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“Goddamn it. It’s gonna come out now about you and me, Boo, and it won’t be pretty. That sister, she’s got a mouth the size of a hippo, for Christ’s sake. She can’t keep a secret, even if someone promised her a million dollars. Damn, we don’t need this right now. The club is finally starting to settle down. After Vixen’s drama, including her announcement of her pregnancy, life has started to calm down. This could, son of a bitch, with our club still involved with that racist group and trying to break up their circuit, don’t need any more drama. Boo, you got nothing to say? Aren’t you upset?”
He just stares at me with those beautiful eyes, saying nothing. He flips over and then sits up. In a second, he’s on his feet picking his jeans off the floor, then his shirt, before sitting and grabbing his socks and boots. I just stand here watching him get dressed. What is wrong with him? We need to talk about this and he’s just gonna up and run. Great, when the going gets tough my Boo just leaves. I go to grab his arm and he steps back so I can’t.
“Do me a favor, Nora, don’t touch me. Forget about this shit we been doing, seems like it’s something ya already regret, so I’m gonna go back home and you can get on with whatever you need to. I’ll see ya around.”
No fucking way am I letting him walk out on me. Not after all we’ve shared. I’m not doing this right so this time I grab his arm, pulling on it as he walks by. I didn’t even see it coming, but one minute I have my hand gripping his upper arm and the next I’m in a squat all wrapped up with him on top of me, his legs securing mine down while his hands are wrapped around my upper arms, holding me down.
“I told you not to touch me, Bae. Now I’m gonna go. If we bump into each other, might be better if we keep it personable but distant. Again, sorry this shit was, fuck, I don’t even know. Thought you were different, Nora, but guess not. Another crazy female who can’t see what’s right in front of her own nose.”
In less than five seconds he is off me and walking out the door, though he stops when he steps into the hallway, turns around, and literally pulls my heart out of my chest.
“We had something, or at least I thought we were working toward it. Then you go and act like a high school girl who doesn’t want her friends to know she’s dating. Well, sorry to inform you,Glory, but one day I hope you look back and see what you gave up, and the funny thing is, I have no idea why you’re so afraid to let others know you’re involved with me. I’m a grown-ass man who served our country, and now I’m a brother with the Intruders so not a fuckin’ bum. Makes me feel like shit, gotta tell ya.”
With his eyes on me, I walk toward him and know he won’t hurt me, even if his life depended on it. I reach out with both hands and grab his arms, pulling him back into my room. Once he’s back in my room and the door is closed, I wrap my arms around his neck and stand really close to him. His arms stay rigid at his sides, telling me how pissed off he is. Then I give it to him, no holding back.
“Boo, before coming out to Montana and joining the Devil’s Handmaidens, well shit, before I was involved in the Handmaidens club out East, something happened that really fucked with me. I met Gino in first year of college and, long story short, I got pregnant and we got married. We had Lilly and our lives were on the road to awesome. Then his brother, Oscar, started getting weirder and weirder. Things started happening that we couldn’t explain. Then I got pregnant again and we were beyond excited. When I was maybe eight or ten weeks pregnant our home was broken into. It was Gino’s brother, Oscar, and our nightmare began. He held me captive as his prisoner for over two years. For the first two weeks he beat me daily until I lost my baby. Then the sadist in him came out.
“Not sure how, but since the Devil’s Handmaidens mission out East is very similar to ours here in Montana, which is to save trafficked and abused women and children. When Harlow, Peppermint, and Momma somehow heard some gossip about a crazy as fuck dude holding women against their will and pimping them out, they took action. That’s what happened, they broke down the door and saw me chained to the wall. They rescued me along with two other girls, also chained to walls in the other bedrooms. He was also abusing and pimping them out. Momma almost killed him with hot oil and a cast iron skillet. That day changed my life forever. Even after all this time, I still have moments when I fear the day will come when he gets out and comes after me because he’s been very vocal that he blames me. He threatened and yelled that I will never have anyone in my life because it was my fault the Devil’s Handmaidens had him on their radar. Doesn’t matter it was his huge mouth and asshole ways that brought the club looking for him because he was bragging about the whores he could do anything to, and he would pimp them out for the right amount of money. After I was a member and shit kept coming my way, my prez came to me, asking if I wanted to transfer to get away from everything, and I jumped at the chance.
“That’s how I came here to Timber-Ghost and to the Devil’s Handmaidens in Montana. Tink and I hit it off, though Shadow and I had to do some work. She thought I was going to take Tink away from her. Once she realized I just wanted—no, needed—some sort of family in my life she chilled out. When Tink offered me the VP patch, I jumped at it. Our old VP took off with her ol’ man, who was going up to Alaska to work the pipeline. He was some kind of an engineer. She’s kept in touch with the sisters over the years. And to this day I’ve never heard from Gino. Raven has tried to find him and Lilly, but it’s like they disappeared from the face of the earth.
“So yeah, I’m scared shitless to share about us to anyone because you’re special to me, and I don’t want to take a chance that the lunatic or whoever he’s associated with would get wind. If something happened to you, don’t know what I’d do. Please don’t leave me.”
Watching his face, I see it when he gets why I am like I am. Grabbing me close, he draws me in and holds on tightly. I can’t lose him too. I don’t care who finds out, as long as he’s with me I can handle anything.
