Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
I cause safety briefs.
—Major to Denver
DENVER
I held out my hand to shake Silas’s.
“Hey, man,” I said. “I’m glad you could come.”
Silas nodded and looked up at the courthouse. “I don’t hate being your bogeyman, Denver. It gives me an excitement and thrill that doesn’t come all that often anymore.”
I grinned, but it faded as I thought about what else I had to talk to him about.
“I didn’t invite you out here just to scare my ex-wife,” I admitted.
“Oh?” he asked, looking at me more steadily now. “What’s going on?”
I hadn’t stopped thinking about the man that Holly had seen at the dog fighting ring that night she’d been kidnapped. And I shared as much with Silas in the minutes before I was due inside to fight for my kids in court.
By the time I was through, Silas looked just as murderous as I felt on the inside.
“So it’s Tack, Brute, or Brogue?” he asked.
My stomach clenched as he said the three names.
“They were the only ones unaccounted for that night,” I explained.
“Two were paired together, but that doesn’t necessarily give them an alibi as much as it makes it look like they’re both guilty.
They’re the newest to the club. And they’ve also been the most vocal about not wanting to add any more members. ”
“You mean the members that came in a year or so ago that were convicts?” Silas offered.
“Not just that. They’re against any new members, period. They all three hate Bells and Thumper. They question every decision I’ve made for years. And when Juliana left me, they didn’t outright come out and say it, but they were smug as fuck about sharing that ‘she deserved better.’”
Silas sighed. “Tack’s called me twice on you in the last year.”
I rolled my eyes.
Nothing like complaining to daddy like I’m an unruly child.
“I’m here for a couple of weeks.” His face slid into a grin as some movement at my back caught his attention. “Look who’s here.”
I looked over my shoulder to find Juliana arriving with her lawyer.
She was pale and kept looking at Silas like he would jump out and murder her any second.
“I never understood what it was about you that she was so terrified of.”
There was a long pause and then, “I caught her flirting with one of my guys a while back. Not in a way that was bad enough I felt you should know. But in a way that didn’t sit right with me, so I confronted her.”
“Of course she was.” I shook my head. “She was always doing that. Looking for attention from me. As if any kind of attention was better than nothing. But here’s the thing.
I paid her plenty attention. She had my name on her back.
She was the mother of my children. I treated her like gold.
I was home every single night when I could.
I spent my every spare moment with her when I wasn’t working the farm.
And she never felt like that was good enough. ”
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, Denver.” Silas snorted. “I’ve had my own share of crazy ex-wives.”
He sure had.
“Let’s get inside,” I suggested. “Maybe your presence will be enough that she won’t show her ass.”
As we climbed the steps, I didn’t miss the way Juliana kept turning around looking warily at us.
I sighed.
Today was day two in court, but this time it was for my children.
Holly was at work, the kids were at school, and the only people in the courtroom were Juliana on her side with her lawyer, a couple of her friends behind her, and my family behind me.
They were all there, too.
My mom, my brother, my sister, and even Boone were there. Hell, even my newest niece that I’d only found out about recently, Ida Bell, was there as well.
Jedidiah gestured for me to take a seat next to him, and I did.
“You’re late.”
“Getting my secret weapon when it comes to Juliana,” I admitted, jerking my head in Silas’s direction. “Silas Mackenzie.”
Jedidiah snorted.
Jedidiah was also a part of our club, and he knew Silas well.
Everyone did.
There was no Dixie Warden in the world that didn’t know him.
He was one hell of a national club president and put the fear of God into young and old. But he also led with his heart and cared about all his club members.
“Juliana will love that.” He chuckled low. “Judge Baskins is on our side with this. He’s probably just as tired with her shit as we are.”
He would be. We’d been in here six times in just as many months since Juliana and I had divorced. Hell, even I was tired of seeing us here.
Everyone found their seats, and I had to laugh when Silas chose the one directly behind Juliana’s.
He wasn’t wearing his club cut, but it didn’t matter. He looked like he didn’t belong with his long beard and his piercing eyes that missed nothing.
He sure the fuck didn’t look like he belonged with Juliana and her lawyer.
Silas was dressed down in jeans and a long-sleeved tee.
Juliana was dressed up so spectacularly that she looked entirely out of place—not to mention uncomfortable. She looked like she was about to go to a prom, not to a courtroom.
Everyone shifted in their seats by the time Judge Baskins walked into the room, way later than was normal, even for him.
He waved the bailiff off who was about to say “all rise” and took a seat, shifting his glasses onto his nose.
“Sorry, sorry. There was a traffic jam. In Bear Pass. Who knew?” He looked at his papers, stilled, then looked up.
“What are we doing here?” he asked as he sat back. “I thought we solved this last month.”
Juliana shifted in her seat.
“Your Honor, we’re here today because—” Juliana’s lawyer started, but the judge cut her off.
“I know why you’re here. I can read. I went over the notes last night. Do you have any evidence that suggests that Denver is unfit to be a parent?”
“Your Honor, my client is worried that the children will be unduly influenced by the motorcycle gang that their father is a part of,” her lawyer started.
The judge sighed. “We’ve been over this, several times.
Everyone and their brother is part of a motorcycle club.
Hell, even my mother-in-law who’s in her eighties is.
She rides one of those trikes around with her other eighty and ninety-year-old friends.
They go to parades, run toy drives, poker runs.
Wear those cuts that show their club name—the Granny Outlaws.
And if we’re being honest here, the Dixie Wardens MC has the best reputation in the country.
Half of the members are firefighters, police officers, military, or some other form of badass.
Hardly a one-percent club at all. This argument is invalid.
What else do you have, Mrs. Montgomery?”
The lawyer shrank back a little at the judge’s words.
But Judge Baskins was correct.
The Dixie Wardens MC was a pretty well-known club in the country. Most of them were public service professionals of some kind. Did they break the law? Yes. But they only did it for good reasons…mostly.
We didn’t run drugs. We didn’t pimp out whores. We didn’t traffic women and children. We were genuinely out to better our communities and make them safer to live in.
We were not bad influences on anyone, especially our children.
Did we do bad things? Hell yes, we did. But we did it in a way that no one would know.
On the outside looking in, we were solid members of society.
And that was all because of our ex-CIA national club president, Silas.
“The children’s father is never home. And he’s making the girls work from sunup to sundown.”
“That’s wrong,” Jedidiah countered. “My client has hired what hands he’s able to get his hands on—seeing as your client took half of Sinclair’s workers with her when she left because she told them that Denver abused her when he didn’t. He’s hired a local vet to even help.”
“A local vet that he’s sleeping with!” Juliana hissed.
Silas shifted in his seat, not necessarily toward her, but just in a way that she looked behind her and froze.
She hadn’t realized he was sitting there until now.
She inhaled swiftly and wilted into herself.
“Relevance?” Jedidiah asked drolly.
Julianna growled under her breath.
Someone came into the courtroom from a side entrance then and walked right up to the judge.
Curious to know what this person wanted, I strained to hear, but got nothing.
The judge looked worried and looked outside the window.
I saw something dark that looked like smoke filling the air.
The man who entered left, and the judge took off his glasses and leveled a look at Juliana.
“You are not getting full custody. In fact, after looking at the statements of the kids that tells us what they want—all done by their lawyer—I award full custody to Sinclair Windsor. You are to pay him.” He looked at the sheet in front of him that likely showed her income totals.
“Three hundred dollars per child. Now, I have to go get into my fire gear. Seems like the vet building is on fire.”
He stood up, but I was already halfway out of the room.