Niro (Henchmen MC Next Generation 1)

"I don't know, honey," my mom said, sounding apologetic. "I wish I did. It's been a lot of years. People change. Life changes them. In small and big ways. Good and bad ones too."

"There's nothing good about this. About him now."

"Hey, now, that's a little ungenerous, don't you think?" she asked. My mother hated unkindness the same way I typically did. She was not going to let me get away with it just because I was hurting.

"He was so cold," I told her, taking a slow, deep breath into my belly, holding it, then letting it go, feeling a small bit of the despair leave with it. "And even... even a little cruel."

"Niro? To you?" she asked.

I understood her disbelief. Because, had I not experienced it myself, I never would have thought him capable either. But I had. And he was. And it was like someone had torn something vital from me, something I would never stop missing.

"Yes," I told her, taking another deep breath as I lifted my head to look at her. "I don't even recognize him anymore."

"I'm sorry to hear that, baby," she said, reaching out to grab my knee, giving it a squeeze. "That can't be easy."

"I know it shouldn't be so hard. I mean, it's been years. I have no right to feel so hurt about it."

"You always have the right to be hurt if that is how you feel. And I get it. You two were inseparable. I imagine a part of you always thought you could pick up right where you left off, and nothing would be different."

"I guess that was pretty naive of me," I admitted, taking the rag she handed me to wipe off my face, tears and dirt combined.

"In a way."

"Mom," I said, half laughing, half scoffing. She never usually said anything like that to me.

"I mean, eventually, obviously, your lives were always bound to go down different paths. You'd meet partners. You'd settle down. Make houses. Have babies. There was no way to stay as close as you two have always been through all of that."

I didn't realize until that very moment that I had never actually envisioned that future. One where I was married to someone with kids, and Niro was married to someone else with kids.

Even as the thoughts were put there right then, something in me tried desperately to push them away, to replace them with anything other than a mental picture of Niro holding the hand of a little boy that looked just like him... and the hand of the unknown-to-me mother.

"You know what, let's think about something else today. Like how I maybe have..."

"I should have known to look for you out here first," Hope's voice called, cutting off my mom, making both of us turn to find her walking toward us in the leather pants Gracie had teased her about the night before as well as a green slouchy t-shirt, combat boots, and what looked like some sort of eye-gouging instrument hanging from a clip on the hoop of her pants, bouncing against her slim hips with each step she took. "I spent ten minutes getting every inch of me sniffed," she added. "And something—and I don't know what it was—tried to grab my foot from under that little cart thing in the kitchen.

"Oh, that's Marcus," my mom said, shrugging.

"Marcus," Hope repeated, brow quirking up.

"He's a raccoon. A tame, pet raccoon. I am trying to find him a suitable home. But he does like to swat at people. And dig through the trash. He shouldn't be in the kitchen, though. I am going to go put him back," she said, hopping up, and rushing past Hope, leaving the two of us alone.

"Sorry I lost you last night," Hope said, eyeing a goose warily. And I had to admit, she had a reason to be uneasy around them. They didn't care that I brought them treats. The biggest of the crew bit me right on the butt after I handed her some mealworms. The ingrate. "Things got a little crazy after the guys got all overprotective. I've never seen a group of alarmists like them."

"I mean, the club has known a lot of chaos over the years," I reminded her, remembering spending a lot of my childhood carted off with my mom and aunts and cousins to Hailstorm—a paramilitary sort of camp that my aunt, and now my cousin, ran.

"Yeah, but like, that was a little much. I swear, they all think we are the overreactive ones, but I think the world would be a lot less chaotic with some women in charge."

"You work with all guys, huh?" I asked, smiling at her.

"Don't get me started on them," she said, looking close to going off on a rant. "Anyway. Last night was kind of an epic fail. But the girls and I have a new plan for tonight."