Maybe Link was right about still waters running deep and, maybe, I didn’t want to look beneath the surface. Maybe I liked things just as they were…
Ten
Storm
PRESENT
I followed Keira’s SUV at a leisurely pace, watching her, watching the road ahead, making sure all was well.
From the corner of my eye, I saw one of the brothers I paid to guard her permanently tailing us both, and even though I was here, I didn’t bother to call him off. He lived opposite Keira and Cyan now, neither of them the wiser that he only lived there because of them.
Almost all of our married life, I’d had someone tailing her, and she’d never noticed. This wasn’t her world, though. Even after eleven years of marriage, it still wasn’t.
Looking back, I knew I should have pushed things, shouldn’t have let her settle into her bubble, should have drawn her into the Sinners’ world but… Christ. It had been in my best interests that she stayed away from the MC, and I hadn’t done dick to discourage her dislike of the clubhouse or my family.
One mistake… one mistake was all it took to worm away at the foundations of our marriage.
My hands tightened around the handlebars of my ride as we trudged along the snow-dusted road toward her house in a nice subdivision on the other side of Coshocton.
It was the kind of place where her SUV was the common ride, not a hog, but though I got some side eye, and Jump did as well, nobody had said anything yet.
‘Yet’ being the operative word.
As we rolled through the gates of the community, I tipped my head at the security guard who didn’t bat an eye at me or Jump even though, ordinarily, security would be all over us like flies around shit in a subdivision like this one. The fact that I slipped him and the other guard a thousand a month to keep him happy, to make sure he kept me in the loop about her comings and goings, lubed things up, of course.
Bribing was the way to go when you had a wife you wanted eyes on twenty-four-seven.
Heading into the subdivision, I rolled past houses that, as a kid, I’d craved as a permanent address.
Money wasn’t a problem for me anymore, hadn’t been when I was VP, and though shit was tighter here because the club wasn’t making as much money, I wasn’t a complete asshole. I had a fuck ton of savings which I’d spent a small chunk on getting this address, the SUV—one of the safest on the market—and sending Cyan to a local private school.
I’d stayed low key in West Orange because of Keira’s father. Not sent her private, kept our addresses nice and middle class.
Here, I could do whatever the fuck I wanted.
I was fresh.
I was new.
I was a clean page that was ready to be written on, and I intended to start the first chapter of my redemption story right.
That meant giving Cyan what she needed, and it meant ensuring her mom was happy too.
Keira and I still hadn’t had a conversation about her own schooling, but I knew that was on the cards. I’d encourage it too.
I’d been such a dumbass before.
So many fucking mistakes. I felt as if I were buried in them. Like they were shit that I needed to dig my way out of.
Would I ever be free?
No.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t have to keep on trying, did it?
When her BMW rolled up the driveway, I pulled onto the side of the road. I could feel the neighbors’ curtains twitch at the sound of my half-pipes, but I didn’t give a damn. I’d selected this house because it was a corner lot with a massive yard all around the property.
The location meant riding past a good chunk of houses, but when I parked, we were away from nosy fucking Karens who’d call 911 just for me showing up, with the nearest houses being a vacant one and where Jump was living with his woman and kid.
I stretched as I climbed off my bike, ignoring the sound of Jump’s half-pipes, too, then grabbed the small bag I’d packed and had stored in my saddlebags.
Heading up the path toward the SUV, I helped gather Maddox’s baby gear, not that there was much, and most of it borrowed, but I grabbed it all without a word, popping the trunk without asking, before trudging over to the front door to wait on the women.
Cyan had been quiet ever since I’d gone into the clubhouse to gather my shit together, but whatever had been said, it seemed to have been more cathartic than angry because the second she was out of the car, she was her mom’s shadow.
Only after Keira had let us in did she trail into the family room, which kind of surprised me because I thought she’d be all over Maddox, but she wasn’t.
Following the women, I left the gear in the spare room, then retreated to the kitchen to grab two sodas before I went to find Cy who’d switched on the TV.
Slumping into the sofa beside her, she giggled when I nosed into her space, shoving her up against the side, giving her no room at all.
"You’re squishing me!" she complained with another giggle that melted my heart.
Truth be told, I’d never imagined the love I felt for Keira could be overtaken by another, but Cy had done that. She’d wrecked me too. It was why I didn’t want another kid. I couldn’t afford to feel this way for another child. I just... it was too much.
Much too much.
"I’m totally not squishing you," I countered as I popped the tab on the soda can and shoved her even more into the side.
She huffed, but grabbed my arm, dragged it high, then shoved herself under it so she was cuddled into my side. Neither of us said anything after that though, just tuned into Disney+.
It took me a second to figure it out, but then I muttered, "Why do they have to redo everything?"
She peered up at me. "Huh?"
"When I was a kid, The Mighty Ducks was a movie. That was fine. Why do they have to change it?"
Cy sniffed. "Because it’s old."
"Yeah, well, so am I."
"You’re not old."
I grinned. "You know that logic don’t work, right?"
"My logic is perfect."
"Well, I wouldn’t go that far." My eyes twinkled as I glanced down at her. "You’re pretty high up there, but no one’s perfect, honey."
"I am." She grinned back. "Did I show you what I learned last week?"
She’d been going to a ton of classes while waiting to start school in January, most of which another brother, Peanut, shadowed her on. It was to my detriment that I’d only stalked my wife all our married life. I fucked up with Cy, but never again.
Never.
Fucking.
Again.
I didn’t give a shit if she bitched about it when she was thirty-fucking-three.
She was going to have an MC shadow for the rest of her goddamn life.
"Which class?" I questioned after I sipped my drink.
"Gymnastics." She squirreled out of the seat, then cried out, "Watch!"
I was surprised that she was still so eager where gymnastics was concerned, seeing as that was where she’d met that fucker—make that two fuckers when you counted her grandfather—but I wasn’t about to discourage her, so I watched as she did some kind of weird handstand thing which morphed into a backward flip, before she mirrored that and tumbled forward.