Page 11

Atlas

I n the few hours that we’ve been gone, Tyrant assembled the officers and went into a quick church meeting. Many of the old ladies arrived that the clubhouse with their kids. With my parents here, my sister, and a good portion of the other families, it feels more like a reunion than lockdown.

We’re not going into another lockdown. That’s the first thing I hear from Bullet when I walk into the crazy, loud fray. It’s chaos in here and it certainly isn’t controlled, with kids running around all over the place, and a buzz of conversation that would drown out any music anyone turned on, even at full blast.

Willa is right behind me, with a not so reluctant Agatha tottering along beside her. Whatever they talked about in the truck, it seems to have worked. Agatha didn’t try to bolt the second we helped her out of the back seat. In her beige, old person comfort shoes, turquoise polyester pants, and a bright purple and pink floral blouse, she stands out like a beacon in the sea of black and leather.

I wish we would have thought to put together a bag for Agatha, including her pills.

I want to facepalm myself for the oversight. I’ll have to talk to Tyrant and see what he can do. Adam Archer might be able to put something together. For a plastic surgeon, he’s alright. His basement clinic has saved our asses more than a few times, and I have to say, he’s pretty much magic with those hands of his. If he could work miracles with a line of stitches and putting broken bones back together, hopefully he can do this solid.

As for clothing, my mom probably has lots that would fit Agatha and she’s always willing to lend her things out.

Willa edges up to my side. She takes Agatha’s hand in hers, but it’s me she questions. “Are you okay?”

I blink into the full on chaos. My mom and dad also stick out, since they’re not wearing leather, and Georgia too. They’re all in the kitchen with a few of the other old ladies and the kids, following Lynette’s instructions.

They’re not just making one apple pie.

They look like they’re assembling enough to feed an entire army.

With the number of people here, they might just need all those pies. There’s only one oven. It’ll be cranking them out for hours.

“It’s nice to see this place full. It’s the loud, crazy days that remind a body that this truly is one big family.”

We’re just in the lounge right now, but I can see clear across to the open part of the kitchen. Tyrant and Lark’s daughter, Penny, picks up a whole apple and gets ready to hurl it at someone who I can’t see. I hope they’re watching. I open my mouth to shout a warning, but Gunner’s old lady, Diletta, uses her teacher’s instincts and plucks the apple clean from Penny’s hand when she winds up.

Diletta never taught Penny, since she goes to a different school, but it’s clear that she knows kids. She says something to Penny, picks up two more apples, and starts juggling them. That’s more than enough to help Penny forget her nefarious plans.

“One day, you’ll have to bring me to a club party.” Willa has never been allowed to go. Lynette was firm about her not wanting Willa involved with that side of the club.

That was also months ago, and to look at Lynette now, she’s lost the rigid posture she used to carry herself with. She’s glowing, laughing, animated, and at ease. She’s only been to one biker Friday night herself, but she has stayed over at the clubhouse with Bullet a few times, and not because she was forced to either. Ask her, and she wouldn’t be afraid to say that she judged Bullet as a criminal when she first met him, a wormy apple who she didn’t want to take on as a client, but then she lost her whole holier than thou morality when she fell hard and fast for the man beneath the hard biker exterior.

She’s so much more than just the club’s lawyer now. She’s a part of this family.

Seeing her so in her element and at ease amongst all the old ladies—some of whom are as tough as their men—gives me hope that maybe she’ll come around to the idea of Willa being a part of this family as my old lady.

As. My. Old. Lady.

We’re a long way away from that yet. How is it that my heart aches when my chest floods with warmth all around it?

“They’re making my mom’s recipe, if Lynette has anything to do with it, and it looks like she has everything to do with it.” Willa takes Agatha’s hand in hers. “Would you like to help? There’s always room for improvement, even on tried and true recipes.”

“I’d love to!” She looks around Willa and gives me the old lady stink eye, her lips puckering in on themselves. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that promise to let us use guns, and we had better be able to launch at least one of those grenades when all this is over. That’s the price for my silence as to the fact that you tied me up and kidnapped me.”

