“Diesel—”
“I’m not saying it doesn’t piss me off to know that the reason Vicki got away was more or less from my own club.”
“There was no more or less. If Ellie hadn’t told her to find a dry out and get her head together, we would have got her. The nightmare would have been over. Fuck man, Ellie’s actions created so much fucking fallout. You almost died. How do you think I would have lived with that if you’d died?”
“How do you think I would have lived without Rory in my life, Fury?” he asks and I pull my gaze up to look at him.
“Because of Rory, Ryan is happy. He doesn’t have nightmares. What he has is a life where he knows his mom would die for him and do it happily to protect him. My boy knows nothing but good now and that’s because of Rory.”
“Man—”
“And me? Fuck, Brother. I gave my club up. I walked away and went to Montana.”
“And you did that because I wasn’t able to shut Vicki down.”
“I did that because I was tired, Fury. I was tired of being the president of this club. I was tired of living. I was turning cold and into someone that I didn’t even recognize. I was someone who hurt a woman that I was growing to love. I was a fucking mess.”
“That at least, I can understand,” I tell him. “I’m definitely a mess,” I mumble.
“If having Rory in my life means telling Vicki I was hunting her down and to go into hiding? I would have done it myself. I’d have told her exactly where we were looking. I’d have sold my soul if it meant I could have Rory when it was all over.”
“That doesn’t excuse what she did,” I warn him.
“It doesn’t, but in truth, what did she tell them, Fury? She didn’t say anything to Vicki that I hadn’t said to the bitch a hundred times over. I screamed at her that I was going to send men to hunt her down if she kept trying to get Ryan. I told her she needed to get her ass in re-hab. She just didn’t listen. Chances are she didn’t listen to Ellie either.”
I look at my brothers and really try and consider what they’ve said.
“So, you want me to forgive her? You can deal with having her here in this club, knowing what she did?” I ask, shocked and confused as fuck. I also feel a little bit of hope beginning to grow.
“That depends,” Diesel says. “Do you still love Ellie?”
“Of course I do. You can’t just turn that shit off, Diesel. But—”
“The way I look at it, if I ban Ellie from the club, I’m going to lose my Sergeant of arms and I’m not prepared to deal with that shit.”
“I…You…”
“You can tell me you wouldn’t follow her to Phoenix or wherever it is she’s packed to head out to, Fury, but we both know you’d be lying. You grieved for her for almost two years. I didn’t notice it as much because of my shit, but I sure as fuck saw the difference in you when she came back. You were already planning on going to her then. I’m just stepping up before that happens again.”
“You’re serious?” I ask, feeling like a giant weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Ellie and I still have a lot to work through, but at least now it doesn’t feel hopeless.
“I’m telling you the same thing I told Ellie when she came to my room to talk to me and Rory in person. Besides, my wife pointed out that I’d never made it mandatory that we don’t talk things over with our old ladies. Our club is more relaxed than others—a fact she knows thanks to talking to Torrent,” he says, giving Devil a pointed look.
“That’s my Angel,” he laughs.
“She lovingly pointed out that I couldn’t get pissy now because ultimately it was my fault that I hadn’t talked to my men about the issue before. A woman who was struggling to become a mother shouldn’t have been expected to deal with all of the information she had. That’s on me.”
“And me,” I admit. I slipped up and told Ellie too much. That’s a big part of the problem.
“So, we work on those issues in the future—which hopefully won’t happen because we won’t have to face them,” Diesel says. “Now, it’s up to you, but Ellie was in bad shape earlier. Rory was worried enough about her, she talked her into staying in our room longer, and sent me to find you. Then, of course Torrent showed up with Cannon. That means you two need to go see to your women, so I can have mine back.”
“I’ll go find her.”
“Good call. I’m going to go hunt Crusher and Dani down to collect my offspring,” he says with a wink, walking off.