Bear looked down at Chop’s lifeless body like it was offending him by even bleeding.
Bear tugged off Chop’s cut and tore off the patch that read PRESIDENT. He spit on Chop’s body, then, holding on to the railing, he used the boot on his good leg to kick it off the second floor and into the crowd, who gasped and shuffled around on their knees to avoid being hit by the lifeless body of their fallen leader.
“Listen up, motherfuckers!” Bear shouted, his voice booming across the courtyard like he was speaking into a microphone. He looked as if he was about to spit fire as he limped from side to side, pacing the second floor balcony. The single handcuff that used to be connected to Chop dangled from his wrist, clanking against the rusted metal of the railing as he slid his hand over the top.
Bear stopped and leaned over, glaring at the men who from the looks on their faces, had already come to the realization that there was a good chance they were already dead.
“This,” Bear said, waving his arms around, gesturing to the walls of the building and then to the men themselves. “This was supposed to be brotherhood. Somewhere under Chop’s rule, you monkeys turned this club into a fucking gang, and a fucking bad one at that. This is not supposed to be a dictatorship. You aren’t motherfucking thugs. This wasn’t supposed to be a fucking war zone.” He grew more confident as the words came. Clearer. Stronger. “What this was supposed to be was a business.” Bear looked back to me. “A family.” He turned back around, the dried blood on his back covering his tattoos in a sheen of red.
He shook his head. Pausing. Thinking. “We’ve all been so caught up in who is doing us wrong that we haven’t been able to look past the barrel of our own guns long enough to see who is doing us right.” He looked back over to me again and the exchange between us was nothing short of electric.
“We’ve fallen so far,” Bear said. “We were brothers. We are brothers,” he said, closing his fist over his bare blood-splattered chest. “Family,” he said, looking down to the bodies of both of his parents. “Not the kind of family that donated to your fucking DNA, but the kind that would gladly take a fucking bullet for you.”
He cleared his throat like he’d made a decision, and I braced myself for what he was about to say. Although, good or bad, I knew Bear would do what was right for his family moving forward. Whether that meant that the men lived or died was completely up to him and either way, I’d support that decision. “You get one fucking pass. ONE,” Bear said, followed by sighs of relief and bursting out held breaths. “And it’s right the fuck now,” he said, pointing to the ground. “If any of you pussy ass motherfuckers want out, now is the time to take it. This is your one and only chance to walk out that gate without the threat of the club on your back. Ted and his boys will gladly step aside and let you walk out, but if you choose to stay, if you choose to be in this with me, then you are not choosing to be Beach Bastard anymore.” Again the crowd stirred but this time with ‘huhs’ and ‘whats’ of confusion. “That club is as dead as my old man. There is too much blood. Those stains are permanent. If you stay, you’re choosing to start over with me.” Bear paused while the crowd absorbed what he was saying. “So leave now while you have the chance.”
Not a single man moved. Instead they all stared up at Bear and waited for him to continue.
“Holy shit, I can’t believe he’s really giving them a pass,” King muttered.
“Did you really think he was going to kill all of them?” I asked out of the side of my mouth.
“Yep.”
“As a brother of our new MC you will no longer forget what brotherhood means. WE will no longer forget who our friends are. We got into this life to live by our own rules. The rules of the club and the rules of the road. We are lawless. We are free. We are FAMILY,” Bear said, pounding on his chest again. I’d never really known what pride was. I never had any major accomplishments of my own that I could boast about. But looking up at Bear there was no doubt that what I was feeling while watching him talk to his brothers was pure pride.
“Do you even know what is going on with your brothers outside this place anymore?” Bear continued. “Do you know if he’s making his bills this month? Do you know if his kid wrecked the car last week or if his old lady’s sneaking off when he’s not home to fuck the little league coach? Because you should. And if your brother is going through any of those things, it’s your job to help, and it’s my job to help because help doesn’t mean just when people need killing. Help means fucking help in any way you can put it in a fucking sentence.”
He glanced down again at Chop’s body, his blood outlined him in a halo at the bottom of the pool. “Get up off your fucking knees,” he ordered. The men holding the guns stepped back and gave room to the men who now stood with their faces upturned, hanging on to every single one of Bear’s words.
“Brotherhood means everything. Family means everything. This time, don’t fucking forget that.” Bear pointed to King. “King is my brother, my family, and a friend of the club. Disrespecting him or my old lady will guarantee you a one-way ticket to hell. That goes for all of our families. Your old ladies, your kids, your friends outside the club.” He leaned over the railing as far as he could, until he was practically bent at the waist. “Business used to be good because as a club, we used to be good for business, until people started looking at us as a reckless bunch of delinquents. That shit changes now. It all changes now. I am going to strip this shit down and take it back to what it used to be, what it was supposed to fucking be from the very beginning.”
