Page 52 of Forsaking All Others

And now it has to be who Theo is too.

Every woman knows her limits and I know mine. I also know my place and that’s why I didn’t put up a fight when Maverick told us to pack our bags. That’s why I told the police we’d be staying with him if they had any more questions for me and that’s why I didn’t spit in his face when he told me Colt’s death was all his fault.

Tara knew her place too and didn’t ask questions. In her sixteen years, she’s seen a lot of these lockdowns. When she was little, we told her they were parties. Maverick would send the prospects out for cupcakes and ice cream and I’d pick one of the brothers at random to be the birthday boy for the day. I screwed up once and celebrated Leftie’s birthday twice one year, Tara noticed, and I guess she started to connect the dots. It wasn’t long after that that she started asking questions, but that’s about the time I met Colt and I stopped giving a damn about Maverick’s orders. Still, there were times when the threat against the club was dire and we had no choice but to adhere to Maverick’s lockdowns, but once I had Theo, that ended for us. If the trouble found the Satan’s Knights, I stayed home with my husband. We locked the doors and hunkered down. You see, Colt made a choice too. He chose me knowing whose ex-wife I was and unfortunately, that choice got him killed.

Maverick isn’t the only reason my son lost his father tonight.

I’m just as much to blame.

That truth causes my arms to tighten around Theo. With tears in my eyes and my baby’s arms wound around my neck, I follow Maverick and our children inside the clubhouse. I thought I had served my time, that I was done with this place, but my sentence is just beginning.

I swallow past the lump in my throat and ignore the sting in my eyes, taking in all the men in leather crowded around us. Most of them are familiar faces, few are new, but all stare at me with remorse.

Someone reaches out and touches a hand to my shoulder. I turn and my eyes connect with Shady’s.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs.

Yeah, I bet he is. The guy has been sorry since we’re sixteen, since he first brought me to this place, but he’s got nothing to apologize for. He may have introduced me to this world, but I made the choice.

I chose his brother.

I chose red and black.

Tearing my eyes away from him, I look ahead at the reaper sewn into the back of Maverick’s kutte.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage against the dying of the light.

He leads us down the narrow hallway to the last door on the right.

Maverick’s room.

Pushing open the door, he steps aside, allowing me and the kids room to enter. A million memories flood me as soon as my feet cross the threshold.

The nights we spent naked between the sheets.

All the times he left mayhem in the streets and found me and our kids safe and asleep in his bed. Those were the times I’d wake to find all three of us wrapped in his arms. The times when I told myself I made the right choice. That choosing him was the best thing I ever did.

The memories turn and the knife twists in my gut.

The fights we had in this room.

The vicious slurs we said.

Finding him in that bed with Vivi and regretting I ever laid eyes on him.

“It’ll be tight tonight, but I’ll get the prospects to fix the room next door for the kids,” Maverick says, pulling me back to the present. I turn my head, my eyes finding his.

“My kids stay with me.”

He nods.

“Whatever you want.”

“How long do we have to stay here?” Shepard asks. Both me and Maverick turn to our boy, but it’s his sister who answers his question.

“Until dad says it’s safe for us to go home,” she reveals, draping her arm around Shep’s shoulders. “It’s okay, Leftie makes a killer breakfast.”

---