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Mama cleared her throat, and I rolled my eyes as she took tiny, pitiful bites of her food.

I leaned forward and put my plate on the table, sounding as loud as a bomb in the quiet room, and dusted my hands off.

“Is there something wrong with the food?” Crash asked.

“Not at all,” Kitty sniffed, perfecting the role of the victim .

“Aw, come on, Mama. You’ve got to keep your strength up,” I smiled sweetly. “You’ll be no good to anyone if you starve yourself. We all know how much you like playing boss lady.”

“Well, you’d know all about being starved for food, wouldn’t you? How long was it you were Alex’s little slave for again?” She asked, her voice equally sweet as my own.

I gave her a fake little laugh.

“Alright, does someone want to tell me what’s going on here?” Crash demanded, looking back and forth at us.

“Nothing at all,” I said. “Mama is just having a hard time playing nice, aren’t you, Mama?”

“Why should I play nice with a murderer?”

“Damn. I guess Dante and Crash should leave the room then, huh?”

“There’s murder, and then there’s murder . What you did was for your own benefit, not the clubs.”

“Fuck me, never become a historian, will you? Because your ability to retain facts is shocking.”

“Let’s just put an end to this before it escalates,” Dante said, throwing me a look.

“Fine,” I said with a shrug, picking my plate back up. “This chicken is amazing… Was it breast?”

“Um… yes?” Crash asked, giving me a strange glance.

“And did you use the knife with the leather handle to cut it up?” I kept my face neutral, my tone innocent.

“Why do you ask?”

“I just figured it sliced through Macbeth easily enough, so I bet it made easy work of this chicken.”

“You—” Mama was on her feet in an instant, lunging over the table at me. Dante dropped his plate to the floor and grabbed her around her waist, pulling her away from me.

“There’s a special place in hell for fucking psychos like you!” she screamed at me, straining against her son to get free.

“It’s called a fucking throne,” I laughed back, getting to my feet. Crash stood up at the same time, shooting me a warning look.

“Is there any fucking need?” Dante snapped at me, throwing his mother in the direction of Crash, who dragged her out of the room .

“Oh, don’t you fucking start!” I snapped at him. “She started it. Are you honestly expecting me to stay silent and let her get away with her pathetic attempts to hurt me?”

“You know what she’s like and—”

“No. Nu-uh. Don’t you dare finish that sentence. I do know what she’s like, because you all let her be that way! I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be spoken to like that by anyone. I don’t let my own mother speak to me that way, so I’m certainly not going to let yours.”

“For the sake of peace, can’t you just learn to let it wash off you?”

“Who disturbed the peace here? You’re directing your anger at the wrong person, Dante. You need to be having a talk with your mother because I will never allow myself to be disrespected. Not by you, and certainly not by fucking her. Yet another reason I don’t want to be here.”

“Oh, here we go again,” he sighed, tipping his head back in frustration. “It always comes back to being a member of this fucking club!”

“Because my reasons are fucking valid, and you’re not willing to listen to them!

It’s always the same shit – calm down, we’re okay, nothing is going to happen.

And yet every five fucking minutes, something is happening!

I shouldn’t be fending off attacks from your mother every five fucking minutes.

Attacks you should be defending me from, by the way! ”

“I have done, Rachel. Many fucking times. Just because you don’t see it or hear it doesn’t mean I’m not doing it.

You know damn well that if you’re giving as good as you get, and I jump in defending you, you’ll turn your anger on me and tell me you don’t need me defending you!

I’m damned if I do, and damned if I goddamn don’t! ”

“I shouldn’t have to keep giving as good as I’m getting!

If you weren’t such a fucking mummy’s boy, you’d tell her to shut up in a way that actually gets through to her thick skull that she needs to shut the fuck up!

I can’t spend the rest of my life with her hanging over my shoulder waiting for me to fuck up! ”

He sighed heavily and rolled his eyes at me. “I don’t know what’s up with you lately, but you’re just looking for an argument, and I’m not giving it to you.”

“I’m trying to talk to you! ”

“No, what you’re trying to do is get a fucking rise out of me. I know your tricks, Rachel. I’m actually trying to make this relationship work, which means not arguing every second of every bloody day.”

“Weren’t you the one who told me we didn’t need to change who we were to have a working relationship? That’s the issue with you. You say one thing, but your actions prove another. The fact that you’re putting your mother’s needs above my own proves that.”

“My mother has just lost her son; in case you’ve forgotten. I think she can be forgiven for losing her temper here and there.”

“Right, first of all, she was like this long before I killed Macbeth, so don’t use his death as an excuse. Second, Macbeth was a piece of shit, and she needs to get over it.”

“Perhaps you need to get over yourself and stop trying to make an issue out of nothing. What’s the matter?

Are you bored or something? You see, as much as you claim that you hate this club, and that you want to escape before something bad happens, you sure do crave the fucking drama and chaos.

Has the high of murdering Macbeth finally worn off and now you need something new to sustain you? ”

“Ahh, here it is. The famous Dante temper is beginning to raise its head. This is where it starts. Nasty words first, and then it’ll be dragging me about like a caveman.

