Page 44 of Vapor's Blaze

“I have to admit the solution your club came up with covers all the bases, including getting me out of an unwanted marriage with Decker or his crazy brother.”

“That was the most difficult part of the plan, that’s why it took so long to work out.”

“This is what you were trying to come up with?” I ask.

Vapor nods, “When I first brought the idea to church three days ago, Siege shot it down in flames. But after a few more meetings he started to come around. When you turned up this morning, the club officers were trying to smooth out the details. Obviously, you didn’t have to agree, but they wanted it all in place before the proposition was made.”

“You know my grandfather’s never going to stick to that plan, right? I wouldn’t put it past him to stab you in the back the very first chance he gets.”

“That’s what Siege said as well. We came up with a contingency plan for how to handle another attack. The Hounds got their asses handed to them the last time. If they attack us again, someone you care about is likely to get hurt. What are you gonna to do if that someone is your grandfather or brother?”

I take a deep breath before I utter the words that have been going around my head for the past couple of weeks, “I’ve never told anyone this, but my grandfather killed my mother when I was a child.”

“Fucking hell, Are you sure about that?”

“King is my paternal grandfather. He always hated my mom because she didn’t want to bring up kids around the Hellfire Hounds MC. She knew they ran drugs, trafficked women and did all manner of illegal things. I was there the night it happened, and I heard it all. I don’t know if it was intentional or an accident, I must have blocked it out. I still don’t know everything, but that is one thing I am certain of.”

The next thing I know, I’m sitting in Vapor’s lap with his arms wrapped around me.

“Look sweetheart, I can’t imagine how traumatizing that was for you as a child. You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.”

“I feel like I should explain so you can understand our family dynamic. When my parents divorced, somehow my dad ended up with custody of my brothers and my mom with me. My father tried to bully her into giving up custody of me as well. She kept telling him over and over again that the clubhouse was no place for a little girl.”

“Well, your mother was so right about that. The Hellfire Hounds clubhouse it’s no place for a child much less a little girl.”

“I can see that now but at the time all I knew was that the yelling and screaming terrified me. Every time it started, I would crawl under my bed and hide. On the night my mother died, she had a visitor. At the time I didn’t know who he was as she’d kept me away from the club. My grandfather tried to take me. I fought him and so did my mother, she got cut with a glass. I don’t know if it was deliberate or not. She managed to call the paramedics, when he heard the sirens, he made a run for it. Unfortunately, my mom didn’t survive that night and I got sent to live with my maternal grandfather. I must have been around four or five because I wasn’t even in school then.”

“I hope your maternal grandfather was a better man than King,” Vapor murmurs quietly.

“He was a good man, who took care of me, I guess I put the trauma to the back of my mind. He ended up dying of cancer when I was fourteen.”

“Let me guess.” Vapor says in an in a disgruntled tone, “that’s when your father ended up with custody of you, right?”

I shake my head, “No he died of a gunshot wound in a shootout with some rival club a year or so earlier.”

“I hope it wasn’t our club,” he counters almost immediately.

“I don’t think it was. I remember everyone saying it was the Mexicans.”

Vapor nods thoughtfully.

“Anyway, since King was my only living relative, he ended up with custody of me. It turned out to be every bit as horrible as my mother feared. Every time I did something wrong, he would lock me in the basement of the clubhouse for a few days. He said it was to contemplate on what I had done wrong.”

“And all this time you knew he killed your mom?” Vapor asks.

I shake my head, “I must have blanked it out. I was told it was related to drugs, my nice grandfather explained how my mom had problems when she was younger, but they thought she’d straightened out once she left my father and got away from the Hounds. It upset him to talk about it, so I didn’t ask. My asshole grandfather said she was a junkie whore who got what she deserved.”

“I hate King already, but I’m really starting to hate him more. Just thought you ought to know.”

“I hate him as well, but other than my brothers, he’s the only family I have left. Truthfully, Jamus was the only person who made a good faith effort to help me learn. He was like the father I never knew, he hated how King treated me, but he was powerless to stop him.”

“I can now see why you risked everything to come here today.”

“How about yourself? What was your family like?”

“Haze and I have awesome parents. They had us later in life, but. they’re still pretty active, they’re planning on buying an RV and doing a coast-to-coast trip next year.”

“They sound like spirited people,” I say.

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