SIX
‘TINK’
MAGGIE\GOLDILOCKS
I’m sitting at the old desk Pops gave me when Shadow and I started the Devil’s Handmaidens club, back in the day, in our clubhouse in town. What I’m about to do goes against everything that is me but I’m worried as shit about my VP and friend. For months I’ve noticed Glory isn’t herself, and watching her with Olivia is the only time she seems even relatively happy. That little girl, even with everything she’s been through, is coming out of her shell nicely.
And to my utter surprise, all she can talk about is when she’s old enough she’s going to become a Devil’s Handmaidens sister. One of the sisters, not sure who, maybe Peanut or Heartbreaker came into town and had our seamstress at the cleaners make a mini kutte for Olivia. The look on that little girl’s face was priceless. She ran right to Glory to show her favorite person in the world how she’s an ‘honorary’ mini sister of the club. My VP watched her with such love and adoration in her eyes it was awesome to see.
Besides that, Glory has become half of the person she used to be. Not sure why as we have no pending cases that we are working on currently, except the continued one trying to break up the Thunder Club Knuckle Brotherhood. Though that shouldn’t be any concern to Glory the only connection is our club as far, as I know.
So deep in thought I literally jump at the double knock on the door, which tells me it’s my VP.
“Come on in, Glory.”
The door opens and she walks in. Damn, she looks tired for sure but there is something else in her eyes I can’t make out. Maybe despair, worry, or shit, she looks scared. What the hell is going on?
“Hey, Tink, you texted you wanted to see me? Something going on or did we get another trafficking circuit we need to bring down and break up? Shit, we still have some of the women and children from Juice’s. I know some of the women went back to their families but the others are still here on the ranch. I know for a fact two of them want to stay permanently and are working to learn ranch duties with some of the sisters. From what I hear, one is really good with the large animals, while the other is pretty handy with a hammer. She’s been helping check fencing and shit like that.”
“Yeah, I heard the same thing. Thank God we were able to place those babies with either their mommas or in that protective group Ironside knew. That was a whole lot of work taking care of all those little ones. Though not why I called you here, Glory. We need to talk and I need you to be honest. Need to know what’s going on with you because, sister, you aren’t yourself.”
Head hanging down, her hair shifts forward, hiding her face. She leans forward putting her elbows on my desk, hands on her forehead. I can feel the tension and something else coming off of her in waves. Shit, I don’t want to lose her as my VP, but especially as my friend. I know enough about her backstory but never really pried into her past.
“Tink, fuck me, I thought this would settle but it’s not. To start, I didn’t intentionally not tell you, but life happened and for once I’m on the road to finding my happy. And I’m stalling. So, I’m kind of seeing someone. You know him but give me a minute or two to keep it to myself before I share. The reason is complicated. Do you remember what happened when I was back with the Devil’s Handmaidens MC in the Atlantic City, New Jersey chapter? Not sure if Harlow ever told you, but they rescued me from a horrific situation. Fuck, just to talk about it has my skin crawling. I married my high school sweetheart during my first year of college. Yeah, I was also pregnant. As an Italian Catholic girl with child, my father and brothers didn’t really give Gino a chance, though he already told me we were getting married when I told him I was pregnant. That was always our dream, finish school, get married, and have lots of babies. We had Lilly, who was a perfect baby from the start. With the help of my folks, we bought a fixer-upper and started our lives together. Gino’s family is in construction, so needless to say they were involved in the fixing up, especially his brother, Oscar. Whenever he was around, I was uncomfortable because he gave me the willies. Not to mention he was fixated on our daughter, Lilly.
“One day I had gone to the grocery store, had Lilly with me. I forgot something at the beginning of the aisle and went to get it. When I turned, my cart and Lilly were gone. I lost myself screaming, yelling, and running up and down the aisles. When I finally got to the freezer area, my cart was there with Lilly in the front, and Oscar was standing off to the side watching her. When I called his name, he turned and with a crazy look in his eyes, told me, “Better watch this princess, ’cause next time you might not find her.”Then he turned and walked away.
“After that I became frantic, never wanting to leave Lilly alone. As she got older Gino and I found out I was pregnant again. This time though I was sick day and night. Gino was so worried he told his dad he wanted to work close to home if at all possible. His dad was and is awesome, so he said yes. Oscar got jealous, bitching constantly that Gino wasn’t pulling his weight in the family business. No one knew what his problem was but he was known to go off the deep end from time to time, according to Gino.
“One night we were in bed when we heard someone kick in our door downstairs. Gino ran to the wall safe, pulling out two Glocks and clips. He handed one to me and kept one for himself. Lilly was sleeping right next door so I motioned that I was going through our walk-in closet to the cheat door to her room.
“I wasn’t in her room for even a minute or two when I heard Gino screaming and swearing. Then a single shot sounded and it was suddenly dead quiet. I lifted Lilly out of her little big girl bed and walked back into the closet, locking the little door. I reached down, pulled the carpet back, and placed Lilly in the secret safe room Gino insisted on when he was working on the closet. His family had some distant ties to some, as my husband said ‘criminals’ and he wasn’t taking any chances with his girls. I just finished putting the rug down and pulling the suitcase over it when I heard a noise behind me. Turning, I saw Oscar with a weird as fuck look on his face. Then he turned my heart to stone and my life to hell.
