Chapter 18
Vienna
Before
Fifteen years. That’s all we were given.
Fifteen summers.
Fifteen Christmases.
Fifteen birthdays.
And then… nothing.
Nothing but the memory of her. Her skin mottled. Her lips blue. The needle still in her arm.
“Ahh, lad… shit,” Warrior said, slapping his hand on my shoulder and squeezing tight. “You’ll be alright. You’ve got us.”
“Thanks, Warrior,” I replied, still staring at the mound of dirt that covered my mum’s coffin.
I hadn’t expected forever. We all want our parents to be invincible, but biker children know better than most how easily death can find you. And my mother wasn’t hiding from death. Every time she injected something, every time she snorted something else, she was issuing death a challenge.
This time he had answered.
“Course he’ll be alright,” Crash said. He was the president now and leading the funeral procession.
My mother hadn’t been buried in the club graveyard.
She was a bunny, after all, and bunnies did not get the respect of being buried with the gang.
But she wasn’t too far away. Just on the outskirts of the compound, where I could easily visit.
And I knew already, I’d probably be the only one.
“Luke is moving into the main house with us, aren’t you, lad?
We’ll see to it that you keep on the right track. ”
“Yeah, Crash,” I murmured, not really paying attention.
“Come on, darling,” Kitty soothed, pushing away Warrior’s hand and wrapping her arm around me, pulling me close. “Let’s get you back home.”
Home.
But it wasn’t my home.
It was just the place I had been staying whilst Mum’s mess was cleaned up.
My home was the shit house, with its broken fence and god-awful smells. But it was mine. It was my mother’s.
Except… of course, it wasn’t temporary. Bikers might be a bit fucked up, but none of them were prepared to let a fifteen-year-old live alone—especially not in the house their mother had overdosed in.
Now Tools was going to move into that house.
He said I could help him do it up, and that I would always be welcome there.
Sunshine said he’d teach me how to paint so I could help with the decorating.
Ant had offered to move all my furniture into the clubhouse—something that Kitty had looked horrified about, but had quickly wiped the look off her face and pretended she was thrilled.
They were all trying. They all promised I was family. They were showing me they weren’t abandoning me. That I belonged here.
And that was enough.
So, I didn’t cry. I didn’t mourn. I let her—and the house—go. Because life goes on.
And yet… why was it, whenever I was alone, everything seemed to hit me like a fucking brick, and I couldn’t help feeling as though my heart was being shredded?
“Luke, sweetheart?” Kitty nudged me when I didn’t reply.
“Don’t worry about me, Mama K. I’m fine,” I smiled at her. I’d always be fine around my club. They were offering me an opportunity, and I wasn’t going to let them down and spend the next few weeks a blubbering mess.
“Luke… you can talk to me, you know? You can talk about her…”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said, shrugging away from her hold. “I’m alright, honestly. Get me back on my bike, and it's nothing a good ride won’t solve.”
“That’s my lad!” Warrior beamed, slapping me on the shoulder again. “He’s a Devil, Kitty! A Devil through and through, just like the rest of us. Stop mithering him. Oi, Zach, go on ahead and get the lad a beer before this one chops his bollocks off and has him weeping into a hanky.”
“A beer… he’s fifteen, Warrior,” Kitty protested.
“His mother just died, woman. If he’s old enough to carry her coffin, he’s old enough to have a beer with his brothers.
Ignore her,” he said, directing his words to me.
“There was a day when the women hanging around this place kept their silence. Can’t say I don’t miss those days.
Can’t say I don’t…” his words trailed off as he walked on ahead, a slight limp in his step—the weakness that had eventually made him step down as president.
We all thought it would be the arthritis in his hands, but it turned out bone cancer had taken his pride and joy from him before anything else had the chance.
Without his bike and his president status, Warrior felt like half the man he used to be.
It seemed things were changing for all of us.
Kitty shot me one last look, but she took her place at Crash’s side and led the rest of the club back to the clubhouse.
Each member slapped or squeezed my shoulder as they walked past. Imogen, Ant’s old lady, squeezed me into a hug and whispered that she had freshly baked cookies at her house whenever I wanted them. And then, one by one, everyone left.
Almost everyone.
“You ready, mate?” Dante asked, standing by my side and looking towards the clubhouse.
