Page 3 of Zeppelin (Satan’s Angels MC #9)

Zeppelin

I haven’t used my given name in years . Some of the guys from the club know it, but it feels like I’ve been Decay forever. Growing up as Zeppelin was hard, Jack got off easier, being named after our parents’ other obsession—Kerouac, not Daniels.

Even though I brought my past with me, tied up in strings and weighted on my heart, joining the club was a fresh start.

I could be who I wanted to be there, not some orphan kid who never knew his dad and whose mom died of an overdose.

No one gave a shit if I graduated from high school or not.

I didn’t have to talk smart or be somebody in order to be accepted.

Lots of guys at the club came from a far worse place than we did.

Me and my brother left Canada intending on traveling south, maybe end up in Cali and then onto Mexico.

We never intended on staying in Washington.

Coming to Hart and joining Satan’s Angels was the first time I ever felt like I had a real family.

It was always me and Jack, and it always would be, but having my club brothers filled a hole in both of us.

That hole is back, clawing its way into my chest like a sinkhole. With every passing minute, it opens up wider and wider.

Death is so fucking final. Growing up the way we did, I believed in it. Part of the freedom of riding is forgetting that you’re mortal for just a few minutes.

There’s no escaping it now. If I pulled my bike out of the club’s compound and took off, there’s no outracing the fact that Jack is gone .

Tonight has made that more real than staring down at his broken body at the morgue. Tyrant went with me because he’s not just a good Prez. He’s a good man. Raiden came too, and Crow, probably because all three of them were worried that I might lose it in there.

Not going to lie, I wanted to smash the place up bad, but I didn’t. I kept my shit together.

It’s been days and nights without sleep, with that haunting image of Jack when he wasn’t Jack at all anymore.

He wanted to be cremated, so that’s what we had done for him.

He’s getting one fucking hell of a sendoff in there.

I would love it if he was fucking here instead of that urn of ashes sitting in the clubhouse lounge with bottles of untouched whiskey surrounding it as tribute.

I would love it if his bike wasn’t sitting in the middle of the compound, surrounded by others, glistening clean and beloved, waiting for Jack to peel out on it and go off riding into the night.

I would love it if his stupid truck that he was so proud of was parked in the asphalt lot directly beside me, just waiting for him to give it some other ridiculous aftermarket shit that it didn’t need.

He should be in there right this minute, like any other Friday night, being loud and obnoxious, laughing at jokes that weren’t all that funny, cracking even worse ones of his own.

What the fuck am I supposed to do when I caught his woman looking almost as bloodless as he did on that steel table, sick to a stomach she couldn’t keep her hands from fluttering around all night?

She kept sending that urn of ashes guilty, sidelong, sorrowful looks like she was trying to tell Jack something.

People might think that I don’t have two working braincells, but I’ve seen enough pregnant old ladies at the club, to recognize the way they touch their belly, often long before they begin to show.

Something sparked in me the second I saw Ginnifer Fields walk in with Carver, and his woman, Bronte, an hour ago.

Ginny and Jack were seeing each other for months.

Jack said it was just fooling around between sort of friends.

He had no reason to lie to me. He said she was practical.

She approached him and gave him her number.

She was flirty right from the start. She was an adult, and she’d somehow talked her sister and Dominic into being okay with the whole arrangement, so that it wouldn’t cause club drama.

Jack met with Ginny at least once a week, ever since Bronte and Carver’s daughter’s birthday party on Halloween. Seven months is more than enough time. One single night is more than enough time to conceive a child.

I followed Ginny out here once I saw her flee the clubhouse. I thought she needed a moment alone to mourn. I didn’t expect to find her puking her guts up.

I know one thing and one thing only. Jack didn’t know she was pregnant, but if he had, he would have done what I just said.

Offered her marriage, or some sort of arrangement in order to keep her and the baby safe and maybe even happy.

If she didn’t want that, he would have insisted that he still be involved.

He would have made a great dad. I don’t care if everyone who knew him would laugh me out of the fucking place for saying it, it’s the truth. No one knew Jack like I did, and that’s a motherfucking fuck of a hill I’m willing to-

Fuck .

Christ .

