“Heard.Savior, can you bring them in here so we can fill them in?”
The clicking of Cypher’s keyboard keeps us company while we wait for Savior to return.My fingers drum against the table and my leg bounces rapidly.
What the hell is taking so long?
The three of them stroll inside and I straighten in my chair.As soon as they’re standing around the table, I jump into it.“Blackjack, you and Ducky will join us on the next run.We need you in the cage.Let Cyanide, Manic, or Butcher know what weapons you want crated.We don’t know how messy this will get.”
“Understood, Prez,” they acknowledge.
“I’ll make that the brothers who stay back know to be on alert until we give them the all clear.”
“Should we go on lockdown?”Malice asks.
Undoing the bun on my head, I shake my hair out.“No.I don’t think it’s necessary.Not yet.As long as we’re not attacked by a horde, I have all the faith in our brothers to protect our people.If you’re leaving partners behind and want someone stationed at your place, go ahead.”I knead my shoulder, trying to ease the tension that sits in knots on them.“Does anyone have anything else?”
When no one says anything, I dismiss the meeting with a crack of the gavel against the sound block.
They file out of the chapel, and I sigh, resting my elbows on the table.My fingers dig into my temples to ease the headache that drums a warbled beat inside my head.
“You okay, brother?”
When I lift my head, Cyanide is staring at me in concern.
“So much shit is up in the air with your sister.She’s refusing to talk about the past.Hell, I can’t blame her.Not really.We all fucked up.Me more than most.But, fuck, brother, how the hell am I supposed to make shit right if she won’t speak about it?And the twins.I’m angry she kept them from me.Hurt, mostly.That’s something I don’t know what to do with.I understand I betrayed her, but to keep my kids from me?”
“You haven’t asked her why she did?”
I shake my head.“I’ve been more concerned with getting her healed than about the way I’m feeling.I was hoping we’d get to it, but I don’t know, man.”
“Birdie and Valkyrie have always been stubborn, but this is more than that.You’re right, we fucked up, and it’s on us to make amends for that.Even if they refuse to speak to us about it.We have to show up.Prove to them we got their backs.They’re going to need to know that while the club comes first most of the time, they’re just as important.”
“Yeah.”I sigh again.“I just have to figure out how the hell to do that more than what I am right now.”
Cyanide curls his fingers over my shoulder.“You’ll figure it out, brother.Have no doubts.”
“What about you?Either of them giving you the time of day?”
Pain flares in his eyes before he blinks it away with a shrug.“Naw.It’ll happen when it happens.I’m going to keep showing up.”
“They’re here.That’s the most important thing.We have all the time in the world now that they’re home.”
“Yeah,” he replies quietly, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans and strolls out of the chapel.
My shoulders are heavy with all the shit resting on them.It’s a weight I’ve carried for longer than I’d like to admit.Especially now that the nightmares of my childhood are back.It’s taking everything in me not to drown the demons out with a bottle of whiskey.I refuse to lose myself to the bottle.I’ve seen the hell that does to a person when Piston lost himself to it after Tater, Birdie’s mom, died.It was years before it finally took him.Well, the bullet to his throat did that, but he would have had sharper senses if he wasn’t drunk off his ass.
Birdie is refusing to face our past.I didn’t have a playbook for when I had her in my life again.It leaves me unsure on how to navigate this tenuous relationship I have with her now.
I need to step back and recalibrate.Change directions or something.
The ashes of the love we shared still smokes.It’s like the still warm coals of a fire long put out.All it needs is a little fuel and a spark to have it reignite.
If the only thing she lets me have of her right now is her body, well, it’s not exactly a fucking hardship.
My dick can be the match that lights the fire.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ihumalongtothe song as I dance around Pope’s bedroom as I pick up the mess he’s left.It reminds me so much of the past that nostalgia warms my heart.The man has always been messy.Not just at home, but everywhere.His office at the clubhouse was in a constant state of chaos.You’d think with the lifestyle he lives, he’d like a bit of control somewhere in his life.He doesn’t, though.Unless you count the bedroom.That man was all about control there.Very few times would he get on his knees for me.Not unless he fucked up.It was the one way he would show me his remorse, because a man like Pope didn’t get on his knees for anybody.
