Page 107 of Deacon

“Lila.” The warning in my name had worked on me for most of my life. This time it only made me angrier.

“No.” I gripped the phone harder. “You do not get to decide this for me, and you do not get to decide it for Jade. I’m sorry you’re upset, but we’re going, and that’s the end of it.”

He was still talking when I ended the call, his voice cutting off under my thumb. My pulse hammered high in my throat, and the faint shake in my hand irritated me more than the argument itself. I set the phone on the counter, poured fresh coffee, and tried to convince my body the confrontation was over.

My phone rang again before I made it out of the kitchen. Matty’s name lit the screen, because apparently Dad had wasted no time calling reinforcements. I answered with a sharp, “What?”

“Really, Li?” He came at me without bothering with hello. “You’re skipping Sunday family dinner with us for him? Dad is pissed. More pissed than I’ve ever heard him. I can’t believe you’re choosing him over us.”

There it was again. Choosing. As if Jade loving one part of her family automatically stole something from another. I pressed two fingers against the ache starting behind my eyes. “I am not choosing him over you.”

“That’s sure what it looks like.” He sounded so certain that my frustration tipped toward anger.

“He is Jade’s father,” I said, every word clipped now. “She wants to get to know him. She deserves to get to know him.”

Matty’s anger sharpened into something uglier. “And exactly how did that happen to be, Lila?” He didn’t give me time to answer before driving the point deeper. “Him becoming Jade’s father, huh? Tell me that.”

His question turned my anger cold. He had every right to be hurt by Jackson’s disappearance. He had no right to make my pregnancy, my relationship, or that night into ammunition.

“Matty,” I said, keeping my voice low because shouting would only drag me onto his ground, “I am not getting into this with you right now.”

“Convenient.” The contempt in that single word landed on the wrong nerve.

“No. Necessary.” My voice had gone cold enough to match the anger under it. “When you want to have a calm conversation about me and Jackson, then maybe we can talk. But until then, it is none of your business. None at all.”

His disbelieving sound scraped over the last of my patience. I still knew where his anger came from, and that made it harder rather than easier. “I know you’re hurt,” I said. “I get it, and I am sorry. But this is my story. Not yours. So back off.”

I hung up before he could answer and stood in the kitchen with the phone still in my hand, anger tangled with guilt and a headache taking root behind my eyes. This was what I had feared from the moment Jackson walked back into our lives. Not merely arguments. Division.

Jade had spent sixteen years surrounded by people who loved her. Now the father she had always wondered about was finally here, and every step she took toward him risked being treated like a step away from everyone else. Dad and Matty could be furious with me if they needed to be. I could take it.

Jade should never have to choose between the family that raised her and the father she was only beginning to know. I looked toward the hallway where she was getting ready and felt the responsibility settle where the guilt had been. Whatever came next, I would stand between her and anyone who tried to turn love into a loyalty test.

The Saints’ compound looked exactly like the kind of place my father would hate on sight. That was my first thought when I climbed out of the car. Not because the place was dirty or chaotic. It wasn’t. The fencing, solid buildings, and rows of motorcycles gave it the order of somewhere built by people who expected to defend what belonged to them. Men moved through the yard with the ease of home ground. Kids darted between adults. Nothing about it felt temporary.

Evan stepped out of his car in sunglasses and attitude, looking far too delighted for a man voluntarily entering a biker compound on a Sunday afternoon. “Well,” he said, taking in the grounds, “this is aggressively biker.”

His joke loosened a little of the tension the calls with Dad and Matty had left in me. I shut my door. “That tends to happen at biker compounds.”

He surveyed another row of bikes with exaggerated consideration. “I’m just saying. The aesthetic commitment is impressive.”

Jade barely heard us. Her attention stayed fixed on the clubhouse, searching before we had even started walking. She tried to disguise it as curiosity, but I knew my daughter too well.

Blue met us halfway across the yard with Little Jax on her hip. Relief flickered across her face when she reached us, and the property cut on her back still did something strange to me. Days ago, she had been showing it off in my apartment. Here, surrounded by the club, it looked less like an announcement and more like belonging.

“Hey,” she said. “You came.”

Evan kissed her cheek, incapable of answering normally. “You invited babe,” he said. “Also, if you thought I was going to miss your official queen debut, you have wildly misunderstood me.”

Blue laughed softly. “Come on.”

Inside, the clubhouse carried the warm noise of a place already deep into family day. A long bar anchored the back of the room, while leather couches and pool tables filled the open space between scattered tables crowded with food, bottles, club members, Old Ladies, and children. The kids belonged in the room as naturally as anyone else. One little boy tore past with another on his heels while a tiny girl in bright sneakers chased them until somebody called for all of them to slow down.

The ordinary family rhythm unsettled every warning Dad had thrown at me that morning. This was still an outlaw motorcycle club. I knew that. Beyond the main room, a hallway led toward offices and stairs to the upper floors, while one heavy wooden door stayed shut beneath the Saints symbol carved deep into its surface. There were parts of this place outsiders didn’t enter. But what I could see held laughter, babies, plates piled with food, and men checking where their children had disappeared to.

Priest found Blue almost as soon as we were inside. His hand settled at her lower back before he leaned in to murmur something against her temple, and whatever he said made her smile as she passed Little Jax into his waiting arms. The exchange was easy, practiced. Family.

A moment later, Priest stepped forward with Blue beside him and their son tucked securely against his chest. The noise dipped enough to register as respect rather than silence. I couldn’t hear everything he said, but I didn’t need to. Bottles lifted. Somebody whistled, a hand slapped a nearby table, and a rough cheer rolled through the room. Blue flushed while Priest stood beside her with the unmistakable satisfaction of a man publicly claiming the family he had nearly lost.