Always (Wesson Rebel M.C. Series) (5 page)

Flipside
Danny
 

I glance down at the two
women who mean the most to me. For the first time, I can remember this is something I can’t fix. I gather my fragmented thoughts and run a hand through my hair.
“Yeah, I’m here. Come on, Cora. Let’s get you home. I’m sure R would like to see his mother.”

She blinks
and I watch the fire come back into her eyes. You don’t get to mess with this mama bear when it comes to her cub.

“Oh
, my God, R.” She takes a deep breath and dashes the tears from her face. “Of course, I need to be strong for him.”

“Hey, you’re not alone, you know that, right?” I ask
, looking at Rowan who nods.

“Never,
Baby Girl. You know we and the rest of Wesson, always have you.”

A s
hutter comes down over her eyes and her face takes on a harsh expression I’ve never seen before. “It’s time I take care of myself I think,” Cora says.

The words are a blow to my already fragile
headspace. It’s like the world's gone insane, and toppled on its head. My brain feels like it’s going to explode at any moment. I curse the day we left the club and tried to branch out to college. I knew this shit was going to boil over. Maybe if I’d been here, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Everyone has their role to play in life and mine has always been the restorer. I clean up the messes Dallas makes, it’s how we function. Because with the weight placed on him, he doesn’t have the luxury of niceties. Add another line to my list of sins and disappointments. I wrap my arms around the girls’ shoulders and mentally retrace the steps that led us here.

Past
 

The sound of the Wesson ringtone in the middle of the night wakes me. I fumble blindly and snatch th
e phone off my nightstand. “Yeah?”

“Danny man, I miss you.”

The drunken sound of my older brother makes me laugh. “Yeah, I miss you too, Dall. What’s going on?”

“Had it out…with Cora.” His words slur
.

“
Oh yeah, and how did that go?”

Rowan stirs in the bed beside me. I run
a comforting hand down her back and slip out of bed. This isn’t club business. This is Dallas drama.

“Not sure. Had to break through that shell she’s placed
around herself.”

“Yeah
.” I shut the bedroom door behind me, gently and sit on the couch. “Did you call me just to tell me that?”

“Nope, guess I needed uh—
moral support.”

I snort. “Alright
, I think I can swing that.”

“Were you asleep?”

“Uh, Yeah, it’s like two in the morning.”

“But you’re in college. Shouldn’t
you be out partying and shit?”

“Ro and I have done enough of that. If we want to get in and out of here, we need to pay atte
ntion in class.”

“Boring, if I were you two
, I’d be living it up right now.”

I shake my head. “How’s shit down that way?” It wasn’t like Dallas to call me just to share his feelings. Usually
, I get the run off when he’s stressing.

“The air is getting he
avy, brother,” Dallas says.

“Oh yeah?” I
try to read between the lines.

“Yeah, dark days are
coming.”

I close my eyes tight
and massage my temples. War would be arriving sooner than I thought. I’m not ready for the type of devastation that shit brought. We’ve lost enough already.

“I’m trying to get shit squared ahead of time with Cora before I’m hitting the pavement regularly. She’s fucking stubborn as shit though.”

The switch of topics is enough to make me dizzy, but I’d grown used to the way his frazzled mind works. “Yeah, she is Rufus’ daughter.”

“Just rub that shit in, why don’t you? From the minute, she fucking looked at
me in the hospital that was it and you know it.”

I smirked. I could vaguely recall my five-year-old brother besotted by the brown skinned bundle Uncle Rufus carried around like a priceless heirloom. “You could’ve prote
cted her without being with her,” I point out.

“There’d be a trail of dead bodies behind her if I hadn’t steppe
d up when I did,” Dallas says.

“Yeah, I hear you.” I think about the red-haired witch in my bed. I’ve never seen anyone but her from the time we hit our preteens. It made sense being together as
MC Kids, but our compatibility was rare. Of course with Brain as her father, she’d be smart as shit.

“How’s Irish
?”

“Good, missing everyone back home. Bu
t she’s enjoying the classes.”

“Yea
h, well, she would,” Dallas replies.

“Don’t
make it sound like a bad thing.”

“I never got you two and this need to devour bo
oks. Shit makes my head hurt.”

“
I feel the same way about all the club shit you have to keep up with. Better you than I, any day. It’s quiet there, so I’m going to assume you’re at home?”

“Yeah. Just needed to deal with
the shit going on in my head.”

“Mo
re than you and Cora?” I prod.

Dallas sighs heavily. “Shit
, yes.”

“But y
ou can’t say?” I ask frowning.

“Unsecure line,”
Dallas replies automatically.

Red flags flap in my head. “You need
me to come home this weekend?”

“I think it’d be wise.”

“Alright, we’ll head down first thing in the morning.”

“Thanks brother, I’ll s
ee you when you get in, yeah?”

“See you then, man.” I hang up
, feeling like the quiet before the storm will soon end. Setting the phone alarm for three hours from now, I make my way back into the bedroom and slip under the covers beside Rowan.

“Ev
erything okay?” Rowan murmurs.

“Drunken
Dall spilled some secrets. We’re headed down their way tomorrow.”

She glanced at me o
ver her shoulder. “Is it bad?”

“Not yet, but I thin
k it’s going to get that way.”

Rowan closes her eyes. Her brow furrows, bringing her two slim eyebrows close together in th
e middle. “I don’t like this.”

“Me either, Ro. That’s why we
’re going to check it out firsthand.”

