Chapter Thirty-Five
Morgan
I woke up and reached my arms above my head, stretching my body after a night of fitful sleep.
I was still so tired and wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, but it was Thanksgiving.
And while there were plenty of women and men available to make sure everything went off without a hitch, this was a tradition.
My mother and I in the kitchen, fixing dinner.
There were years when it was just the two of us, and there were years my father joined us. After Devlyn and Henley’s parents died, they had dinner with us.
I stared at the ceiling, thinking about what might happen today. About all the things that could go wrong. The tension between my father and Jude, Jude and my brother. Darcy and her son. Darcy and my father.
Then there was King’s brother Hemlock, and his father Snoopy. Thanksgiving was a powder keg this year, one that could blow with the slightest spark.
I quickly showered and dressed in the clothes my mother had loaned me. Despite starting to show, we were close enough in size. I would have to go without underwear. I could wear the bra I wore the day before, but borrowing underwear from my mother was not happening.
We were close, but not that close.
I slid the chair I’d placed in front of the door to the side. My mother’s words about Jenna breaking in while I slept had kept me up most of the night.
I slipped into the hall and made my way downstairs. The clubhouse was quiet. My father and his men had opted to stay at a hotel, while King and the others had rooms here.
I walked into the main room and was surprised to see everything set up the way I’d asked. There were multiple tables spread throughout the room, surrounded by chairs.
Tablecloths covered the tables and three long tables had been set across the room to hold the food. Dinner would be buffet style, making it easier for people to help themselves.
“Morgan?”
I spun around and found Brian sitting at the bar with a young man wearing a Silver Shadows’ cut. Grace had introduced him as Johnny.
“Can I get you anything?” Brian asked.
“I’d love some coffee.”
Brian smiled and moved behind the bar. I sat down, and he placed the coffee in front of me. I looked up at him with confusion, and Johnny chuckled beside me.
“Prez told me how you like your coffee.”
Of course he did. I smiled at Brian. “Thank you.”
He nodded and began to wipe down the bar. I noticed he did that a lot, and I wondered if it was a nervous thing, like me biting my lip.
“How long have you been in the club, Johnny?”
“Just got patched in after the war.”
The war. The reason Jude came back to life. To protect my brother. That much I knew. He hadn’t told me anything about why he disappeared, only that it was to protect me. And he came back to me for the same reason. Only it had been months and there wasn’t any danger.
No one had even made an attempt. Except for Jenna, who had decided to make my life hell. Speaking of, she came stumbling into the room with Opal, another one of the club whores.
Opal wasn’t terrible; she didn’t mouth off, just glared at me from across the room. She slid onto a stool next to Johnny and rubbed her hand over his thigh.
“Hey, baby,” she purred, her voice sickly sweet. Maybe the morning sickness was finally kicking in because hearing her trying to lure Johnny into something made me want to vomit.
Opal lowered her voice and whispered something in Johnny’s ear I couldn’t hear. He shook his head and moved her hand from his leg.
“No, thank you.”
“Oh, come on, baby.”
“Opal, he said no,” I warned. She glared at me and walked off to the other side of the room to sit with Jenna.
“The girls back home aren’t like the ones here,” Johnny said.
“What do you mean?”
“They aren’t aggressive. They get along with the old ladies and actually help out around the clubhouse. We only have two now,” he explained. “We lost two in the first attack, and one took off with a brother in the Golden Skulls. She’s an old lady now.”
I glanced at the two women across the room and said, “Please don’t let them hear that. They are already relentless.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Brian chuckled behind the bar, and I smiled. I liked Brian; he was a good kid. I laughed to myself. Brian was in his mid-twenties, only a few years younger than me, but he seemed almost innocent.
I’d been innocent once. Mostly, anyway. As a child of a mobster, you were never really innocent, even when you didn’t live with him, you learned things you shouldn’t.
Then there was growing up in Rosewood with the Sons of Hell. Growing up around bikers, even if you weren’t directly connected to them, taught you things—things that, at a young age, you had no business learning.
I placed a hand over my stomach and thought about the men here. If I did choose to stay, my child would grow up in the clubhouse. Around the swearing and the sex. The fighting and everything that came with being part of an outlaw club.
It was something I hadn’t taken into account the first time I was pregnant. I’d married Jude when he asked without hesitation. Without a single doubt that everything would work out.
It was something I needed to remember. That it didn’t matter how you felt, how in love you were. My child had to come first. That was a decision my parents had made. My safety and well-being trumped what either of them wanted.
I felt the air in the room shift and closed my eyes. Jude stepped in close behind me and kissed the side of my head. His hands caged me in against the bar.
“Morning, baby.”
“Good morning, Jude.”
“Whatever you need today is yours. You tell the guys to move, they’ll move.”
Brian nodded as he heard Jude speak, affirming that the club brothers would do whatever I asked.
