Chapter 3 #2
Everyone spoons gumbo and potato salad onto their plates while I fill a few glasses with ice.
“Anyone want a Christmas cocktail to accompany this delicious meal?” I ask.
“I’ll have a glass,” Clayton says, lifting his hand in the air.
“A glass of what?” Lilly asks.
“Whatever he’s fixing, hell it don’t matter. I’ll drink anything.”
“Got about an eight-year-old bottle of Bourbon that I pulled from a cabinet I forgot about and then rediscovered when cleaning out my old place,” I say, lifting the bottle.
“That’ll work,” Clayton gives me a thumbs up as he takes a bite of gumbo.
Everyone is seated around the table and at the bar in the kitchen, quiet chatter filling the room between bites. The way I feel, standing here, in this house on this holiday. I don’t remember the last time that Christmas actually felt like Christmas. But it does today.
Once everyone is done eating, Lilly and Mindy begin cleaning up the kitchen a bit and the guys and I head to the living room to flip through the channels on the television. Lilly only protests with a small pout when I turn off her Christmas music.
“You can watch TV for now, but when we open presents, I’m putting the music back on!” she chastises me from the kitchen.
“Yes ma’am,” I call over my shoulder while I return to my selection of what to put on the TV.
I finally find a football game on and zone out into.
My chair is so comfortable and I’m so relaxed and full that I can’t keep my eyes open.
Not even for the TV. I doze in and out sleep while Aaron and David comment on the players of each team playing.
I wake up when Lilly wraps her arms around my shoulders from behind my chair.
She rubs my chest affectionately with both hands.
“Wake up. We’re doing gifts,” she says softly, so as not to announce to the room that I was asleep.
Not that they’re confused, considering every time I fall asleep in this chair, I snore so damn loud.
Lilly’s recorded me and played it back, and I impressed myself.
I sit up, grabbing her hand that rests on my shoulder and pressing a soft kiss to the top of it. She smiles down at me with the most beautiful look in her eyes, making the same face she does every single time I do that. Making me want to do it a thousand times over.
She slips her hand from my grasp and retrieves a handful of gifts from beneath the tree. She and Mindy begin handing them out accordingly. She stares at the ring box for a minute before she looks at me with a quirked brow, holding it out awkwardly.
“That’s for you,” I tell her.
Lilly’s eyes sparkle as she looks back and forth between me and the box.
I chuckle because I can only imagine the thoughts she’s thinking.
Wondering what I could’ve gotten her since she’s already got an engagement ring.
She continues handing out gifts and once everyone has a gift, she sits down on the floor in front of my chair, leaning against my legs.
“Open ‘em up, y’all!” Lilly cheers, looking around the room at our family.
I open the gift bag from Margie, decorated with two ribbon-style bows and a tag addressed to me.
Lilly warned me that Christmas is her favorite and that she always goes above and beyond with gifts galore.
Inside is a custom pocketknife with my name engraved on one side and ‘Lucifer’s Hounds MC’ engraved on the other.
It’s the coolest damn pocketknife I’ve ever seen.
It’s stainless steel and in the shape of an open-ended mechanics combination wrench.
“Thank you so much, Margie,” I say as I admire my new pocketknife.
She beams with pride and a smile on her face. “Lilly told me you use a pocketknife regularly and always have one on you, so I figured a personalized one would be a good fit.”
“It’s cool as shit. I love it. Thank you.”
I watch as everyone opens their gifts and patiently wait for Lilly to open the box in her hand. I nudge her shoulder, earning me a playful side-eye.
“Open yours,” I say, making an itsy-bitsy spider motion with my fingers, impatiently.
She picks the box up from her lap and opens it slowly. Her eyes widen when they land on the custom ring inside.
“Oh my God!” she squeals, removing it from the box and placing it on her right ring finger. It fits perfectly and looks stunning against her tanned skin.
“Baby, it’s perfect!” she exclaims, jumping up and wrapping me in a hug.
“I figured since we don’t do “Property of” patches, the next best thing would be a ring with my colors,” I tell her, my arms squeezing the small of her back as her feet dangle a bit off the ground.
“Let me see,” Mindy demands from across the room.
Lilly rushes across the room and shoves her hand in Mindy’s face.
She and Mindy’s mom both gush over how beautiful the ring is.
Aaron and David are sitting beside one another and talking under their breath, probably poking fun at the women.
There’s wrapping paper all over the living room and Clayton’s got a pocketknife exactly like mine but with his name on it in front of him.
Aaron’s got a smaller pocketknife with only his name engraved. Margie must’ve asked some questions on who could and couldn’t have the club’s name on theirs. Smart lady. I’ll have to commend Lilly for clueing her mom in.
Once gifts are opened and the living room is cleaned up, people begin leaving to head to other gatherings or to just head home.
Once it’s all said and done, all that’s left in the living room are myself, Lilly, Clayton, and Aaron.
I’ve gone into the kitchen for second dinner already and Clayton’s dozing off on the couch by the tree.
Lilly is nestled into my side, and the television is on the same news station it’s been on all day, playing various football games amongst commercials and snippets of the news.
I look down at her sweet face, sleeping softly against me.
