Page 23 of Sniper

I giggle, kissing his lips hard. His left-hand grips my waist, his right holding Autumn.

Pulling back, I look into his eyes and admit, “I’m falling for you, too, and it’s scary.”

He nods, cupping my cheek. “I know, Firecracker, but we can be scared together, because I’m not letting you go—either of you.”

A few tears fall, and he wipes them away. His dark eyes look at me so softly that my body relaxes against him, giving him some of my weight.

This man makes me feel so safe and so content. When he’s near, he’s all I can see, and it’s scary, but I think it’s a fear I’m willing to fight against because I know I’m in love with him.

He’s it for me.

Leaning forward, he gently rubs his nose along mine, and whispers, “We’ll get through this fear together, Rory, I promise….”

I nod, making him smile as he presses his lips against mine again. I melt, automatically opening my mouth as he presses his tongue against the seams of my lips.

Our tongues massage together, caressing, sending tingles down my body, and I grip his t-shirt, keeping his body pressed against mine as he deepens the kiss.

The feel of him against me, the feel of his lips, I never want to lose it. I never want him to let me go.

Autumn giggles, making us smile and break apart. Theo gently rubs his thumb along my jaw and rasps, “Having a milkshake thrown at my face was the best thing to ever happen to me.”

I giggle, gripping his t-shirt again, before giving him a quick peck. I turn my body halfway, keeping myself pressed against him as we continue to walk through town.

We’re like a family, a family I have secretly always wanted for Autumn, and my fear is still there under the surface. Fear that he’ll hurt me, hurt her; my past still clouding my view of the future, but that doesn’t stop my heart from falling hard and fast.

I just hope when he finally finds out the truth of my trauma, of how Autumn came to be, he won’t look at me differently.

I hope he doesn’t break me, because I know I won’t get back up if he does.

7

Sniper – One Week Later

I shake my head, tapping my finger on the oak table, the room tense. I don’t look at the memorabilia, I don’t look at the brothers; my fucking anger takes hold, because I knew something wasn’t right over the years, but he always fucking asked me to let it go.

Fucker….

Right now, I should be with my woman and kid, looking around the daycare center, ensuring she knows I’m all in with her before I fucking drop the bomb on her that I’m a brother, but instead, I’m sitting in an emergency church meeting.

Tats wants to hand in his patch.

His woman, a woman we all went to school with, a fucking woman he was seeing in secret for two fucking years and married without any knowing, and who is fucking pregnant with his baby, was taken. Her uncle, who ran her parents off the road, hoping for a big payout, took her after finding out that she had a trust fund that she cannot access until she turns thirty. He fucking held her captive for weeks before we found her, and thought she had lost the baby.

It was only because she was taken that we found out how the older generation mistreated Tats because of who his birth mother was—a fucking clubwhore.

Right now, we’re all in church to hear his story, a story we all refused to fucking listen to, to fucking pay attention to growing up.

All the signs were there; I and the brothers knew it.

He never came to the club unless he had to; his own father held his council patch back from him because he saw his birth mother talk in his ear. Tats doesn’t even have a house on club land. He refused the lot given to him by my dad.

It turns out the fucker has been tattooing on his own time, saving enough money to buy his own plot of land, fucking acres of it. He’s built his own home, including a tattoo studio.

He was only part of the club because he was forced, and made to sign a fucking contract that he had to be a part of the club and run the tattoo parlor. He didn’t get the full pay until the last few years because of his father.

If he handed in his cut and quit, then he had to pay a hefty sum; it’s the only reason why he stayed, and now that we’ve found Violet and confirmed she and their baby are doing okay, he’s ready to fucking hand his cut in because the contract has nearly run out.

I look at the back of the room, and my anger takes hold. Those are the men I fucking looked up to, all looking guilty, knowing why we’re in here, while the brothers, every single patched brother, stands around us in confusion, not realizing the horror our brother has gone through.

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