Page 41 of Patching Over

That means at one time, I had a different mother and father, ones who cared, ones whose blood flows through me.

Laura and Dave were not my true parents and that makes me thankful. I understand a little better why they acted as though I was a burden, and disposable, because to them, I was. They were probably never meant to watch me for very long, they were likely a stopping place until the next phase of whatever the ultimate plan was, was executed. But it sounds as though something happened and I ended up staying. Well, until they handed me over to Enoch in order to pay the fee for their drug debt, that is.

Thankfully, none of those three are left to personally haunt my life. It’s bad enough, my dreams are fraught with terrors as I relive my abuse again and again.

As darkness threatens to descend and wrap around me once again, I reach out and take Brick’s hand in mine. “Thank you.”

“For what, babe?”

“Giving me a family.”

Brick

Once I have Rayleigh settled into our bed, I head back through the common room and holler for church. While waiting for the brothers to arrive and for their asses to hit their seats, I grab a bottle of tequila and quickly throw back a few shots.

Directly from the rim of the bottle.

The burn is harsh but reminds me I need to tread lightly while we unravel the mysteries of the past.

After the brothers file in, I slam the gavel down and bellow, “Shut the fuck up, we’ve got shit to discuss!”

And a riddle to solve because nobody knows why.

Why did they want us to think my ol’ lady was dead?

Granted, she wasn’t my ol’ lady then, we were literally kids, but still, they perpetuated a lie so the club would stop looking for her. There’s something else more devious at play here, we just need to go through everything and figure out what that thing is.

Since everyone was in the main room when Banshee lost his shit seeing Rayleigh, I gaze at my brothers before saying, “We’ve got a bit of a riddle to solve, brothers.”

“Talk to us, Pres,” Kracken replies. “We know some shit’s gone down, so give it to us straight and we’ll get to digging if that’s what we need to do.”

“Got my laptop, brother,” Hawg advises, pulling it out and opening it. His fingers are poised on the keyboard, ready to fly across the keys and dig through the web at a moment's notice, letting me know he’s ready to start searching for whatever I need.

A wave of gratitude washes over me.

All of these men have been with me since we were the Roanoke Raiders. Hell, I grew up with most of them by my side; all of us legacies, following in our fathers’ footsteps like they did their own fathers. RiffRaff’s dad, my grandfather, Astro, was the original president, his best friend, Buck, was Bonzai’s father.

Tradition flows through our veins; we’ve been steeped in this lifestyle since before we were glimmers in our fathers’ eyes.

“So, to lay it out as concisely as possible, Rayleigh is actuallyRyleigh, brothers,” I state.

“Wait, no fucking way! She was killed when we were kids,” Kracken bellows.

“That’s what we were led to believe,” Banshee says, picking up the story. “Apparently, RiffRaff asked a question about why Lorelei was here or something when he was looking at the pictures on our wall and Brick decided to do a little sleuthing. He got something of mine from my room while I was gone, and also something from Ry, I mean Rayleigh, and had the DNA run on it. She’s my sister, without any doubt, brothers. The one we were told was dead by those motherfucking slimy assholes, the Demon Devils MC.”

“Most of the brothers who were around back then are either retired now or six feet under. How the fuck are we gonna get the info we need?” Brew muses, tapping his fingers against the surface of the table.

“What do you wanna know?” RiffRaff questions, looking surprisingly lucid right now. Considering earlier he was confused; I’m taking this as a win because he’d be the one to give us answers or at least point us in the right direction.

I’ve noticed that despite the fact he’s failing health wise, and he definitely forgets shit thanks to his Alzheimer’s, since moving him back to the clubhouse property, he has periods of clarity. I won’t delude myself into thinking he’ll ever get better because that’s simply not gonna happen, but when he sounds like I remember him from growing up, it does something to me.

“Okay, Pops, so once y’all figured out it was the Demon Devils, what happened?” I query.

“We killed as many of those motherfuckers as we could find when we got the proof they sent us that they killed Ryleigh,” hereplies. “Some escaped, but when those pussies ran Bonzai and Lorelei off the road and killed them, we took care of the rest. They’re all gone, brothers. Every single one of them.”

“So, you killed the women and kids too?” Kicks asks, his brow raised.

Even in our club’s earlier days, women and children were off the table, untouchable, and never part of any disagreement. We might’ve been on the left side of legal in many regards, but we have a moral compass. Some would say it’s a bit skewed, and they’d be correct in that assumption. But the fact remains, we have our code we live by, period.

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