Havoc nods. "I said it was. She said, 'Let's make it happen.'"
I take another drag, once again studyin' the stars. In my head, I'm wondering how this squares with the Badlands patch on his cut, with the gun room, with the blood I know he's spilled.
This little slice of heaven doesn't come cheap, and it doesn't come clean.
June returns, sliding into the chair beside Havoc. She must read the question on my face because she answers before I can ask it.
"This world doesn't owe you shit," she says, her voice suddenly harder than it's been all night. "If you want something, you have to take it. If you have a dream, you have to make it."
"And in order to make it, you need family. That's what the club is," Havoc says, looking directly at Savannah now. "Family."
I grunt in agreement, liftin’ my cigarette in a mock toast. "To fuckin' family."
Family is Mercy waiting for me at the clubhouse.
Family is Destiny driving away with an Ashby baby in her arms.
Family is the men who voted to keep Savannah safe, and the eight who didn't.
Family is the weight that keeps you breathin’ when you want to stop.
It's not perfect.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
It just has to be enough.
CHAPTER 10
Saying goodbye to June and Havoc feels like more of a somber affair than it should when it comes time to leave. It was a nice night. Their farm is quaint and lovely. Their children full of life and spark.
I want those things.
I want the small, lived-in house filled with things that have been collected over the years and come with experiences. I want the kids too. Maybe not six, but I can definitely see myself with a pack of them.
But it's June and Havoc's relationship that I find the most desirable.
Also, the most out of reach.
Twenty-three years they've been together. Twenty-three years they've pledged allegiance to each other. Stuck it out through the births, and deaths, and all unseen things that come with life.
And that's not even counting all the things that come with outlaw biker life.
I will kill for him. He will kill for me. And both of us will kill for those kids.
The words echo in my head as Legion revs the bike and we pull away from the farmhouse. I watch June's silhouette in the doorway, her hand raised in a simple goodbye. She doesn't wave it back and forth like most people do. Just holds it up, steady, like a promise.
Could I do that? Kill for Legion?
I wrap my arms tighter around his waist as we hit the main road, the wind whipping around my helmet. His body is warm against mine, solid. Real.
Maybe, under the right circumstances, I would kill someone for Legion. If it was in the moment and it was Legion's life or someone else's... I think I could do it.
But I felt there was something more to what June was saying.
Or rather, not saying.
Kill for him. It could be literal. But it doesn't have to be. I think I heard those words between the lines. The sacrifice. The willingness to burn everything else down if that's what it takes.