I’ve had enough of death.

“Like the airship? Or the band?”

I’m spiraling silently, lost in a haze of memories and the wild speculation of what’s going on with Ginny. Her soft voice brings me back.

From what I know of this woman, she’s sweet and kind.

Jack didn’t say much about her, but I know that she has a family she lives with a few hours from here.

She’s the youngest. She’s beautiful and kind.

Like her sister, who I have seen more of because Bronte is nearly always with Carver, Ginny is intelligent.

Unlike her sister though, she’s flirty and fun.

She doesn’t take life as seriously as Bronte does.

I don’t respond to her question because I’m still locked up on the inside.

Ginny takes that as stubbornness, or me just being classically difficult.

She sighs and crosses her arms around her chest. She’s not dressed like any biker babe in that flowing black maxi dress with the lace neckline and the dainty little black ballet flats, but then, she and Bronte have their own style. They rarely ever wear anything leather.

“I just want to know that you’re going to be okay. For Jack’s sake,” I mumble. I shouldn’t have confronted her like I did. No wonder she’s defensive.

I don’t know that I’ve been right the way most people are, but I’m definitely not right at the moment. My head is a wreck, just like Jack’s twisted, smashed truck, and my chest is worse.

Ginny’s eyes narrow, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on with me. Good luck with that beyond the obvious. She’s watched me cycle from outright asshole to quiet, withdrawn, and anxious in the span of a few minutes.

“I’ll be okay.” She bites the corner of her mouth from the inside, and the way her eyes widen gives her the illusion that she’s about to cry.

She’s no regular beauty, but she is pretty.

No, more than that . Her features are soft, but not plain.

She’s not striking, but she is arresting .

She’d never be featured in a magazine, unless it was an alternative lifestyle one, or maybe one of those bohemian cover shoots that have women in long dresses with fancy braids, no makeup, a smattering of freckles, standing in the middle of a field.

It would make sense, given where she lives.

“My family’s got me.”

“Ginny.” I drop my voice, trying to be gentle. I put my hands up, giving her my calloused, grease stained palms. Honest hands. Hands that can take anything and get it running again. Hands that have worked miracles, at least as far as vehicles go.

Before I can get anything else out, her face twists with panic. She whirls, bending in half at the waist, grabbing her long hair with one hand to keep it out of the way. I would have thought, given how she bathed that poor shrub the first go round, that her stomach was empty.

I was a jerk the first time, coming out here, but I thought the element of surprise might offer me the truth.

I was running on pure shock and… something that felt a little bit like hope .

Hope that Jack left something behind. Someone .

I was almost frantic with it and there’s not a bit of me that’s settled out.

I don’t have the right to touch her, but the longer she keeps gagging, her stomach heaving up dry spasms after the worst has passed, the less that matters.

I stalk over to her and set one hand on her arm while I gather up her hair for her.

She finally spits one last time and straightens, wiping her running eyes with the back of her hand.

She digs in the pocket of her dress and finds a used tissue, which she dabs her forehead, her cheeks, and her mouth with before balling it up into a fist.

My hand slips from her shoulder without me telling it to move. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m rubbing small circles on her back.

No one has ever done that for me. When me and Jack got sick growing up, we just got on with it. We didn’t have anyone looking out for us, or offering us comfort in any way. We might have cleaned up after each other, but there was no kind, loving caresses.

Love .

Other than the bond I had with Jack—a force that was stronger than any energy I’ve ever known- I have no idea what love feels like.

I’ve seen men from the club fall in love. I’ve seen them grow in love. I’ve witnessed a thousand gentle touches shared between Tyrant and Lark, Raiden and Ella, Gunner and Diletta, Atlas and Willa, Lynette and Bullet, Crow and Tarynn, and a few of the other guys who have old ladies or wives.

It used to be that just a few of us were tied down like that, but now more guys in the club have old ladies or wives than don’t.

I guess watching them all fall in love had more of an impact on me than I thought.

I angle Ginny around so that I can look her in the face. I keep rubbing her back, and her hand snakes out and lands near my waist. It would almost be intimate, if she wasn’t sweating through her clothes and shaking like she just fell into frigid water in the middle of winter.