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She never complained, not even when Vivi showed her the room she would live in while she healed. The room was nothing more than a box with a window, barren drab walls, scuffed hardwood floors, and tattered furniture. The only thing new in that room was the hospital bed she was sleeping in. She could recover in the finest facilities her money could buy, and she chose a run-down clubhouse in Southwestern Oklahoma.
The woman was a mystery.
When did she die?
My head snapped up.
“What?”
The woman you loved. How long ago?
Narrowing my eyes, I said nothing.
The woman also saw past all the bullshit. That was the main reason I avoided her. I refused to think about the other. It didn’t matter, anyway. Soon Kali would be back on her feet and she and her heathens would be gone. The Diamondback M.C. was no place for a woman like her. Until she was gone, she was my responsibility and just being in the same room with her had me alert. It didn’t matter because she saw everything.
She sighed. Her eyes took on a haunted look before she turned to her phone and started typing.
I never really knew my mother. She died when I was three from breast cancer. My father died two years later from a motorcycle accident. All I had was Kole and Grandfather, but I was a little girl. Neither knew what to do with me. I didn’t understand why people kept dying, why they kept leaving me. No one really explained death to me. When Kole left, he decimated me. I was so angry. I lost my best friend. Grandfather tried to be what I needed, but he could only do so much. Then John showed up. When he asked me to marry him, I didn’t think twice. I said yes. I’d been around death so much it suffocated me. Grandfather never got over dad’s death. You see, I know death. There is a look death leaves behind. I see it in all your eyes. It’s the same look my grandfather has that I have. You can’t escape it. Neither can I.
“She died five years ago.”
Tell me about her.
I don’t know why I did it. Perhaps it was the way she looked at me. Maybe it was her calm nature. Maybe it was because I knew she wouldn’t judge me. Hell, it still bugged me, but before I could stop myself, I spoke.
“Katie was just everything. Beautiful, smart, funny, shy. Piss her off and she had no problem putting anyone in their place. I met her at a club party one night and just knew. She was mine. I fucking worshiped the ground she walked on. Ain’t ashamed to admit it. She had me wrapped around her finger. We got married shortly after that. A few weeks after we married, Katie learned she was pregnant. The club celebrated our good fortune and the ol’ ladies started planning. Katie was eight months pregnant when I was on a run to Wichita Falls. We had just finished up with our business and stopped to get something to eat before we headed back when I got the call and learned someone attacked the club.
“When we arrived home, first responders swarmed the clubhouse with police, firefighters, paramedics, you name it. I saw several police officers throwing up, paramedics that looked ready to pass out. I dropped my bike and tried to run inside. Conroy tried to stop me. He told me I didn’t want to go in there, but my Katie was in there. She was sleeping in our room when I left. I had to. The carnage was something out of a horror movie. I’ve never seen anything like it. By the time I made it to our room, I already knew what I was going to find. Only it was much worse. My Katie lay on the bed. Her eyes staring up at the ceiling. There was blood everywhere. Someone tore her clothes from her body. Her beautiful face was black and blue. They raped and beat my pregnant wife before stabbing her to death. But that wasn’t the worst part. They’d ripped my son from her body and slit his throat.”
By the time I finished, I looked up at Kali to find tears rolling down her face. I still couldn’t believe I just spilled my guts. I’d never spoken to anyone about Katie.
The wound was still raw.
Three
Kali
Kansas was not what I expected.
When Montana told me he was sending me and the kids to Oklahoma, that his brother would watch over us until the Soulless Sinners found my ex-husband, I thought he was talking about Arizona, or maybe Dakota. In fact, I was sure that Montana told me once that he only had two brothers. So, when he told me he was sending me to his brother, Kansas, I was confused.
Looking at the man before me, I saw the familiar family resemblance. Kansas and Montana looked remarkably alike. They could almost be twins. Yet where Montana was graying at the temples, Kansas showed no signs of age. Both men were drop dead gorgeous, but there was something about Kansas that set him apart from Montana. While Montana was all crass and rough around the edges, there was a softness, a kindness that Kansas exuded, and Montana lacked.
Though the brothers shared familiar similarities, they were worlds apart. There was something about Kansas that called to me. I could see the pain and sorrow in his eyes. The man never hid it. He wore it proudly, like a cloak of armor. Yet, at night, when I was at my lowest, he shed that cloak and came to me. He would hold me until my last tear fell, and I fell asleep in his arms. However, during those dark nights wrapped in his strong arms, when my pain became too much, I felt his submission as he too, gave into his own nightmares, letting them out. Only once did I wake early in the morning to find him still wrapped around me. Just once. But that one time told me everything I needed to know about the man. Even the strongest man needed the softness of comfort.
I wanted to ask him so many times what troubled him. What had ripped his heart from his chest leaving the shell of a man that sat before me now. I don’t know where the courage came to ask, but I was happy, yet saddened, that I did.
Never in my life had I ever heard something so horrendous. My heart broke for Kansas and the rest of the club members. To come home and find what they did was unthinkable. Kansas was right. It was something out of a horror movie. No horror movie I’d ever seen. I couldn’t imagine the grief and despair he was dealing with.
Here I was wallowing in my despair when Kansas and the rest of the club were dealing with their own grief. A tragedy that rivaled my own. They had been for five years now. How did someone ever move on from something like that? I’d experienced death, but nothing on the scale of the Diamondbacks.
That explained the hardened, lifeless looks in their eyes.
When I first met the club brothers, I wasn’t sure about them. I’d never met such rugged and brutal looking men before, but they welcomed me and my children into their clubhouse.
No questions asked.
Out of all the brothers, Kansas was the one I was most curious about. I knew he was the President of the club. Voted in after the massacre, even though he was never an officer. I didn’t really understand until Vivi explained it to me one day. In fact, she explained a lot to me about club life. It was eye-opening, to say the least.
