“I hope not, too. If she does, maybe we should have Adam come clean up the mess as payback,” Bink teases, nudging my son's shoulder with her own. I can tell they’ve taken a liking to each other. Bonded amid chaos. She’s good to him, and he needs a lot of good in his life. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Hell, that’s all any parent worth their salt wants for their children. Goodness. Happiness. To feel loved and wanted.

  Content to just be, I sip my tea and watch their banter unfold.

  “I didn’t poop in the bath on purpose.” Adam rolls his eyes, still smiling at the ordeal.

  “Says you.” Her head swivels in good-natured attitude.

  In an exaggerated display of ridiculousness only he’s capable of, Adam’s eyebrows waggle. “I’m givin’ your daughter lots and lots and lots of prunes, so you’ll need a strainer. I’ll get you one for Christmas.” He winks, slow and deliberate, a nostril wrinkling at the corner as he does.

  Bink faux gasps, covering her mouth. “You are not.”

  Head held high, nose upturned, my son puffs out his rather broad chest. “Oh, ye of little faith.” He speaks like a duke, terrible British accent and all.

  Once more collapsing into peals of laughter, they soon lapse into stories of themselves as kids. Pivoting from poop in the bath to rainbow Band-Aids from Big Dick, the club president, now Bink’s man. How that one came about, I don’t know, nor is it my business. Adam shares his school shenanigans. The same ones that wound him up homeschooled. You know the gist of those.

  “Your dad’s a computer genius. It’s no wonder you could do all that,” Bink notes.

  “My mom is, too.”

  Turning toward me, the blonde woman’s eyes round. “You are?” She sounds skeptical.

  I shrug a single shoulder, disliking the attention. I’m far more interested in watching them interact. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen Adam come this alive.

  “She codes and other shit,” he answers for me and tilts his head back to take a drink of bottled water.

  “Is that how you learned?” comes from a curious Bink.

  Yes. He doesn’t have to say it for it to be true. I never knew Gunz was the specialist he is, nor did I need to with Adam having me as a mother. I know my way around security systems and computers just fine. Adam spent a portion of his childhood watching me. Not that I ever expected that knowledge to soak in and compute to jail time. That’s, in part, why I take his experiments to heart. They’re a byproduct of my rearing. Not intentional, but still indirectly my fault.

  Growing up, my father tinkered in the garage most days with me as his curious shadow. My mother and his relationship was strained, as was my relationship with her. She was callous and cold. Never one to show love. I told myself if I was ever to be a mother, I would never follow in her footsteps. I wanted more for myself. For my family. Our nights around the table were filled with silence. The dinners were always lackluster—the same foods night after night. They lived separate lives under the same roof until my father died of a heart attack many years ago, and she ended up in a home.

  Thanks to the relationship I had with my ex, I stopped coming around prior to that. We phoned, my father and me. The conversations were obligatory. Nothing more, nothing less. The same five minutes of small talk on holidays. Adam never really knew them. It’s for the best he only met them twice before age five and nothing thereafter. Not even a birthday card, or Christmas gift. Not that I expected different. My father was never one to rock the boat or push for more, and my mother never cared about me, let alone the child I bore. She acted the same with my siblings. No wonder my brother joined the military straight out of high school and my sister fell off the face of the earth. I haven’t heard from her since the day she left. Not a peep.

  That’s why I swore I’d do better for Adam. We all do that, don’t we? Promise ourselves that our child will never experience the same heartache we did as children. As if we won’t fuck them up in our own special ways. We do. Oh, we do. My love for computers is why we’re here. Why my son was jailed. How I found Bonez and, by extension, Gunz. It’s crazy how the puzzle pieces fit together. One begets the other to form a picture. One you can’t see clearly until you… can.

  A hand waves in front of my face. I blink, glance around, blink again, and focus on my son.

  “Mom.” Adam’s lips press into a thin line.

  Uncomfortable with how my brain seems to wander these days, I deliver a similar expression. “Oh. Um. Hi?”

  My kid retakes his seat. “You zoned out a bit. You need something?” He inches forward on the couch, his butt hovering on the ledge as if he’s waiting for me to cry or worse. He has nothing to worry about. That’s not gonna happen.

