Brother to Brother: The Sacred Brotherhood Book I (8 page)

“See you tonight,” she said and I gave a nod, shutting the door tight so I wouldn’t have to look at her and the worry that was carving ruts into her face and the dark circles that were taking up residence under her blue eyes.

***

“You rang?” Dragon asked, making lazy strides in my direction a few hours later at the garage.

“Yeah, I need your help with somethin’ P.”

Dragon arched a salt and pepper eyebrow and said, “Oh yeah? You got my interest, what might that be?”

I couldn’t get my back and forth with Mel that morning out of my head and it was taking over just about every thought I had like some kind of cancer.

“You got a way with scared females, like you’re the fuckin’ pussy whisperer or somethin’,” I said with a sniff. Dragon laughed, a deep belly laugh that started off a chuckle and grew into a dull roar.

“Somethin’ goin’ on with Grind’s baby mamma I should know about?” he asked, wiping a tear from his eye.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly, “but I got my suspicions that there’s more than meets the eye, her comin’ here like she did.”

“Ah, I see.” He was quiet a minute, real thoughtful, “Bring her by the club on Friday, I’ll have a talk with her.”

I gave a nod, “Thanks, Dragon,” I said relieved. I still didn’t give a shit about whatever might follow her out this way, but damn. Something had to give, she looked like she was gonna worry herself sick.

“Anything for a Brother, that’s how we operate. How many times I gotta tell you that?”

“Well, he’s got an awful thick skull,” Rush said, striding up. He’d missed most of the conversation but he’d at least caught Dragon’s last line.

“Yeah? Fuck you, asshole,” I told my brother and threw my rag at him which he deftly dodged with a shit eating grin.

“See you and this mystery girl on Friday,” Dragon said and Rush’s expression fell.

“Something wrong with Mel and Noah?” he asked.

“Nope, now mind your own fuckin’ business and get your ass back to work,” I said.

“Hey, here you’re not the boss of me,” Rush said with a wink, but he missed that Dray was coming up on his ass.

“No, but I am, now get your ass back to work,” Dray said. Rush gave me a one-fingered salute, and Dray a proper one and ducked under the hood of his latest project. Dray bent and picked up my rag off the garage floor, handing it to me.

“What’s up?” I asked him, half expecting him to ask what I’d brought his pops over here for, but he didn’t. He asked me about a car I’d worked on a couple of weeks before and it was business as usual after that – for real this time. I was finally able to put Mel and her weird requests and busted ass expressions to the back of my mind for the time being.

I finished out the day pretty strong and rode back home. I walked into a noisy disaster. It looked like the honeymoon of having a toddler added to the equation was over. Noah was running around shouting a bunch of nonsense while Mel stood in the kitchen rubbing her forehead yelling for him to stop. She meant business, too; busting out every little kid’s worst nightmare… the dreaded parental countdown.

“One!” She called out but it was too late, Noah crashed into the front of my legs hard enough to knock him flat on his ass. He looked up at me and I looked down at him and I demanded.

“Just what do you think yer doin’?” and he burst into noisy alligator tears. I looked at Mel with a clear look that asked,
why the fuck is your kid crying?
But all she could do was look back at me, her shoulders dropping in sheer, worn out, exhaustion and I had a feeling it’d pretty much been like this all day.

Fuckin’ great.

I left Noah where he was and shut the door behind me, and by the time I turned back around Mel had scooped him up.

“Why are you crying?” she demanded tersely and sounded just like every other mother I’d ever heard who was damn near at the end of her rope. I called in the cavalry, I shot a text off to Rush and Nox both.

“Unca Atcha scawy!” Noah said and broke into a fresh peal of screeching toddler whining cry. I couldn’t stand that shit.

“I’m gonna get a shower, and when I get back out here, you’re gonna be stopped. You hear me?” I asked him, which only made him wail harder despite my attempt at a tickle.

“I’m so sorry, Archer, he’s just been like this all day, and I’ve been trying to keep up and I was trying to get dinner done and you’re home already and I don’t know where the time went and –” I raised a hand to stem the tide of Mel’s babbling.

“I don’t care, Mel. I’m going to grab a shower and by the time I get out, he’ll be settled down. Shit, I just want some dinner and a night in.” I went past her and Noah and into my room shutting the door. Sure enough, when I got out of the shower, the boy was quiet and I could hear Nox out there playing with him.

I threw on fresh jeans and a clean shirt and went out, tying my hair up and back into a damp pony. I went into the kitchen and took the spoon out of Mel’s hand.

