Your grandfather here did it all with the help of a twelve-year-old Tallon.” She sighs dramatically. “I felt so redundant.”
“You got to do it all with your granddaughter's, woman.”
She slaps his arm playfully. “Don't you ‘woman’ me. Then came along my little Dominic, and there was no way I was letting this one take over.”
Pops roars with laughter. “She even threatened to cut off my balls and shove them down my throat if I tried to take him from her. However, that doesn't mean I love you less than these two, Wrench.”
“I know that, Pops. I've never doubted it. Besides, I think grams might have traded me in for the newest model.”
“Never,” She reaches over and pinches his cheek. “I could never replace my special boy.”
“Aww,” Roman screeches. “Grandmas special boy!”
I watch the laughter happen between my family members. It's good to laugh, to forget about the shit that's coming my way, and it will. There's no doubt in my mind that Hank Webster will come looking for Brooke again. He won't just give up. Men like him never do.
Once we're back in Bardsville, I'll need to up my game. I know the cunt wouldn't show up here. He has no clue where we are right now. However, he knows where the clubhouse is. No matter what he's been told about staying away, he doesn't have the brain power to do it. He wants his daughter, and nothing will stop him trying to get to her.
He won't get near enough to her to smell her perfume. He'll be dead before he gets near her. I'm not scared to kill if I have to. I won't pretend it's ever easy. It's not. I'd be a liar if I said I could just walk up to some cunt and blow their brains out, tear them limb from limb without it on my mind for days after.
It's not easy to shut that stuff out, no matter how much a man tires. I suppose it's easier for some than others. I do what I have to do, what's expected of me, and I try hard not to think about the awful things I've done — the things I will have to do in the days and months to come.
However, there is nothing I won't do to keep the woman I love safe. She has been through enough with that family of hers. Hell, some would say. I won't let her go back there. She's safe now. Safe with me and mine. Not one of the men I run with will let anything happen to her.
“Dante, are you all right?”
I must have spaced out there for a moment. I smile at my grandmother. “I'm fine, Grams.”
“Still thinking about Webster?” I roll my neck. I don't want to admit that's what I was thinking about, but I nod my head at Roman regardless.
“Nothing is going to happen to her, brother, we're all here to help you with this.”
“Thanks, Wrench.”
“You know,” I look at my grandfather. “People like this Webster, all they have is words. Yes, words can hurt. I've been on the receiving end of them many times. Especially from your grandmother's father. I didn't know what kind of a man he was when I met this woman,” He's told us this story many times in the past, but he's an old man, and I think he sometimes forgets. That's why none of us will say anything. We'll listen like we always do.
I watch Pops take Grams hand and kiss her knuckles. They've been in love for so long it's almost unreal. My grandmother was just fifteen when she met Leroy, he was a little older than her, but they fell in love instantly. She was sixteen by the time her parents found out and forced her to leave the man she loved.
“The second her father found out that I was black, he forced me to walk away from her, or he'd have me arrested. Things were very different back then. I knew if I didn't leave, I'd end up in prison and there would be no coming back from it. They would have deported me as soon as I got out. Sent back to Jamaica with no hope of ever returning. If they didn’t kill me in there.“
I remember Pops telling us how he'd come to this country with his cousin, who'd promised it would be a real adventure. Pops didn't bank on meeting Emelda and falling in love. Once he had, he never wanted to leave.
“I walked away, and I found work and I worked hard. I thought if I could save enough money I'd one day be able to go back for her. My family wanted me to go home, of course, but my heart wouldn't let me. I told them how I couldn't leave the woman I loved behind, I had to one day find her, but you found me, didn't you, Em?”
Grams pulls his hand to her chest and kisses his knuckles this time. “I had to find him. I loved him.” She shrugs. “I didn't care what anyone said. I didn't care about the vile things my father called him. So his skin was dark, his eyes to match, but his soul was light. He was everything to me from the moment I met him, and I'll tell you exactly what I told your grandfather when he said I needed to go back home. There is nothing and no one that can keep a woman from the man she loves indefinitely. Sure, I was only sixteen, and my father had sent me away because I was pregnant in a time where being so young and pregnant brought scandal, even more so because my baby was biracial. I was scared because my father gave me an ultimatum, the baby I gave birth to the day before I left and his black father. Meaning I would have nothing and no one but them, or, I could choose my family, give up the baby, and keep all the privileges coming from a wealthy family afforded me.”