  “No. Just thinkin’.”

  “Care to share?”

  “Just the norm.” I shrug. “How we’re here today because of my choices. First, the wild night of sex.”

  Adam pulls the cutest grossed-out face. Well, it’s cute to me. I’m his mom. You’d probably find it sexy. Who knows?

  The tiniest of smirks hooks at the corner of my mouth, and I keep talking. “Then jail time because of what you learned from me.” I lift the mug to my lips and take a long, calming sip of tea. The warmth rolls down my throat and heats a trail all the way to my belly. Adam stares at me as if I’ve lost my marbles. A blanket draped over her lap, Bink remains quiet and observant.

  “You think you have something to do with my run-in with the law?” If his higher-pitched tone is any indication, Adam isn’t buying what I’m selling.

  “Yes.” The duh I tack on in my head doesn’t add to the conversation, but yeah… Duh.

  “I’m grown.”

  “Not that grown,” I counter.

  Obviously.

  “Grown enough to know what I’m doing.” Adam gestures to himself as if that somehow changes the facts.

  Grown, as in hit puberty, sure. Grown, as in mature, not so much. He has a long way to go in that department.

  Not buying his maturity, I tap my mouth with a finger. “Hmmm… and yet, you still end up in trouble. Stupid, childish, trouble.”

  Taken aback by my words, my son’s expression screws into an awful glower. “You seriously think teaching me how to code and work systems makes my choices your fault?” he growls much like I’d expect Gunz to. It’s odd hearing it come from him.

  “The fruit grows from somewhere,” I throw out.

  His cheeks redden, his jaw working overtime as I’ve struck a nerve. “What the fuck does that mean?” He speaks slowly, his head cocking to the side, assessing.

  “It has to be planted first before it can grow,” Bink illuminates for me.

  I nod. “Exactly. I planted the seed. I tended it.”

  “This is a dumb analogy.” His blues roll, but he plays along anyhow. “Sure, you took care of me. If I’m the fruit, I had to fall from the tree… and what I do with my seeds,” he taps the side of his skull, “is no longer about the tree. It’s about the fruit.”

  “But the health of the fruit is because of the tree,” I, again, attempt to explain.

  “Wrong. The health of the fruit is about nourishment from the tree. What happens to the fruit after it’s been nourished enough to ripen is no longer the responsibility of the tree. You took care of me.”

  I did my best, and sometimes, that wasn’t enough.

  “Your father left,” I note.

  “No, he didn’t. He’s here.” Adam looks around Gunz’s living room, his brows raised in a cocky spectacle of his oh-really-Mom attitude.

  It’s my turn to deliver an eye roll. “I’m not talking about Gunz.” Gunz is new. He wasn’t there when Adam was a child. He didn’t play daddy. This kid of mine knows exactly what I’m referring to.

  “I am. Do you think, had I been Jeremy’s, that we’d be happy? That I’d be less of what I am?”

  “Yes.” No contest.

  Adam’s head shakes. “Wrong. I hated him. Even before I knew he wasn’t my real dad, I didn’t like him. He was an asshole. I was happy, Mom. Fucking ecstatic to find out he wasn’t my biological father. Jeremy is better off living his new life as an insurance salesman with his new family. We’re better off how we are now. That’s the truth. Blame yourself all you want, but now I’m happier I’m not stuck with him as a parent, stuck in that life.”

  Okay.

  This is news. Maybe we’re getting somewhere.

  I stare at him pointedly. “Then why the rebelliousness? If it’s not acting out, it’s something.” I’m calm. Far calmer on the outside than in.

  “Have you looked in the mirror? Have you met you? Have you met Gunz?” he asks.

  What’s that supposed to mean? Didn’t he just argue his actions are not a reflection of my parenting? Which, as we both know, I do not agree with. Now he’s circling back around to say… what? Look in the mirror. As if he’s a reflection of me. That’s what I’ve been saying all along. Isn’t it? Now I’m confused, and my brain hurts.

  I massage my temple.

  Wait… maybe he’s trying to say I’m a “bad girl”? That I’m a…

  “I’m not a rebel,” I defend.

  Adam snorts, not at all convinced. “Right, and the Pope isn’t Catholic.”

