Page 52 of Road to Absolution

“Fucking Daytona!” He paced. “I should never have let you kids talk me into that shit.” To me, he sternly said, “Listen up. I think we have major problems.”

I swore, “You have my full attention.”

He pointed to Lilah since she was still hiding in my chest. “She was on the back of my bike.”

In my arms, Lilah gasped, slowly coming out of shelter.

To his sister, Diesel snarled.

I don’t know why, but Viola mouthed to him. “I’m sorry.”

With fists and arms tense, he turned away from her. “Fucking puppy love.”

Peering up at me, Lilah had such a sad face. “I…” she swallowed, “have to tell you something.”

Those lips… touching another’s. “You kissed Art?”

Her mouth gaped. Then she looked to the Cobweb Hunters.

Diesel was boiling mad. “I thought this was all due to a rat, but this is way bigger.”

Diesel, unsettled, unnerved me. “Wait a fucking minute. Because she kissed Art? That’s ridiculous, and you know it.”

“I do, but they don’t. She was on my bike. That’s huge in our world. The very next day, she was spending ‘time’ with my Prospect.”

“So?” I asked, completely ignorant of the mess we were in.

With barely any patience, Diesel explained, “To tear a club apart, truly, is to knock it down from the inside out. Cause a rift. An inner club rivalry.”

Over all this bullshit, I complained, “What does this have to do with my wife?”

“Her on my bike was a silent claim. Then, her with my—” he stopped.

Viola covered her face. “Oh my God.”

“Your what?” I said, extremely annoyed, but also with a growing fear.

Reluctantly, Diesel said, “My son.”

Hooooooly shiiiiiit.

I gazed down at my wife, who had now joined the Cobweb Hunter Organization.

In surrender, Diesel nodded to me. “You pit son and father against each other, watch a club tumble.” In dismay, Diesel added, “There’s a problem with their plan, though.”

“What?”

“Art doesn’t know I’m his father.”

My temper erupted. “Your club isn’t the Redemption Ryders. It’s the Secret Slayers. Jesus Christ!”

He argued, “It’s no secret to the men who once held him captive. That’s why they took the big-hearted boy—”

He stopped when Lilah faced him, as if hearing something spookily familiar. She pressed her back to my chest and covered her mouth. “With Justice?”

Diesel looked absolutely stunned that Lilah knew something—shocker, another fucking secret—but slowly nodded. “Yeah. They were both taken. Want another way to make a club crumble? Steal the President’s children. That little girl belonged to Legend, Steel Stallions’ President.”

I didn’t give a fuck about these children, who were now adults. “But… she’s my wife.”