Delete.
That feeling of being ripped intwo.
Not sure if I was actually going on tour with Dirty this time, or staying righthere.
My brother had been putting on some major pressure this year, ever since he became Vice President of the Vancouver chapter—the mother chapter—of the West Coast Kings. Wanting me to patch over as a Vancouver King, give up my Nomad status forgood.
No one in the Dirty world knew yet. Not Zane. Not Brody. NotJesse.
My loyalty was being torn right down the middle. But if I was doing my job well, no one would seeit.
It was my job to protect them, not the other wayaround.
12:06pm.
I left Zane’s, headed back to my place to drop off the car. One of my security guys, Bishop, who was currently assigned to Jessa Mayes as her driver, checked in; he was taking her and the baby to Dolly’s, then Brody was meeting them, taking them todinner.
Delete.
At home, I layered on warmer clothes and my leathers, my cut with the West Coast Kings patches. The one on the back, the bottom rocker, that readNOMAD.
Hopped on my Harley and rode out to see my brother. Wondered why I feltlate.
All the time, lately, I felt like I was running late. Under thegun.
Running against time, when I wasn’t late atall.
2:11pm.
I arrived at my brother’s acreage. My mood shifted as I parked my bike in his gravel drive. I was aware of it, fully conscious of this shift, aware that my MC life was different than my life with the band. Heavier. That I carried it differently. That I was different, from one life to the other, in someways.
My brother was on his phone when I let myself in. He chucked a baseball at me, at my head. I ducked; hemissed.
Helaughed.
Why he had a baseball, I had no idea. I tossed it into one of the potted plants some woman from his past had left in the living room, clinging tolife.
I watered the fucking neglected plants from a Coke bottle I found in the kitchen. It looked like Piper hadn’t done his dishes in a week. The place was amess.
In his defense, he was rarelyhome.
But the fact was my brother was kind of a pig, more ways thanone.
I cleaned up his disgusting kitchen, a bit. Only forhim.
I’d never loved someone so fucking fiercely as I did my brother, even Jesse, and I’d kill for Jesse. I loved a lot of people, would take a bullet for a lot of people, and not just because they paid me to do it. But I loved my brothermost.
Spent one particular dark winter, nine years ago, hating him fucking fiercely. But that could never last. Especially when he reminded me so damn much ofDad.
My older brother, Jeremy “Piper” Grayson, was this contradiction of big and menacing, muscles and tats, scars, and this fucking angelic face. Just like ourdad.
Funny how genesworked.
Piper was the spitting image of our dad—blond and dimpled, blue-eyed, all Nordic-British regal cheekbones, but our mom’s full lips—and mom’s personality. Passionate and whip-sharp, fierce, intense, given to flights of imagination. Dreamed big, maybe toobig.
On the other side, I looked like ourmom.
Mom’s parents were Hawaiian and Brazilian, and I got everything that came with that. My brother got a killer tan to go with his blue eyes. He looked like a Californiakid.
