Page 16 of Perdition
She’d been everything to him, even from the beginning, even when neither of them knew that the fuck they were doing. Even when she was barely eighteen and watching him load onto a bus to basic training, an infant under each arm, she’d been the strong one, waving him off with steel in her spine and pride in her eyes. Even when she was alone for months, taking care of their family on her own, she’d still been the one holding down the fort, sending letters of encouragement, smiling through the window of a poorly buffered video call, even when he knew she wanted to cry for missing him. Emily wasn’t just the heart and soul of the Unchained MC….
She washisheart and soul.
And fuck…he missed her.
“…I bet you tell her shit you don’t tell Em, am I right? Does Em even know what’s going on with the patch over? Does she even know why her husband has been spending every night in a bed where she isn’t? I bet Sarah does….”
Patriot had been right; Frost had been talking to Sarah about things he hadn’t yet told Em—and he wanted to say it was because Em wasn’t picking up the phone or answering his texts. But…he knew that even if she did answer, he’d keep it close to the chest, not wanting to worry her when she had Flower’s Blooms to worry about.
That’s a load of shit, too, fucker. You don’t want to tell her because you don’t want her to look at you like a failure, likesomeone who can’t get his shit together, even after a year of banging his head against it.
In all the years he’d been an MC president, he’d never heard of it taking more than a few months to complete a patch over, and there he was, still grinding away at one that shouldn’t have taken more than six months.
But the Bone Dogz are deep in the shit, up to their necks in money and legal problems.
And he was still trying to unbury them, to bring them and their men into the Unchained fold.
But is it worth it? Do they bring anything with them besides the back breaking work, the worry, a few extra brothers, and one apparently troublesome club whore?
Damn…he honestly didn’t know. Tiburon, Malo, and Throttle were proving to be assets to the club, but Mig and Moses were becoming more a problem than they were worth.
And Sarah….
He scrubbed and hand down his face, weary, frustrated, and so fucking done with everything.
Should have given up long ago, wiped your hands of it, and gone home to your wife.
But then Em would know he’d failed.
And youarefailing…at your marriage….
Fuck…what the hell did all of that mean?
According to all the men you love and trust like brothers, it means your priorities are shit, and you’re a motherfucking disappointment.
Was that what Emily thought too, was that why she hadn’t reached out to him in so long, and why she hadn’t even bothered to come by the clubhouse?
Well, you did disappoint her when you ordered Locust to betray Nadia, and you disappointed her again when youbasically pouted like a little bitch at the party Locust threw for Nadia, ignoring Em the whole time.
He’d been giving her space, goddammit! Just like she’d asked.
So why was she looking at you like you’d cut the heads off all her flowers…especially after you’d gotten a text from Sarah and left Em there, standing alone, while you ran off to pick up a stranded Sarah from the Verizon store?
But Sarah wasn’t the problem, right? She hadn’t done anything wrong, and neither had he. And it wasn’t like he was talking to Sarah about anything personal…except for that shit they’d talked about that morning, about him only being with Emily. He hadn’t meant to share that, to make it sound like he was stuck—he just hadn’t corrected Sarah’s assumption…because, well, in that moment, he hadfeltstuck, like everything was weighing on him alone. But that had nothing to do with Emily, and everything to do with how poorly he was dealing with the stress of the patch over, the awkwardness between him and Locust and Nadia, and the unspoken censure he could feel from every set of eyes in the clubhouse. The brothers didn’t like how much time he’d been spending with Sarah—and he could admit, they’d found him in some compromising situations, but those had all been innocent, taken out of context.
But that didn’t stop the weight of disapproval and disappointment he felt in the air every time he left his office.
Fuck.
Pulling out his cell, he checked it—again—for any messages from Emily.
Nothing.
Not from Emily, at least. There were two texts from War checking in on him.
As a man, of course he was closer to his son than his daughter, not that Sorsha wasn’t a daddy’s girl, but there was something about being the father to a son.
A son who would be disappointed in him if he found out about the distance and chilly silence between his parents.