“Grenades?” Just what on earth did Willa promise to get Agatha to fall in line?

Her smile is absolutely all sheepish guilt. “She has lots of land. I’m sure we could set something up. Bullet would know. He’s good at that kind of thing.”

“Grenades?” I repeat.

She just laughs and brushes her hand discreetly up my back. She leans in, glancing around furtively to make sure we’re not being watched. She has that private look on her face, one that I’m coming to know is just for me, and is all devilment.

“Just so you know, I’m going to sneak into your room tonight. You better make sure I know where it is and what your security code is. It would be pretty damn terrible if I got it wrong. The room. Not the code.”

“My god, you can’t do that. You’re going to be sharing a room with Agatha! What if she wakes up and finds you gone, lets herself out of the room, and starts going on a hunt for weapons?”

She laughs. “We’re about to let her into the kitchen. I can’t think of a more deadly room than that. She probably has wooden spoon skills that are absolutely killer, never mind all that talk about throwing knives.”

“I might be old, but my hearing hasn’t gone yet,” Agatha snorts, leaning into both of us, her lips puckering madly as she works her dentures around her mouth. “If you want to sneak out for a few hours to get it on with your man, I promise I’ll be on my best behavior.” She pops her dentures out and pretends to throw them over her shoulder.

“No!” Willa gasps, then laughs when Agatha turns her hand to show her that she still has them. “You have no idea what’s happened on these floors,” she sighs. “If those landed, we might have had to order up an exorcism before you could put them back into your mouth.”

“Got any hot grandpas around here?” Agatha asks, arranging her teeth back into place deftly. “My husband was the love of my life and that’s never going to change, but it’s been a lot of lonely years. I think a little bed sport might be just the thing.”

My god. We’ve unleashed a monster among us.

“There are plenty of eligible men in Hart, I’m sure,” Willa says hopefully, not the least bit disgusted or scandalized. She’s doing better with this information than I am.

“Don’t look so shocked, young man. One day, you’ll be my age, and you’ll look back on this moment and you’ll understand the concept of old, not dead .”

“The concept is to keep you safe. After the threat has been neutralized, you’re more than welcome to sling grenades on your farm—though I’d really prefer if you didn’t—or find someone to date.”

“Dating?” Agatha spits. “No. Hook up with.” She winks. “I know the lingo.”

“You shouldn’t risk coming to my room” I warn Willa under my breath before Agatha can tug her along to the kitchen. “Not unless you want someone to find out. There are cameras in the hallways and all over this place.”

She just shrugs. Maddeningly.

And even more maddening is the fact that my cock is harder than steel and has been since she mentioned a middle of the night tryst. I don’t know if it’s properly deflated ever since last night.

“I could talk to Wizard.”

“Wizard is busy enough. Too busy.” It’s another reminder that I was going to ask Tyrant about that. He’s probably well aware already, but I won’t be able to stop thinking about it until I put it out there. “It might look like a big happy gathering in here, but people are stressed.” Willa sobers at my words. Her hand falls to the small of my back and presses there in a comforting gesture. “When that asshole comes to get his money and gets the fuck out of Hart, I’ll take you back to your place and give you the fucking of a lifetime.”

“Still right here. Still hearing fine,” Agatha quips.

Willa tries to speak quieter, but it’s hard over the noise in here. “I hope you’ll tie me up this time.” She winks at me before she steers Agatha to the kitchen.

“I hope it’s more fun for you than it was for me,” Agatha drops dryly, just within my hearing.

Willa turns her face and winks again. It’s the last bit of attention she can give me before Lynette spots her and she and Agatha get swallowed into the pie making shenanigans. My mom and dad both look up and locate me, but instead of rushing over and asking me a thousand questions about what’s being done, or begging me to let them go home, they stay right where they are. They’re a part of this life in a way they never have been before.

Georgia waves at me. She palms an apple and strides over. “Hey, baby bro. I just wanted to say that we’re doing okay. You’re wearing your worried face. Either that or you’re constipated.”

My sister and Willa are far too similar while being so vastly different. It’s almost unnerving.

She tosses the apple at me. “One for the road.”

