Chapter Forty-One
Chasm
I snorted at Sully’s assessment of me and Justin. “I don’t know that I’d call us normal. But we were raised by our moms.”
“Moms? You don’t have the same mom?”
“None of us do. Samuel Peterson thought he was God. He believed that every woman walking the earth was his to use. Hell, we could have hundreds of siblings out there we don’t know about.”
“Eww, how will I ever have a date when I don’t know if the guy is related to me?”
“You won’t be dating,” I growled. “When you’re forty and ready to get married, Justin will do a background check.”
“Forty?” she screeched. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m waiting until forty.”
“Have you and Pardon...?” I couldn’t even say the words.
“Gross, no!” Sully hit me with a pillow. “Stephen is my brother. He may not be my blood, but he will always be my brother. Eww, he’s like a hundred years older than me.”
“Nine years, kid. There’s eleven years between me and Morgan—you saying she’s too young for me?”
“Morgan is almost thirty?” she asked. “Wow, I would have thought she was younger. But no, that’s different.”
“Why?” I asked, curious as to what she’d say.
“Because Morgan is an adult. She’s not a kid.”
“She was twenty-two when we got together.”
Her mouth dropped open. “And you were thirty-three?”
I didn’t know why I was telling my kid sister this shit. Maybe I was looking for justification again. A reason to walk away and let her go. A reason not to be the selfish bastard I was.
“That was young,” Sully whispered. “Do you love her?”
“With every cell in my body,” I answered honestly.
It was the truth. I wasn’t whole when she was gone. When I walked away from her the first time, I became a man I didn’t like. I did things I wasn’t proud of, but it was the pain of being away from her that allowed me to do the things I needed to do.
“Does she know that?”
“She might not want to believe it, but she knows I love her. I tell her every chance I get.”
“Maybe saying the words isn’t enough.”
“I don’t know what else to do. I told you, I’m not good with this emotional shit.”
“Have you explained why you left? Why you waited so long to come back?”
I groaned as Sully’s words mirrored Grace’s. “No,” I confessed.
“Maybe knowing the truth will allow her to forgive you.”
I looked at my little sister. “Who do you need to forgive, Sully?”
She shrugged and looked down, picking at the fray in the holes in her jeans. “My parents, maybe. My sister. Stephen.”
“Why Stephen?” I asked, using his first name, trying to keep my voice even. She said he was like a brother, but if he’d done something to her, he was a fucking dead man.
“He left. Just like Kerry did. And my parents did.”
“Come here, kid.” I pulled her back against me and said, “Kerry didn’t leave you, sweetheart. She was taken from you, too damn early. But she wasn’t given a choice.”
“Stephen was. He left after she died. And my parents may have well have for all the attention they gave me.”
“Losing a person you love is hard, Sully. Sometimes you have to distance yourself from the memories the only way you know how. He came back for you. When he knew you were in danger, he went back and protected you. The way a brother does. The way Justin and I will.”
She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed tight. “Thank you for coming for me.”
“I will always come for you, kid. Always.”
I sat with Sully until she fell asleep and then slipped from the room. When I entered the hall, Scorpion was standing there. He wasn’t a man I would have chosen to watch over my sister, but I trusted B.
I looked at my sister’s door and then Scorpion. “You don’t leave this post. If she wakes up and wants to go downstairs, you follow her. She doesn’t leave your sight, got it?”
“Yes, Prez.”
I hesitated for a moment before opening the door to my room. Morgan was lying in my bed, watching something on the television. When her eyes reached mine, she turned off the tv and stared at me.
“You know I love you, right?” I said, my voice cracking with emotion. She nodded but didn’t speak. “It’s not enough, is it?”
She shook her head and a tear slipped down her cheek. I climbed in bed beside her, but unlike with Sully, I didn’t pull her close. I didn’t force her to lean on me.
“Tell me what to do, baby. How do I make this right so you won’t leave me when this baby is born?” I knew what I was doing. I was putting the onus on her, and it wasn’t fair. It was my job to grovel. My job to make her feel safe so she trusted me again.
“I don’t know, Jude.”
“I can’t lose you, Morgan. Not again. I won’t fucking survive.”
She turned toward me, her eyes hard as steel as she hissed, “You won’t survive? I wasn’t the one who left, you son of a bitch!”
She stood up from the bed, and I knew I had to stop her. If she walked out that door, I’d never get her back.
“I didn’t have a choice!” I shouted. I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back. “I didn’t have a fucking choice. They would have killed you. Killed our son.”
“I lost him anyway,” she cried. “And you weren’t fucking there!” As her voice echoed through the room, the door slammed open. Scorpion stood there, his hand on his weapon, and looked at Morgan.
“What the fuck are you doing storming in my room?” I growled.
He didn’t answer me. He didn’t even look at me. His eyes were on Morgan as he asked, “Are you okay?”
“Get the fuck out!” I snarled.
“No,” he answered, his chest puffing out. “Not until I hear from her.”
“I am your fucking president.”