Bear shook his head. “This shit isn’t going to be one-sided either. I will make you a promise right here and now that I will never ask something of you I wouldn’t be willing to do myself. And I assure you that I would be willing to lay down my fucking life for you just as you would for me. I’m a member, a brother, just like each of you, and I will live and die as your brother. That I can promise you.”
One of the men tossed something up to Bear and he caught it.
“My old cut,” Bear said, looking at it with a mixture of hate and reverence.
“Here,” King said, tossing Bear his knife.
Bear wiped it on his pants and dug into his cut, tearing the Bastards emblems off, and when he was done, he held up the blank scrap of leather. The once silent group of men erupted into whoops and cheers, whistling and applause. “Your turn,” Bear said, tossing the knife down into the crowd where the men eagerly started tearing at their own cuts.
Bear leaned over the railing and smiled. He was in his element, radiating pure power. A rare smile spread across his face. Genuine. Real. Huge. Reaching all the way to his eyes. “Welcome to your new club. You are now brothers of The Lawless MC.”
The crowd erupted into hoots and applause. Bear looked back at me, shrugging on his cut and flashing me a wink.
It was official.
Bear was now president of the Lawless.
And I was his old lady.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Thia
Using the palm of my hand I wiped off one of the plastic chairs surrounding the fire pit and took a seat. With my ankles crossed over the bricks I leaned back, tipping the chair onto two legs. I closed my eyes, soaking in the sun’s last heat as it disappeared behind the tall trees across the bay.
It was that very spot where Bear first claimed me as his own. I didn’t know that’s what he was doing when he kissed and licked his way around my every wound and injury in his attempt to heal me with his beautiful mouth, but I knew it now.
I shivered at the memory, pressing my thighs together as another part of me also remembered that night.
“Hey, Beautiful,” Bear said, making my stomach flip and my nipples harden with just those two words.
I opened my eyes to find Bear staring down at me. His sapphire blue pools hypnotizing me as he looked me over from head to toe. Maybe me and my woman parts weren’t the only one taking a trip down memory lane.
“Looking fancy over there, Mr. McAdams,?
?? I said, with a low whistle. Bear was wearing something I hadn’t seen him wear before. His new cut, which was actually his old cut, because as he had said “took me for fucking ever to wear the leather in.” The patches over his right breast read PRESIDENT, THE LAWLESS, LOGAN’S BEACH, FLORIDA and their bright white color and lack of stains screamed of their newness, stiff with thick black embroidery.
“You ready, baby?” he asked, wagging his eyebrows.
“Yeah, but first, this came for you.” I handed him the white envelope with no return address.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. It’s addressed to you. The Mail America guy dropped it off a few minutes ago. There was one for King too. I gave it to Ray. I didn’t open it. I don’t know what kind of old lady biker code you guys have against postal fraud. Besides, it could be anthrax.”
Bear looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Thanks for saving the anthrax for me, baby,” he said, planting a brief kiss on my lips. He sat at on the edge of the fire pit and tore open the envelope.
“I do what I can,” I said, brushing an invisible nothing off of my shoulder.
Bear unfolded what looked like a two-page letter of some sort and as he read his eyes shifted from narrow to wide. His lips moving silently as he read. He stood up, walked a few feet and then reached behind him. When his hand found a chair, he fell back into it, never taking his eyes from the letter.
“What?” I said, watching Bear’s reaction and wondering what impending doom was here to sweep away all of our newfound happiness.
“It’s a letter,” Bear said.
“Don’t make me junk punch you Captain Obvious. Who is it from?”
“It’s from…” Bear held up the pages. I stood up and snatched it. Resting his elbows on his thighs he dropped his head into his hands. “It’s from Grace.”
I scoffed, thinking that he was just joking until I began to read.
My Dearest Abel,
It’s time I told you a story, one I should have told you a long, long time ago.
As far as the world is concerned, they think Edmund and I couldn’t have children of our own because that is what we had lead everyone to believe, but that is only a partial truth. When people asked if we had children, we always said no. It was too painful to talk about then, and frankly, it’s still too painful to write this now, but I owe you the truth and the truth you shall have.
As you know, my mother was old-fashioned and had arranged my marriage to my Edmund with his mother on the very day I came screaming into the world. I didn’t care for him. I didn’t want to be married. Ever.
I wanted adventure.
So a long time ago, in another life, I got my adventure.
I became a hang-around at an MC and got sucked into club life. I was the equivalent to the Wolf Warriors what a BBB is to the Bastards.
Shocking I know, but if you can believe it, I was quite a looker back in my day.
Rebellious as hell too, although I don’t think that ever really went away. Age just has a funny way of tucking the rebellion in under loose and wrinkly skin.
I had a child, very early in life with Joker, VP of the Warriors.
A daughter.
We named her Sadie.
