Repeat Offender (Souls Chapel Revenants MC 1)

“If I move in with you, you have to promise when I start bothering you, you’ll tell me. Because it’s inevitable that I will,” she said, turning back around and ignoring the boxes in the men’s hands. “I mean, my own father tried to kill himself because of me…”

That’s when I all but snapped.

“His stupidity is not your fault,” I growled, unable to control my temper when I saw her beating herself up over something that she had no control over.

“Your father chose to try to kill himself. He had a choice. He could’ve come to you, but he didn’t. Which isn’t very surprising seeing as he treated you like shit. Any normal man would’ve gone to a bar, gotten drunk. Or hell, he could’ve gone to a titty bar if he really wanted some social interaction. Lynn owns a titty bar. He could’ve done it anonymously. He could’ve bonded with some random old man over titties. Everyone likes titties. Or, at least, every straight man likes titties. He had options, but he chose not to take them,” Bruno growled.

Six looked at him with surprise in her eyes.

“Your dad sounds like a douche, dear,” Laric added his two cents.

“Agreed,” Sin grumbled as his eyes sliced around the room, gauging everything that was happening. “Sounds like his cry for help wasn’t for you, but for someone else.”

Surprised, we all looked at him.

“What do you mean?” Six asked quietly.

“Sounds like he doesn’t really care about you. Sorry to say. I mean, you’re a nice girl from what I’ve experienced so far. But the thing is, I think that he realized that Lynn here could get him out of some trouble. And that’s exactly what he did, right?” Sin shrugged.

Six’s mouth fell open and she looked at me.

“And you did get him out of trouble,” she whispered.

I had, honestly.

“Do you think that he knew that you’d suspect him of attempted suicide, then planted all of that stuff for you to find?” Laric asked, mirroring the thoughts that were starting to take root in my mind. “I mean, hear me out. He knew that Six would tell you about his ‘depression.’ He also knew that you would go with her to go get his things. What better way to make you suspicious than telling you to go into his house and then leave things out for you to see.”

“So, you think that he’s not trying to get out of this as much as knows he would’ve eventually been found out,” Six guessed. “You think he was making it to where you believed him for being forced into this.”

“That would be my best guess.” Laric shrugged. “Without knowing more on the man himself. Just based on what I’ve heard?”

“Do you think my stepfather being involved is true?” Bruno asked.

“I think that we need to locate him and find out,” I said, sounding much calmer on the outside than I was on the inside. I dropped the boxes on Six’s bed. “After we move you to my place, we’ll make a pit stop and go talk to him.”

“We’ll?” Six asked, sounding disgusted.

“Well, me and a few of the new crew.” I grinned. “You’re gonna take my SUV back to the house and allow whoever is there to unload it.”

And that was exactly what we did.

After packing up everything that she wanted, which really wasn’t much at all, we sent her on her way with the cats and my SUV since more fit in it than hers.

I gestured at Bruno. “Follow her back?”

Bruno rolled his eyes. “Yes. I’ll meet you at the hospital when I’m done.”

Then he took off, leaving Laric and Sin with me.

CHAPTER 18

I smile at people who don’t like me.

-Lynn to Six

LYNN

“You want to come?” I asked the newest member of our group. Or our motorcycle club. Hell, that was still really weird to think about.

Sin nodded.

“I’ll take the house if she decides to move in with you permanently,” Sin said. “It’s a fair halfway point between here and Uncertain.”

“What does that matter?” Laric asked, walking to the door.

I pulled Six’s keys off of the counter and looked at them.

They weighed like ten pounds and had so many key rings on them that I knew it couldn’t be good for her ignition.

“It matters because I have a certain little Kitty Kitty that I want to stay close to,” Sin explained.

“Seriously?” Laric laughed then. “What the hell? How’d you manage that?”

I knew from Laric’s oftentimes decline into prison slang that a ‘kitty kitty’ was a female guard.

I also knew that the reason that Sin went into jail in the first place happened to be because of a female recruit, that just so happened to decide that being a prison guard was the right thing for her.

“I managed that because I saved her from being beaten to death by one of my fellow drill sergeants,” Sin said, eyes closing down. “That girl then went and popped a screw loose and decided that she wanted to be a prison guard. Guess which fuckin’ prisons she’s been hanging her hat at.”