How could I tell her any of this?
You could try apologising, Dante. You could grovel and beg for her forgiveness.
I could. But I had a feeling it would be too little, too late. Rachel’s guard was firmly up, and this time, I genuinely believed there was no shattering that armour.
So I stayed quiet, letting her silently seethe next to me, because I didn’t know what else I could do.
I fucked up, and it was down to me to fix it. But how the fuck did I even begin to fix something I was responsible for breaking?
Chapter 23
Dante
I grabbed my smokes as Chicken droned on about some nonsense issue he had with Vienna. This is what Church had become lately, the poultry boys airing their grievances with Vienna.
Fuck knows why he had made it his personal mission to piss off not only them but their old ladies was anyone’s guess, but I wasn’t about to get in the middle of it. I had enough with Snow White trying to annoy me.
After a shit night's sleep, Church was the last thing on my mind. All I could see was visions of Rachel as she slept peacefully next to me, without a care in the world. It pissed me off that she was so unbothered by all of this, and yet once again I had fallen back into having her consume my every fucking thought.
I hadn’t really stopped if I was being honest.
“If I could have the table for a minute, brothers?” Ant asked, gaining my attention as he spoke over Rooster.
“Of course,” I said, nodding in his direction.
“Well… As you know, my sister died a few weeks back,” we all nodded and murmured our sympathies. Ant had never beenclose with his family, and they had all pretty much abandoned him the minute he joined the Devil’s decades ago. But it still stung to lose a sister.
“My Ma doesn’t want the kids. She says she’s too old to be taking on a couple of young lads. And the dad… The less said about that useless cunt, the better,” he growled, his face growing dark. “But that means there’s no one else for the kiddies. Until Gemma found out.” He shook his head, making me grin. I already knew where this was going.
“They’re messed up kids. They’ve been through some shit. Gemma has told social services that we will take them on, and last week we passed their assessment. Fuck knows how, because I did everything to make sure we wouldn’t pass. But I think they were just desperate to get rid of them. So, in a month’s time, we’re going to have two young lads living with us.”
“Good fucking luck,” Tools scoffed. “I dealt with these bastards when they were growing up,” he pointed an accusatory finger at me and Vienna. “That was bad enough. Kids these days are feral.”
“Well, that’s why I’m bringing it up. The kidsareferal. They’ve nothing to do. So, I was wondering how we would all feel about bringing the junior division back to life?”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise.
The junior division—The Devil’s Descendants—had been a huge part of the club when we were all kids. Mainly because there was nowhere else in the community that would accept us. So Warrior and Crash had formed a club for us delinquent kids to hang around in. We were given our own “clubhouse”, which was essentially just a shed in the garden, and given a sense of purpose.
We had to follow the club rules, and we all knew we had a limited number of strikes before we were kicked out. As we grew, we were given more and more responsibilities for the club. It hadbeen a major part of my childhood, and I had loved every minute of it.
“I’m all for it,” I said in agreement. “I know we all have cousins, nephews, little brothers etc. that are trying to linger around, or even prospect. And I’ve been approached a few times by members of the community wanting to know if we ran anything for the kids.”
“My cousin’s kid is always banging on about joining,” Sunshine nodded. “Every time I visit him, he’s trying to take my jacket off to wear himself. He made himself a little cut for his birthday.”
I grinned, an idea coming to mind. “I say we do it. Lord knows I’d want Axel in our own club rather than on the streets making mischief.” I’d spent enough nights worrying what kind of man he’d grow up to be. Look at what had happened with Macbeth. Maybe this was how I got to shape that.
“I think most of us can admit we were shaped by this place,” I said. “Maybe this time, we’d shape it back — give these kids something better than we got. We’ve already made improvements to the club, now we can look at the community.”
“I fucking love this,” Vienna said, a grin brightening his entire face as the excitement of having the junior division up and running again began to take over us all.
“Gemma has already said she’ll run it,” Ant added.
“Shark, you’re the treasurer. Can you check the books and see how much money we can spare for this? If we’re gonna have them with us in a few weeks, we better get this shit moving fast.”
“Can do, brother,” he nodded.
“Does this sound good for everyone else? We can get them their own cuts, with Devil’s Descendants on. We’ll get the old ladies to make patches for them, and it can be shit they earn themselves. Whether it be for shit they’ve done for us, or shit they do for the community. It won’t hurt the bastards to learn abit of respect. If they help an old lady with her shopping, they can earn some honour badges, shit like that.”
