I couldn't put everyone else's faults on his back.
It was time for us to get together.
His house was the same one I had known as a child, a massive red brick building on too many acres of land. I knew from running up and down those halls as a kid that there were six bedrooms on the second floor and three on the third. Each had a bath because, well, money. The dining room was grand enough to fit twenty at the table. I parked out front, rolling my neck. And maybe, for the first time since I left my family behind, I actually fucking fretted over my goddamn clothes.
I could have dressed up. I even considered it. I had a suit somewhere. But in the end, I had chosen to go as myself- jeans, boots, a black tee, and my Henchmen cut. He would take me, cheap clothes, scabs, and all, I had decided at the compound.
But standing beside that building I had never walked into without at least a dress shirt and slacks on, even as a toddler, I was starting to feel weird about it.
Then, being pissed that I felt weird, I charged up the drive, pounding my fist into the door.
Take me or fucking leave me, Gramps.
"No fucking shit," I said with a grin as the door opened to reveal a very familiar face. One I had first learned how to put an O-face on. She had been twenty-three when I lost my virginity to her in a bathroom. So she was somewhere around middle age now, body a bit rounder, with a few crows feet next to her brown eyes, but still a good looking woman.
She looked at me for a long second before her mouth opened, her eyes going big. "Robby?"
"Oh, fuck no," I said with a laugh. "Pagan. I changed that name ages ago. Looking good, Sheila. Weird that they move you guys around like chess pieces, but I figure Gramps is easier to work for than Pops was, so congrats on the promotion."
"Rob... Pagan," she corrected, brows drawing together. "What are you doing here?"
"Impromptu meeting with the old man," I said, shrugging, tucking my hands into my back pockets because I was itching for a cigarette, but I knew smoking wouldn't be allowed inside. Unless they were cigars. "He's home. He's the only one here who would be driving that Rolls," I said, jerking my head toward the car in the drive.
"Oh, um, okay. Let me just..." she said as she backed in slightly to tell me she was going to ask if it was alright.
And me, well, no one could say I was a fucking patient man. Or one who gave a shit about manners. "No need, Sheila, I remember my way to the office," I said, squeezing past her and moving into the foyer.
Whatever you might be thinking the house looked like, add five million in ridiculous upgrades, and then you would be getting closer to what it was actually like.
But I wasn't sightseeing.
So I turned down the hall and went toward the back of the house, passing faces who eyed me like I was there to rob the joint, before I came to the slightly open door to his office.
I stopped to take a breath before pushing it open.
It was like stepping back in time. Everything was exactly as it had been fifteen some-odd years before. The walls were lined with dark wood built-in bookshelves. The ceiling was coffered, dark like the shelves and floor.
The center point was a massive executive desk that cost a small fortune and Gramps had always been sentimental about.
There, sitting at it, was Richard Scott, Sr. himself.
He'd aged. Of course he had. But money made it so it was done regally, allowing him to keep his stature, his hair, and his air of importance, instead of the frailty most men his age would allow themselves to experience.
His head jerked up at the sound of my boots, likely dragging him away from the mounds of paperwork he always seemed to have to work on, no matter how many hours he put in at the office.
Recognition was fast for him; I guess I was the only biker he was acquainted with.
"I didn't expect this," he admitted, moving to stand, buttoning his coat as he did so, the move so smooth from years of practice that it was practically easy to miss.
"Figured it was time," I said, moving in a few feet.
"You still drink whiskey like a fish?" he asked as he moved toward the sidebar. "Don't give me that look," he said with a smirk, one that looked very familiar because it was the same one that was perpetually on my face. "You might have thought you got away with something, Robert, but your father knew exactly how much of his hundred-dollar whiskey was missing each month."
"And yet he didn't seem to have a problem with a fifteen-year-old drinking it all," I said, accepting my glass, tipping it at him, then taking a sip.
"Well, he learned from experience that boys do that."
"No shit," I said, brows drawing low. "Pops was drinking all your liquor?"
"He didn't get away with it quite so easily with your grandmother around, but he did his best to keep the local liquor store in business."
"Interesting."
"Your father wasn't always the man you knew him as. He, at fifteen, could have given a fifteen-year-old you a run for your money. Though, he eventually did what was expected of him. Not exactly what he wanted, per se. Which might have explained how he turned out. Maybe if he had gone off to tour the world as some reporter like he had been interested in, he might have been a better father to you."
"His choice," I said, shrugging.
"And not yours," he agreed, giving me a look that seemed to have a lot of respect in it. "A man should know his own mind and follow it," he offered, reading me. "So, this Kennedy woman," he said, moving to sit behind his desk, gesturing toward the Captain's chairs for me to sit, so I did.
"Needed a leg-up in life," I said with a shrug.
"So you gave her a building," he said, nodding. "When did you realize you loved her?"
Surprised by even the turn of phrase in reference to something involving me, I straightened in my chair, brows moving together, looking at him, I was sure, like he had sprouted another head.
