Chapter Thirty-One
Blaze
We pulled in front of a hotel with a canopied loading area and parked across from it. Once we dismounted, I noticed Oak was sitting on a bench outside. His head was tipped back a little and he had sunglasses on, so I really couldn’t read his expression.
He didn’t bother stirring or rising to greet us when we neared, either.
“The fuck you doin?” Easy snorted.
Oak startled, grabbing the armrest, and abruptly hitching forward.
“Damn you, Eric.” He laughed, shaking his head.
He slid the glasses off and eyed me for a minute, not unkindly.
“You alright?” he asked, shocking the life out of me.
I was braced for a solid ‘ talking to ,’ as folks back in Georgia said. Oak was a southern man and he’d been married to my mother for eighteen years, I knew him as well as anyone knew their father.
“I’ll be alright. You?”
He gave a half-smile and tipped his head, squinting against the sun.
“I will be once I’m convinced that you’re gonna be solid.”
I nodded and lifted my gaze to the hotel, “And her?”
He smothered a laugh in his throat until it was little more than a rumble, “She’ll be your mother ‘til the day she dies. It’s what she was made to be, Blaze. Momma Bear, and boy does she roar when she perceives a threat.”
“Yeah, but there ain’t no threat, Oak. What’s the threat in me knowing my people? You said it yourself, back home…”
Oak flipped a finger up toward Easy.
“That’s your people, Blaze. He and Daisy. Daisy is gone. She left with Montana for California, leaving all of this behind. Easy has every intention of joining me in Georgia when he retires. He, Trista, and May.”
“Yeah?” I smiled, not having heard a word of this until now. “How long is that gonna be, Easy?”
He looked away and scratched the stubble on his throat.
“Right.” I laughed.
“It was going to be announced tonight, which is why Mak wanted to press you into joining before I could step down. He thought it would make me stay.”
“And it won’t?”
“Fuck, no,” Easy scoffed.
I nodded, “Then I guess I’ll be seeing all of you when I get off of this court shit.”
Easy nodded and gave me a side glance like he didn’t believe it.
“Go catch your mom before she has her third meltdown of the morning, would ya?” Oak jerked his chin toward the hotel.
I looked between them and got the distinct impression I was being dismissed.
“What the fuck?” I chirped.
“Get, fucker.” Easy, brought his boot up and tried to nudge at my ass.
I flubbed my lips, “Easy, you’re so old you can barely throw that thing over your bike these days. Fucking retiring.”
I thought he was going to fist fight me right there under the canopy, the way he stared into my soul and shifted his weight.
“Mouthy little fucker,” I heard him laugh to Oak as I dipped into the hotel.
The lady at the desk smiled big when she saw my tattooed arms, raising her hand and wiggling her fingers as she waved.
“Morning,” I grunted. “Can you tell me what room he–” I hitched a thumb at Oak, “And Crystal are in?”
“For sure,” she cheerfully answered, before clicking away on the keyboard.
“O’Brian, right?”
“Yep.”
“Two oh-five.”
“Great, good thing I didn’t come to kill anyone.” I winked.
Her jaw dropped and I marched toward the elevator with the numbered sign over the button that read one o-five, through three hundred.
I got off on the second floor, found the room with the appropriate number outside and pecked on the door.
“Mom, it’s me–” I called.
I heard an exchange of voices and then the door slowly opened. Karlotti greeted me with a big smile and wrapped me up in a hug.
“Thank God, she’s going crazy,” she whispered in my ear, before trying to slide past me.
“Wh–?” I started, but I let her head out.
I pushed the door until it clicked shut behind her and walked deeper into the dark den of my mother’s hotel room. She was sitting in the desk chair, her hair a mess, her robe skewed.
“Mom,” I whispered, a cold dose of fear racing from my toes to my throat where it felt like I’d suddenly choke on my own spit.
I’d never seen my mother disheveled. She looked like some frumpy, middle-aged, thing rather than the ever youthful, former biker beauty queen turned cop that I’d always known her to be.
Her gaze fixed on me.
“Do you have your things?” she whispered.
“Mom, I can’t leave–” She shot off that chair and slapped the words out of my mouth.
“You have to,” she ground out, her eyes were glistening and wide, like Aunt Joplin’s used to get when she had her manic episodes.
“You look like her,” I whispered, refusing to bring a hand up to the sting she’d induced.
Her brows subtly shifted.
“Joplin,” I loudly declared. “You look like Joplin, in the midst of one of her fuckin’ episodes. Get it together, Jesus.”
She tore in a breath and swung again, but I caught her wrist.
“You will die here, Blaze Anthony. Do you hear me?” she exploded, “Do you want to fucking die over stupid, biker bullshit?”
“Die? Like dead, dead? Or like you let me believe Aunt Joplin was dead? I’m gonna need you to clarify, Crystal, because shit’s getting a little confusing lately, and the only thing that is clear, is that I’ve been lied to. By you. For some time now. I don’t care if you did it because you wanted to protect me, or because you didn’t think I could handle it. I don’t care. I want the truth. While we’re facing the truth, here is a little for you to swallow– Demetri Valentino is dead. He’s dead, okay. You fucking killed him. You and your fed friends. Now, if it’s okay with you, can the rest of us live a little?”
She started to shake, and remained still for a moment, her eyes softening from rage to deep blue pools of pain.
“Goddamn it, Mom. You have to stop. You have–” I let go of her and stepped away, running a hand through my hair. “It’s one thing for you to try and do this to me, but you do it to Karlotti, too. She’s going to end up a helpless, little mouse. Is that what you want, Mom? You want her to squeak and run from every shadow?”
She started to cry, and I felt like the world’s biggest asshole, but I’d made up my mind. I wanted to know my father, I didn’t have to live this life forever, but I could join for the year I was here.
“I’m going to become a Disciple. They’re gonna give me a patch.”
Her hand shot to her mouth, and she gave me her back.
“Just for a year and then me and March are gonna follow–”
“You don’t patch in for a year, Blaze. Don’t you get it–?” She whipped back around, her face a mask of disbelief. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about– In for a year. You can’t hand them back a fucking patch after a year, Blaze. It doesn’t work like that.”
I huffed and smiled, “Well, I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t ever told anything about our former life. My father’s way of life.”
“Your father wanted out–” she whispered.
“No, he didn’t.” I called her bluff. “You wanted him out.”
The color drained from her face, and she backed up a few paces.
“Get out,” she hissed.