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“Last I talked to him was when I told him to fuck off all those years ago.” She looked down at the bottle, picked at the peeling label, and knew that this was her family. This club and the men in it were the only ones who gave a shit about her.
After their mom died when they were in their teens, they were stuck with their drunken, verbally abusive father. When their mom had been alive, she’d at least been a buffer between their dad and the nastiness he dished out often. It took a lot of years for Claire to understand why her mom would stay with such an asshole. But when she understood how things worked, she understood reality.
Her mother had been scared, broke, and timid. She’d had absolutely nothing. Leaving him meant taking care of two kids on her own, and with no money, no job experience, or family to lean on, she’d been stuck.
She had been stuck until she died, and it was so fucking tragic.
Claire looked at her brother again. “You talk to him recently?”
Mayhem didn’t answer right away. He lifted his beer and took a long pull from it before setting it back on the counter. He breathed out heavily and nodded. “Went out with some of the guys last year. He was at the bar we went to. He was all trashed and shit.” Mayhem took another pull from his beer, and after he finished it off, he lifted it up to show Ash.
The patch brought him a new beer right away and set another cold one in front of her even though she wasn’t finished with the one she had.
“Did he talk to you?” Once they’d turned eighteen, they’d left. By that time, Claire had been working her ass off saving every penny she had, and Mayhem had been prospecting at the club. They’d shared a shitty, one-bedroom apartment, with Mayhem sleeping on the couch.
For two years, they did that, both working to make ends meet but having each other’s backs the whole time. And then when Mayhem had gotten his patch with the MC, she’d gotten a new family. They both had. She’d grown to know all the members, become close with them.
As the years passed and Mayhem took over the VP spot, of course after putting a hell of a lot of blood and sweat into the club, she realized that she didn’t need anything but what was right in front of her.
“He didn’t even look up from his drink, and I sure as fuck didn’t stick around until he saw me. I was barely hanging on to my control by then.”
She saw Mayhem tighten his hand on the beer bottle, his knuckles white. “I could have killed him ten times over throughout the years, Claire. I could have done that for all of us. Maybe I should have.” He said the last part softly.
“No, let him live by himself, drink his life away, and then die alone. He never cared for us, and I for one think we are better off without him.”
Mayhem lifted his bottle to her, and she did the same. They clanked the necks of the bottles together and drank.
“I know you got something on your mind,” Mayhem said and stared at her with those bright blue eyes she saw every time she looked in the mirror. “Hit me up, Claire.”
“I know you and Big are going after Steven.”
“Yup,” Mayhem said without any emotion.
“I don’t think you should kill him.”
“That’s not your call. When you came here beat the fuck up because of that asshole, you don’t get to make the decision to tell me how I protect my sister or how Big protects his old lady.”
She didn’t question how Mayhem knew she was Big’s old lady now, because she knew Big had told him, might have even told all the crew. This time was different. It felt different, felt like things would be the way they should have two years ago, how she’d wanted them to be.
Some might think she was being a silly girl thinking she’d finally gotten what she wanted, for believing a biker, but she knew Big, loved him, and she knew this time they really were together in the only way a woman could be tied to a biker, could be his irrevocably—as his old lady.
“Do I think he needs the living shit scared out of him? Hell yeah, and I wish I could be the one to do it.” She looked at Mayhem, and she knew she had a glint of interest on her face.
“Wipe that thought off your fucking radar, Claire. Ain’t no way I’m letting you go anywhere near that prick, even if we’re there.” He drank more beer, set the bottle down, and smiled, but it wasn’t one of amusement. “Let us do this, Claire. Let us hurt him because he needs to know he can’t fuck with you like that and not face the repercussions.”