"Just now, it seems," he said with a smile full of knowledge.
"We just started dating a few weeks ago," I hedged. Hell, we hadn't even really agreed that we were officially dating, though I felt it was painfully obvious that we were.
"And?"
"And it's a little soon to use that word."
"Is it? I used that word on my first date with my love."
Alright, I only had so much bullshit tolerance. Well, none, if I were being honest. There was no fucking way that man told my grandmother he loved her on their first date. In fact, I was sure I never heard him utter those words.
"Not your grandmother," he said, again able to somehow read me. "Your grandmother I married when I was twenty-six, two years after Rosemary died in a car wreck. She was the love of my life, you see. I knew it the moment I met her. I read somewhere once that a soulmate is the stranger that you recognize. I recognized her when I laid eyes on her. It was as simple, and disorienting, as that. Though, in my day, men weren't quite as terrified of love as you men today are."
Well, fucking knock me upside the head.
Who'd have thought there was some long-buried love secret in his life? It was certainly not something anyone else ever said.
"We married on our fourth date," he added. "I had taken my car and sold it for ring money since my own parents didn't approve the match. Two years was an eternity, yet nowhere near enough time. When she passed, I was welcomed back into the family with open arms, them all figuring I had gotten my rebellious urges out of me. And, I guess, they were right. When they presented your grandmother to me, an acceptable choice for marriage, I had done what was expected of me and married her."
Shit.
All the skeletons were getting dragged out and dusted off.
"What happened to my mother?" I asked, feeling that if he was in a forthcoming mood, I was going to use it to my advantage.
"She lives in Florida with a thriving career and with her... third husband. No other children. She wasn't the maternal type to begin with. Cats make better mothers."
"She was paid to leave."
"More or less. She was unhappy. She took that unhappiness out on the family name by sleeping around openly and often. Your grandmother put an end to it, our name being so important to her. If you think there was love lost there, son, she didn't even try to fight for you. Not trying to hurt you here, just giving you the facts."
"I appreciate that. Fuck her. I turned out alright thanks to all the disinterest in those around me."
"I've kept tabs on you," he said, shrugging it off like it was totally normal. "You seem... happy with your life."
"I am," I said, nodding. I was. It wasn't lavish like my childhood had been, but I made good money. I did so by doing things I found enjoyable, even if that didn't make sense to others.
"That's all that matters, son. Trust me," he said with a tired smile. "All this is nice. It makes life... easier. But it isn't happiness. I'm glad you found yours." He reached downward, a slide indicating he had opened a drawer. Then he lifted his hand, reaching across the desk to hand me something.
I put my hand out instinctively, feeling a small, round, metal object fall there.
"What's this?" I asked, even as my eyes registered what I was seeing. An engagement ring.
"That is a symbol of real love, son. I think you have found it, so I want you to have it. I know," he said, holding up a hand when my mouth opened, "that you men these days need to pretend this decision takes months or years. Though I think we both know that is bull. It takes a second, a single second to know, to see that the choice was made. But keep it for when you get your head out of your ass and give it to your Kennedy woman."
I, for maybe the first time in my fucking life, was utterly at a lack of words.
"Gramps..."
"I would prefer you don't take this and run and never see me again, as I would like to rebuild a relationship here, but that ring does not come with conditions. You're free to leave here and never look back if that is what you choose."
It wasn't what I ended up choosing.
Because my grandfather was either a different man than he had once been, or I had only ever seen him through tainted glasses before. I wanted to get to know him again. I wanted him in my life. I wanted, incredibly, for him to meet Kennedy.
Quite frankly, as much as a large part of me was objecting to the very notion, he was right.
It took one moment.
One look.
And the choice had already been made.
I saw possibilities.
And maybe a part of me didn't feel worthy of them.
But she thought I was.
And those possibilities were mine.
I wasn't letting them go.
So I pocketed that ring, knowing that one day, I would give it to her.
Because, by some fucked up twist of fate, I loved the woman.
EPILOGUE
Kennedy - 1 day
I didn't know he came home until I woke up the next morning with his warm body curled against mine, his face in my neck, and, well, his hand at my boob. Like usual.
And there were a long couple of minutes that I could just be still with him, enjoy having him nearby, take comfort in his strength.
Then I remembered we had some things to discuss.
Namely, what the big secret was that everyone else seemed to be in on except me.
I wasn't naive; everyone had secrets. Everyone was entitled to keep some things close to their chests. That being said, if literally everyone around me knew something, it didn't sit right with me that I didn't.
"Nope," I said when I felt his thumb move out to start working my nipple into a hardened point.
"Nope?" he asked, sounding a mix of amused and confused.
"We need to talk," I declared, rolling to my mother side to face him, almost reconsidering my stance on the talk-then-maybe-sex thing at seeing his cock already hard and straining and promising fulfillment to the need growing in my belly.
I wouldn't be distracted by his dick, damnit!
