Page 8 of Perdition (Unchained Hearts #4)

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Frost cursed and slammed the laptop closed.

Turning, he practically threw the device into the safe behind him, locking it.

He trusted his club brothers implicitly—even despite all the bullshit they’d pulled lately—but that didn’t mean that something as important as a laptop containing all the financial and security information about the club and every brother in it was safe from prying eyes or sticky hands.

They weren’t a one percent club, but that didn’t mean the local LEOs didn’t get a taste for climbing the ladder by stepping on “biker riff-raff.” There was no telling when there’d be a raid, and once the safe was closed and locked, it looked just like a bookshelf, complete with books about Harley repair, finances for dummies, and a complete history of Northeast Pennsylvania, written by some local self-proclaimed historian.

Twisting on his heel, his movements jerky from pent up frustration and unspent anger, he slammed back into his chair, the weight of him making the thing screech horribly.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t scrape what Patriot had said from his mind.

“Instead of putting space between you and Sarah, you’ve been getting closer, spending time together all snuggled up on your couch. It’s like you’re tempting fate, just seeing how close you can get to the line before your finally break….”

He could admit, it wasn’t the most intelligent thing to keep the woman he’d once consider breaking his vows for so close to him.

But he’d felt guilty, like he’d lead her on, making her think they could be something they weren’t.

That next morning, he’d talked to her, told her that her approaching him, once again—after that first time she’d come on to him after she’d first arrived at the clubhouse—was inappropriate.

He told her that they could be friends, only, and nothing more.

That he was married, and his old lady was a pillar of the club.

Sarah had commented that she rarely saw Emily, so how could she be the pillar of anything—and that had stung like a motherfucker, but he’d been wondering the same thing. When had his old lady started distancing herself from the club she’d helped build?

Probably right around the time you started spending the night at the clubhouse without her, which is right around the time the twins graduated high school and left for college. Right around the same time Em started focusing on Flower’s Blooms instead of Madsen Flowers, you, her husband.

So, in a way, Sarah was right, but she was also wrong, because even though Em wasn’t around as much, she was still heart and soul of the Unchained MC.

She was still the one who’d sat with him nights on end, helping him go through real estate listings for possible clubhouse properties.

She was still the one who’d cooked up a storm to feed him and his rag-tag group of founding brothers as they discussed the terms of the club charter.

She was still the one who’d helped him brainstorm the name of the MC, and when he’d settled on Unchained, she’d smiled, told him it was perfect, and then given him a blowjob that made all the long, agonizing nights worth it.

Emily was still the one who’d been there with him, for him, when he’d needed her the most—during the fear of the unknown as he mustered up for a deployment, during the long, lonely months when a simple letter from her made all the difference between giving in and going hard.

And during the everyday moments when he was home, in need of rest and peace, and she’d just… been his calm in the storm.

She’d been everything to him, even from the beginning, even when neither of them knew that the fuck they were doing.

Even when she was barely eighteen and watching him load onto a bus to basic training, an infant under each arm, she’d been the strong one, waving him off with steel in her spine and pride in her eyes.

Even when she was alone for months, taking care of their family on her own, she’d still been the one holding down the fort, sending letters of encouragement, smiling through the window of a poorly buffered video call, even when he knew she wanted to cry for missing him.

Emily wasn’t just the heart and soul of the Unchained MC… .

She was his heart and soul.

And fuck…he missed her.

“…I bet you tell her shit you don’t tell Em, am I right? Does Em even know what’s going on with the patch over? Does she even know why her husband has been spending every night in a bed where she isn’t? I bet Sarah does….”

Patriot had been right; Frost had been talking to Sarah about things he hadn’t yet told Em—and he wanted to say it was because Em wasn’t picking up the phone or answering his texts.

But…he knew that even if she did answer, he’d keep it close to the chest, not wanting to worry her when she had Flower’s Blooms to worry about.

That’s a load of shit, too, fucker. You don’t want to tell her because you don’t want her to look at you like a failure, like someone who can’t get his shit together, even after a year of banging his head against it.

In all the years he’d been an MC president, he’d never heard of it taking more than a few months to complete a patch over, and there he was, still grinding away at one that shouldn’t have taken more than six months.

But the Bone Dogz are deep in the shit, up to their necks in money and legal problems.

And he was still trying to unbury them, to bring them and their men into the Unchained fold.

But is it worth it? Do they bring anything with them besides the back breaking work, the worry, a few extra brothers, and one apparently troublesome club whore?

Damn…he honestly didn’t know. Tiburon, Malo, and Throttle were proving to be assets to the club, but Mig and Moses were becoming more a problem than they were worth.

And Sarah….

He scrubbed and hand down his face, weary, frustrated, and so fucking done with everything.

Should have given up long ago, wiped your hands of it, and gone home to your wife.

But then Em would know he’d failed.

And you are failing…at your marriage….

Fuck…what the hell did all of that mean?

According to all the men you love and trust like brothers, it means your priorities are shit, and you’re a motherfucking disappointment.

Was that what Emily thought too, was that why she hadn’t reached out to him in so long, and why she hadn’t even bothered to come by the clubhouse?

Well, you did disappoint her when you ordered Locust to betray Nadia, and you disappointed her again when you basically pouted like a little bitch at the party Locust threw for Nadia, ignoring Em the whole time.

He’d been giving her space, goddammit! Just like she’d asked.

So why was she looking at you like you’d cut the heads off all her flowers…especially after you’d gotten a text from Sarah and left Em there, standing alone, while you ran off to pick up a stranded Sarah from the Verizon store?

But Sarah wasn’t the problem, right? She hadn’t done anything wrong, and neither had he.

And it wasn’t like he was talking to Sarah about anything personal…

except for that shit they’d talked about that morning, about him only being with Emily.

He hadn’t meant to share that, to make it sound like he was stuck—he just hadn’t corrected Sarah’s assumption…

because, well, in that moment, he had felt stuck, like everything was weighing on him alone.

But that had nothing to do with Emily, and everything to do with how poorly he was dealing with the stress of the patch over, the awkwardness between him and Locust and Nadia, and the unspoken censure he could feel from every set of eyes in the clubhouse.

The brothers didn’t like how much time he’d been spending with Sarah—and he could admit, they’d found him in some compromising situations, but those had all been innocent, taken out of context.

But that didn’t stop the weight of disapproval and disappointment he felt in the air every time he left his office.

Fuck.

Pulling out his cell, he checked it—again—for any messages from Emily.

Nothing.

Not from Emily, at least. There were two texts from War checking in on him.

As a man, of course he was closer to his son than his daughter, not that Sorsha wasn’t a daddy’s girl, but there was something about being the father to a son.

A son who would be disappointed in him if he found out about the distance and chilly silence between his parents.

Fuck, he needed to get out of there, get home, sit down with Em…and…and what ?

Hell, he had no idea where to even start.

Maybe tell her you love her, miss her, and that you’re an asshole piece of shit for basically ghosting her for?

He typed out a quick text, taking a moment to reflect on the name Em had programmed into his contact profile.

MyMads: I’ll be home tonight. I miss you.

Simple. Informative. Honest—because, goddamn, he missed his wife.

You should have been home every night, and then you wouldn’t been staring down the barrel of a club mutiny and a marriage in trouble.

Marriage in trouble? Is that what he was facing?

You think, dumbass?