I will do everything in my power to stop Sam from feeling like I do.
TWENTY-THREE
Brian
Thirty-six hours is not a long time to pack up your life.
Especially when you’re juggling the needs of a child you didn’t know about until a day and a half ago.
Anita has been a Godsend which is why the yellow envelope that I have folded inside the inner pocket of my cut is burning a hole in my conscience.
She lied to me. She was accepted into her degree. Getting the highest scores in the state will do that.
If I was an honourable man, I would tell her that I know and make her stay. Every ten minutes since I found the letter, I’ve opened my mouth to do just that. Three seconds later, I’ve pressed my lips together and remained silent.
I want her with me.
I need her with me.
And Sam needs her even more than me.
She’s a natural with him. Treating him like her own. Putting his needs before hers. Speaking to him in that lilting, musical tone that she uses on me, Anita could be his mother. When we went to buy him clothes and other necessities, the woman who served us commented on how beautiful our little family is. My heart had grown twice the size in my chest at the look that comment had brought to Anita’s face.
That’s why I’m giving into my own selfishness.
I’m going to steal one year of her life to rebuild mine, then I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure Anita has her dreams fulfilled. If that means we need to spend time apart so she can be in Brisbane for university, then I’ll pull on my big boy pants and deal with it.
She deserves nothing less.
“This is it,” Anita interrupts my reverie. She lays the map down on her lap and points at the red brick house two streets over from Vic’s. I push away the thought of my sister, so close to me right now, yet never further away, and concentrate on the task at hand. “Do you want me to come with you?”
Pulling over the car I borrowed from the Shamrocks head whore, Felicity, I engage the handbrake and look at Sam in the rear-view mirror. He’s asleep in his car seat, ready for the four-hour trip to his new home in central Queensland.
Whenever I look at him, I get this surge of love that fills every inch of my body. I don’t want to speak to Shari—I’d love to consign her to an ugly postscript at the very end of my life—but Anita is right. I need to be able to tell Sam that I tried everything when he eventually asks why his mother isn’t around.
My ego is no longer my driving force. Protecting my pride is no longer important. Outside of Anita, the only thing I care about has blond hair, green eyes, and will call me Dad once we manage to get him to speak to us.
While Sam laughs and makes eye contact when spoken to, we have been unable to get a word out of him, and after speaking to Cole and Colleen, I know that isn’t normal for a fifteen-month old.
“No,” I reply, puffing out my cheeks then exhaling loudly. “I need to do this by myself. You stay with Sam. Don’t get out of the car, no matter what happens.”
Anita nods. Worry darkens her face. She knows that Shari’s father is a police officer and I think she’s as worried as I am that my ex’s parents are going to mount a challenge for my son.
If they try that, I’ll utilise every underground contact the Black Shamrocks MC has to take them out.
Over my dead body, will I relinquish my child.
And, God help the fool he thinks to try to make me.
“Be careful,” she whispers as I close the driver’s door.
Knocking on the front entrance to the Lucian house, I tap my foot to release my nervous energy while I wait for someone to answer. It’s early, well before the time for anyone to be heading to work, and the two cars in the driveway lead me to believe that they are home.
“I’ve been expecting you,” Sergeant Lucian drawls once he’s pulled the door open. He steps outside and quickly shuts it behind himself. Shepherding me off the front step with his body, he stops and glares at me when we’re halfway back to the sidewalk at the front of his yard. “The answer is no.”
With a frown that draws my eyebrows together until they’re nearly touching, I return his hard stare with one of my own.
“You don’t even know what my question is.”
He steps into my space and gets right in my face. “We are not raising your kid. I told Shari that and now I’m telling you. This is your fuck up and it’s up to both of you to fix it.”
“Shari dumped him on my doorstep,” I snap back at him. Surprise colours his face before he tamps down on it in the next second. “I need to speak to her to make sure she’s not coming back for him.”
Getting so close that our noses almost touch, I enunciate my next statement with the precision of a surgeon delivering a death notice. “He is my son. I will raise him. I don’t need your help. I just wanted to know where you stood on being a grandparent.”
A quick spin on my heel turns my back to him, and I throw my final warning over my shoulder as I head back to the car.
“But you’ve answered that question, so my advice to you is to stay the fuck away. There’s no coming back in a few years when your conscience gets the better of you.”
He says nothing until my hand is back on the handle of the driver’s door.
“We won’t be back,” he yells over to me. “She was using when she was pregnant. He’s retarded. Won’t speak. Won’t do nothing but laugh like a moron. I won’t have an embarrassment like that in my house making me a laughing stock. That’s why I sent them away in the first place.”
“You’re a fucked-up piece of work,” I spit back at him. “My son is perfect.”
His resulting laughter is mean and spiteful. It echoes around my skull as we drive out of the city in the direction of our new home.
Anita lets me stew for about half an hour before she slides closer to me in her seat and places her hand on my thigh.
“Don’t listen to him,” she tells me in soft voice. Squeezing my leg, she continues, “All Sam needs is time and love, and we have both of them in abundance.”
I let her assurances wash over me.
