Chapter 11 #2
Savage and Rebel had been gone most of the day.
Brogan had even come by to talk to Ace about what he found out and still no word.
I was getting worried. Shona hadn’t left my side, even when I wanted to sit there and read in my room.
She came and sat next to me. I knew it was because Rebel had told her not to leave me alone.
I loved him for thinking of me, but I wasn’t fragile.
I wasn’t going to break into a million pieces.
“They should be back by now,” I said softly when she got to my side of the bar. I had been sitting on a bourbon and coke for the past half hour. It was probably warm by now, but my fear was doing weird things to me.
“They’re good. This is just how those two are. They never communicate unless they have to. Clara wasn’t too far from Dublin, and that’s a few hours ride each way.”
I nodded, and she moved off to help some of the girls down by the opposite end of the bar.
I spotted Caramel staring daggers at me which only made me roll my eyes.
Orla sat with Morena and Sheridan in one of the booths, drinking cocktails of some sort from a jug.
Ryleigh was lounging with Fury and Viper by the wall.
Bear, Ace and Hawk were talking with Brogan by the pool tables.
It was a regular night here at the clubhouse, almost like we didn’t have someone trying to kill us.
Being here was so different compared to back in Belfast. Even though the Destructive Sons had been my family, I felt more welcome and happy here, like I could do anything I wanted.
Shona ran this bar, and even though Sheridan was technically the head ol’ lady, she shared that responsibility with Orla and Morena.
All three of them took care of this club, as did their men for their brothers.
I just felt safe here.
Bringing the glass to my lips, I was about to take a sip when I heard the doors burst open. I dropped the drink and turned, the glass shattering on the floor around my feet. My mother, Clara, stood in front of two other women who had cuts over their backs with a patch I’d never seen before.
Mothers of Chaos was written over the top of a medusa looking logo and underneath said Ireland.
What the fuck?
“Mama?”
She turned her head, showing me how time had aged her, or maybe that had been the drugs she’d chosen over me. The men in the club all raised their guns at the intruders but none took a shot. It was only when I saw who the other women had raised their guns that I realised why.
Guns were raised on Orla, Morena and Sheridan, one on Ryleigh, and my mother raised her gun to Shona.
“Darling girl,” my mother’s voice sounded sincere to the untrained ear but this was how she would speak when she wanted me to do something. Something…bad. “Why don’t you come on over here with me?”
“She’s not going anywhere with you,” Shona said, her tone clipped. “Darby, stay where you are.”
My mother turned back to Shona. “She’s my daughter.”
“You lost that right when you left your daughter in a den of misery,” Shona said. “Now, get the fuck out.”
“You don’t speak for us, girlie,” one of the other women said.
“Enna,” I heard Ace say as he came forward, his gun trained on them still. “Why are you here?”
“To make it right, dear,” the woman said. “This club needs to pay for its disservice to Ireland.”
“The club you were a part of until you betrayed it?” he countered.
Shona made a move to me from behind the bar to try and get back, but my mother caught it.
She raised the gun back to Shona and shot.
I screamed, thinking I’d lost my sister when I looked to see she’d ducked and the bullet had wound up in the wall.
I ran to her, feeling someone grab my arm and pull me up and away from her.
Shona made a move to grab something from behind the bar when I heard bullets being fired from everywhere.
I ducked my head to protect myself, feeling my body being pulled away, toward the door.
I swung around and clocked my mother. The look of surprise on her face was priceless.
She never expected her own daughter to turn on her.
Good.
“You ungrateful wench.”
“Ungrateful?” I scoffed in disbelief. “What is there to be grateful for? You left your child with monsters, knowing they would use me in the same way you were escaping from. You never cared for me. You cared about you. It’s always just been about you.
It’s funny. The one thing you ever wanted was to be queen, to be his and for him to love you but he used you for what you had between your legs.
He threw you at anyone he needed to work with as a prize, as currency, and now, as I look at you now, that’s all I see…
is someone who was used and abused and who doesn’t know how to love. ”
“You’ll end up like me, whore.”
“No, I don’t think I will…I know what it’s like to be loved. I know what it is to love someone that I would quite literally die for him. You will never know what that is like.”
