Chapter 13
Tank - Two Weeks Later
“You going to talk to me yet about your patch, son?” my dad asks as soon as I step out of the staff room, making me jump, and I silently groan seeing him leaning against the wall, a brow raised.
Fuck’s sake.
Every day, he hangs around like a bad fucking smell, whether I’m here at the hospital or at the garage, he is there, waiting for me to open up to him, to explain why I lost it with Mama and why I handed in my cut.
It doesn’t help that Doc has refused to remove him off grunt duty and refuses to explain why he demanded Mama was removed from the club until I return.
Never going to fucking happen so I guess Dad will just have to be kept in dark. Dick move? Maybe, do I give a shit? Nope.
“Come on, son, I deserve an explanation,” he says, keeping eye contact and I swear, I only just swallow my scoff.
The only place he hasn’t shown up is my own home, and that is because most brothers would have followed him if he showed, the same brothers who have also tried to contact me, and he knows it would have made things worse.
Only the officer brothers are aware of my address, fuck, not even Mama knows where I live for obvious reasons which is why I knew I could keep Jas and our daughter safe but nope, of course the woman I gave my heart to didn’t fucking trust me.
Shaking my head, I ignore Dad and walk towards the double doors, ready to begin my shift. I hear his footsteps behind me, and I roll my eyes as I walk into the thankfully quiet ER only to pause at the people in the far corner, and I swear to fuck…
“Fuck’s sake, Thunder, what did you do now?” I groan seeing a rag held to his head that looks drenched in his blood by his pissed off dad, his sister sitting next to him, shaking her head.
“I swear, Tank, this is worse than when he hit me on the head with a goddamn baseball bat!” Brit snaps, clearly pissed, just as Doc walks into the room and panics, “Tinkerbell?” seeing his wife, but she waves him off, then motions her hand to her brother.
“Ah, come on, Thunder, not again,” Doc groans, and I cross my arms over my chest, shaking my head at the man’s idiocy as Dad comes to stand beside me and snorts at the scene.
This fucking brother is going to be the death of me with his stupid ass ideas to try and get me back into the fold, or worse, him-fucking-self.
This is the tenth time in three weeks this fucker has shown up in my ER while I’ve been on shift with some injury, and honestly, this has to be the worst, and I can’t be fucking bothered with this shit right now.
I’m on self-destruct mode, and the brothers are beginning to become pains in my ass, especially this one.
“Who’s going to save you?”
Jas’s broken whisper is on fucking repeat in my head while I watched her drive away in fucking shock, realization hitting me square in the chest.
She left me, to save me…
My anger and my resentment towards her has fucking intensified, realizing it.
I look over Thunder, his brown hair slowly turning red, and I shake my head before asking, “What in the fuck did you do?”
He winces as his dad presses down harder on his head and admits, “Got a clubwhore to smack my head with their shoe but she uh, well, she accidentally used the heel side…”
Fucking hell.
“Roxy screamed the place down when she noticed her heel stuck in his head,” Shadow growls, “And idiot here pulled it out without thinking.”
I drop my chin to my chest as I place my hands on my hips while Doc announces, “Not it!” refusing to deal with Thunder again.
Three times he’s apparently come in with injuries when I haven’t been on shift, and Doc is just as fed up as I am with dealing with the brother's bright fucking ideas.
“Brit’s right, this is worse than her getting hit with the bat,” I mutter before sighing as I look at Thunder and nod to bay one, “Come on fucker let’s have a look…”
His dad and sister help him up, and I walk over to the bay, opening the curtain before demanding, “Sit your fucking ass down, idiot.”
“You know, this wouldn’t keep happening if you’d just get your cut back on and I thought doctors where to supposed to be nice?” Thunder grumbles, and I roll my eyes while Dad smirks my way.
Bet the fucker wouldn’t smirk if he knew what his wife, who has also tried calling me several times a day, along with Lyndsey and Kate, had done.
The picture of Lyndsey naked in the staff room four days ago comes to mind, and disgust fills me.
I never should have gone there… damn my teenage brain.
“Not happening, Thunder, you need to give it up,” I grunt, trying to forget the scarring memory as I put gloves on, but sigh when he whispers, “Never,” and I shake my head before beginning my examination.
Fuck today is going to be a long fucking day.
***
I stretch as I walk out of the hospital twenty fucking hours later, my body aching.