Joker was married at the time, and although he was never hateful, he never acknowledged Sadie as his own. I left the club life shortly before she was born, so I could raise her. I married Edmond after all, because I thought it was what was best for Sadie, and thankfully he agreed because although the beginning was rocky, we fell as madly in love as two people could possibly be.
But my girl, my Sadie, was a rebel from the word go, just like her mama.
By the time she turned fifteen, she was deep into drugs. The hard stuff. She’d run away at least once a month until the money ran out from whatever she’d stolen from us and sold.
One such time, she never came back. I tracked her down and it was no surprise where I found her. She’d taken in with the Bastards, who’d kept her comfortable and knee deep in her drug and party lifestyle. I stormed over there many times, but never got further than the gate. I called the cops, but it never yielded anything because, as you know, the cops in Logan’s Beach wear badges during the day and cuts at night. I even called Joker and begged him to help me, but the epic on-again-off-again war of Bastards vs. Warriors, was on again, and there wasn’t anything he could do.
I didn’t even know my daughter was pregnant until I saw a glimpse of her at the Stop-N-Go one day with a rounded belly. I tried to talk to her, but she pretended like she didn’t know me. Around the same time, Edmund and I found out that because of my daughter’s difficult birth, that I would never be able to have any more children. Not only did I lose my daughter, but I lost my grandchild, as well as the possibility of creating life again.
Months later a picture showed up in the mail with no return address. A baby picture. It was you. I don’t know if Sadie had sent it or if Joker had somehow gotten a hold of it and sent it to me. Either way that picture was the very first time I’d ever laid eyes on you and I loved you right then.
I never stopped trying to get to my Sadie. Joker had called me to tell me that rumor had it that Sadie had gone missing. I practically drove my car through the gates of the Bastard compound and demanded to see you, but the only thing I accomplished was being led out by gunpoint. Chop said that if I ever came back he’d not only kill me, but you too. I didn’t even know that he was the father until he told me at gunpoint. And when I accused him of killing Sadie, he didn’t even have the courtesy to deny it.
I slipped into a depression, nothing Edmund did could pull me out of it. He cleared the house of all evidence of Sadie’s existence, thinking that it was the memory of her that was making me that way even thought it was much, much more than that. However, he did let me keep your picture as long as I promised to tuck it away somewhere, so I did. Eventually with no hope in sight I became bedridden with grief, my only solace was a glance at your beautiful face once a day when Edmund would leave for work.
Until Brantley.
When he came into my life, he started to fill the gap in my heart. Thankfully, Edmond was able to get to know him for a short time as well, before he passed. Brantley was my little blessing, wrapped in anger and emerald eyes. Then Samuel came along, and I started to feel almost whole again.
Or so at least I thought.
Because on one hot summer day, you showed up on your bike. The spitting image of your father with your blond hair and sapphire blue eyes. I nearly fell off the porch.
There you were. My grandbaby. All grown up and right in front of me.
I wanted to tell you then. I tried so many times after that day too. But my overwhelming fear that Chop would cut you off from me… I couldn’t lose you.
Not again.
Not ever.
However, he did find out eventually, because he showed up at the house with a half dozen other Bastards and stormed through my roses. The first thing he asked me was if you knew who I was, and when I told him that you didn’t, he was relieved.
I would have shot him right there if I’d had a gun within my reach for what he did to my girl. He told me to stay away from you and that it was my last warning. I asked him why he was so hell bent on not allowing you to have a family.
“Because he has a family, the Bastards are his family. He doesn’t need his daddy, his granny, or some weed-dealing thug kids. He’s got his brothers.” He turned to leave.
“You might as well stay, so you won’t have to make another trip to shoot me because I won’t stop seeing him. I won’t. If you are going to kill me for it then just kill me now because I will not give him up.”
Instead of killing me, he laughed in my face and then we made an agreement.
One I’m not proud of, but one where I wouldn’t tell you who I really was to you, and he wouldn’t ban you from coming around.
Oh, and he wouldn’t kill us, either.
It was selfish, I know that, but I finally had yo
u in my life and the risk of losing you again was too great. So I kept you in the only way I knew how and I am so so, so sorry Abel. My baby. My boy. Just know that I love you with all my heart and that I did everything I could to be a good grandma to you and protect you from the evil of your father.
You are so different from him. You are a good man. You made my heart and life so full and I would go through all the hard times all over again, as long as it all ended the same way.
With family.
My eternal endless love, forever and always,
Grandma Grace
“Holy shit,” I said, covering my mouth. My eyes threatening to spill the tears that had been forming during the entire time I’d been reading Grace’s letter.
When I’d taken it from Bear, I thought he was pissed or upset, but when he lifted his head all I saw was pure unadulterated joy. “I have a grandma,” he said, sniffling and wiping the corners of his eyes.
“And it’s Grace,” I said, feeling his happiness.
“And it’s Grace,” Bear repeated, pulling me onto his lap.