Page 97 of The Oath We Take

It’s my job to take care of you. It’s my job to take care of this town. There is no version of our future wherein the event there’s a problem, I send you out to do my work for me.

I won’t emasculate him in front of his brothers, so I let him move me to his right, so his left hand is free to reach for his weapon if he has to.

Wraith leaves his chair and comes to stand by us. “Everyone needs to calm the fuck down.”

“You all know the rules about Ember.” Butcher leans forward, slamming his hands onto the round table in front of him. His cheeks are red, his eyes bulging as he speaks.

“Dad,” I say, trying to hide the tremble in my voice. “There are no rules about me. That’s a construct you made. I’m a woman, not a girl. And you don’t have a say in my love life or who I choose to spend the rest of my life with. And I choose Hudson. No matter how difficult that is for you to hear. I’m safer with a good man like him, than any civilian who doesn’t understand the threat I guess I’ll always live under, no matter how hard I try to distance myself.”

“I want a vote. I say Atom has violated the bond of trust. The fact he’s lied about this shows he’s capable of lying about other things too. He should be removed from the Iron Outlaws.”

“Butcher,” Grudge says. “Don’t do this, brother. It doesn’t end well. I don’t believe for a hot minute that Atom brought that bug in here.”

“There’s a bug?” I whisper to Atom.

“In church.” His eyes remain on Dad the same way they do when he’s around Big Don or any of the other bulls. There’s a heightened awareness of their impulsivity, their need to charge, and I know he’s monitoring what my father might do.

But there’s no fear.

Atom is standing confidently in the face of judgement from his peers, knowing deep inside that he is right.

Catfish nods. “There are two different issues. Who the fuck is bugging the club? That feels like club business. The other is who your daughter wants to be with, and I feel like that shouldn’t even be discussed here. It feels like a family matter, not a brotherhood matter.”

Wraith throws his hand over Atom’s shoulder, and given I’m under Atom’s arm, I feel it land heavily. “Atom’s a good man, Butcher. You know this. Even if this is personal, it should be an easy call.”

Dad slumps back into his chair. “You forget, I know just how all you fuckers are with women. Don’t want my daughter around assholes like us.”

“Because you’re one of them,” I say. “But Atom isn’t.”

“You forgetting he fucks Karlie and the other club girls on the regular?”

The words slash through me. It’s a sharp, breathtaking pain. “He did. He doesn’t now.”

“Fuck you,” Atom says, the words directed at Butcher. “Shouldn’t have to explain myself, but I haven’t touched another person except Ember since our first kiss.”

He doesn’t say when the kiss was. My father doesn’t need to know. It won’t help him adjust to the situation.

“We’re still missing the point,” Taco says. “I know I’m the newest brother, but it should be us against the rest of the world, right? Whoever placed the bug, it was probably opportunity. Church is rarely locked. On any day, any person could have placed the bug. Hell. No offense, but it could be Ember, for all we know. But it was done to act against us. It was placed there so they could conquer us. And partly to listen to us infight and blow ourselves up. You’re falling into their trap, Butch.”

Grudge nods. “Taco has a point. We’ve wasted an hour in here, arguing, losing sleep, when we should be uniting to figure out who the fuck planted this thing.”

“This is my club,” Dad says.

Atom stands to his full height. “Built on my fucking land, with my fucking lumber. Even the table in church was built by my grandfather’s hands. There is more of me in the club than there is of any of you. Without my family, you wouldn’t even be sitting here.”

I place a hand on Atom’s chest, and can feel his heart beat furiously. I know he’s right. And I no longer want him to offer his land for compromise, he shouldn’t have to.

“You’ve embarrassed me,” I say to my father. “I’ve dealt with your bullshit my entire life. I know you love me in your own way, but I’ve always come third to this club and these men. Including this man.” I look up at Atom. “He’s grown into such a good person, and you can’t even see it because you’re so busy trying to protect me from the world like I’m still five. And the irony is, you did a shit job of it back then too. Because if you had been a good husband and father, you’d have kept your dick in your pants, and I’d still have a mom here. Or you would have paid for me to take Lemmy with me, like you could always afford to, instead of bribing me to stay, not because you wanted me here, but because you just wanted to win against Mom.”

Tears spill, and I swipe them away, even as Atom wraps me in his arms. But I force my way out of them and jab my finger toward my father. “I hate you for this.”

“Em,” Dad says, but it’s that tone he uses when he thinks I’m being unreasonable, or too much, or any other complaint he has about me.

“I’m done trying to make you proud,” I say. “Stay away from me. Stay away from my bar. And if you do anything to Atom, I will cut you off and never speak to you again.”

I finally let Atom tug me into his arms and wrap me up in them. And even here, with rules broken and boundaries destroyed, I feel safe.

“You want to believe I placed that bug, go ahead,” Atom says. “I didn’t. But my word is all I got. You want to believe I won’t be a good man to your daughter, go ahead. Because the only person I need to prove that I’ll be a good man to is Em. And at the end of the day, you need to ask yourself if you really believe any of this bullshit, because my guess is that, right now, you aren’t mad at me because of a bug, you’re mad because I’m fucking your daughter. And if you just stopped being a dick for a heartbeat, you’d realize two things. I’m not the source of your problem, and I love your fucking girl.”

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