I catch it before it smacks me in the nose. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

“It’s actually fun. Everyone’s been super nice, and our rooms are all set up. Mom and Dad are going to call in sick to work for the next couple days, say they caught a stomach bug. Neither of them ever do that, so they’ll be okay. It’s a believable excuse. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that we have it handled.”

“I don’t have anything handled. I just got here, and I haven’t even gone for an update yet.”

She grins at me. “As I said, an apple for the road. Or just to the lounge, or wherever those feral looking guys are that run this place. Then again, they’re all feral, aren’t they? You stick out wherever you go, but here more than ever.”

She doesn’t intentionally mean to be cruel, but as she walks away, her words stick with me, worming under my skin. She pressed on something that’s never sat quite right with me. A set of doubts that I’ve never voiced to anyone and barely contemplated myself.

That this might be my family, but I really am nothing like anyone else here.

“Atlas!” Tyrant appears from out of nowhere and claps me on the shoulder so hard he just about winds me, then steers me out into the hall where the conversation is at least somewhat muted. “I talked to Odin and Battle Axe already.”

“I’m sorry we tied Agatha up and pretty much kidnapped her. That was terrible. Luckily, she rode with Willa, and she talked her down.”

“The important thing is that she’s here and she’s okay now and no one got hurt.”

“You mean her or us?”

Tyrant laughs. “I heard about the grenades.”

I shake my head, which only makes Tyrant’s easy smile grow. Despite the danger we’ve found ourselves in and all the duties and responsibilities that lay heavy on his shoulders, he never loses his magnetic smile.

“She wants to go lob grenades in her field when this is all over.”

“Bullet could show her how to do it safely.”

“That’s not a good idea! She’s a granny!”

Tyrant scoffs. “No one is going to be able to tell that lady anything. If she wants to play with grenades, she’s going to do just that. I’d rather she do it safely.”

“I’m sure there are more than a few guys here who would sign up for an afternoon of setting up a safe shelter just to be able to watch her do it. It seems a little like those guys that take an old washer and throw a brick into it until it detonates. Incredibly. Unsafe.”

“And vastly entertaining. If I send men out with her to do it, I’m sure they’ll keep her safe and maybe this whole thing will go from being the worst experience of her life, to the highlight.”

“I need to make sure she doesn’t blow limbs off,” I grumble, hating that anyone thinks this is amusing. Agatha could blow herself up for fuck’s sake. Or someone else. I was in that house today. I shielded Willa and that was my only concern in the moment. I didn’t give a shit about my own life, but that could have been serious.

Willa could have been hurt .

That makes me sick to my stomach. It causes a violent shiver to rip me apart, the truth sinking hooked talons into my stomach and barbs into the meat of me.

All that aside, there’s another reason to keep Agatha safe other than the obvious. “Willa’s starting to see her as a grandma figure. I can tell.” It’s Willa’s safety I care about, but also her happiness. “She never had one in her life. Agatha might be all bluster, but she’s lonely too.”

“Everything will work out.” Tyrant has this way of saying those words that makes them sound true, even though he can’t know that. “We left the number in the trunk. Wizard is monitoring the burner phone. We have a plan in place for where to meet and how to do it. Whenever that call comes in, we’re ready.”

“Thank you for having our back in this.”

“It concerned the club as well.” He doesn’t need to say that even if it didn’t, he and the rest of the guys would have been there just the same. “It concerns our city and that means our families and our homes.”

A bead of sweat trickles down the back of my neck and I reach up to scratch it. I’ve never questioned my Prez. Never put forward a suggestion or an idea. I’ve never demanded information. “I had this thought…” I break off, too unsure of myself to continue, but Tyrant just looks at me with those soft eyes, encouraging me to go on. “Wizard’s getting increasingly busy. He takes on so much. I thought that- I think that someone should help him out. I wouldn’t suggest it and not volunteer my time, but I know nothing about tech.”

As I thought, such an obvious gap in the club hasn’t escaped our Prez. “I’m on it. We haven’t brought it forward in church yet, but it’s been on our minds as a collective. I just don’t know whether it’s going to be a situation where the person we want can prospect for the club, or if it would be a contract situation.”