  “I’m not, Adam.” I’m really not.

  “Look. In. The. Mirror. Mom.”

  “I have,” I counter.

  “No. Seriously. Go look in the damn mirror, Mom.” He points toward the bathroom as if I’m somehow gonna get off this couch to do as he asks. This is getting out of hand.

  “No,” I bark.

  Noting my tone and overall dislike of where this conversation has headed, Adam readjusts himself on the couch before speaking again. “Maybe you should because you’ll see the strong woman who raised a strong man. A man who can think and act on his own. I’ve done far worse than I was arrested for. The pranks are always decoys.”

  Sure, they are.

  I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Care to elaborate?”

  “They’re meant to keep people off the actual trail. They’re not the act of some child. They’re deliberate.”

  “You want to go to jail?” Who the hell wants to sit in a cell or a bunk or whatever it is they do in county? That’s insane. Not maturity. At least not from my perspective.

  “Yes,” is Adam’s simple, shoulder-shrugging, calm, infuriating answer.

  I grip my mug harder. “Why the fuck would you want that?”

  “So I don’t get caught for the bigger shit. If they’re too focused on the silly stuff, they pay less attention to the subtle moves. The ones that make an actual impact,” he explains, as if it’s no big deal. As if it’s logical.

  Is it just me… or maybe don’t do shit that requires police evasion or willful jail time? Ding. Ding. Ding… We have a winner. Don’t commit crimes that’ll do the time … I know… I know… the irony of this moment isn’t lost on me. I’m sitting on the couch of a biker, on a compound full of bikers, all of which are not law-abiding citizens. I’m aware. They’re not Girl Scouts. Never expected otherwise. Adam’s antics have nothing to do with Gunz or the Sacred Sinners and everything to do with life choices.

  Not wanting to alienate my son by being a holier-than-thou bitch, I adjust my grip on the mug, take the world’s largest breath, and calibrate my tone to give-a-shit-non-judgey-mom. “Like what?” The words drip like honey from my lips. I loathe them almost as much as I loathe where this conversation continues to go.

  Stern as ever, Adam’s head shakes back and forth. “I’m not sharing that with you. That’d make you an accomplice, and I’m already sitting here watching my mother drink tea from a mug with bruises around her neck, her wrists, and on her face. You’ve lost a lot of weight. They raped you. I’m gonna guess repeatedly. You wanna discuss my actions, fine. We can do that another day. Right now, you need to focus on you. On getting right with whatever the hell went down at that warehouse.”

  That sounds like a cop-out if I ever heard one. “Adam—” I begin, only to be cut off by my son.

  “No, Mom. It’s true. You’re always concerned about me and everyone else, so much so, you don’t live your own life. You’re doing it now. Focusing on my shit, when I’m not the one who just got pulled from a fucking warehouse. We are worried about you. I was scared out of my damn mind.”

  Ugh.

  I swallow hard and look away from them both.

  I bite my bottom lip.

  Maybe I don’t wanna talk about the warehouse. Maybe I don’t wanna focus on my stuff. I’m sorry I scared him. I didn’t want that. I didn’t wanna be there in the first place. I’m sorry we’re here because of me. I’m sorry I couldn’t help the women I lived in that hellhole with. All I could do was listen to them being violated day after day. At one point, I offered myself to our captors, so did Loretta, when Jade couldn’t take another moment of pain. They loved her more than the rest of us. Big tits and ass, lots of curves—gorgeous. They wrecked her. I couldn’t save her either. Only listen to the screams.

  I’m sorry.

  So… so… so fucking sorry.

  For everything.

  I just want my son to be okay. Not jailed. Not making dumb childish decisions.

  I don’t wanna deal with the rest.

  I don’t wanna think about it.

  I don’t wanna talk about it.

  I’m sorry.

  I’m sorry.

  I’m sorry.

  A lone tear treks down my cheek. I smear it across my face with my thumb.

  Fuck.

  I’m.

  Sorry.

  Gunz

  The last to exit church, I close and lock the door behind me.

  Fuck.

  What a shit show.