So long as I looked away from it, that is.
"Those are never good fucking words," he said, but his lips were quirked up, his eyes expectant.
'Talks' didn't exactly fill Pagan with dread. I had a feeling this was likely because literally nothing in the world seemed to manage to bring about that reaction in him.
"What does everyone else know that I don't know?"
His brows moved closer together as he folded up to a sitting position. "What everyone else knows that you don't know," he repeated.
"Yesterday at work, Benny and I were invaded by the girls club."
"What? And you're not a fucking black belt in karate yet? They're fucking slipping."
I smiled at that because it was genuinely funny. "It's Krav Maga and LINE, and I am apparently being dragged up to Hailstorm to learn it."
"Hold on," he said, closing his eyes. "Just let me picture you throwing down with one of the girls for a second."
He was really making it hard to be stern with him, damnit.
"Why did Ethan's name make everyone clam up?"
There. I said it. It was out there.
Pagan's eyes opened slowly, his smile slipping, his entire face losing its usual carefree amusement. No, in fact, he looked deadly serious right then. It was in the tightness in his jaw, the depth in his eyes.
When he exhaled hard and sat back against the headboard, his wide palm moving down his scruffy face, I felt something inside my belly harden, like I was internally preparing myself for some really bad news.
Rightfully so as it turned out.
"Ethan Criss is dead, Kennedy," he said, cutting right to the chase as was his nature.
I should have been shocked.
That was the normal, human response to that kind of news.
What did it say about me then that all I felt was... relief?
Whether I wanted to admit it or not, his name had been a dark cloud over my head since the incident at my salon. Even after knowing the building was mine free and clear, that he couldn't just drop in and ruin my life by raising the rent or telling me to get out once my lease was up. There was still a worry that maybe, at any point in time, he might find me alone somewhere without cameras and finish what he started, even after a beating and threat from Pagan.
Knowing there wasn't even a possibility of that anymore, yeah, I thought there was an understandable amount of relief felt.
It was almost an embarrassingly long minute before the true weight of what he was saying fell down on my shoulders.
Because Pagan had come back from seeing Ethan with busted hands and knuckles.
So if Ethan was dead, then it seemed to go without saying that Pagan had killed him.
Killed him.
It was maybe the first time I realized as well that it was more than likely that most of the people I had been mostly living with inside the compound were killers as well.
"Oh, God," I said, every inch of me seemingly frozen as I sat there, trying to absorb that information, trying to reconcile it against the kind of people I knew those men to be.
And women, a voice inside my head whispered.
I couldn't discount the likes of Lo and Janie in talks of violence. They worked at a paramilitary camp. Janie was a bomb expert. Of course they had killed. Maybe it was a bit close-minded and naive of me to have not thought about that before, but a part of me maybe just didn't want to critically think something that would make me see a person I actually liked as a killer.
"I know you don't live in the same world that we do, pet. I get that there are very defined lines between right and wrong in a normal society. But in your world, rich, good-looking, white men like Ethan Criss almost always get away with assault, almost never go away for rape. And if they do, it's time served or some other bullshit like that. In my world, that's not fucking good enough. Maybe that's because we live in this underbelly where all the shits like him fester. And because we smell it every goddamn day, we know that there is no such thing as a 'one-time thing,' a 'mistake,' a 'lapse in judgment,' or whatev
er the fuck defense attorneys want to spew. Sexual predators are just like a man who hits his wife, if it happens once, it will happen again. And again. And a-fucking-gain. You can't cure a rabid dog, Kennedy. You have to take him out to the barn and shoot him."
He was right; I did live in a world of rights and wrongs, of laws and lawbreakers, of crime and justice. But that being said, literally everything he said was right. I did believe there were kinds of sick that could not be fixed- sexual predators of all kinds at the very top of that list. And I was pretty sure all the news stories I had seen over the past several years also reinforced what he said about the justice system failing women and protecting predators.
Maybe there was something to be said for street justice.
Maybe, in some situations, it was the only justice to be found.
It was still hard, though, to imagine those around me were capable of something as brutal as murder.
But wasn't every single person capable of killing another human being if the circumstances were right? As much as I liked to think of myself as a peaceful person, I knew that if it came down to Ethan and me in a dark alley and he had bad intentions and I had a gun, well, he'd be sporting a bunch of new holes.
"Look at me, pet," Pagan demanded, tone still as casual as ever. "Whether or not you agree with what I did, it's done. It can't be undone unless you know some voodoo magic shit. So, what this comes down to right now is- can you accept it and move on? If not, can't say I won't be disappointed as fuck, but I would respect that."
"Can I just... ask why?" I asked, feeling like I needed to know what drove him to that.
"Meant to rough him up," he said, shrugging, curling a hand into a fist, and pretending to hit my jaw with it. "Then force him to sign over the building. But then the mother fucker started running his mouth, telling me things you left out of your side of the story."
Pagan (The Henchmen MC Book 8) Page 21