“College was
good while it lasted, right?” she asks.

“Don’t give up on it just yet. If they wanted us down
there before this, they would’ve asked.”

“Three months
is more than I expected to get out of this move anyways.” She burrows in against me.

I wrap my arms around
her waist, holding her tight. “Same here.” The first thing you learned, growing up…club came first. They drilled it into your head until it became a mantra. A way of life you lived and died by. You bleed for your club, hold them down, keep secrets and sacrifice, because in the end, it’s all for the greater good. People see my cut and think it’s glamorous. Truth be told, it’s a burden and a curse. You’re held accountable like a fucking soldier twenty-four seven, but they do take care of their own.

Sometimes
, the good outweighs the bad and other times, it’s all you can do not to eat a bullet. A person can only take so much death, loss and pain. Wesson had been in mourning, but now we’re ready to ride on those who’d wronged us. The battle will get bloody before it gets better. Rolling Bones had a decent number of members and a reason to fight. They wanted to grow and Wesson had shit on lock. It never ceases to amaze me what a man would do for land and power. Forcing my brain to shut down I close my eyes, I have a drive to make.

The wind
on my face, the purr of my bike and my lady riding bitch did nothing to settle my nerves a few hours later. Every mile we gained added more stress. What did Dallas rattle loose? The man is a freaking tank. He blew up often, but him being shook frightens me. We rolled up to the compound and two prospects came up to the gate.

Flex and Shifty nodded at me
and opened up the gates.

“Damn, two of them on guard
and did you notice that gate was reinforced?” Rowan nods toward the gate.

“Yeah, I did.” I roll into the parking lot and park my bike at the end of the row. We dism
ount and head inside the club.

“Oh shit, college boy is back!”

I flip them off and laugh, accepting the hugs and slaps on the back as we were surrounded by family. There’s no feeling like coming home to the place you belonged. Nostalgia rushes up, wiping away all the reasons I enjoyed being away. I answer the questions flying at me and scan the area for Dallas. “Where the hell is Dallas?”

“Shit, stil
l holed up with, Baby Girl,” my dad says, stepping into the crowd. “It’s been a rough week, Rufus crashed a few times.”

Rufus was in the hospital in a coma.
“What? Why didn’t anyone tell us?” Rowan asks. Her face screws up into a horrified expression.

“We’ve had our hands full
, trying to deal with the fallout. It got pretty ugly,” Rule says, pinning her with a glare.

Rowan bows her head, silenced.

I run a hand over my face. “How is he now?” I ask.
“Stable.”

“And Cora?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Shaky, but solid.”

We never should’ve left. My family is falling apart and I’m being kept out of the loop. I can feel the chasm beginning to grow between us and the life we’ve lived since we were born. Torn between dreams and reality, I straddle the fence in my mind. Do I come back, or stick it out up there? The wheels in my head spin furiously. I glance down at Rowan.

Her darkened eyes show me she too
, is conflicted.

“Dad you shouldn’t have kept this
from us. We’re family,” I say.

“Once he was stable, we didn’t want to alarm you. We took it to vote and de
cided to wait until the weekend and low and behold here you are saving me the trouble of calling.”

I bite the inside of my cheek and clench my jaw. I don’t agree
with it, but dad’s word is law and I know better than to question it. There’s the downfall of having your father being the president. “Roger, P.”
Dad narrows his eyes at me and his nostrils flair.

I know he hates it when I get formal. It’s my own form of
rebellion. The polite fuck you and he knows it. It’s the only disrespect I can get away with without having the
taste slapped out of my mouth,
as Cora would say. This shit shredded my nerves like gravel scraping across skin. Being held to a certain place in the hierarchy, forced to keep your true thoughts and opinions to yourself. I wasn’t a robot. I couldn’t be like Dallas and spend my life trying to be Daddy’s perfect little rider. There were times I resented my father so much, it made me sick to my stomach.

“You got somethi
ng you want to say?” Dad asks.

I got years of shit I’d like to say right now. I flex my muscles, fighting down the urge to
unload. Rowan leans against me and I glance down. She’s begging me with her eyes to stop. A knock down drag out on our first day back isn’t what we need. So, I swallow that shit down, the same way I always do. “No, P, I ain’t got shit to say,” I push the words out, clamping the lid down on my anger.

He steps closer
and I wrap my arm around Rowan, squeezing her hip to keep myself grounded. Sometimes, I think he gets off on this posturing. Breathe in…breathe out. I focus on the simple bodily functions and meet his gaze.
I’m pissed, but I’m not going to challenge you old man
. The crown was an invisible object my father constantly defended at all costs. I think this fucker loves it more than he could ever love me or Dallas. Times like this, I can’t help but wish my mom were still around. Would shit be different if she were?

“Good, let’
s keep it that way.” Dad nods.

“I’m going to go drag Dalla
s into the land of the living,” I say, turning with Rowan in my arms.

“Not so fast there quick draw. I want to spend some t
ime with my girl,” Brain says.

“Meet you b
ack here in a few?” I ask Rowan.

She nods and smiles…
such a daddy’s girl.

I’ve always envied her close bond with her father. Brain had a softness about him that drew us all in. He knew how to give advice and tell you the harsh truth from a place of concern. In many ways, he was more of a father to me and Dallas than
our own. Maybe something in my dad died along with our mother. They always looked so happy in the old pictures I’d seen. The imagery at odds with the road weary man I’d grown up with.