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“So, you admit it. You're seeing someone. I hope it's not one of Helen's girls. I had to kick two out of the clubhouse just last week.”
Nova's head rears back, mouth parted and eyes wide. “Jesus, man, no. Give me a little credit, yeah?” He flicks his gaze to me. “Don't we have more important things to talk about?”
I dip my head in acknowledgement. Usually, it's Silas keeping Nova on track, so this role reversal is new. “Aye, when you were there, did anything seem off?”
Nova presses his shoulders into the back of the chair, stretching his legs out in front of him. “It's a Monday night, normal crowd. No one stood out.”
“What do you think?” I level a look at Silas. He's the president of the Reapers for a reason, even if he doesn't think he deserves the title. “Should we call a meeting?”
He runs his hand across his jaw, scratching it almost absentmindedly. “Nah, not yet. But tell a few of the guys and start doing patrols. Nothing official, but I want eyes on the town at least four times a day. Especially the perimeter. Look for anything suspicious, places they could be holding up.”
I nod my agreement, drumming my fingers along my leg underneath the table. I pause, looking at my cousins. “Who's gonna tell Aunt Dixie?”
“Not it,” Nova says instantly.
“What are you, five?” Silas scoffs.
“Maybe, but you'll still break the news to Ma that the Hell Hounds are back and sniffing around. You know she doesn't believe in don't shoot the messenger,” Nova says.
“We don't even know if they're back. Everything we have is circumstantial,” I interject.
I watch the way they look at each other, like they can communicate telepathically or some shit. No matter how close the three of us are, there will always be something that ties the two of them tighter. Every once in a while, a little speck of jealousy worms its way into my veins, leaving a path of anger and longing in its wake.
Sometimes I wish I had that kind of connection with someone. A sibling. But then I remember who my parents are and those ugly feelings dry up quicker than the beer tent at the summer festival. It might’ve made my life easier, but I can’t imagine subjecting another person to that kind of childhood. I scraped by thanks to these two assholes.
Cousins that feel more like brothers. Men who helped me up when I needed it and stood next to me even when I said I didn't.
Them and my aunt.
And that’s enough.
I let my fingers settle their rhythm on my leg. “I'll let her know. She can't go into her normal smothering, not when she's got surgery in a couple weeks and Hunter to look after.”
“It's because she's got Hunter that she will. If you think she was bad when we were growing up, it's nothing on her with a grandbaby,” Silas says. “That woman is a bear when she feels threatened.”
“Nah, not a bear. An elephant.” One of those fierce African elephant mothers. They go to great lengths to protect their young.
When I was in eighth grade, mono tore through our school. It laid me out for two weeks. My old man was on the road a lot, running shit for Uncle Ray. Aunt Dixie came to check on me a few days in, took one look around, and when she didn't see my mom, she took me with her.
From that moment on, I always had a room at Aunt Dixie's. It became my safe haven. Her brand of affection wasn't ever the cookie-cutter shit you saw on TV, but she showed it in other ways. Actions more befitting our lifestyle with the Reapers, especially when we were growing up.
I still remember the look on her face when she stormed the Hell Hounds favorite bar. A daughter of one of their patched members set Nova up, flirted with him long enough to set the trap. He got nine stitches that night.
He was seventeen.
Aunt Dixie looked like hell on wheels that night. Stormed up to their bikes outside their bar and took a knife to their tires. Pulled out a tire iron and remodeled the bike of the girl's father.
It wasn't retribution so much as a warning. A first and final strike.
She had the entire club behind her, but she may as well have gone solo for the cloud of rage she floated on. She wrote her message with every flick and swing. Expressing her emotions in destruction.
Even though we squashed our differences with the Hell Hounds years ago, and they seemed to benefit from our retirement, Aunt Dixie never forgot. Still quick to pull the trigger on anything to do with the Hell Hounds, especially if it involves violence.
I nod a few times. “Well, maybe we put her on need-to-know. No need to stir that pot prematurely.”
“That crazy woman,” Silas grumbles. “If she gets a wild hair and does something and fucks her shoulder up even more, her doctor is gonna riot.”
The thought of anyone talking to Aunt Dixie like that brings a smile to my face. “I’d pay to see that,” I murmur. “She’d hear him out and then she’d hand him his own ass, and he’d say thank you by the time she was done.”
