Chapter 3
CHAPTER
THREE
ATOMIC
March is not my favorite month. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel off. Maybe it’s the weather being unstable. Maybe it’s the fact that I am still fucking thinking about Ryan. I don’t know, but I feel fucking uneasy about a lot of shit.
Looking down at the paperwork in front of me, I can’t help but smile at the sight of the club growing.
A club from a small town outside of Dallas has taken over the stable from the Nomad Kings MC, and fuck me, but it’s only been a month, and we’re making a goddamn killing just on our percentage, which is pretty low.
This means that the club is making some real fucking money.
I know money is in skin, but I never imagined it would be quite that lucrative.
Although, I have a feeling they’re moving toward something more than just streetwalkers.
Maybe it's more of a call-girl situation.
Which would be better for our reputation on the whole as a club anyway.
Our club has been focused on picking up shipments at the warehouses in town with semitrucks and taking them to their drop-off locations, along with the extra shit that’s in those shipments. It’s been exactly what we needed as part of our diversification project.
I never imagined that my club would be as fruitful as it is and that the Dark Horse MC would be a major player in the MC world, but it is. Without a doubt, the men who started this club had no idea it would become what it is right now.
Glancing around my office, I lean back in my chair and let out a chuckle. My world is better than I could have ever imagined, and yet, something is missing. This is comical to me because I know exactly what that something is, and it was here just a few weeks ago.
It’s something that has a name and legs for days.
Legs.
Fucking legs.
My goddamn downfall, especially the legs that belong to that fucking woman.
My office door flies open, and I jump, not expecting it to happen.
The clubhouse is quiet. It’s late… or rather early in the morning.
All the people who were partying have since passed out or are in the middle of fucking someone, so I’ve been enjoying the quiet as I go over paperwork because fuck knows, I can’t get anything done during the daylight in this place.
King and Gnaw march into the room, and King slams the door behind him, though at least he doesn’t flip the lock into place, so I don’t think it’s all that serious. Staying in my seat, leaning back in my chair, I watch them and wait for whatever the fuck it is they have to say.
“When we went to the pickup site, there was someone there. He didn’t say anything to us, just watched us, but it gave me the goddamn creeps,” King announces.
Frowning, I sit up a bit straighter, my interest piqued. “Was he wearing any colors?” I demand.
Gnaw shakes his head. “No, nothing like that. He was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a jacket. I don’t know who the fuck he is. Never seen him before, and he didn’t look like a normal Pineville resident.”
I rub my chin for a moment, trying to think of who could be watching us, but I got no fucking clue.
Unless it’s a cop. Fuck. Are we on their radar already?
I’ve paid off the people I can and done what preventive measures I’m able, but I’m under no assumption that it means we are protected from being thrown in jail. We aren’t.
“He didn’t say anything,” King states. “Just stared at us, smirked, then left.”
“Did he look like a cop?” I ask.
Gnaw’s brows rise, lifting high. “How do undercover cops look?” he asks.
“Fuck if I know,” I grunt.
The three of us chuckle because, seriously, I don’t know how the fuck they look, and since he didn’t talk, there was no way to guess by his speech, although I doubt we would have been able to anyway.
“We have three more loads to pick up before the end of the week. We have to meet the schedule with the actual merchandise, and ours as well, or we’re going to be fucked,” King says.
He’s right. We do. We have a lot of fucking shit to do and not a lot of time to try and hide from whoever the fuck this is. I stand and place my palms on my desk.
“I’ll do the next load,” I say. “Now that we know there’s someone watching us, we can be on alert.”
“Agreed,” King mutters. “It was the weirdest shit ever.”
“But the rest of the job went off without a hitch?” I ask.
He jerks his chin toward me while Gnaw hums his confirmation. What a fucking weird night. “Let’s get a drink, forget this shit happened,” I say.
“Would love to,” King states. “But I got a knocked-up woman at home I would personally like to fuck before she gets up to bake cupcakes and shit.”
Laughing, I lift my hand and wave him away. “See you later,” I call out as he leaves the room.
He doesn’t even stop to respond. He is fucking gone, a ghost, and it makes me laugh. He is so in love with his woman. I would make fun of him, but the truth is that I’m jealous as fuck. I don’t think I’ll ever not be jealous of him and what he’s found with Shawn.
Shifting my attention from the retreating King, I look over to Gnaw. “What about you?”
He chuckles. “I don’t have anywhere to be. Let’s get a drink.”
Together, we walk out of my office, and I lock the door behind me, though I don’t know why. I trust my men, but after the shit with Poison, the fact that she was here as a goddamn whore spy sent by the Nomad Kings MC, I’ve decided to keep things under lock and key a bit tighter.
Walking up to the bar, I don’t bother waking up a prospect to be our bartender, not when I can do that.