After stitching the idiot up, who spent the whole time demanding me to return to the club, the ER picked up, patient after fucking patient, injury after injury, and fuck me, I am tired.
No rest for the wicked because now I’ve got to get ready to head to Huntingdon, to see my little girl because her mama decided to move two hours away.
Jasmine’s beautiful eyes pop into my head, and I sigh as I rub my palm down my face.
I love her, I love her so fucking much, and I hate it. I hate how I want to ride after her, to beg her to come home, to let me help her and make everything right again, but I don’t trust her anymore, she fucking broke it and in my life, earning trust back, it isn’t easy because I rarely forgive.
I eye my arm, Jas’s name always catching my attention as I walk over to my bike, but sigh when I hear, “What will it take for you to put your patch back on your back?”
“I don’t want it back, I’m done with the club,” I sigh as I look where my friend is leaning against his bike next to mine.
“You are the club, brother,” Doc says, and I shake my head and stop next to him.
“They all sided with a woman who had been an old lady for thirty years instead of their pres, one they knew wouldn’t have made the decision unless it was serious,” I remind him, “I can’t be a part of a club like that, I fucking refuse and fuck…”
I look down, shaking my head.
“If they knew the truth, if your dad did, she’d be dead, Logan,” Doc mutters, and I nod because I know he is right, but I just fucking can’t because dammit, she’s still my mother.
“I already had one foot out of the door,” I admit as I look at him, “When I got with Jas, she didn’t agree with club life, and not because she looked down on us, but because of who her family was. To make things easier for her, before she left me, I was going to call it quits.”
He frowns and asks, “Just like that?” confusion lacing his tone, “You had no problems leaving the brotherhood?
Your family? Just like that, for your girl, and I get it, you were rarely at the club.
I get that she was, and most likely still is, your everything, which is why you're struggling with your anger towards her, but to leave your family?”
I chew my bottom lip and eye my friend, debating on what to tell him, to make him understand why I struggle at the club, why I’m barely around.
I could lie and walk away, or I could confide in him.
Fuck.
“Mama always wanted a girl,” I finally admit, and he frowns. I continue, “She wanted a girl so badly that she forced her young son to wear dresses and to grow his hair long. And if he complained, he got burned on his back, the one place no one would notice.”
“What the fuck?” he snaps as he stands up straighter.
I continue, “As soon as the son was old enough to learn the ropes of the enforcer, his mama backed away and acted like he didn’t exist, like she didn’t make his life hell for years. She ignored him, all while his father was ignorant and blind to what was happening under his nose.”
Doc begins to pace and I swallow hard as I say, “Mama had an affair, got pregnant a few times and lost the babies, the last one is when Dad had found out, he was the one to rush her to the hospital when the doctor mentioned Mama was warned how high risk she was if she kept getting pregnant. Dad had gotten the snip and knew the babies she lost weren’t his, he realized she had a full blown fucking affair as punishment because he didn’t want any more kids.
Fuck he didn’t even want me but she trapped him hoping to get the girl she always wanted. ”
“That’s why Sara latched onto Kate?” Doc cuts in, and I nod.
“She’s the daughter she never had so while Dad was heartbroken and found comfort in Tiffany, he forgot I existed.
Mama latched on yet again only this time, instead of forcing me to act like a fucking girl, taking photos and filming me, calling me her princess, she began pushing Kate on me instantly.
Forcing me to go to school dances with her, dressing me in suits she deemed fit and don’t fucking get me started on her anger when she found out I didn’t want to become a lawyer, I mean, you’d think she would have been proud that I became a doctor, that I still helped at the garage and got my cut but nope.
If it wasn’t her way then it was no way which is why I, fuck, I screwed Kate’s mama when I was sixteen, giving her my virginity and I only stopped because the woman tried claiming she was pregnant when I was eighteen,” I state, shocking Doc.
“I fucking hate her, Asher, I hate my mother, I hate the choices I made because of her, bringing leeches like Lyndsey around me. I hate her with a passion and what she did to Jas, her threats to my own daughter,” I shake my head, “You told the brothers she had to go and not one listened, not even my dad. I just, I can’t be a part of that and now I’ve got to ride two fricking hours just to see my daughter because Jas let slip she’s protecting me.
Which brother, nothing, and I mean fucking nothing will make her keeping my daughter from me okay, not even protecting me which why I, fuck’s sake… ”