I shake my head.I don’t have to do anything technically except pay taxes and die.But I’m not going to say that.Instead, I state the obvious.“I know.”
I let her pull out first.Then I start my bike and fall in behind her.
Not close enough to spook her.
Close enough to matter.
By the time I hit the clubhouse, the morning sun’s high and the place is already moving.Bikes in the lot.Brothers coming and going.Engines, voices, tools, the usual hum of club life.
I barely get my cut back on before my phone buzzes.Chux.“Yeah?”I answer.
“Main office,” he commands.“Now.”
Then he hangs up.Well, that’s promising.
The shipyard office sits on the edge of our property because the Kings’ legit business has to look legal from the outside.Freedom Falls Ship & Marine Repairs.Big sign.Clean front.Enough paperwork to make the county smile and enough cash flow to keep the IRS from sniffing too hard.
Inside, the main office smells like old wood, printer toner, and coffee that somehow beats the clubhouse brew.Chux is behind his desk when I walk in, big hands braced on a stack of invoices.President of the Kings of Anarchy and every inch of him looks it.Chiseled face hardened from our lifestyle.Hard eyes meant to read a man in an instant.Built like the kind of man who once settled arguments with his fists and now mostly does it with silence.
Mostly.
He jerks his chin toward the chair across from him.
I sit.
He studies me for a long second.“Why was a dipshit put on Lucy Coe?”
Straight to it, alright then.“Thought she might need eyes on her.”
“Because?”He locks his eyes to mine.“Normally, I would see this as a brother making a claim.But Mellow, you swore off the entire idea of an old lady ages ago.What is different with this woman?She’s young enough to be your kid.There something you learned recently?”
I can’t help it, I laugh.“Fuck no, I don’t have a kid.I can’t explain the shit, Chux.Met her, read in an instant shit wasn’t right.Dug in and learned her ex was acting up.Set her up to be alone at the Black Rose where she was tagged by a drunk bastard.Then come to find out Roger Middlesworth got his eyes on her.And you know when he’s fixated it’s a problem.”
Chux leans back in his chair.“And where’s this leading?”
I shrug.“Nowhere.”His eyes narrow.“Nowhere.”The second the words leave my mouth, I know they are the wrong ones.
Chux lets the silence stretch until it turns sharp.Then, he responds what I already know.“A single mom is never just some woman.”
I say nothing.
He keeps going.“There’s baggage there.”The word makes me bristle.He sees it.“The kind tangled up in emotions,” he finishes.“Emotions fuck with a man’s head.”
I lean back in my chair and cross one ankle over the opposite knee.“I don’t give a fuck!Think what you want.She’s not my long lost kid.She’s a beautiful woman in a fucked up situation.The man I am can’t turn away and hang her or her daughter out to dry.That’s not how we do shit in Freedom Falls.If she’s not safe here, she’s not safe anywhere.”
Chux snorts softly.“That a fact?”
“Yeah.”
He sits back in his chair.“You put a prospect on her house.”
“Because her ex was a problem.”I challenge.
“You slept on her porch.”
Shit, he knows that too.Of course he does.Nothing moves around here without eventually crossing his desk in one form or another.“She needed peace of mind.”
“No.”Chux folds his hands.“You needed peace of mind.”