I reach for a bottle of Crown Royal behind the large, scarred wooden bar.
My preferred whiskey isn’t out here. I keep that shit locked away in my room because it’s expensive, but this will do for now.
I reach for a couple of highball glasses, place them on the bar, then pour us each a healthy glass.
Gnaw wraps his fingers around his glass then lifts it in the air to toast. I do the same, waiting for him to speak.
“You’re a good man, Atomic. A good leader, a good brother, and in general, a great fucking person. To you.”
Smirking, I clink glasses with him and take a drink. The warm liquid burns my throat on its way down, but I welcome it. I love it actually. Taking another drink, then another, I place my glass down and fill it up again before I speak.
“I’m not that great of a person,” I mutter.
Gnaw doesn’t say anything, and I’m grateful for that. I don’t need him to tell me I’m wrong. Because I know I’m not.
“I didn’t protect Shawn the way I should have, and I turned away Ryan when I knew it took every ounce of guts and bravery to come here and ask me for help. I’m not a chivalrous man, and I hate myself for it.”
Gnaw is quiet for a moment, then he says a single word, forming it into a question, and it causes me to pause.
“Why?”
“Why?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “Why do you hate yourself for following rules that are clear in our club?”
“Because it feels fucking wrong.”
Gnaw dips his chin, then clears his throat. “Not all rules are meant to stay rules forever. Sometimes we need to change them.”
He’s absolutely right. Sometimes, we do need to change rules.
We know that from the rest of society. We don’t always conform to what is considered normal standard societal rules anyway.
It shouldn’t be a big deal to make concessions and changes.
I think my main problem is that I’m stubborn as fuck. Which is a goddamn downfall sometimes.
RYAN
He’s been watching me.
Golden Joker. Still a stupid-as-hell name, but just because he has a stupid name doesn’t mean he doesn’t terrify me. Because he does, stupid name and all. Every time a car drives down my street, I hold my breath, thinking it’s him coming for me.
Ellen has finally given up texting me. I’m glad for it because I don’t ever want to see her again. I don’t care if she cries and tells me how sorry she is because she’s not. Not really. If she were, she would find a way to fix this, to make sure I’m safe, that Adam is safe.
But she hasn’t done that. She won’t do that. She doesn’t give a shit deep down because she’s a narcissistic drug addict. Ellen only cares about getting high and herself. Nothing else in the entire world matters.
“Mama,” a voice calls out.
Turning my head, I look at Adam in the living room. He’s sitting on the floor in front of the chipped-up, scarred coffee table, coloring.
“Yeah, baby?”
He stops coloring, turns his head, and when his eyes find mine, I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.
Until this exact moment, I’ve been able to tell myself that he looks like me, acts like me, everything.
I’ve been able to lie to myself. But I can’t right now because his eyes are all his father's.
“I feel funny,” he whispers.
“Like what?” I ask, wiping my hands on the dish towel as I start to move toward him.
He frowns. “Like something bad is going to happen.”
I stop in my tracks. In a normal situation, I would probably tell him that everything is going to be okay, that I’ll be able to protect him. But I can’t tell him that right now because I know it’s not, and I won’t be able to, not against Golden Joker.
“Listen to me really good,” I say. “If something happens, if you get scared, go next door to Miss Rose’s house, okay?”
His brows snap together, and he still looks so much like his father that I have to tell myself to breathe inwardly.
In and out. In and out.
Breathe.
Deciding I can’t stand here and stare at him, freaking him out even more, I go back to finishing the dishes from dinner, but as I wash and dry them, I am on high alert. I can’t let anything happen. I need to devise a different plan other than the sitting and waiting I’ve been doing for weeks.
After going through the motions of getting Adam ready for bed, I tuck him in and read him his story as he falls asleep. Looking down at him, his eyes closed in peaceful bliss, I know I can’t do this anymore.
Something has to change. Something must be done. Running isn’t going to work. Neither is asking for help.
I need to beg.
My decision made, I move into the living room, my phone gripped in my hand on my way to the sofa to sit down and offer Atomic my best attempt at begging. I will do anything for Adam. I should have swallowed my pride when I was in Pineville.
My stupid fucking stubborn pride.
For him.
For Adam.
For his safety.
I don’t give a shit about myself, about my pride, but I do care about him. Everything I do in this life is for him and only him. He is everything. I would lay down my life for him, so what is a little begging?
I can do that.
Sinking my teeth into my bottom lip, I scroll through my phone until I find his number.
My thumb hovers over the call icon. I should just touch it.
I know I should. But I hesitate. I’ve resigned myself to begging, knowing that it’s for Adam but also knowing that I’m going to have to explain Adam’s existence.
My thumb starts to move down to the icon when my front door bursts open. Lifting my head, I suck in a breath as I stare at the man standing in my front doorway. It’s him. He’s come for me.
Shit.