It’s extremely clear from that phrasing that he has someone in mind already. If Tyrant hasn’t approached whoever this man is and asked him to prospect, it’s because he has his doubts that he’d be a good fit. There’s a misconception about biker clubs that they’ll take anyone. That may be true very few times, and it would never be true for us. We’re a family because Tyrant and the rest of the officers are careful about who prospects. If someone very clearly won’t fit with us, or with Hart as a whole, then they’re not going to be able to join.

“Contracting out is risky.” I find myself voicing that instead of just thinking it. “Someone else would know club business and have they wouldn’t always be obligated to keep it a secret.”

We went through this with Harold Jacobs, the club’s old lawyer. He went AWOL and tried to shake the club down for money, and when that didn’t work, he kidnapped Lynette. His plan wasn’t well thought out. He and his son are both serving jail time. Tyrant let the law have them, like he let the law deal with his father after Zale tried to kill him and take over this club, but that’s not always going to be an option.

There are men far more dangerous than Harold out there.

“We’d have to take them at their word and their professionalism.”

“Honor amongst thieves and mercenaries is an almost absurd concept.” It’s not lost on me that people might say that same thing about me, and if not, then for sure about my club brothers.

“Some people would say that we have no honor,” Tyrant says, but it’s like he’s in line with my unspoken thoughts. “But then, some people are judgmental assholes.”

I wait for him to continue, not pressing. Even still, I’m astounded when he goes on. I’m not in the kind of position where he offers up club business. I used to be so intimidated, or maybe awestruck, by him and Raiden, despite the fact they weren’t that much older than me, that I could barely utter two words in their presence.

“The guy I have in mind is rogue. Ex-military. He has friends who are involved with other clubs, so he knows the world, but isn’t a part of it. He probably has good reason to skirt around the fringes. It would be a hard sell for him, more so than it would be for us, but I think that we can trust him. I’ve been asking around for over six months, and this was the best lead I had.”

Six months? He’s been on this all that time? I don’t know why that should take me aback. Tyrant’s grandfather started this club. His dad was Prez for years. He’s lived for the club his whole life. It’s in his blood.

“He knows how to play the field. He’s rough, mind and body. He’d scare the women senseless. There’s the kind of man we’d allow to patch in and then there’s the kind who we wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing they walk amongst us.”

“We do have a few of those,” I deadpan. “He might fit right in.”

“I’m talking way beyond the level of anyone here.”

“Morally black. I get it.”

Tyrant hesitates. It’s very clear to me that he’s met this man he’s considering. Personally. Probably alone. I like that about as much as anyone else here would like it, but Tyrant’s stubborn. He’s a good man with a great heart, but he’s also tough as fuck.

“No morals, more like,” he clarifies, his joking tone gone.

We’ve questioned whether a few of the guys here had some tendencies and leanings towards maybe not having a right and wrong center, but they just liked to keep their cards close to their chests. It’s alright to be damaged. This clearly goes well beyond that. The hair on the backs of my arms stand on end.

“I don’t even know if he’s fully sane,” Tyrant admits. “You can’t be doing what he does and be able to live with yourself if- well… he’s very good at finding people.”

“And doing what?” Georgia would probably tell me that’s a stupid question and I’m about to get an answer I don’t want to hear.

“Making sure they’ll never be found by anyone else again.”

I don’t know how to deal with that or process it. It’s a good thing Tyrant isn’t waiting for me to find something to say, or we’d be here for a good while. I don’t think I’m going to be able to thaw the ice out from the center of my spine for a long time either.

Finding someone who is the best at what they do is one thing.

Living with them is another.

Tyrant would never endanger anyone here. He’d give his life for this club and anyone in it. If he trusts this man enough to hire him, then we’ll all trust our Prez’s judgment in return.

But patching in?

I hope it doesn’t come to it, and if it does, that this guy refuses. Anti-heroes and even villains are all well and good. But this man sounds like the kind of dark that you’d hope you never brushed up against, a soulless shell of forsaken humanity.