“Touch me and die,” Ky warned. Rudge pretended to close in on Ky. I was sure my VP was gonna kill the fucker on the spot. Then, laughing, Rudge moved back to Vike, and the giant ginger threw his arm around his neck. “Your prez not calling you back to London town?” Ky folded his arms. “You know you’re not actually required to be here, right?”
Rudge put his hand over his Union Jack tattoo. “Ky, my brother, my mate, I’d never leave you guys in this war alone.”
“Seriously, you can. In fact, I’ll buy your fucking plane ticket if you just wanna fuck off back to the Big Smoke.”
Rudge came over and put his hand on Ky’s shoulder. My best friend wore death in his eyes. “My prez told me to take all the time I needed over here with our mother chapter. Actually . . .” Rudge smiled a shit-eating grin. “Been thinking about Austin as a permanent thing.” He rubbed his hand over his chin. “Just mulling shit over right now, but I’m getting a good feel for Hangmen HQ here in good ol’ Texas.” His face turned serious. “I think you guys need some Barnaby Rudge in your lives. Reckon it’d be dull as fuck out here without me.”
“You serious?” Vike said from across the fire pit.
“Like I said, I’m mulling shit over.”
“Yes!” Vike shouted, jumping on Rudge from behind and taking him to the floor. I grabbed Ky by the collar of his cut and made him get in the truck, ignoring the fucking idiots punching each other’s faces in celebration near the fire.
“That prick’ll give me a fucking heart attack. English douchebag,” Ky spat. We were silent on the way back to my cabin. Kept my cell near just in case we got a call from AK.
Ky dropped me off at home, promising to tell me if he heard anything from AK and the rest of the brothers. When I walked through the door, I couldn’t see Mae anywhere. “Mae?” I shouted, kicking off my boots and grabbing a beer from the fridge. There was food on the stove, so I knew she was here somewhere.
I checked every room until I found her in the back room we never used. It was just full of junk, and a bunch of club shit I inherited when my old man took the trip to the boatman. A familiar-looking trunk was open, and Mae was curled up on a dusty old chair, reading some kind of leather-backed book. “Styx!” Her hand flew to her chest. “You scared me.”
Leaning down, I gripped her hair and took her mouth. As always, my bitch melted into me. She tasted of chocolate. I broke away, took a sip of my beer, and asked, “W-what’s th-this?”
Guilt flashed in her wolf eyes. “Don’t be mad.” She rubbed her stomach. It was huge now. My kid was big, if the doc Mae was seeing had it right. Mae was only small. I wasn’t sure how she was gonna get our kid out. My chest tightened. It fucking terrified me. The thought of anything happening to either of them kept me awake at night. “But I decided to clean out this room. Apparently it is called nesting. Getting ready for the baby.” She rubbed her stomach again. “Anyway, I found this trunk and started looking through it to see if it was worth keeping.” I frowned, trying to remember what was in it. There seemed to be about twenty different trunks and boxes in this room.
Mae went to get to her feet. I held out my hand and helped her up off the chair. She laughed, and the fucking sound of it was still the best thing I’d ever heard. I pulled her close and put my hand on her stomach. Just as I did, Charon moved around. I couldn’t help but smirk. “He knows his papa already.” Mae’s head fell to my chest. She looked up at me, and her lip twisted. She was nervous.
“Wh-what?”
“It—the trunk—seems to be all your mama’s possessions. What was left after . . . after she died. Her journals go up until she came back here. Including the ones written after she had run away . . .” Right up until my pop shot her in the fucking head in front of me, I wanted to say, but I held back. My stomach tightened when I looked at the trunk. I remembered it then. Recognized the old brown leather and her faded name on the front. But then my veins frosted with ice. I didn’t want to know a thing more about that slut. I’d forgotten I still had the trunk. Hadn’t thought of my mama in years. And if I ever did, I fucking rid myself of the memory straight away. Fuck that shit.
But looking at that trunk, I remembered it. Remembered how I’d hidden it after she’d been shot. Sneaked it away from my old man so he wouldn’t find it.
Then never thought of it again.
“B-burn them,” I said. Mae’s head shot up. Her mouth was parted in shock. “D-don’t want a-anything of that s-slut’s. Burn them.”
“River.” Mae shook her head disapprovingly. Her voice soft, she added, “She was your mother.”
I stepped back. Mae’s hands fell from my waist. Anger fucking ate at my stomach, and I had to breathe deeply just to calm the fuck down. “No. Sh-she wasn’t. She f-fucking left me for the D-Diablos. She didn’t give a f-fuck about me.”
Mae’s eyes filled with tears. “She did, River.” Mae picked a journal up off the top of the trunk and brought it over to me. “If you read them, I think you may understand her more.”
Mae’s huge fucking wolf eyes locked onto mine, and some of my anger faded. “B-babe,” I said, and pushed my hand through her hair. I stepped closer, but I stopped when I got to the bump. It was now so big I couldn’t get my wife as close to me as I wanted. “I d-don’t give a shit a-about that wh-whore.” I grabbed the journal from her hand and held up the tattered pages. “And y-you sh-shouldn’t either.”
I tossed it to the trunk, then kissed Mae on the mouth and backed away to go into my office.
“She lived this life.”
Confused, I turned around. Mae had the journal back in her hand. She came closer, a nervous look on her fucking gorgeous face.
“She had a baby in this outlaw life.” Mae ducked her head. “She had a baby boy with the president of the Hangmen.”
Something tugged in my chest at the shake in Mae’s voice. I pulled her closer to me and waited for her to look up. “I-I’m n-nothing like my old man.” I believed it. I fucking did. But I knew it wasn’t entirely true. Fuck, I killed whoever got in my way, and felt fuck-all emotion over it. I ran this club with an iron fist, and I had no problem killing anyone who turned against it. But I had Mae. And my asswipe of a father never gave a shit about anyone but himself. Hell, he shot my mother one minute, and the next slapped me on the back and went to the bar so he could sink his dick into the slut he’d told to wait there for him while he did so.
Taking Mae’s cheeks in my hand, I stared into her eyes. She looked fucking scared. Mae tried to dip her head, but I didn’t let her. “Wh-what?”
Mae released a deep breath. “She had you in the middle of a war.” My fucking stomach fell as Mae’s eyes filled with tears. “She had the same fears I do.” Her shoulders sagged, then whispered, “Of losing you. Of being killed herself, being a target . . .” She held her stomach, lip trembling. “Of them coming for Charon . . . of us losing each other. Of not having the life we’ve dreamed of for so long.” Mae swallowed. Her face had gone white. She was fucking shaking. It fucking cut me in half to see her this way. “I just feel . . . I just feel that since we found each other again, there has been so much happening. Helping my sisters find freedom, the threats to the club, and now this war.” Mae’s breathing hitched, and she rubbed her stomach, where she kept our son safe. “Now that we have Charon, I feel fear so much more strongly now. We have more to lose. I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to him . . . to any of us.”