She’s right. Sam is young; he has time. I will give him the best of everything to make up for the shitty beginning he was handed, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll do everything in my power to find him the best support for his limitations. Together, we will prevail.
Once we get to Emerald, and Paddy arrives with my Harley, the first thing I’m going to do is take my girl for a ride to look for the perfect house to start our new life.
Me. Sam. Anita.
The three of us are broken in our own ways.
That’s what makes the little family we’re creating so fucking perfect.
TWENTY-FOUR
Anita
Four months later
“Pass me the mayonnaise,” I ask the person who’s entered the kitchen behind me.
My hands are full, the steam from the saucepan of cooked potatoes that I’ve just drained billowing in my face. I don’t have time to make a return trip to the huge fridge over the other side of the Emerald clubhouses industrial sized kitchen.
This lunch needs to be perfect. Every chapter of the Black Shamrocks MC has converged on Emerald to celebrate the official opening of their newest clubhouse. It’s been four months of hard work; long days, lots of stress, and plenty of arguments, but Quinn, Cole, Vic, and Brian have pulled off what I sometimes thought was going to be impossible.
The Emerald chapter of the Black Shamrocks is ready to go.
When the mayonnaise is slammed down on the counter next to me with a huff, I swallow down the sharp rebuke that inches its way up my throat. There’s only one person who treats me this way.
“Thank you,” I say instead.
A feminine grunt is the only response I receive.
My friendship with Alanah has never been the same since that night in her bedroom. While I count that night as the best of my life on one hand, it’s a
lso up there with the worst.
I may have fallen in love with Brian, but I lost my only friend in the process.
“Okay, what’s left?” Ava Blake, the wife of the Emerald chapter’s president, bustles into the kitchen with Colleen and Grace hot on her heels.
“I’m just finishing up the potato salad,” I reply at the same time as Alanah says, tersely, “We’re just waiting on the potato salad.”
Silence grows in the kitchen. Colleen, who’s on the way to becoming my friend, pats me on the back.
“I think Sam’s awake,” she murmurs. “Why don’t I finish up for you?”
Grateful for a valid reason to leave, I wash my hands and wipe them dry on the front of my pants. Practically running out of the kitchen, I head toward the bedrooms. Seconds before I’m out of earshot, I hear Ava speaking.
“Why are you always so rude to Anita?”
“Because she’s an evil bitch,” is Alanah’s immediate response.
The venom in her voice knocks the air out of me. I stop walking, bracing one hand against the door frame closest to me, and fight back the urge to cry.
The past four months have been wonderful. Me and Brian have gelled together as a couple, raising Sam together while we turn the house we rented two streets over from the clubhouse into a home for the three of us. I turned eighteen a month ago and that put to bed the slight hesitation everyone had about me being in charge of Sam when Brian’s busy with the club. My brother and the Ugly Bastards have been almost conspicuous in their silent acceptance of the Black Shamrocks move into their turf.
All of my lies have stayed hidden.
Paddy makes the occasional comment to keep me in my place, however he’s rarely here unless it’s a weekend that Alanah’s in town to see Vic. He’s been much easier going since he’s been in Brisbane on his own. I don’t think he’s going to out me any time soon.
It’s Alanah who been the only dark spot in the brightness of my new life.
She barely speaks to me, preferring to talk like I’m not in the room. Vic, usually a complete gentleman, never calls her on her behaviour which leads me to believe that he has heard her side of what happened in her bedroom.
All in all, being around Alanah is the uncomfortable and I’m appreciative—in a sick way—of the divide that remains between the Kelly siblings. It’s the only thing that keeps Brian from questioning the way she acts.
He blames himself.
There’s something in the air—lately I’ve been noticing that it’s rare for Vic and Brian to be in the same room together, and if they are, Quinn and Cole act as a buffer. Underneath the surface of the success we’ve had in Emerald, something bad is brewing.
As a mere woman, I’m not privy to the inner workings of the MC.
I can only hope that the behind-the-scenes machinations that are on the cusp of erupting do not involve the Ugly Bastards and Sergio because that will bring my new life undone.
“It’s all in place?” Leo’s voice travels through the bar.
“Of course,” Paddy replies. I hear their footsteps grow closer, so I hurry to the bedroom I put Sam down for a nap in and quickly shut the door behind myself. “They’re not gonna know what’s hit them.”
The President of the Black Shamrocks MC laughs. The sound is evil personified. A shiver runs through my body when Paddy matches his sinister reaction with one of his own.
Shaking off the weird feeling of impending doom that’s hit me, I look at Sam and smile. He’s still asleep. Colleen lied to help me. Mentally reminding myself to thank her when I see her next, I pause by the door when I hear Leo and Paddy talking in low murmurs on the other side.
“Samael Fitzgerald is on board,” Leo says. “His new son-in-law, Thomas is about to enter the fray once his term as Mayor begins. That’s going to cost us a bit of the profit. He’s turned out to be a greedy fuck, but it’ll be worth it in the end. We’ll own the roads and the cops. Nothing will get in the way of moving the merchandise then.”
Paddy says something that I can’t decipher. Leo responds too low for me to hear. I’m about to wander over to Sam when they speak louder.
