PROLOGUE
1995
EMILY
I stared in horror as my Old Man and the rest of his MC were sentenced to twenty years each.
What the hell had they been thinking, holding up a bank when they had all those drugs on them?
I had no-one to blame but myself. I’d known what I was getting into when I’d climbed on the back of Jared’s bike. But at eighteen all I’d wanted to do was get out of my family home and away from the screaming, shouting and raised fists. He hadn’tbeen part of an MC at the time. That came later, and they hadn’t been a big one, but they’d been dirty.
I’d hated them all from the start. To this day I’m not sure why I stayed. Maybe because, despite the MC he was in, Jared treated me decently. I stayed clear of the club except for when it was mandatory to attend functions and even then, Jared kept me with him. He loved me. I know that. Probably more than I loved him. We were happy together and lived a good life for the most part. Children had never been in the cards for us, and in a way, I was grateful because I’d have hated to bring up children in this life.
Everything was seized, including Jared’s greatest treasure, a Mustang that he’d built from scratch and spent all his free time tinkering with. I was back at square one.
Alone in my late forties with very little money and living in yet another trailer park.
Little did I know that living there and taking on a child that wasn’t mine by blood but by heart when his mother went off the rails on drugs, drink, and strange men would change my life. And then years later when his mother passed away giving birth to his little sister. I again made more room for them in my life.
Life was nothing if not unexpected, and at the age of sixty-five, the last thing I expected was another motorcycle club to ride into my life and derail it once again.
PROLOGUE
2010
RED
The noise of the oxygen concentrator machine was loud in the quiet room, broken only by the raspy sound of Ruth’s breathing. It was just the two of us in the room. I wanted this time to say goodbye to her. The woman who had been mine from the age of sixteen when she’d told me to take a hike. As a legacy in the Queens Wraiths MC, I thought I was hot stuff. I’d been so bloody obnoxious at that age, but I’d known as soon as I’d seen her in the record shop that I wanted her to be mine.
It had taken me weeks, but I’d finally worn her down, and we’d gone on a date.
Two years later I’d turned twenty, and on her eighteenth birthday we’d married. We’d taken a while to have Luca thinking it would never happen. We’d had Roman almost two years to the day after Luca. We’d thought we were done after Roman. We’d all but given up trying for more children and then our Lizzie had come along.
Fuck, we’d been so young thinking we knew what the world was all about. We’d known nothing. But we’d made it in the end, and we’d been happy despite the hardships that life threw at us.
We’d been talking about retirement. Chains was ready to take over as President and with Maestro as his VP, I knew the MC was in good hands.
And then Ruthie got sick. I hadn’t been prepared for how hard it would hit me. Forty-two years of loving her seemed to have gone in the blink of an eye. And here we were. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
Ruthie sighed, tightened her grip on my hand and turned her head towards me.
“Deck,” she smiled, and it was like the girl I’d known was back again. Bright blue eyes clear for the first time in months. Her long blonde hair was all gone, but to me she was just as beautiful now as she’d been then.
“Hey baby,” I whisper, kissing the knuckles of her hand, making her smile.
“We’ve had a good life haven’t we, honey,” she whispers.
“Yeah, sweetheart we have.” I agree.
“I’m sorry I’m leaving you but I want you to know that I’ve never once regretted marrying you.”
Tears prick my eyes and roll down my cheeks. “Me either Ruthie, you were always too good for me. Love you so much baby. I’m not ready to say goodbye.”
“Love you Deck Ivor, don’t be sad. I’ll always be with you in your memories, in our children and grandchildren,” Ruthie says softly as her eyes close and she drifts off to sleep as she’s been doing more and more often recently. Her grip on my hand is still tight, and I know I should get up and call our boys and Lizzie to come in, but I find that I can’t.
Resting my head on the bed near her hip, I think back on our life, all the good memories interspersed with some of the bad, because there’s always a balance, runs through my mind like a kaleidoscope.
“Deck.”