She scoffed, tears running down her cheeks. I would feel bad for her but it was a waste of an emotion. She didn’t deserve that from me.
“Oh yeah?” she tried to hold back her anger. “And where is this knight in shining armour now, Darby Rose?”
“Behind you,” came Rebel’s gravelly voice. She turned to face him just as he shot at her face. My mother fell back, her eyes wide with shock, but I could see she was dead before she hit the floor.
Rebel ran up to me, checking I was okay. I looked down at her body, the woman had given birth to me but she was no mother. She never had been.
“You okay?” he asked me, checking me over, and then looking me directly in my eyes. I nodded, and he kissed me. It wasn’t passionate, it was soft, tender, like he knew I needed right now. “Stay behind me, princess.”
I did as he asked as we went back inside.
The women who had invaded us were on their knees, their arms tied behind their backs as the men stood in front of them.
The clubhouse had been shot up, but everyone appeared to be okay.
Morena was patching up bullet grazes and non-fatal wounds with Sheridan and Ryleigh’s help.
Rebel grabbed my hand and moved me toward Shona who wrapped her arms around me tight.
My man stood in front of me, protecting me from what I knew was about to happen.
“Those two women in the middle,” Shona said softly to me. “That’s Bear and Ace’s mums. Outcasts. Evil women.”
“Just like Clara,” I uttered. She squeezed me tighter. We watched on as Ace questioned his mother. I couldn’t see an edge of remorse on her face.
Why did women have children only to hate them so much that they could kill them?
“Mothers of Chaos?” Ace questioned, a wry smirk landing on his face.
“Anything to feel important right, mother? Don’t forget you made your choices, and now you face the consequences.
We aren’t the Ghost Rebels you think you know.
I’m not him. This club is a fucking family…
and this isn’t the first time you’ve tried to end us. To end me…or Sheridan.”
“This club is poison, no matter what you say.”
“No, Enna, you are the poison and I can’t let it stand any longer. Mother or not.”
He raised his gun and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Enna slumped back against the other woman who screamed out.
Most of the women behind her were younger, and probably thought they were doing the right thing.
Ace put his gun in his holster and moved back, being swallowed by Sheridan’s arms. He leant into them, feeding his need for her. The same need I had for Rebel.
“Orla?” Bear called out to her. She was at his side in an instant. “This one’s yours, baby.”
She hesitated for a moment before she took his gun and aimed it at her mother-in-law. I could see the pure hatred she had for her, and the look was returned in spades.
“You were never goo-”
Louise had started to spit hate toward Orla but she’d pulled the trigger and watched as Louise slumped down next to Enna.
She handed the gun back to Bear who didn’t seem to care that his mother had just been killed.
What was it and bad mothers in our clubs?
I had to wonder why he’d let Orla kill his mother, but then again, she was probably as evil as mine had been. I understood it.
Brogan came forward, showing his badge. “Now listen here, you saw nothing here today. You came here with the intent to harm and possibly kidnap. That could see you doing serious time in prison and I don’t think you want that.
So, we’re going to untie you and you’re going to leave Kilkenny and never return. ”
They all nodded vehemently. They were untied by Viper and Chains and they ran out of the clubhouse without a backward glance.
Hawk clapped Brogan on the back. “You good?”
“Yeah, I need to head to the station to file paperwork. I don’t want to know what you do with the bodies, yeah?”
He left the clubhouse and the boys got straight to picking up the bodies of Ace and Bear’s mothers and taking them outside.
Rebel turned to me. “Give me five, princess. I’ll be back.”
I nodded and watched him enter the chapel where Ace and Bear were. I knew of the sanctity of church so I knew we weren’t allowed in there.
Shona turned to me and hugged me tight again. “You good?”
“Yeah, I mean startled for sure, but even though this was scary, I wasn’t near as scared as I was every day in Belfast.”
Shona sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t come and get you, Darby.”
“That’s not your fault. He would have come after me. I was a commodity he could use.”
“I would have taken your place, baby girl.”
It was at that moment, where I looked into her eyes, and I saw the love and adoration I should have seen in my mother’s eyes.
“I wouldn’t have let you.”