“Carly said the Ugly Bastards are on board.” My heart jumps into my throat. I haven’t thought about Carly for months—not since a few days after I spoke to her on the phone when I realised that she was going to keep her end of the bargain. Leo continues, “It’ll all go off with a bang on time.”
“I’ll never understand how you’ve managed to keep her feeding you information,” Paddy quips, dark humour lacing his words. “You tried to kill her, yet she’s still the perfect little lap dog.”
“Near death experiences will do that,” Leo replies. “She learned her lesson when she tried to run off with Frankie. Stupid bitch knows her love for Sergio is her weakness, and she knows I’ll exploit it if she doesn’t cooperate. You’d think she’d have given up on love the first time, but nope, here she is again… dancing to my tune because she’s weak-hearted.”
Hearing them speak so callously about Carly is illuminating. I’ve never liked Paddy, but his dad had me fooled. Leo comes across like the perfect leader—magnanimous, deserving of respect, fair, and honest.
Turns out Paddy’s behaviour is learned. He’s had his soul poisoned by his own father.
“Is Alanah coming around?” Leo asks.
“Slowly but surely,” Paddy answers. He chuckles, menace stripping all mirth from the sound. “I can’t wait to taste her properly once Vic’s gone.”
He pauses. I inch closer to the door. “A few times bouncing on my cock will cure her of any lingering grief she’ll feel after Vic’s untimely demise.”
Oh, my God. They’re diabolical. The room spins around me, dizziness strangling my vision. I lean against the door to steady myself.
“Brian knows the truth about his little wog girl,” Paddy continues. “I filled him in about her family a few minutes ago. You were right; it pushed him over the edge. He hates Vic, and he’s on board with our expansion plans. He’s been working on Cole, so I expect full fucking compliance from tomorrow.”
I gasp, slapping my hands over my mouth to stop the sound from escaping completely. The father and son continue their discussion for a minute or so longer, but I can’t understand their words anymore because they’re moving back toward the main bar while they speak.
Holding my breath, I wait until the coast is clear. With one last glance to make sure Sam is still asleep, I let myself out of the room and run back into the kitchen. Three women turn to look at me, differing levels of surprise creasing their features.
“Where’s Alanah?” I ask.
Grace shakes her head. Colleen stares at me, open mouthed. Ava points toward the exit.
“She went outside to tell Vic to start barbequing the meat.”
“Thank you,” I shout over my shoulder as I sprint out of the clubhouse.
My brain is at war with itself. One side wants to find Brian and explain myself to him. The other part reminds me that I owe Alanah the truth before I bring the Black Shamrocks down around her ears. The twisting and churning in my stomach gains speed.
I think I’m going to be sick.
I push it down.
There’s no time for weakness. I can give into my pain after I’ve alerted everyone.
Once I’ve spoken to Alanah so she can warn her boyfriend, I’ll seek Brian out and confess everything I’ve done. He might not be Vic’s biggest fan, however I’m certain that he won’t stand by and let his childhood friend get hurt. Not matter how angry he is with me once I’ve told him what I know, I’m positive that he’ll listen and act.
I can’t imagine he’ll forgive me, though.
All I can do now is minimise the fall out for him.
It’s the least I owe him.
“Alanah,” I call out to her when I spot her heading toward the back entrance with an empty tray in her hand.
She swings around, her mouth forming a perfect O when she sees that I’m the person addressing her.<
br />
“Stop,” I say, panicked urgency in my voice. “I need to talk to you.”
“What do you want?” she asks, icicles dripping from the words.
“Something’s about to happen,” I blurt out to her. Pulling her inside the door, I push her into the laundry and lock that door behind us. “I just heard Leo and Paddy talking, and I think they’re going to kill Vic tonight.”
Shaking her head, Alanah slaps her hands against my shoulders and pushes me. I fall backward, my head hitting the locked door. It hurts, but I refuse to let it deter me from making her believe me.
“Just stop,” she snarls. “I’m done with your games.”
“Please,” I plead. “Just listen to me. I can explain everything.”
I’m blocking her way out of the small room. Alanah looks at the door then down at me. Her green eyes—so much like her brother’s that it hurts—search my face. I don’t know what she sees in my expression. I simply thank my lucky stars when she steps back from me and leans against the washer.
“You have one minute,” she tells me, folding her arms over her chest.
I don’t waste time getting back to my feet. Instead, I launch straight into the truth from my position on the cold, tiled floor.
Starting from the very beginning, I tell her everything.
My relationship with the Ugly Bastards—that my brother is the new president and my father denies I’m his child.
My part in the plot to infiltrate the Black Shamrocks MC by befriending Alanah and Grace.
The lies I told to gain their trust.
My kiss with her brother at the hospital when Kaden was born.
The downward spiral that came after I ran from Brian and my refusal to assist my brother afterward.
The truth I learned about Carly from her.
Carly’s real relationship with her father and what they planned to do.
Leo’s hand in her disappearance.
Serge’s ultimatum—give him something useful about the Shamrocks or get out of his life.
My lies to Brian about that night in her bedroom.
Butch (Black Shamrocks MC: First Generation Book 3) Page 15
