My sobs ricocheted through the car like the gunshots in the clearing.
“Love you,” I said again as I bent double and pressed my lips to his face, kissing his heavy brow, his broad forehead, his blood-speckled cheeks and nose.
His breathing was faint, so faint I couldn’t even hear him struggle for it anymore. I pulled back just enough to see his face and watched as those beautiful brown eyes, more eloquent than his lips had ever been, sparked one last time and then went out.
I cried out like a wounded animal, so long and low and loud that black spots dotted my vision and my tired lungs gave out. I passed out over Mute’s still warm, dead body with my cheek on his cheek.
Zeus.
Thank fuck it was rainin’.
Yeah, it fit the mood, which was good. Loulou woulda liked that.
But even better, it hid the fact that my grown ass son was cryin’ beside me as he comforted his woman and his sister. I didn’t blame him for cryin’. How could I when I’d spent the past forty-eight hours leaking tears like a broken fuckin’ faucet?
Besides, I was fuckin’ thankful that he had it in him to take care of Cress and H.R.
I was barely keepin’ myself together.
The crater in the middle of my chest kept yawning open like the jaws of a monster to swallow up every ounce of strength I mighta had under other circumstances. I was no father, no Prez. I was barely a man, held together by three bottles of Canadian whiskey and a serious prayer.
That’s right, Zeus fuckin’ Garro, President of the maddest, baddest, fuckin’ richest MC in the country was praying.
And he was praying with every atom of his crumblin’ black soul that God would send Lou back to him.
She wasn’t gone yet, I reminded myself for the thirteen-thousandth time. She was hanging on tight to life, fighting like only my little warrior could.
The docs said she had inhalation injury made worse by the preexistin’ condition of her lungs ’cause of the chemo. There was a thick tube stuck down her throat and they’d put her in a medical coma so her body could have a chance of healin’.
Wasn’t allowed to see her for the first five hours I sat there in the hospital reception, yellin’ and demandin’ to be let in to see my girl.
They refused.
She was seventeen and technically, still under the guardianship of her parents.
So, I’d had to wait five hours while the cops contacted the Lafayettes then visited with Lou. The mayor had glared at me as he came and went but there was genuine fuckin’ panic and sorrow in his face when he left after an hour of visitin’.
It was the panic, I was stuck on most.
I’d been railin’ at the fuckin’ nurses and doctors for the eighth time about lettin’ me in to see Lou when Phillipa Lafayette appeared beside me.
She’d been wearing a pink suit with a pink band in her hair. It struck me in the throat that she looked like an older, sadder Loulou. Phillipa tried to hide it behind her conservative, ugly clothes and a shit-ton of pearls, but she was almost just as much a bombshell as her daughter.
Thank fuck, I’d gotten to Lou in time to stop her from becomin’ her frigid bitch of a mother.
The woman had stared at me for a long minute. Watched my chest heave with the force of my fury, my fists tight at my sides and my eyes, I knew it, were crazy. I was a beast at the end of his rope, threatening to go green as the Hulk in about two seconds fuckin’ flat if someone didn’t let me see Lou.
“You can come in,” she’d said in such a soft voice I’d had to lean forward to hear it and she’d flinched as I’d done it.
“Come a-fuckin’-gain?”
Her lips pursed and she held her purse to her chest like a shield. “I said, you can come in and see her. She’d want that.”
I blinked at her for a sec before decidin’ not to give a fuck about the reasons for her change of heart.
“Put my fuckin’ name on the approved list,” I snarled as I stormed across the hall and into the white room housin’ my fallen angel.
Since then, this was the third time I’d been forced to leave her bedside and the only time it was worth it.
My brother Mute deserved a funeral befitting of the gods.
And we were givin’ it to him.
Every single brother from every chapter of The Fallen on the west coast of North America and our neighborin’ province of Alberta was in First Light Church Graveyard. They spread nearly as far as the eye could see like a murder of ravens and when we’d done the funeral procession through town, seemed every citizen in Entrance had come out to watch The Fallen flood Main Street on a tide of rolling thunder.
Only family was close to the deep wound in the earth where the casket was bein’ lowered, a circle of people linked by choice insteada blood that would always and had before, bled for each other.
Cops ran like a loose chain-link fence around the perimeter, hemmin’ us in and watchful of so many outlaws in one space. It was standard procedure for an MC funeral to have the cops up our ass but I fuckin’ hated that they were there today watchin’ like they always did instead of doin’. The only thing they were fuckin’ good for was keepin’ the press at bay.
“Zeus Garro, I understand you would like to say a few words.” Pastor Lafayette was doin’ the ceremony. It was fucked as shit but I respected the guy. He didn’t like my way of life, didn’t like that his granddaughter was livin’ that same life beside me, but he supported me anyway because it was what she wanted.
So, he was doin’ the ceremony for a biker and not carin’ that it was unconventional as fuck.
I stomped through the mud to the microphone beside the pastor and pulled my presidency all around me like a fuckin’ shroud. The sound of tears underscored the rain, could see the tracks of ’em on the cheeks of women and brothers alike. This was not a happy time for the club. The loss of a brother hadn’t happened to the main charter of the MC since I’d killed Crux and inadvertently started this whole mess.
It was up to me to be strong, to be Atlas bended on one knee with the world on my shoulders, holdin’ up my family for as long as they needed that from me.
I took a deep breath, thought of Lou to give me strength, and started.
“Wonder if those motherfuckers who ended Mute woulda done it if they’d seen a movie of his life. They woulda seen a neglected, abused kid with huge brown eyes wiser an’ more soulful than ten grown mens. They woulda seen his character grow with the struggle of bein’ different, how he found acceptance with a brotherhood that nurtured ’im and how he threw himself body and fuckin’ soul into givin’ that back and more.” The sobs were louder now, in my ears with more in my throat. Fuck, if I was gonna cry but fuck me if I’d ever had a better reason to.
“Yeah, I wonder if they woulda killed a man like that if they’d known him; if they’d known his quiet fuckin’ wit, how he could play us all like fuckin’ pawns without even sayin’ a word. He lived by a simple mandate like the rest of us, brotherhood, loyalty, livin’ free and even in the end, dyin’ hard. Brings me some small degree of comfort to know my brother died how he woulda wanted to, defendin’ his and my girl. Whatever place he’s in where fallen angels go, I know he’s livin’ a dead man’s dream ’cause a soul like his woulda bought him first class seats to paradise.”