  Plans are made for Runner’s wake. Big sent him to be cremated. More Remy findings. Despite my heated opinion, Prez wants me back at it tomorrow morning. Just my luck, hours behind a desk for the foreseeable future. Not even a day home, and I’m already picking up the broken pieces left by my lack of presence here. Money, security, and a laundry list of other shit has been added to the to-do list, none of which I wanna do. I’m old. I wanna kick back, relax, ride a bit, and rest. Spend some time getting to know Adam and Kit. Reconnect with my family. Cuddle Harley and Dom. The simple stuff. Maybe take up gardening, woodworking, or some other bullshit. Not be at war. Not spend hours in my windowless office.

  Rubbing the pulsing vein in the middle of my forehead, I snort. Things change, huh? A year ago, I wouldn’t have felt this way. I’d be content to spend my days working. I’d be happy to go on runs and takin’ care of business. Funny how going to war, meetin’ someone, having a son, losin’ a brother, and gettin’ shot can put life into perspective.

  Heading toward the rear door of the clubhouse, I stifle a yawn. If the loud music from the common room is any indication, our homecoming party is in full swing. Booze, pussy, and a bar lined with alcohol. Brothers are hootin’ and hollerin’ already. Not much has changed. Same shit, different day. What isn’t the same… me. I need sleep. About a year’s worth, and I wanna do it lying beside a bald, tatted-up, beaut, who’s waitin’ on me to come home to her.

  Turning left at the corner, I find Kai and a topless Niki arguing. Gripping his cut in both hands, her eyes bugged wide, Niki tilts her head back to look up at our new VP.

  “Please! Kai! Please!” The woman shoves her tits at him, hitting him in the gut harder than I’m sure she intends. Kai rocks back on his bootheels to maintain balance. Havin’ none of what she’s offering, he raises both hands in surrender.

  “Not happenin’. I’m sorry.” Kai’s head shakes on repeat, doublin’ down on his stance.

  If her flinch is any clue, that one stung a bit. She’s not used to bein’ passed over by single brothers. But that doesn’t seem to stop her. In the next breath, Niki steels her expression and clenches her tiny jaw. “I’ve sucked your dick before. I can suck it again.” She tilts her head to the side in challenge, those tits smashing against Kai’s abdomen. Damn woman doesn’t listen. That much is clear.

  Red. Ass. That’s what she deserves for this kinda behavior if times were different. If she hadn’t been abused, and this wasn’t an obvious display of some mental issues she’s gotta work through. The woman needs help, not cock.

  Giving zero fucks, Niki does what Niki does—drops to her knees and attempts to make fast, sloppy work of Kai’s belt buckle. That’s when my brother notices me watching from afar, trying to get a bead on what’s goin’ down. Looks like someone might also be drunk. Where her keeper is, I dunno. I’ll find out later and kick their ass for not doin’ their job by keepin’ her outta trouble. Niki can’t be left to her own devices. They raped the woman just like the rest of them. She wears the same bruises. This shit is messed up, even to me, and I’m usually down for this level of kink. Hell, I’ve participated in this exact scenario at least a hundred times. Face fucked a club whore in the hall, makin’ her mascara run, as she chokes on my dick. She always played with her clit. Got herself off in time with me wreckin’ her throat.

  Christ.

  This is… sad.

  This is… just… fuckin’ wrong.

  Kai makes eye contact. Desperation clings to every inch of the stock-still man. He doesn’t know what to do. Most wouldn’t.

  Handlin’ business, ’cause that’s how I roll, I approach and carefully remove Niki from pawing at our VP’s privates. Kai sighs in relief and cards a hand through his long hair. Niki wobbles as I hoist her off the ground by her armpits. She sways even more when righted on both feet. She uses the wall to keep herself steady and snaps an infuriated gaze at me, ignoring Kai’s presence. When she speaks, Niki’s breath fans my face in moist heat and the potency of strong liquor. Tequila, if I had to guess.

  “What the fuck, Gunz?” she seethes and stabs a finger to the center of my chest. I grab the digit and hold it there as I gesture for Kai to get lost by the flick of my chin. There’s no need for him to stay. Whatever’s about to go down shouldn’t be clubhouse gossip. The fewer witnesses the better. I don’t gotta tell him twice, and he’s gone without so much as a parting word.