“You know I am an Outlaw, yes?”
He nodded, looking briefly at Wolf, before he looked back at me. “Yes.”
“Okay. I joined them a while back, before Mum passed, but I hid it from her. She never wanted me to be a biker, she never wanted us to be mixed up in all of it but I felt the call and when I was approached to join the Outlaws, I jumped at it. I’ve been under the radar for years. It’s why I work so well among the MC’s. Anyway, I got the call to go and help the Reapers. They’d said their territory was being encroached on, and I knew how much the Reapers were territorial so I took the job. I soon realised just how nasty they were and the territory they assumed was theirs was not. Before this job, I’d been with the Nomads for a few months and I had heard stories of what the Reapers had done to other clubs. I pieced a few things together and reached out to a contact in the Nomads to make sure I could get the information out to the MC’s that were in danger. I knew it went against my vows but I had to stop them.”
“You told Shae,” Hawk finally piped up. I looked over at the hulk of a man, remembering Shae telling me she and he were once a thing. I wondered why they didn’t stay together, and somehow, I felt a shot of anger lace through me.
Where the hell had that come from?
“Yes.”
“It related to us.”
“They wanted Kilkenny.”
“Why didn’t you just come to me yourself?” Alex asked. It was a good question and were I in the same position as him, I’d be hurt he hadn’t trusted me either.
“She and I were in constant contact,” I told them honestly. “It seemed easier.”
“You were fucking.”
I shot my eyes back at Hawk. His expression was unreadable. I couldn’t tell if he was jealous or just simply asking.
“That’s not fucking important,” Alex said, saving me from answering. What I had been doing with Shae was more than that. I’d been in fucking love with her. The only woman to bowl me over into a million pieces.
The only woman I had ever wanted to put a ring on her finger and call her mine.
Fuck.
“What are you doing back here?” Alex asked me.
“I come back every now and then to check on Tierney.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. Why did you come back this time?”
I knew what he was doing. He was leading me to admit that I was done running.
“I want it to end,” I told him. “I’m done. I just…needed to say goodbye…properly.”
“No one is going to kill you, Dempsey. You have the Rebels behind you.”
“I’m not a Rebel, Alex. I can’t expect that of you. I know what I did, I broke the vow to my club. I will face up to what I need to face up to.”
Alex looked behind me to Wolf before he ran a hand down his face, just like our dad did when he was frustrated. “You’ll stay here tonight. There’s a spare room down the hall. We’ll discuss this in the morning.”
“I can’t stay here,” I said.
“Yes, you can and you will.”
Alex stood up, and so did Hawk.
“Alex…”
“Wolf, show him to a room, will you?” Alex aimed behind me. I felt Wolf move closer to me and I resigned myself to doing what they wanted. I had a warm bed and no threat of being offed in my sleep. I couldn’t say no to that. “We will talk about this in the morning, brother.”
He left the room then, followed by Hawk, and I turned to Wolf who gave nothing away. He never did.
“Come with me.”
