"His makes him look like a skeleton."
Walking death. How fitting for a dude who could boil down corpses and make them into batter.
Yuck.
"Who’s Sin?"
"My brother." Her smile twisted a little. "I wish he were here. I need him to save my butt while Digger’s away."
"Why? What’s going on?"
She gnawed on her bottom lip. "Mom’s trying to make out that I’m an unfit mother."
Rearing back in surprise, brows lifting, I asked, "Say, what?"
"Crazy, right? She just came out with this bullshit when Digger went on a run, and then she somehow got Aidan Sr. involved and she’s—" Tears pricked her eyes. "This has been going on since Maddox was born, and I didn’t even know it. I’m not a bad mom. I’m just tired. That’s all."
"Your baby has a big head and you popped that out of a hole smaller than a golf ball. Damn straight you’re tired." I scowled as I sank into the armchair opposite her.
"I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be telling you stuff like this." She sniffled and scrubbed at her cheeks.
"Why are you then?" I asked softly.
"I don’t know. I didn’t expect anyone to be nice to me. Everyone treats me like I’m trash now that I’m a Sinner."
My spine straightened. "Even the O’Donnellys?"
She blinked. "Oh, no. They’re like cousins four times removed though. It’s different."
Four-times-removed cousins? Was that even a thing? "It had better frickin’ be." I grunted. "Do they know?"
"I mean, I don’t know. Aidan Sr. doesn’t usually get involved in stuff like this, but, maybe he thinks I’m an unfit mom too. I can’t stop crying and—"
"Isn’t that normal?"
"They’re making me feel like it isn’t." She reached up and cupped the back of the baby’s head. "I can’t believe this is happening. I only came back because Mom said she had complications when she gave birth to me and Sin, and that it could be hereditary.
"My sister-in-law just miscarried, so I was super nervous anyway, and I wanted the best healthcare." Her hand trembled. "What an idiot I was."
"You’re being too hard on yourself," I argued. "It’s not every day a mother would try to make out you’re unfit just because you’re hormonal." I grunted. "When’s your... Digger, when is he coming back?"
"Supposed to be next week, but this is the Mob. He thinks because the Sinners are a one-percenter MC, they’re on par, but they’re not. The political connections the Five Points have are insane."
I blinked. "You can’t seriously think that they’re going to take your kid away from you?"
She started sobbing which, I guessed, was all the answer I needed.
I stared at her a second, trying to compute what my best next move would be. I could go and find Aidan Sr. and ask him what the fuck he was doing, which could, potentially, piss me off enough that I’d smack the shit out of him. I’d already gotten off his ‘to die’ list once, so did I really want to make it back on there? But there was no way I could let this lie.
"Wait, how about you just go home?"
"They won’t let me. Mom’s everywhere I go."
For a second, I pondered her, wondering if there really was something wrong with Mary Catherine that would have her parents, and Aidan Sr., so concerned for the baby’s sake, but as I watched the boy nurse, as I watched her with him, maybe it was facile, however I just couldn’t see that she wanted to do him any harm.
She looked healthy, blanched from crying and fatigue, but there were no signs of addiction or anything like that—and I’d be the one to know having been around them all my life—and the baby, Maddox, was cuddling into her, comfortable and cozy in his mommy’s arms. By comparison to his temperament in the solarium, with his grandmother, he was relaxed and quiet. He wouldn’t be like that if she was an unfit mom, surely?
Well aware that I needed to get back to the room because the speeches were going to start soon, speeches that had everyone nervous which, of course, meant they were going to be interesting to listen to, I also accepted that I needed more information.
I pulled out my phone and contacted Star. Thanking God when she answered immediately, I asked, "You know someone called Sin?"
"I know two someones called that, actually."
I froze. "You do? How do you know all these people with cool names?"
She snorted. "C-I-N. You met her already. It’s Dead To Me."
I had a name. Holy fuck. I had a name!
"And S-I-N, the unimaginative kind, is a biker. Why?"
"I have someone here called Mary Catherine—"
"Yeah, I know her. She’s sweet. How’s the kid doing? She gave birth like, what, five weeks ago or something."
"I’m watching him nurse. He’s alive and well."
"Alive and well? What are you? On TVGM?"
I snickered. "We have a problem."
"Problems are my jam."
"Mary Catherine—"
"We call her MaryCat."
"—well, MaryCat, then, has an issue with her mom. Apparently they’re trying to take the kid away from her."
"Huh? Why?"
"They’re saying she’s hormonal or something."
MaryCat stared at me. "Is that Lodestar?"
I nodded.
"Can I talk with her?"
"Sure. You’re going on speaker, Star. I don’t want you to think I’m being rude. God forbid."
She sniffed. "Hey MaryCat, what’s going on?"
Which was how an ex-TV news anchor and a hacker smuggled a woman and her kid out of a Five Points’ Mob post-Christmas get-together.
Never let it be said that I didn’t know how to cause trouble.
When I’d sneaked MaryCat and her kid, Maddox, off the compound, with Star helping to open the gates where a car was waiting for her—I had no idea why or how, but that was on Star—after I waved her off, satisfied with having fulfilled my one good deed for the day, I retreated to the wintergarten and made it back just in time to see both Aidans climbing onto a raised dais that had appeared in my absence.
Eying it, and eying how Aidan was standing, I twisted my head to the side to see why he looked so straight.
That was when I saw the cane.
I smiled at the sight. I didn’t see him use it yesterday, so I guessed it was going to be a habit I’d have to knock into his skull, but that was okay. We were going to have to build a lot of habits together.
Things had been crazy since the twenty-first. Over the next weeks, months, and years, that was when the pill addiction would rear its ugly head, so my way to fix it was to take away the reason for its existence in the first place. If, of course, that was even possible. I hoped it was, but we had time, plenty of it, to get him back on track. For us to share a less than orthodox, but nonetheless happy future together.
"The Christmas period is a special time, brothers," Aidan Sr. rumbled, breaking into my musings about his son. Not just about the cane, either, but about how fine he looked in that navy suit.