1. Emma #4
I knew he loved me. I had felt it down to my soul.
Trey made sure that every day I spent with him, I knew how much I meant to him.
I felt abandoned and betrayed. I was so angry at him for making that decision for us.
I had been turned away once, and since then, as much as it didn’t make sense, it was one of the main reasons I refused to tell a soul that Trey was a father before I told him.
I was just going to have to wait until he got out.
But now those plans have derailed, and as soon as everyone gets a look at Fijor, they will know.
I went back and forth on whether I had made the right decision every single day.
I decided to make Trey’s stint in prison as easy as I could for both of us, and I knew that if he had to do twenty years, it would kill him to know he had a son he wouldn’t meet until he was an adult.
Was I making the wrong decision for Fijor?
That was the million-dollar question that kept me up most nights.
The closer I get to Crescent, the more my stomach drops.
I think I made a mistake by not putting my faith in the club sooner and by not coming clean.
That’s the club’s core. Loyalty, Respect, Trust. Secrets sink a ship.
Honesty is the only way they operate. You can’t trust a dishonest person, and trust keeps you alive.
But despite how angry I am, I miss him more than I thought was physically possible.
It was the kind of love you only read about in one of Harley’s romance books.
Too bad it didn’t turn out like one. In Harley’s words, Trey and I were a forbidden romance trope.
Her personal favorite. I used to smile and roll my eyes at her cheesy romantic heart while I swooned over her depiction of us.
In those dirty romance books she kept shoving into my chest to read, the characters always got their happily ever after.
But this isn’t one of our romance books.
I may have gotten the best parting gift from the universe via Fijor.
But now those books just mock me with a big middle finger.
Fingers crossed that the past few years of my life have just been a third-act breakup and that I get the man at the end.
But given the most recent events, that luck seems unlikely.
Just like in Harley’s favorite trope, we shouldn’t have been seeing each other without my father’s permission, but we did anyway.
That summer, we snuck around and stole any moments alone together we could.
When we were around everyone, he would find little reasons to brush up against me or touch me.
We didn’t want a messy breakup if we didn’t work out, so we decided to see where our relationship would go without the club’s influence.
After all, I had only planned to stay for the summer.
As that summer came to a close, I was wholeheartedly in love with that man and planning to spend the rest of my life with him.
The day before he was arrested, we decided to come clean to the club.
Only three people knew that Trey and I were dating: Harley, Scarlett, and Rock.
Any information I gathered about Trey’s case after he was arrested came from them, but after that pregnancy test, I cut all contact with them, hoping to ease not only my heartache but also Trey’s incarceration.
Harley called me for months after I left, begging me to call her back, but I knew that if I picked up the phone, I would tell her everything.
I never found out whether he would serve the full twenty years in prison; my heart just couldn’t handle the answer.
I figured I would at least have to wait until the four-year mark to see if Trey gets out, and then go from there.
But here I am with my little proof in tow; everything will come out now, whether I’m ready or not.
Five hours into my trip, I pull up to the last gas station before the clubhouse.
It’s eleven at night, and the store has just closed.
The neon and onning lights still illuminate the parking lot.
I pull into the empty gas station and set my purse on my lap to make myself look presentable.
After putting my hair up in a messy bun and applying some fresh makeup, I hear a giggle from the back seat.
I turn and look at my wild man. “Fijor, you’re awake.
” I reach into the back seat and tickle his pajama-clad foot.
The footy pajamas are covered in monster trucks.
This kid is obsessed with anything with an engine.
As if you couldn’t tell by the little blue motorcycle he carries around, courtesy of his papa Beaver, the one he got for his second birthday.
Fijor returns the gesture by giggling wildly and shouting for a snack.
Like clockwork, he wakes up wanting to eat.
But with him last eating dinner back in Little Rock, it’s not a stretch that he’s hungry. The kid is a bottomless pit.
I reach into his backpack, which is also in the passenger seat, and pull out a bag of his goldfish. “Here, son,” I say, handing him the opened snack. “What do we say?”
“Thank you,” he garbles around a mouthful of goldfish.
I hand him back his water bottle, decorated with motorcycles.
“Smaller bites, Fijor. It’s not a race, little man,” I chide.
“Okay, let’s blow this popsicle stand, kid, and see Papa.
” I turn on some upbeat music to get me pumped for the last 15 minutes of the trip from the gas station to the compound.
Hopefully, I won't have to do much explaining tonight. Maybe most of the members will be out. On the other end of the spectrum, the clubhouse is probably swarming right now. Since Stud got shot, my dad’s phone has been going straight to voicemail, and I don’t know the club’s landline.
I’m going to the clubhouse blind to what’s going on.
All I know is that Stud has been shot, and some rival psycho is hell-bent on using me and Fijor as bargaining chips for what?
I don’t know. Something about territory.
Shit. Stud is my dad’s best friend, and has been for my whole life, which has complicated my relationship with Trey.
My heart clenches for his family, especially Harley and Trey.
Stud is a wonderful man, crass but a complete family man.
Whenever I’ve interacted with him, he’s always made me feel like part of the family.
Tears slide down my cheeks as I face the unknown, and here I am, just adding to their shit pile.
The second I walk into the compound with Fijor, everyone will put two and two together.
Especially if Beth and Tank are there, they’ll take one look at Fijor and have the full picture without asking a single question.
Yet another reason I’ve stayed away. All the Anderson boys look identical, with wavy black hair, dimples, gray eyes, and built like overgrown Vikings. Fuck! I squeal in anxiety.
I turn down the radio as I pull up to the front gate.
Whereas the drive from the gas station to the compound has been pitch black, except for my headlights, the compound is a flurry of activity.
My eyes are wide with shock. It looks like a packed football stadium.
Lights surround the compound, with RVs, cars, and bikes, and men in leather everywhere.
Guards patrol the fences, and 4 men stand at the guard tower, loaded with automatic rifles.
I’m so screwed. On the bright side, I know Fijor and I will be safe here.