chapter Five
Brenna
Trix and I spent the next two weeks living out of Pop’s room at the club. When I made my plan to move in with Pop, I’d had no idea that he’d sold our little house on the outskirts of town two years ago. He’d been living in the clubhouse indefinitely because he couldn’t think of a reason to keep up a house that he never spent any time in. I understood his reasons, but I was still a bit sad that the house I’d grown up in was gone. I’d dreamed about Trix swinging in the old play structure in our backyard, jumping on my old bed, taking a bath in our old claw-foot tub. The whole situation was nothing like I had planned, and I felt like I was on a merry-go-round that wouldn’t stop.
The first night, right after Dragon had left, we’d had dinner with the club president and his old lady. The man who was feared all along the Western seaboard was nothing but an uncle figure to me, and I was actually pretty excited to see him. When I was growing up, his old lady, Vera, had been the only mother figure in my life. She’d taught me about tampons and bought me a bra, and I couldn’t wait to show Trix off to them both. Unfortunately, dinner didn’t go quite as I’d planned—at all.
Their house was right outside the compound, but in order to get to it, we had to drive. This was done so in the event of any warrants being written for club grounds, their house would be exempt. I didn’t even know if the deed was in either of their names. Probably not.
The house wasn’t anything fancy, just a two-story, wide front porch, regular-looking house. All of the upgrades were invisible to the untrained eye. They had video cameras, bulletproof glass, a panic room, and God only knew what else. When you drove up though, it looked like any other house in the middle of nowhere.
When we got to the house, Vera came rushing out to give me a hug. I knew she would. She was a bitch to most people, but if you knew her well, like I did, you knew that underneath all of that hardness was the clichéd heart of gold. When she got done hugging me, I reached down and pulled Trix to stand in front of me.
“This is my daughter, Bellatrix. Trix, this is Auntie Vera. Can you say hello?” When I introduced them, I prayed that Vera wouldn’t see what I did when I looked at Trix.
I knew my prayers were in vain when she raised her eyes to me. All softness was gone out of her face, and for the first time, she looked at me with the hard eyes she showed to everyone else. Shit. This wasn’t going to go easily.
While I introduced Vera to Trix, Pop was busy walking toward the front door where Slider, our president was standing. I looked up to catch them talking in low voices before they went into the house. He didn’t even say hello to me—not even after five years. Fuck me. He was pissed.
I hoped that word hadn’t reached him yet about Dragon and me, but I should have known better. Bikers gossip like teenage girls. He’d obviously not yet told Vera, and I was glad that I would be gone long before they had that discussion later. Some old ladies felt free to bitch and moan at their men in front of anyone, but Vera never did. I didn’t know if it was just her natural reserve or the fact that she was married to the president—probably a little of both.
Dinner was awkward. When Vera brought out her pot roast, which was my favorite, my mouth watered at the smell, but looking at her face, I wondered if she was going to refuse to let me eat it. She hadn’t said one word to me the entire time I’d been here; she just stared me down. I knew she was pissed, and I knew she was disappointed, but I wasn’t willing to explain myself. For one, Trix was right there with me, and she had no idea what was going on. And two, I knew I was going to be interrogated by Slider later. There wouldn’t be any evading it, and I was going to have to answer every humiliating question. I only wanted to do it once.
Trix was the baby elephant in the room, and she had no clue. She never noticed that only Pop spoke to me. Both Slider and Vera reserved all of their smiles for her.
Pop and Slider spoke about club business as usual, and listening to them made me wonder if Trix’s vocabulary was going to double by the end of the night. She had never heard so many different variations of swear words before. It didn’t bother me too much though. She would’ve learned far worse things if I had stayed with my husband. This was definitely a lesser evil.
I tried to picture my name-brand baby growing up in the life, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t imagine her in ratty jeans or band T-shirts, playing in the hose next to the compound, all dirty. I wondered if this would change her entire personality. I started to imagine my innocent Trix with tattoos and facial piercings, and I had to stop a giggle in my throat. The tension at the table was killing me, and I was getting so anxious that it began bordering on hysteria. When I started to seriously wonder if I was going to have to buy some non-toxic soap in order to wash Trix’s mouth out, Slider finally stood up from the table.
“Vera, why don’t you and Trix see if you can find a movie to watch? Poet, Brenna, and I are going into the office for a bit.” He looked at Trix. “See if you can find a good one, yeah? Then, maybe you can have some ice cream or somethin’.”
Trix looked to me for permission, and even though I didn’t want to, I smiled and gave it to her. Dammit. Once Trix and Vera left the room, I followed Pop and Slider into his office. It was a medium-sized room that should have been a bedroom, but Slider had converted it into his cave. A walk-in closet was transformed into a large safe, and the windows were covered in dark curtains. Growing up, I
had always wondered what he kept in that massive safe until I realized the business he was in. Then, I’d avoided it at all costs.
“Take a seat, Brenna. I think we have some things to discuss.”
I took a deep breath as I sat on a black leather chair facing his massive desk. Pop walked around and stood at Slider’s shoulder, and my stomach clenched even though I knew that he was standing in his designated place. He always stood at Slider’s left during business meetings. It still hurt like a bitch that he wasn’t standing by me though. He was making a point. His allegiance was to Slider.
That was when I knew I was going to like this conversation even less than I had envisioned.
Slider didn’t hesitate before he started speaking. “You fucked up, Brenna. You fucked up in so many ways I’m not even going to list them all because we would be here all fucking night. Let’s just discuss the biggest transgressions, shall we?”
This was not the man I had known all my life. This was a stranger. He had never before talked to me in this tone of voice, and I knew that just as with Vera earlier, I was finally seeing the man that everyone was afraid of. I was suddenly more scared than I had ever been in my entire life, ironically, while I was in the same room with the men I’d thought would protect me. My throat clogged with tears, but I raised my chin. Never let them see you sweat. Predators fed on the weak.
“You left your pop, my vice president, with no notice and no backward glance. You showed no respect for this club and the family that raised you. You fucked a member, putting his life in jeopardy. You lied to that same member about who you are and who your father is.”
At this point, I tried to speak. “I didn’t—”
But he quickly stopped me by slamming his hand down on the top of his desk.
“Do not speak unless I tell you to!” he growled. “You left your family, your club, your father, Vera, and your president without a word. You left the man you fucked over without a word. And you left carrying that man’s child and didn’t disclose that information until today. Correct?”
A Ride or Die Kind of Love Page 41