“Thank you.”
I spun around and he stepped back. I took my coffee with me and left the room, heading to the kitchen. My mother smiled when I walked in.
“I thought you were still in bed.” She looked at my clothes and frowned.
I shook my head and reminded her, “Don’t. It can wait.”
She huffed and turned back to the stove. She loved cooking for everyone, but this morning we had almost twice as many guests. The rest of the women trickled in, and I was surprised to see Misty and Sandy enter with an offer to help.
They were still dressed in skimpy clothes, but at least the important parts were covered. I took it for what it was. Respect. For Jude, if not for me.
We all worked together getting breakfast ready and finishing the last-minute items for dinner. The Macy’s parade was playing on the TV in the background. My mother had insisted on it, and Maureen and Freyja backed her up.
When it was time to sit down, everyone grabbed a chair. King and Grace sat at a table with Blade and Beck, Popeye, Snoopy, and Johnny. My dad sat with Aunt Caity, Uncle Declan, and his men.
The club brothers scattered around the room, and my mom sat at a table with Jude and Zombie, Smokey sitting beside her. I looked over at Darcy, who eyed each table warily, as her son waited behind her for her to make a choice.
I walked over, channeling my mother. With a smile, I said, “Come sit with me and my mom.”
“Are you sure?” she asked with caution, looking at my mother, who gave her a genuine smile.
“Absolutely. Today is not the day, and none of them should have put you in this position.”
“I deserve it. I shouldn’t even be here.”
“Nonsense.”
I led Darcy and Hemlock to the table and sat her down next to my mother. I looked over and glared first at my father, then at my brother. Neither looked apologetic. I was disappointed in them both and would have words with them later.
Dinner went off without a hitch. Once I had eaten my fill, I made my way around the room, stopping at each table to talk. When I got to my father’s table, I glared at both him and Aunt Caity.
“I’m disappointed in both of you.”
“Morgan,” my father warned.
“Don’t you dare. Have you even talked to her? Asked her what her life has been like?”
I didn’t miss the irony of me defending a woman for pretending to be dead and then coming back into her son’s life. But the situations were apples and oranges.
Okay, so both my husband and my brother’s mom died to protect the people they loved, and they both came back to life for the same reasons, but... but... dammit, I had a valid argument until I started really thinking about it.
“Where’s the grace? Where’s the compassion?”
“Morgan’s right,” Aunt Caity said. I looked over at Maureen and she winked at me.
“Talk to her, Dad.”
I stood up and walked to my brother’s table. When I sat down in the empty chair across from him, I stared at him and waited.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” I shrugged.
“Morgan.”
“King.”
Grace smiled beside him and said, “She’s right.”
Blade chuckled, and King asked, “Right about what? She didn’t fucking say anything!”
“We haven’t given her a chance.”
“She said she’d do it again. If given the chance, she’d fucking do it again,” King growled.
“Jude told me the same thing.”
My brother’s eyes snapped to mine. “What?”
“Jude told me the same thing. He said that if given the chance, he would make the same decision. He would still leave, to keep me safe.”
“And have you forgiven him?” my brother asked.
I swallowed the lump in my throat because I hadn’t forgiven him. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Because forgiving him meant letting him back into my life and I wasn’t sure I could trust him.
“Look, I don’t know the whole story about why she did what she did.
But I do know how afraid Dad was that our grandfather would find out about me.
Dad was almost thirty years old when I was born, and he was afraid of what his father would do if he knew about me.
How scared do you think a sixteen-year-old girl would be? ”
King looked down at the table and sighed. He knew I was right. He knew how young his mother was when she got pregnant. He nodded, and I smiled.
When I stood up, King said, “Morgan.” The look in his eyes told me I wouldn’t like what he was about to say. “Put your money where your mouth is, little sister.”
I looked across the room at Jude. He was sitting at the bar talking to Zombie. I looked back at my brother to find him staring at me with one eyebrow raised. I conceded, nodding and turning.
The front door opened, and a young man and a young woman walked in.
“You motherfucker!” Ambush shouted. “You’ve got some balls walking back into this clubhouse, Stephen.”
“Please let me explain, Ambush.”
“Sullivan?” Jude said.
The young girl, who looked to be a teenager, stared at Jude, her eyes wide and filled with fear. Jude stalked over to the man and growled, “Who the fuck are you and what are you doing with my sister?”
Sister?
Jude had a sister? I looked back at King, and the look on his face told me he knew. They’d both kept another secret from me.
The young man—Stephen—swept his eyes around the room then landed on Jude’s chest.
“Prez, please let me explain. Then I’ll accept whatever punishment you see fit.”
“I ain’t your fucking president.”
“Chasm,” Zombie said beside him. “Stephen was one of the prospects that took off after Stone left.”
“CHURCH!” Jude bellowed. “Right fucking now!”