Her olive complexion is so beautiful that I stare at her for a few minutes lost inside of my own head.
Thinking of how lucky I am to have someone as perfect for me as she is.
Through everything that has happened, she still wants to be here, by my side. She still wants to be my wife. That’s something I never thought I’d have. Not because I didn’t think anyone would want to marry me, but because I didn’t think there was anyone out there worthy of being my wife.
The television news broadcast slices through my thoughts as a breaking story comes across the screen.
“Breaking News! This story just hit the press not even thirty minutes ago. There has been a discovery in a small town in Oklahoma of what appears to be a burial ground of sorts. Local politician Barry Harlow’s Mercedes Benz, who went missing in 1984, has just been dredged out of a pond on a secluded property.
Sources tell us that a teenage boy stumbled upon the pond and was nearly attacked by an alligator that has been put down.
They’re doing a necropsy on the animal to examine the contents of his stomach.
This is a developing story and remains under investigation. ”
My heart is in my throat. I look across the room to Clayton, who’s staring at the TV wide-eyed.
“Is that…” I start, but trail off.
Clayton simply nods.
Oh, fuck.
“What do we need to do?” I ask.
He doesn’t speak. He sits there, on my couch, with a distant look in his eyes, as if he’s contemplating his entire life. Hell, he probably is. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad speechless. I’ve seen him in almost all of his forms, but speechless was never one of those. Until now.
The burial ground that he and Uncle Brock used when they were the cleanup crew for the Oklahoma City charter of Lucifer’s Hounds, has been unearthed.
Who knows what measures they didn’t take because things were so much different back then.
The forensic technology was nothing like it is now.
It was a different time and it was so much easier to get away with this sort of thing.
And now? Now what? What happens when they start connecting the dots and it ends up pointing back to Clayton? Or Brock?
My mind is racing, along with my heart. It’s one thing for me to be involved in a war down here with these piece of shit motherfuckers, but this hits harder.
It’s a cut deeper than it should be. This is my dad.
My home. This is a connection to my mom.
Not that she can be prosecuted for anything from the grave, but that’s not the point.
The amount of shit that this can possibly stir up makes my stomach churn and I’m starting to regret having that second dinner.
“I need to make a few calls,” Clayton says, quietly rising from the couch and walking out of the back door into the garage.
Aaron is sitting on the same couch, staring back and forth between me and the TV.
“It’s a long story.”
“Should we be worried?”
“Yes. Yes we should. Our brothers showed up for us, and now it’s going to be time for us to return the favor. There’s a pretty good chance they’ll be cashing in on it.”
I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. I’ve already got so much shit to deal with down here. I guess it’s time to get to work. Tomorrow. When Christmas is over. I’ll give Lilly the rest of today to enjoy this perfect holiday in peace before I burst her whole bubble.
If we thought the war with the Moccasins was the worst thing that would happen this year, we were sadly fucking mistaken.
And that isn’t even over, yet. There are still people that had hands in this missing.
Including Gater. I want to run my fist through the wall.
How did one day get to be so fucked? I should’ve known that no matter what, I’m not allowed to have a good fucking Christmas.
Christmas is the shittiest goddamn holiday I’ve ever experienced. I’m fucking skipping it next year.
I slip out from underneath Lilly, gently placing one of the pillows from the couch beneath her head before motioning for Aaron to follow me upstairs to what Lilly calls my mancave. It’s really more like my office, but she can call it whatever she wants.
I close the door behind us and sit down on the couch, motioning for Aaron to do the same. He sits in a chair opposite me and clasps his hands together, waiting for me to say something.
“I know you haven’t been around very long, but you’re getting thrown in headfirst. We’re in the middle of a war with the Moccasins, because rest assured, that isn’t over.
And now, we’re going to be having to split up and send some of us up to Oklahoma to show support there when it’s needed.
Call Snapper and fill him in. He’ll put it out to our guys.
I’m going to reach out to Micah with the Highway Sinners and see if he can spare some guys to help cover the absence of some of ours when they head to Oklahoma.
If he doesn’t have anyone, I’ll be calling Sebastian with the Tattered Saints.
They’ve been supportive of our cause. None of these things come for free.
We will have to return the favor, or a favor, when asked. ”
Aaron nods, taking in everything I’ve said.
He opens his phone and does as instructed.
He tells Snapper what’s happened while I scour the internet for the article.
It doesn’t take long for me to locate it.
There are even photos and a video of the pond caution-taped with a reporter out front and a backhoe in the foreground near the submersible pumps.
Who knows what they are going to find in there?
Clayton does. And I’ve never asked him questions about this, only heard stories here and there.
But today? Today I’m asking fucking questions.
He isn’t going to like it, but the time for liking this is over.
I need to know what we are going to be dealing with.
Is he going to need to run? Is this going to draw the attention of the authorities to our charter?
To all Lucifer’s Hounds charters across the country?
Does this put us all under the microscope?
Does anything there tie him to the murders?
These are all pieces of information that are relevant.
And there’s no time for secrets anymore.
Those got dredged up the second that car got dredged up.
It’s time for him to let his skeletons out of the closet.
Or the pond. Wherever it is he’s hiding them.