Page 55 of A Twist of Fate

“I can take you home before I go see what they want.”

“No! We’re a team. We can face whatever it is together, even if they are mad.”

“I like that, G.”

“What?”

“Us being a team.” I smiled then, and we rode the rest of the way to the clubhouse in Charleston in relative silence. When we got there Merc, Double-D, Deck, Joker, Anna, and Evan were all standing around outside near the picnic tables off to the side of the parking area. I swallowed thickly, trying to push the emotion down that bubbled up when I saw the disappointment on everyone’s faces. Well, everyone but Anna and Joker, who had known about and were invited to the wedding.

“Come on Sweet G, let’s go take our punishment.”

“Well, when you say it like that, I think I’d rather go home and let you suffer alone,” I teased. Sort of. I really was ready to just stay in the truck and throw my new husband to the wolves to test the waters ahead of me.

“Oh, no you don’t. We’re a team remember?”

I growled at him, but finally removed myself from the cab of his truck and met him at the front where we walked hand in hand together. Ever was the first one to approach us.

“I’m so hurt. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me, or ask me to come along.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “You asked Anna,” she accused as if there was something wrong with that.

“What my pouty wife is trying to say is that she’s hurt that you would ask Anna, but not her.”

Kane glanced in my direction to see if I was going to answer for this or not. I shrugged my shoulders and let him handle it. “Ever,” he started then stopped, and I could see the blush that stole across his cheeks just above the overgrown five o’clock shadow he was sporting. “This is awkward.”

“Kane used to have a crush on you. Before I was seeing Toby, and before Deck came around, he liked you. I liked him. It was this whole high school mess of unrequited lust in the tattoo shop. It just would have felt awkward to have you there standing up for us when the whole reason we weren’t together from the start was that Kane had eyes for you and never noticed me.” There, I spit it out. This all seemed to come as a complete surprise to Ever, but definitely not to Deck. His narrowed glare was leveled on Kane for a minute before my husband tugged my hand up and showed off my rings to Deck. He simply shrugged and pulled his wife out of the way.

“Seriously, did all of you know that?” Pretty much everyone there nodded in agreement at Ever’s question. “Um, okay. I guess I can’t be mad about that.” She proceeded to pretend to kick invisible rocks with her shoe after that, despite a few chuckles among the group.

“Now that’s out of the way, how about we talk about the fact that we had to put together this damn wedding reception at the last minute, because you didn’t bother to tell anyone that you were running off to get married?” Merc’s accusation was really weird, because he sounded angry, but he definitely just announced that they’d put together a party for us. The twinkle in his eyes gave him away. “We would have loved to be a part of your union with you, but sometimes you just need to get a thing done, and we understand that. Now, the two of you, get your asses inside so we can cut that fucking cake. I’m starving!”

That was the moment when I felt like the club became a true part of our family. Finally.

Epilogue

Full Circle

Kane

I had been standing there in the bar area of the clubhouse when Merc found me. “Need you to go watch security for me, pay close attention to what goes down in the underground. When it’s done, we need it gone.”

That was cryptic. Still, I followed directions and went to the room that housed the security feeds. There, I watched as J-Bird learned first hand exactly what Crow had been up to and why he had targeted T-Bone. The bastard was deluded, and there wasn’t much I could say about that. He never indicated any others beyond Seneca in what happened with Toby. It had been a retaliatory gesture for what had apparently been done to PeeWee for the shit he did to Ever, and the crimes committed against the club. What a fucking unnecessary loss. If they had just taken Crow out to pasture when they retired PeeWee, Toby would still be here. I glanced down at the ring on my finger then.

Guilt swam through me when I thought about the fact that this whole mess led me to where I was in life. I had a beautiful wife, a life I loved to live, a brotherhood I had grown to cherish, and none of it would have happened if things hadn’t gone down in the club exactly the way they had. I couldn’t wish for a different outcome, because it was one that I wasn’t sure I could fathom now, and for that I gave into the guilt for just a few moments as I watched J-Bird take out the man who was – in a sick way – responsible for my own happy ending. “Fuck!” I hissed out as I watched J-Bird go to town on Crow with a red-hot ice pick. “Jesus, that looks like it hurts.”

“I’m sure it does,” Double-D told me as he watched from over my shoulder with interest for just a few minutes. He had heard enough though. Crow, a man who had been Double-D’s friend and club brother long enough to watch Toby grow from a boy to a man, had been the one to kill his son. It didn’t take long for him to step back out of the room, and by the time I turned back, everything was over. J-Bird was leaving, and I was making sure no one else would ever see the evidence of what happened in that room.

Gretchen

There was no way my water could be breaking today. Nope. This was not happening. It had been four years to the day since I lost my baby and Toby. To. The. Day. There was no way I could give birth on the same day I lost my previous baby. The world was not that cruel, was it?

I was standing on the deck of our house. The one we had built on the property that Toby had left to me in his Will. We didn’t build the house that Toby had been dreaming of and designing for me, because that was the dream he and I once shared together. Kane and I needed something different, and I was still able to be close to Toby and our child in a way, because Kane had a memorial built on the land too to honor the both of them. It was a beautiful gesture, and his way of letting Toby know that I would be cared for in this life.

“Kane!” I called out to him. He was over tinkering with his motorcycle in front on the paved drive in front of the detached two-car garage. He didn’t hear me the first time because He, Zeke, and Merc had the music pumping over there while they attempted to be manly men doing things only men do. Merc was really trying to show Zeke and Kane how to do some routine maintenance on their bikes so they wouldn’t have to constantly take them to the shop for things they should be capable of doing on their own.

“Kane! I yelled, louder this time with a little bite to the end of his name as a contraction slammed through my lower region, nearly taking my breath along with it. He glanced up then and saw me doubled over near the steps.

“What the fuck?” I heard him shout before he got up and ran to me. “What’s going on, G?”

I pointed to the wet ground beneath my feet. “Baby,” I hissed out between clenched teeth. “Zeke, grab her bag by the door and meet us at the hospital,” he shouted. “Lock up for me too.”

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