Chapter Twelve—Christopher
Alone in his office, Christopher swigged from his bottle of tequila. The clubhouse was nearly deserted, adding to the darkness inside of him. Most of the brothers were at the hospital out of concern, loyalty, or duty, leaving only a skeleton crew to hold things down.
After leaving the rectory, Christopher had intended to drive himself and CJ directly back to the hospital.
However, he figured his boy needed a moment to decompress following their visit with Rule.
They’d eaten without incident. It had been peaceful.
The boys watched videos, laughing at some, enraptured by others.
Christopher’s fear and worry lifted. He hadn’t dwelled on Rebel’s collapsed lung and Megan’s many injuries.
Only Rule needing him matter. Christopher hated his boy’s action; he didn’t hate his kid.
But he was so fucking upset with Megan, something he didn’t want and he was trying like a motherfucker to control it.
It was so fucking irrational. His fear fed his anger and his anger fed his fear.
He’d thought once Megan healed from Jo’s birth, got her surgery, and Jo finally came home, he could get his club back on track.
Fuck him, that wasn’t the case. One situation after the other cropped up. When he expected things to go up, motherfuckers went sideways; east, they went west. Each time an issue was settled, another arose.
Case in point: Rule. The moment he realized Christopher intended to commit him, his cooperation ended.
It had been so fucking hard watching his son scream and beg, seeing the pain and tears in CJ’s eyes.
Christopher almost called the whole thing off and allowed Rule to stay.
Except that wouldn’t do a motherfucker any good, especially his kid.
Next time, Rule might succeed in killing Rebel or Megan, and then what?
Christopher would be…fuck her! Nostrils flaring, he drank again.
Annoying little pain-in-the-ass motherfucker.
She’d made him love her and she couldn’t even do what needed doing to protect herself from a psycho cunt.
It was why Kendall almost fucked Megan up so many times.
She’d used the same MO with motherfucking Rule.
Growling, Christopher remembered him and Megan talking about committing Rule when she’d first gotten out of the hospital.
What the fuck happened to interrupt that plan?
Since so much shit had been flung, he couldn’t fucking remember.
Not that it mattered, cuz when they talked about it afuckingain, she said they’d get him help in the fucking summer.
How could she put herfuckinself in danger like that? She was so busy ordering motherfuckers and bitches deaths? She needed to come up from her walk in hell and return to fucking reality.
Whether he understood Rule’s psychoness, did Megan really think Christopher wouldn’t have riddled his boy’s body with fucking bullets if he’d killed her? Her, not Rebel.
Megan.
His entire fucking world. Who’d lost her motherfucking mind. What the fuck was wrong with her? How the fuck would she like it if he suddenly sat the fuck down and not do a fucking thing until she came back to him? He wouldn’t be Outlaw or Christopher. He’d just be there.
Yeah, how’d she like that? A fucking couch potato, stewing in misery because…because…Mrs. Potato was so fucking tired of life she was doing everyfuckinthing to get her little ass cooked.
After his trip to Roseberg, Christopher was finally getting answers from all the fuckheads betraying him. Then Jo needed heart surgery and…and Megan lost her fucking mind thinking he was cheating…and he lost the goddamn plot.
He hadn’t sufficiently made her understand how discovering Ma and Cee Cee were married shook him.
He knew people. He could fucking justify the story she’d led him to believe his entire life all the fuck he wanted to.
But Cee Cee wasn’t a motherfucker who followed the orders of others.
And Ma…despite the abuse she suffered at Logan’s hands, Christopher had vague memories of Fred Sterling.
Comforting him when he’d been a little kid and he’d been in such pain.
Protecting him when no one else would, not even Ma.
Images of Christopher crying for her, screaming for her, while she pretended he didn’t exist.
Slowly, she became Ma, the woman who loved and protected him. The woman Rack fucking killed. The struggling, single mother who hadn’t deserved her lot in life.
It was that woman he saw in Torie. She was Ma and he was Dex. He’d thought to save her when he hadn’t been able to save his mother. He’d wanted Dex to have the mother Christopher had always longed for.
Instead, he was beginning to suspect Torie and Ma were cut from the same fucking cloth. Lying manipulative cunts.
His grief over Patricia’s death had long ago subsided, but now, he didn’t know how to feel. He couldn’t believe how much he missed her sometimes. If thirty-three was too soon to lose his mother, then it definitely was for a little kid like Dex.
