This is home now, I remind myself.
Mom died and Dad lost his shit, gave up the gavel in Detroit in favor of leading the California Nomads, and moved me and Michele out here—to Fort Bragg. Just like he promised, Wyatt followed, and just like my dad promised, the Fort Bragg Forsaken have accepted me as one of their own. It wasn’t a given that Fort Bragg would recognize me as Wyatt’s old lady since Detroit was where I was voted in, but they have. Not that it means much right now, because Wyatt still wears his Detroit patch. He’s hesitant to talk to Jim about being patched in to Fort Bragg—mostly because it means leaving Rig, his mentor, but also because his mom is still in Michigan—but I have faith that the longer he continues to work with the brothers out here, the more comfortable he’ll feel making this change permanent.
“Shouldn’t you be at home?” my sister asks from behind me. She’s one to talk. The little twerp is barely sixteen. I’d know her voice anywhere, but especially here. It’s one of the few things that remind me of a time when our mom was alive and everything was normal. Mom died just over a year ago, but it feels like it’s been eons since she took her final breath.
“You’re kidding me, right?” I turn around, waiting to roll my eyes until she has the benefit of seeing my displeasure for herself, and place a hand on my belly. “Does Dad even know you’re here?”
“I doubt he even knows where he is,” she says and rolls her eyes. I don’t argue because she has a point. Since Mom died, our dad’s been semipermanently checked out, and ever since he dumped us in Fort Bragg, he’s been MIA except for the few times he’s popped into town to make sure we’re still alive. “Besides, it’s not like anything’s happening tonight anyway.”
“Just don’t get anybody arrested,” I say and give her the best of my serious expressions. She likes to flirt with the brothers and prospects, but she’s way underage, and I don’t want to see anyone doing time for tapping her—even if she’s asking for it. Mom was great at dirty looks. Michele never acted like this when Mom was still alive. Our mom never failed to convey her displeasure with a single look. She seriously gave the best hairy eyeball I’ve ever seen—and I’ve seen a lot of hairy eyeballs. I don’t do them nearly as well as she did, judging by the flippant expression on my little sister’s face. She’s such a little bitch sometimes.
“Yeah, yeah,” she says and walks off toward the front door. I have to give up trying to play mom with that one. Pretty soon I’m going to have my hands full with my own kid, and Michele is going to be left to her own devices.
God help her.
I leave all thoughts of my sister behind as I make my way down the hall to the pleasure palace. We don’t talk about it, but I know damn well that Wyatt hangs out in here more than he should. And considering his old lady is knocked up and waddling, he shouldn’t be hanging out in here at all. But the brothers play by their own rules, and they don’t give a damn what I think. The chaos of the clubhouse dies down the farther I get down the hall. Men walk by me, some in cuts and some not. They don’t pay me any mind, and I like it that way. I’m not supposed to be here, and anybody who knows me well enough knows that. It’s not like Rage gives a shit what I do, but Wyatt told me to stay home in front of everyone, and that means I’m to stay home. Your old man’s word is law when it comes to the club, and it doesn’t matter that it’s total bullshit. It only matters that that’s what he wants, and so I’m to stay home.
But it doesn’t feel like home, and I don’t like it there. I don’t like my bed because it smells like other women no matter how many times I change the sheets. It’s not the kitchen my mom used to make pancakes in. It’s not the bathroom I used to fight with Michele over. As much as I want to make this place work for me—for our little family—it just doesn’t feel like home yet.
Knowing my man is here with other women and high off his ass makes staying home feel like a prison sentence. And my only crime was falling in love with a liar.
The double doors of the pleasure palace open, and a group of people stumble out. I move out of their way and steel myself for making it through those doors but pause when I see a familiar face. Rig, Detroit’s new president and my dad’s former VP, stands in the doorway with his eyes fixed on me. Great.
“Go home, babe,” he says with a shake of his head.
“That an order?”
He shrugs his shoulders and looks around, then says, “No, but it should be. Your old man’s gonna be pissed.”
“I know,” I say. Rig’s always been good to me. He doesn’t treat me like a kid like a lot of my dad’s brothers do. “I can’t take it anymore. I know the code, Rig, but he doesn’t even try to hide what he’s doing.”
“You remember what we talked about when you were voted in?”