“Rig’s dead.” Gone is the evasive, apologetic bullshit, and in its place is an anger I don’t expect. It takes me a minute to even register what he’s said. Rig’s dead. As if waiting for me to get with the program, he nods his head and continues. “Your old lady’s close with Elle. They vacation together and shit. Kids call her auntie. Few months back, Amber hires Elle to find Rig. Woman puts a fucking bounty on his head from coast to goddamn coast. Few months pass and he’s desperate. Takes your boy on a little camping trip. Before you lose your shit, remember that he’s fine. He was never hurt.”
“How did he die?” It’s all I can get out. The only thing I can fucking think about. Rig got ahold of my boy. All these years I’ve tolerated him when he’s come to town. All this time and he’s known my kid. The thought of my son learning a single fucking thing from that pussified bitch makes me sick to my stomach. There’s so much I was planning on teaching him, so much that I wanted him to learn. Like how to fix up a car, how to shoot a gun—everything a dad should teach their son about life. And I threw away every single day of the last fourteen years so I could shove shit up my nose and drink until my insides fucking rotted. It doesn’t matter how much I hate Rig. I hate myself more.
“Asshole had a gun on your kid’s head. Amber took him out with three to the gut, one to the arm, and one in the chest. Never seen a woman so mad before.”
I try to speak but find that I can’t. I want to know where this happened, how it happened, where Zander was before Rig got his hands on him, why Amber wasn’t watching him better, and how my boy dealt with that fucking prick pulling a gun on him. I want to know everything, but I’d rather ask my woman than my brother. She sure as fuck didn’t lay any of this shit on me the other day.
“I was there. Elle got the call from Rig about exchanging cash for your kid, and I made a judgment call. Right or wrong, I made my choice. We don’t have enough men to keep our shit safe out here, let alone sending them to fucking Michigan and leaving our families behind to be sitting fucking ducks. As far as I could see, as long as Rig thought he’d make it out alive, Zander was safe. The minute I go to the club, Rig realizes how bad he fucked up, that he’s not getting the money, and the boy is dead.”
“The boy?” It’s all I can say. The only fucking thing I can think is that this asshole just had the nerve to call my son “the boy” like it’s fucking nothing. Like he’s fucking nothing. I shove my chair back and fly across the table without another thought.
CHAPTER 7
“We good?” I look around the room and wait for confirmation that nobody else has anything to say. They all stare at me with bored expressions. Except Diesel. He’s sporting a black eye and a broken nose. He doesn’t look bored. He just looks like he got his ass tore up.
He did.
Might not have been fair for me to jump him, but I did, and I’m still too fucking pissed to feel bad about it. Not only did I have to hear that shit from D once, but I had to make him repeat it to the club. It’s club business whether it’s personal or not. Church ran long for exactly that reason. My brothers needed to know, and some of them were pissed, some understood, and some—like me—were ready for a fight. All I could think the entire time was this is why we don’t allow guns in Church.
I nod my head and smack the gavel down on the worn table. A strip of wood’s been replaced in the table, right where the gavel normally lands. Forsaken brothers have spent hundreds of hours at this table over the years. It’s not the original table they had in this room. Rage broke that sucker back before he was president. His old lady, Jim’s mom, replaced the original with this one, and though it’s seen its fair share of wear and tear? it’s held up well. Just like Sylvia Stone herself—at least as far as I’ve heard—it’s sturdy and unflappable. The woman survived more hits than I care to remember and went down with some serious fight. That third time the cancer came knocking, though—she just couldn’t beat it. According to Ruby, Rage was never the same once he lost his woman.
Fuck.
His woman.
My woman.
My mind automatically goes to Amber and that bombshell she dropped on me. I guess I’m being a pussy. It wasn’t much of a surprise. Somewhere in my heart, I knew it all along. Mugs and I never spent much time apart, and when we were apart, I was with Rig. Not only would it have been improbable for her to have cheated with him, but with how often she rode my dick bare, the odds were on me being her baby’s daddy.
But I’m a fuckup who’d snort anything he could get his hands on back then, and that bullshit lie she fed me about not being the father was easier to believe than the idea that she just didn’t want me anymore.
I force myself to close out Church and dismiss the boys before I slip back into my thoughts. Once I’m alone in the room, I close my eyes and remember what it was like to have my woman by my side. She was always so opinionated and a total hard-ass about everything.