Crawl grins at us. “Happy looks damn good on you, brother. Damn good.” He shoves the jar of money toward us. “Consider it a wedding gift.”
“Thank you.”
“Appreciate that, man.”
“Figured we kind of owe it to you since we been giving you hell past few months about when you’d get your head out your ass and get your girl.”
I look back at East and he shakes his head, so I stay quiet. He never mentioned that they gave him shit over me, but I guess he wouldn’t. That’s the kind of man I married.
Some chick with heavy purple eyeshadow, dark hair, and black lipstick brings over a tray of shots. “Courtesy of Link,” she tells the guys, sitting shots in front of each of them. Crawl grabs her on the ass, and she hits him over the head with her tray but in a playful way. “Fuck off.”
“That wasn’t what you said last night. I think your words were fuck me harder.”
“Yeah and you wasn’t no count.” She shrugs and goes to move off as the rest of the table laughs.
“Not any count? Bitch, I’ll bend you over this table right here and show you how good I am.” He pushes back from the table, fingers fumbling, undoing his belt.
I twist into East, burying my head in his neck. The last thing I want to see is Crawl’s dick or watch him fuck this chick with the purple eyeshadow and fishnet stockings under her denim skirt. He dated my mother. I look around the room wondering how many men here tonight she slept with.
The woman laughs and East kisses my temple. “Why don’t I take you home. This isn’t your scene.”
Before I can reply the front door to the clubhouse bursts open and a silver and dark-haired man drops to his knees, eyes rolling back in his head. Blood is seeping out the corners of his mouth.
One word leaves his mouth, “East.”
Someone shouts, “Nickel’s been shot.”
East shoves up from under me as the man falls over with a heavy thud.
Chapter 22
Wylla Mae
All I wanted was to prove I belong in Easton Reed’s world. Now I’m knee deep in it. A man is dead. A brother of Royal Bastards MC, the VP to be exact. I learned this from Pam. I’m sitting at a table with her. Her red lips are wrapped around a joint and puffing hard. The dead man is on the bar, shirt ripped open, body still warm. East and his brothers are with my father in a meeting. The girl with the purple eyeshadow is sitting on the other side of Pam, crying silent tears. Everything happened so fast. There was no time to react.
A sadness settles deep in my gut as though I’ve lost something but I’m not sure what. I had never met Nickel. But still he’s someone important to East and the rest of the club. A loss like that doesn’t happen in front of you and not cut you deep whether you knew the man or not. You see a man take his last breath it clings to your soul. I stare out the window at the snow as it comes down thicker and faster. Looks like cotton balls falling from the sky. We’re waiting for the police. A man is dead and there’s things that need to be done. I just don’t know what those things are.
“Is there anything I can do or should be doing?” I can’t get the sound of him calling out for East as he took his dying breath out of my head.
“You’re doing it. No that’s not true. You need to prepare yourself, Wylla Mae. Nickel was Vice Prez. He’s going to be replaced. Murder is fond of East. His old man served as Murder’s sponsor when he prospected for RBMC. They were real tight and Murder sponsored East. Your husband is about to get a promotion. Mark my words.”
Chills fan up and down my arms and a shiver courses through me. I look back at the bar, at the dead man. He had been VP and look where that got him. I know I can’t tell East no. I know I can’t beg him to walk away from the club. A club he’s been in longer than he’s known me. I grew up around bikers. I know the code. Palm to my stomach, I think about the baby growing inside me. The life we created. I can’t raise this baby on my own. I’m an Old Lady now, and I have to act like one.
“You’re pregnant.” Pam smiles at me and purple eye shadow chick cuts her gaze to my hand on my stomach.
“We haven’t told anyone with Lynn. Timing isn’t right.”
“Oh, fuck Lynn and her feelings.”
“Amen to that, Samara,” Pam tells her and hands off the joint to her.
“That’s a pretty name.”
“Thank you.” She takes a hit of the joint then snuffs it out in the ashtray on the table
“What do you think Nickel wanted with East?”
“Hard to say. Who knows? East could be the first person he saw when the door opened. I wouldn’t read too much into that.”