I’ve already read this script. So no, if I was looking for something new and exciting, I certainly wouldn’t find it arguing with you. ”

“What is it you’re looking for here?” He demanded, his gaze hardening. “Do you want me to say my mother was in the wrong? Of course she was. But so were you. Do you need to remind her at every opportunity that you killed Macbeth? No, you absolutely do not. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

“Two negatives make a positive, and I find it a positive situation when your mother is put in her fucking place. Macbeth was a product of her poison, just as much as you are.”

“I’m sorry. Can you repeat that?” he challenged in that soft voice that meant he was on the edge of darkness.

“You heard me,” I said, throwing my head back, meeting his challenge with a hard look of my own. “Oh, you might not manifest it by betraying your brothers. You’re poison in other ways. Like kidnapping women, for example. ”

“You really need to get over that,” he said in a nasty imitation of my earlier words.

“Do you know what, Dante? The issue is, you like to pretend you’re this big, scary biker, when in actual fact, you’re nothing but a whipped bitch, scared of his mother’s shadow.”

“Are you quite finished?”

“I could go on but go ahead and say what you’ve got to say.”

“I’m leaving my mother alone, not because of some ridiculous idea of fearing her, but more out of respect.

Which I realise is a foreign concept to you, because you’re too up yourself to show anyone respect.

I recognise a woman who is grieving the loss of a child – not just in a physical sense, either.

She’s grieving the loss of a man who never fucking existed.

The Macbeth she thought she knew; the son she had a relationship with was based on lies and manipulation.

She knows now that he was faking everything to keep her trust. She’s grieving the loss of a loving boy who loved her and saw her as his entire world.

The same little boy who grew up to betray everyone.

And yes, she’s probably beginning to recognise that some of it is her own fault.

She’s punishing herself more than we could ever fucking punish her with harsh words.

I recognise all of this. I also recognise that sometimes; I have to let someone lash out because they don’t know how else to deal with their emotions.

Right now, Crash will be shouting at her, because he, too, recognises a lost woman who is also struggling. And it’s not my mother.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Who else if not your mother?”

“You, Rachel. You’ll never admit it, but the reason we’ve all been so lenient with you is because we understand what it’s like to murder someone.

You lashed out at Macbeth, and now you’ve got to deal with the consequences.

On top of that, you’re dealing with the effects of having your past come back to greet you.

You did an excellent job of compartmentalising that part of your life into a tiny little box in your mind that you never revisited.

But that box has been ripped open, and you’re processing everything.

Alex, Ben, Macbeth… if you’re telling me none of that has affected you, then we have bigger issues here than my mother throwing a few nasty words in your direction. ”

“I have no issue with any of them, and I don’t need you playing amateur psychiatrist with me, either. Those men got what was coming to them, and if I had the chance to do it all over again, I’d do so with an almost giddy sense of glee.”

“I couldn’t give a fuck that you murdered them.

You know I’d hand you the knife myself and let you slice them into tiny little playing dice, if that’s what you wanted.

I’m talking about all the shit these men put you through, the shit Macbeth was willing to allow you to go through if Callum got his way.

It can’t be easy knowing what they had planned. ”

I raised one shoulder in a shrug. “But they weren’t successful.”

“And you’re not willing to discuss it, and that’s fine.

But we all recognise the signs. We can see you retreating in on yourself.

We can see you lashing out over stupid things.

You’re not as blank as you like to think you are.

Not when someone knows you and has managed to scratch the surface of who you really are.

We see you, Rachel. We see how you sometimes drift away from the present and get lost in your memories.

We see how your eyes cloud over before you try to shake it off and throw out a smart remark.

If you want me to rise to all your arguments to make yourself feel better, then that’s what I’ll do.

But I assure you, you’re going to be the one left damaged by it all if you don’t start talking and processing all that baggage you’re carrying.

Shit always floats to the surface in the end, no matter how deep you bury it. ”

I stayed silent as he looked at me, not willing to admit that he might be right.

When I had told Dante about my past, it had brought back feelings I had never wanted to feel again.

Hearing what Callum had planned for me had turned my blood to concrete, because I knew they were not empty words.

This was a threat that could very easily become a reality if things had been even slightly different.

“You know where I am when you’re ready to admit we’re right. But just try to go easy on others, like we’re going easy on you. We’re all having a hard time lately. Just some of us have an easier time of admitting it.”

He turned away from me and walked out of the room.

Well. That went completely differently than I expected!

He was right, though .

Mama had lost Macbeth. And so had Crash. Their granddaughter, Dante’s daughter, was in hospital. We were all fighting our own demons right now.

I was so used to the mentality of filing it away, never to be thought of again.

I knew Mama was never going to apologise to me, and I was too stubborn to apologise to her first. However, maybe an apology isn’t what was needed. What we needed was a fresh start, if only one of us could put aside our pride and be the one to make the first move.

I fucking hated it when Dante was right.