Mason_ Inked Reapers MC(1)(41)
“She goads me too easily.” Tick laughed as he watched her walk away. “I think the idea of us getting out of the club scares her, but she won’t talk straight about it. Always curves this way or that.”
“She’s never known anything but the club, Tick,” I pointed out. Her mother had been an old lady to a member, and her sister was married to one. They moved out of state, transferred to a smaller charter up north.
“I know.” He ran his hand over his head again.
“This domestication of yours.” I waved my hand in the air. “It works for you? You like it?”
He studied me for a long minute, like he was searching for something. “Remember when we were kids and we’d see the other kids with their dads? We’d play that game, trying to make up a dad for us?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “It was a stupid game for stupid kids,” I added. That time was a world away from where we were. Neither of us knew our dads and it took a long while before I wised up that I never would.
“Nah. It was two kids trying to fill up this hole our assholes dads left when they walked out.” I didn’t say anything to that. He wasn’t wrong. “I don’t want my kid to ever sit on a porch step trying to remember what I looked like, or try to replace me with some imaginary father.”
The image of Lucy swollen with my baby inside her belly hit me, nearly knocking the breath out of me. Her dark pixie hair pinned back away from her face, wearing one of those summer dresses she likes, and her hands rubbing her belly. My baby. My girl.
“You don’t have to leave the club, Tick. You can have Massy and the baby with the club’s support.”
“Fuck that. “ He snorted. “I’m not gonna risk my ass for no cartel bitch. That deal is going to get us killed. Look at Jasper. We still haven’t found him, and tell me you don’t think those fucking Disciples put a bullet in his head the minute he wanted to phone back to us.”
He had a point. We both knew, hell, we all knew, that was exactly what happened. Marcus didn’t agree, but that wasn’t a shock. It was just one more thing he seemed to turn a blind eye to when it came to the Disciples.
“You’re right. I know it, man. Okay. Then we keep moving towards getting our out.” I finished off my beer.
“So how many more runs do you think we need before we can start laying the groundwork for our out?”
“I think at least two more big ones. You know, there’s a chance Marcus won’t let us out that easy.”
“Because of Lucy you mean.” He plopped back down at the table with me. “You know if you take her, help her get out of Jayson’s clutches, he’s going to come after you. And if he comes after the club, Marcus will join him.”
“I know all of that.” I nodded. “You think I should leave her be? Let her be old lady to that asshole? Would you leave Massy there?”
“Massy is different. She knows the life. This girl, Mason, she got looped in there. Lucas was telling me about her. She was a friend of one of Sting’s girls. Her mom had died a bit ago and she was trying to get on her feet. She knew that friend from high school or something. Anyway, somehow she ends up at the club, free room and board, but she doesn’t know Jayson. He doesn’t play that way. Not with a hot chick like her.”
“I know all of this already,” I growled.
“Then you know that Jayson and Sting killed that girl, her friend. Those assholes don’t just let the girls go if they don’t want them to go.” His eyes bored into me with frustration.
“I know what you're telling me, what you're trying to warn me from, but I'm telling you, I’m not leaving that girl back there. You’re right. She has no fucking business in this life. She has no idea what those guys or any other club can do to her, not really.” I shoved away from the table and started to pace the kitchen. “I know that getting her free of them will put a mark on me, and her, and my mom.”
“Your mom?” Tick glared up at me.
“Jayson told her that if she doesn’t back off he’d go after my mom and me.”
“That fucking pussy. Did you say something to Marcus?”
“Fuck no. I don’t trust him right now. Something’s going on with him and this cartel thing. I get that it’s bringing in a lot of cash to the club, but there’s something more. Something he’s not telling us. Besides, he told me to stay away from Lucy, remember?”
“Man, you really know how to get tangled up in shit.”