“That man is very big.”
Rose covered her mouth with her hand as Keys nodded, “Yeah. Yeah, he is.”
“Bigger than you.”
“Extremely, but don’t let his size fool you. He’s a giant teddy bear.”
Oscar looked back at Bear, then at Keys, then at Bear again, conducting some internal calculation. “someday” he announced with complete confidence.
The declaration created an easement in the room, the smallest of fissures in the tension. Rose caught Tessa, who stood over a foot shorter than her husband, burying her face into Bear’s muscular arm. Next to the couple, Lucky’s expression, which had been somewhere between guarded and granite, flickered.
Bear looked at Rose’s son for a long moment. “Yeah,” he said finally, in his low, gruff voice. “I don’t doubt it, kid.”
Oscar nodded, satisfied, and looked around the room for the next thing to investigate. Stepping away from Keys, Oscar approached Ghost. Rose made to follow him, but Keys stood and caught her arm. His expression encouraged patience. Rose bit her lip, trusting Keys but also extremely nervous about letting her son approach the ginger biker on his own.
Like he was doing a full inspection of Ghost, Oscar circled him. Ghost stood still, likely not wanting to spook the boy. “What’s that?” Oscar asked, pointing at the rockers on the back of Ghost’s cut.
“It’s our club’s symbol,” Ghost told him.
Oscar came around to his front. “Like a team?”
“Sort of like a team, yeah.”
Oscar turned to Keys. “Do you have one?”
Keys showed him the back of his cut. “I do.”
Oscar came back towards Rose and Keys, which honestly made Rose let out a sigh of relief. Reaching up, Oscar touched the bottom patch on Keys’ cut with one small finger before tracing the skull at the center. “Can I have one?”
Turning back around, Keys explained, “You and your mom will both get one. Hers will be leather like mine, and yours will be made of denim, like your jeans.”
Rose’s expression must have shown doubt at this, because Ghost closed the distance between them. “Keys’ claimed you, MV. I might be,” he glanced down at Oscar and corrected himself, “peevedat the situation, but it makes you no less ours.”
Before Rose could respond, Scissors stepped forward from between the throng of bikers crowding in the middle of the room, and Rose felt her stomach sink. She’d completely forgotten that Scissors and Sissy had come to Mount Grove for the funerals. It hadn’t seemed an issue because Rose wasn’t attending.
But the funerals had been a few days ago, why was she still here?
Scissors was not a small woman, her movements determined and focused. Her eyes were fixed on Rose with a furious expression that Rose honestly could not fault her for. Behind the Black woman stood her wife, Sissy, who had gone still in a different way. Her hand was over her mouth. Her eyes were wet.
Neither of them knew what MV looked like, but they’d both been present when Kitty had broken the news to Poison that Rose was still alive. And everyone in the room was aware that Poison was currently searching for Rose, despite Rose asking her numerous times not to.
“MV.” Scissors said her moniker like an accusation.
The room went very still again, the tension returning tenfold.
Rose swallowed hard, and then nodded. There was no pointin denying it when the truth was going to come out one way or another. “Yes.”
Scissors’ jaw tightened and her nostrils flared. She turned her accusatory gaze on Keys, who, true to his word, stood tall at Rose’s side. “You want to tell me why Poison’s sister has been living in your building for weeks while my president has been tearing this country apart looking for her?”
The silence that followed that question held weight and teeth.
Ghost’s expression shifted as the enormity of what Keys had done came to light. “Poison’ssister?”
Oscar looked up at Rose. “Mommy,” he said quietly, picking up on something in the room he didn’t have words for yet. He moved to put Keys’ legs between him and Ghost. “Are we in trouble?”
Keys’ arm encircled Rose’s waist as he brought his other hand to Oscar’s back, a show of unity to everyone in the room. “No, bud,” he told Oscar without looking away from Ghost. “You’re not in trouble, but I am.”
A sinking feeling pulled at Rose’s stomach. She knew theVia Daemoniaweren’t as strict on their punishments as outlaw clubs were, but there was no doubt in her mind thatsomethingnasty was coming Keys’ way. Just as she knew it was all her fault.