Scorpion turned toward me and his eyes told me he didn’t give a fuck who I was. His only concern was for my old lady.
“I’m okay, Scorpion. We were just fighting.”
“You don’t have to stay here,” he told her.
“Son of a bitch,” I cursed.
“Jude, enough!” Morgan snapped. She walked closer to Scorpion and put her hands on his face. “Jude would never hurt me. Not physically, and not on purpose. We have a lot of shit to talk about and it’s probably going to get loud. Thank you for coming to my rescue, but he won’t hurt me.”
Scorpion pinned me with an icy glare and said, “Remember, I’m right outside this door and I don’t give a fuck who you are.” He looked down at Morgan. “You need me, you call me.”
She nodded and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”
She closed the door behind him and turned to me. “Don’t you dare!” She pointed her finger at me.
“He can’t get aw—”
“Jude, stop it. You don’t get to punish him for protecting me.”
“You don’t need protection from me,” I argued, slamming my fist against my chest.
“He doesn’t know that,” she whispered. “Something happened to a woman in his life. I could see it in the way he looked at you. The way his hand was on his gun when he broke in here. You should be fucking proud of him.”
“My men should know better. They should trust me.”
“Have you given them a reason to trust you?”
“What?”
Her shoulders slumped and she sat on the end of the bed. “Have you told them why you left? ’Cause you keep saying shit like you were protecting me and you didn’t have a choice, but you haven’t told me anything, Jude. Why you left, where you were.”
She looked up at me. “I trust you with my life. I know that you will do whatever you have to do to protect me. But I don’t trust you with my heart.
I can’t go back to where we were before; I can’t live in ignorance anymore.
If you can’t be honest with me, can’t or won’t tell me everything, then I can’t stay. No matter how much I love you.”
I sat in the chair in the corner of the room. I couldn’t sit beside her and not touch her. I wanted to shield her from every ugly thing this life held, but I couldn’t do that.
Not anymore.
“My father was Samuel Peterson.”
“The cult leader?”
I nodded. I’d told Morgan about my father, the things he’d done, but never told her his name.
I’d told Sully about him and what he’d done.
I hadn’t held back; she had a right to know who she came from.
But I never wanted Morgan to know the truth.
Never wanted her to know whose blood ran through my veins.
Whose blood would run through our child’s veins.
Her hand went to her stomach, and I leaned forward, my head in my hands. “I never should have stopped to talk to you that day,” I said, looking up at her.
“I’d never been a selfish person. I always did what I could to help whoever needed it. I didn’t want to be like him. I didn’t want to think he had any influence over my life. My choices.
“I joined the Silver Shadows because I was ordered to. I’m what’s called a sleeper.
Justin is too. His job was to infiltrate the Soulless Sinners; mine was the Silver Shadows.
There are others in other clubs around the country.
Together we make up a group of men and women dedicated to justice by any means necessary.
“Our purpose is to take out those who seek to destroy the world. We each had our target, and mine was Titan. Only, Titan wasn’t dirty. His sons were.
“Titan was married to Kimberly St. James. The sister of Sylvia St. James. Together with Jane Craven and a few others, they took over the Society. Only, Kimberly wasn’t a part of what her sister was doing. The Silver Shadows were never meant to be a part of the corruption in the Biker Federation.”
I stood up and paced the room. Morgan sat quietly, listening as I told her about the Society and what they tried to do. What they did. I explained their connection to the Golden Skulls and Soulless Sinners. About George Stone and Devlin Scott.
I explained everything about the Trick Pony and my father’s involvement in all of it. Then I told her why I left.
“I was in that warehouse that day to finally get the information I needed to bring down Steele and Stone. I brought King with me because I wanted him to see the truth with his own eyes. I wanted to introduce him to his brother. The man who was helping me. Another sleeper who had infiltrated the Golden Skulls.”
“Hemlock.”
“Yes, well, no. I was meeting Shamrock. They were twins.
Identical. They worked together, but as one person, swapping back and forth.
No one knew but our group. They were identical in every aspect but one.
Their personalities were slightly different.
So they swapped places depending on who they were getting information from.
“No one could tell them apart. Not even their mother, they said. And they were efficient. Smart. Shamrock was good at playing the fun-loving friend. He went in first, getting people to trust him. Hemlock was the muscle. He was hard, deadly when he had to be.”
“Was?” she asked.
“None of us saw it coming. Hemlock had a flaw that Shamrock didn’t. He was easy to turn. Shamrock is loyal to a fault. But Hemlock wasn’t loyal to anyone. Not even his twin brother.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Hemlock was killed by Reaper. He had been passing information between the police chief and Reaper’s mother. Caroline Doherty was working for the Society. When Reaper found out, he killed Hemlock. Only, he thought he was killing Shamrock.
“Shamrock had been burned at that point. He could no longer be out in the open. So his job was to get intel to other sleepers. That’s what I was doing there that day. I was trying to bring King in. Only somehow, Steele found out. Shamrock had gotten a tip and barely got me out alive.”
“So the man who was here last week?”
“Was Shamrock,” I confirmed.