He hadn’t left me the entire week. Not when we found her body.
Not after she was taken away. Not during the funeral arrangements, the crowds of well-wishers, and the actual day.
He didn’t say much, but he was there. Always.
He had seen her at her worst. He had dragged me off her cold, stiff body and dumped me on the sofa whilst he called in help. He kept my tears hidden, my pain a secret, and protected me in every way he could think of.
“All good, brother,” I nodded back, and together we started walking towards the clubhouse.
“I cancelled the Descendants meeting tonight.”
My head snapped towards him with shock. We never cancelled a meeting. Not since Macbeth had aged out and Dante officially took over. “Dante, if you did that for me, you really didn’t need to. I—”
“Mam usually stays up late,” he interrupted. “But I’ve already heard my dad saying he’s giving her an extra sleeping tablet tonight. She’ll be crashed out by ten at the latest.”
“Okay…” I drawled, not really understanding why he was telling me this.
“Crash wants to have a talk with me and Macbeth about our roles in this club. So that’s where we’ll all be. Mam in bed, Crash lecturing me and that silly bastard, and the rest of the club drinking and celebrating your mum’s life at the wake.”
“And where will I be?” I asked, frowning at him.
Dante stopped then and looked at me. “You’ll be wherever it is you need to be. Because I’ve got a feeling that’s not with us.”
“Don’t be daft. I’m not arsed about the wake, but I want to be with you and Macbeth.”
“No, you don’t,” he replied, a wry smile tugging at one corner of his lips. “I don’t understand it, Luke. And I wouldn’t be caught dead sniffing around one of theirs. But I also know that’s where you want to be.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
But I definitely had my suspicions, and dread wrapped an icy fist around me.
“Yeah, you do. I didn’t think we were the type of friends to keep secrets.
So I’m choosing to believe this isn’t one, and it’s simply you delaying telling me the truth.
I’m choosing to believe that one of my brothers trusts me enough to not betray him, and that he was just waiting for the right time. ”
“Dante…”
“Because I wouldn’t betray a brother, Luke.
And I certainly wouldn’t betray you. Stay at home tonight, or go be where you need to be.
With whoever you need to be with. And when Crash asks, I’ll be telling him you’re in bed.
And I’ll be making this meeting as difficult as you need me to make it.
If you’re planning on going somewhere that is… ”
He gave me a pointed look, and that’s when I knew for certain I had been rumbled.
He knew.
“It was pretty obvious,” he smirked at me.
“And one day soon, I’ll kick your ass for keeping me in the dark and trying to act like you can hide things from me, as though I’m just another member of the club and not your best mate.
But that day is not today. After what happened with Anna—your mum…
I’m not begrudging you being with someone who makes you happy. ”
“She’s just a friend,” I muttered, making him bark with laughter. Four little words and I had just given him everything he needed—revealed my biggest secret.
But damn… He really didn’t give a fuck if the look on his face was anything to go by.
“That would definitely make life easier. But it’s also bullshit, and we both know it.
Get gone,” he said, nodding towards the bikes.
“I doubt Crash will kick up too much of a fuss if you take one of the smaller ones. Avoid town, stay away from the police, and be back before morning. As far as I’m concerned, you’re in bed, and that’s where you’ll be staying if anyone asks. ”
He walked away then, not leaving me any room to argue.
I watched him leaving for a second, and then looked at the bikes myself, feeling like I was standing at the edge of something that couldn’t be undone. A decision that would lead to the point of no return.
And then I took off in the opposite direction to Dante, sneaking to the box we had hidden behind the bushes and taking out a set of keys.
We had been taught to ride bikes since we could walk. I could ride before I could run. And Dante and I had been stealing Warrior’s keys since before we were teenagers.
Swinging my leg over the bike and taking the helmet from the handlebars before placing it over my head, I drove off, leaving behind the club, the grief, and the images of my mother… and instead, I went to her.
Gabriella
I was freezing.
No… no… freezing didn’t even begin to cover it. I was frozen to the bone. An icicle that would never thaw.
I’m pretty sure if I looked down, I’d see my fingers were blue.
Every breath I took puffed out in clouds of white against the night air as I jogged on the spot, determined to keep my body temperature up and warm blood flowing through me.
He hadn’t spoken to me. Not since the very brief text of “My Mum’s dead.”