“How did you make that choice, Grams? Pops had nothing, your parents had money, and all that comes with it.”
She smiles at my brother. “There never was a choice to be made, Wrench. Sure, Leroy had nothing much, but he would have Tyrone and me. I knew I didn't have long to gather as many of my things as I could. Because like Brooke, my father was coming the very next day with a woman who would be taking Tyrone from me. I couldn't let it happen. My father referred to my little boy as an ape. You have no idea as a mother, even at that young age what it did to me to hear him say those things to my innocent, beautiful little boy.
“Anyway, I snuck out in the early hours of the morning and hitched a ride with a woman on her way to Tennessee.” Grams is originally from Texas. “I'd done all I could to track him down. A friend of mine from school, her father, was the sheriff, and she managed to find out where Leroy was. I still to this day don't know how she managed that. I didn't know if she was tricking me or if she was genuinely trying to help me. I chose to believe her and follow my heart.
“The address she gave me was in Bardsville. A small apartment he'd managed to rent from a kind old lady who didn't give a damn about his color. Hell, most of the people in that town didn't care about the color of his skin or the fact he wasn't born here, they were more than willing to give him a chance, which was crazy because this is the south, and people were quite racist. Though, I suppose people the world over still are. However, those people were different. I found out Leroy was working for a construction company. I was so proud of him.
“Anyway, it was around 8: PM by the time I got to his apartment. I was tired, exhausted, actually, and I just wanted to see the man I loved and let him meet our son. So, I knocked on the door, and he opened it. He was in shock to see me, even more, to see me with a baby. He didn't know I was pregnant before he left, probably because I didn't either. He let me in, grabbed my bags and brought them inside. I cried; he held me, held his son. I told him what had happened with my father. He asked me if this was what I really wanted. There was nothing I wanted more.”
“She told me she was going nowhere.” Leroy laughs loudly. “I was friends back then with your president's father.” Apollo. “He was a good friend. His daddy was the president of the MC back then. That was the only reason we never had a problem with you boys, or Jack being members. Anyway, her daddy came looking for her. He'd tracked her down. Don't forget; we didn't have cell phones and the internet as you have now. There was no way for her to call me and ask for help. I came home, and she was gone.”
Roman, Wrench and I all look at each other. We didn't know any of this. This is new information.
“Apollo's father, from the day he met me, always told me that if I ever needed anything, all I had to do was yell. I'd helped them out over the months I'd known Apollo. Nothing illegal, but I helped out in their garage,
drank with them, never wanted to join them as they'd offered, but I was friendly with them. They treated me like one of them from the moment I met them. So, I asked them for help. They'd taken my wife because she was my wife by that point, we'd lied about her age so we could get married, into their hearts. Each one of those men thought the world of her. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was terrified for her; she was pregnant with Nick. I was so worried about her safety. Wasn't three hours before she was home. I didn't know then, and I don't know now what those men did to get her back, but they've helped me protect her ever since.”
“Wow,” Wrench exclaims while running his hand through his hair.
“All I'm saying is no one has the right to tell anyone whom they can love. The heart wants what the heart wants, Hawk. That little girl up there wants you. She loves you so much; any idiot with eyes can see that.”
I'm about to answer my grandmother when the most frightening, earsplitting scream has me out of my seat and racing up the stairs, my cousin and brother following, faster than my heart can take.
I burst through the door of the bedroom Brooke, and I are staying in, heart pounding, not knowing what the hell could be happening. However, I see her thrashing around in the bed, sweat pouring out of her, chest heaving forcefully.
I jump onto the bed and grab her arms, but she fights me on it. “No, no, no! Please, no!”
“Brooke, wake up!”
I can hear the baby crying. I can't deal with him and Brooke right now. I look over at Roman and Wrench, but it's Roman who answers me. “I'll get him and take him to Grams.”
“Thanks.” I turn my attention back to Brooke. “Brooke! Baby, wake up!”
Her body calms and stops thrashing as her blue eyes open slowly, trying to focus on me. I don't think anything has ever scared me as much as hearing her screaming like that. I never want to feel my heart hit my stomach like that ever again.