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Willa looked at the men who were busy talking and not paying us any attention. “They didn’t tell us so we couldn’t testify against them, if it came to that.”
I blinked. “Wait, are you saying they’re involved in?—”
“Not anymore,” Willa hastened to say. “The club was involved in some bad stuff, but they’re not anymore. They’re moving in a different direction.”
“That doesn’t ease my fears,” I said. “It just makes it sound like they moved from morally black to morally gray.”
“I get it,” Logan said. “It was hard for me to wrap my brain around it as well.”
“So how did you?” I asked.
“I chose to focus on how Smoke treated me and how he made me feel over anything else,” Logan explained. “It’s not easy. Choosing to be with a man like Smoke. I didn’t grow up in this world. It was like traveling to a foreign country where I didn’t speak the language. It had me questioning what I was doing several times. On paper, my ex was the guy. He checked all the boxes. He said the right things, knew the right people. But in the end, he was a piece of shit.”
I knew what that was like. Being with the right man. And when the chips were down, he’d left me.
“These men won’t lie to you,” Willa said. “They’re going to be evasive; they’re not going to include you in what’s going on with the club. That’s just how it’s been done for as long as anyone can remember. But with them, what you see is what you get. Bones spending time with you the way he is…it matters. It means something. And if you let it, it can be real.”
“Things are changing, though,” Logan said. “With the club, I mean.”
“How so?” I asked, intrigued even though I knew I should run far, far away.
“The club has moved in a different direction, so how they treat the Old Ladies has changed too. Not a lot. I mean, they don’t run business ideas by us. We’re still not included in that kind of stuff…but recently, when things affect the entire club, we’ve all been informed. We’re a family and we operate like a family business.”
I took a sip of water to bathe my parched throat.
“But if you’re not an Old Lady, things are buttoned up even tighter. So where you are in your relationship with Bones…you won’t know anything because he’s not allowed to discuss it with you. Hell, Duke doesn’t discuss stuff with me either, but sometimes he can and then I’ll know.”
Logan nodded. “It’s the same with Smoke.”
“It’s like the mafia,” I murmured. “They keep their women out of it.”
“Yes,” Willa agreed.
“So, Bones won’t ever tell me anything. Not unless I become an Old Lady.”
“And there’s no guarantee that he will then, either,” Logan said.
“But there’s more of a chance that he could if you were his Old Lady,” Willa said.
“It sounds complicated,” I stated.
“It’s not. It’s a trust thing,” Willa said. “He’s not gonna tell a woman who’s not committed to him and his way of life if she’s going to bail.”
“I see,” I said slowly. I was turning over their words, trying to compute them.
“And you’re not all-in because you’re not sure about Bones and the club,” Logan said.
“I’m not all-in because this will affect my life in ways I can’t even fathom. I don’t do things like this. I’ve never done anything like this in my life.”
“Anything like what?” Willa asked. “Spend time with gutter trash?”
I flinched. “No. I didn’t mean it that way. Not even a little bit. But you’ve got to understand…my world is tuxedos and trust funds, glitz and galas…not guns and bloody knuckles.”
“Your world sounds cold,” Willa said. “No offense.”
“None taken. I just…how do I even explain this? I’ve always done the right thing.”
“How’s that worked out for you?” Logan asked.