Christopher drew in a deep breath and scrubbed a hand over his face.
He’d put his mother on a pedestal, always believing her sometimes less than nice treatment of him stemmed from her past. She could be harsh, demanding, and judgmental, and so fucking unfair that she’d almost destroyed Zoann with her insistence that his sister not seek counseling.
At Cee Cee’s orders? Big Joe’s? Logan’s?
It hurt Christopher so fucking much that the pedestal he’d placed Patricia on was crumbling under the weight of his suspicions.
If Bash wasn’t such a motherfucker, he’d ask if the American Scorpions had a Free Bird named Fred Sterling.
Then, Christopher could piece the shit together on his own.
He was almost certain when Fred left and never returned, Big Joe, Joey, Logan, and Rack also went away.
It was the last fucking time Rack ever mentioned Wally, Jr. Christopher remembered that big balled motherfucker saying he was meeting with that dickhead.
He hadn’t said it directly to Christopher.
It was more like a whisper floating on the wind.
If that was the case…
Then what? It wouldn’t matter.
All those motherfuckers, except Wally, Jr., was dead, and Bash was a motherfucker. He’d gone back into hiding after fucking over Christopher by taking his motherfucking money and still fucking with Megan the next goddamn day.
After that shit was Molly’s Christmas Day breakdown, Jo’s surgery and Megan’s unnecessary jealousy. Then, thanks to another stupid motherfucker, Megan turned into an exquisite, sexy little Ice Queen…Hell Goddess…hot as fuck but scary because Christopher didn’t know where that left him.
As much as he’d loved his mother, the only woman who’d destroy him was Megan.
Torie couldn’t fucking behave, so his woman lost her fucking mind again, turning into Cruella de Shrek, ordering assassinations and fucking green with jealousy.
Then she decided Rebel should date. Then she froze him and their sons out because their boys were mini club members.
What the fuck ever, but what the fuck had she expected?
Besides, they could’ve told their Ma anyfuckintime what they wanted.
He’d merely brought them in on a mission to protect her, so why was she turning again his fucking ass? She could’ve just punished them.
Then CJ overdosed, and Megan wanted to throw motherfuckers in a barrel and drown them in fucking acid.
Then…then…fucking then!
Mostly cuz of Megan. Especially Rule.
There, he’d fucking said it. Fuck her. She shouldn’t have been so fucking distracted by other shit, stupid shit, that she allowed that psycho cunt to almost fucking kill her.
And while she was busy ordering other motherfuckers’ deaths, she’d fucking hesitated to plunge that fucking ice pick in Rule’s motherfucking eye. Or neck. Or anyfuckinwhere.
A threat was a motherfucking threat.
Despite Rule’s illness, his disgust, fury and virulent hatred for Rebel ran rampant.
Christopher understood the reasons but that didn’t mean a part of him still didn’t want to put Rule out of his fucking misery as the source of so much goddamn trauma.
Regret welled inside Christopher. And his anger toward Megan, no matter how he tried to fight it, dug deeper into him.
All his thinking just reaffirmed that she was the reason Rule hadn’t gotten help the minute he began hearing voices.
Discovering Megan spoke to him and allowed him to talk her out of seeking help for him only pissed Christopher off further.
She’d allowed a kid to dictate how shit should’ve gone.
Why the fuck should Christopher have had to borne the burden of such a monumental decision on his own?
CJ was right that Christopher could’ve stepped in, but him and Megan were a fucking team.
More than that, she was Rule’s ma. She would’ve pouted and probably locked Christopher out of her pussy if he committed Rule against her wishes.
Or worse, since the new version of her gave him a pass for fuck all.
Sudden guilt eroded his fury and he drank again.
What the fuck was he saying? He was so fucking grateful Megan survived.
Rebel and Rule, too. He couldn’t change what happened.
While the outcome wasn’t optimal, it was so much better than the fucking alternative.
Not that it mattered. His home and family felt broken, irreparably ruptured, shattered into a million pieces that he didn’t know how to repair.
He needed Megan. He needed her not to be so wrapped up in Rebel and Kaia.
And, now, Rebel and Diesel. Over that motherfucker’s bullet-riddled, carved-up, broken motherfucking body.