“What have you got going on in here?” I asked.

“Tomato soup and grilled cheese?” I raised an eyebrow, and shook my head. She’d had a hell of a day.

“I think I can manage, go lay down, take a nap or something,” I grated and she very nearly slunk out of the kitchen. Nox and I exchanged a look and when the door shut quietly behind her, he mouthed at me ‘what the fuck?’

It was a good question, I didn’t have an answer. I finished up the food and Nox fed the kid and we put him down after a talking to that I think
maybe
only like twenty-five percent of it got through his little toddler brain.

I looked in on Mel and she was passed
out.
I let her sleep.

“I gotta run, man,” Nox said quietly and I nodded.

“Thanks for comin’,” I said.

“No problem, he’s my nephew, too. What’s going on with Mel?” I gave a one shouldered shrug.

“Not sleepin’ so hot, I guess. I’m not really sure. She hasn’t said shit to me.”

Nox gave me a look like I was a dumbass, “Not like you’re the easiest guy to fuckin’ talk to,” he said and I gave another shrug. “Right,” he said dubiously, “I’ll see you around.”

“See you around, little brother,” I affirmed and shut the door behind him.

I checked my phone, and Rush had texted back some dumbassed excuse as to why he couldn’t come around tonight. I didn’t care, Nox had been enough. I went over to the couch and dropped onto it with an overblown sigh, Noah watching me through the bars of his crib.

“Go to sleep, kid.”

He grinned his adorable baby grin at me and I felt my mouth quirk up on one side into a smile I couldn’t resist. Even on a bad night, it wasn’t so bad havin’ ‘em here. I was kind of surprised by that, and by how easy they’d fit into things. I didn’t have much time to dwell on it though, I think I passed out before the kid even had a chance.

Chapter 11

Melody

I’d done as Archer had ordered and had gone to lay down. I hadn’t meant to sleep for so long, but exhaustion had sucked me under and held me in some kind of comatose death grip, because the next thing I knew, I was dragged back up out of sleep by the alarm on my phone.

I hadn’t even changed for bed, and sat up, still in my clothes from the day before. I pushed my hair off my forehead and clambered to my feet, waiting for my sleep fogged brain to orient its self.

Breakfast, I need to cook breakfast…

I went out into the living room and spied the empty couch, Noah’s attention rapt on the TV screen as cartoons played. I turned to look and Archer stood in the kitchen, eyeing me.

“Sit down before you fall down, Mel.”

I walked over to the little four person dining table and sank into one of the chairs. Archer brought over a glass of orange juice and set it down in front of me. I picked it up with a shaky grip and sucked some of it down.

“Better?” he asked, and I nodded. “When was the last time you ate something?” he asked me and I thought about it. He sighed and said, “If you have to think about it, it’s been too fuckin’ long. Jesus, Mel. How you expect to take care of him if you can’t even take care of yourself?”

Ouch again.
He was right, of course he was, but his comment more than stung. The knife went deep and twisted in my heart and I focused my gaze on my sweet little boy, transfixed by ninja turtles on the small screen. I felt tears slip free and wiped them away quickly. I didn’t answer Archer, figuring the question what rhetorical, but I couldn’t help but wonder what it was exactly that I’d done to make him hate me so much.

“Here, eat this,” he said dropping a plate in front of me. He called to my son, “Come on, Noah. Come help your mommy eat her breakfast,” and I closed my eyes and drew a deep, steadying breath. I reminded myself, that as long as he treated Noah well, and Noah didn’t know anything was amiss, I could take whatever he dished out. I’d done it with my mother and stepfather in Arizona, but anything Archer did was a pale imitation of their cruelty.

You can do this, Melody. You have to… for Noah.
I told myself.

“Mommy, up!” I opened my eyes and plastered on a brave smile for my brave little boy and lifted him up onto my lap.

“Good morning,” I said and he hugged me and I loved that he loved me, despite how much of an utter failure I was.

Eggs and bacon, alongside toast, loaded with butter and jam sat on the plate in front of Noah and me, and as always, I made sure my child was full before I bothered to feed myself. Archer sat with his own plate in front of him, drinking coffee and watching us. When Noah had enough and started to squirm, I put him down and he went back to the couch, climbing back up onto it and resuming his cartoons. I finished the food on the plate, my cheeks burning under Archer’s cold, green-gold gaze.

“I didn’t mean to sleep for so long,” I murmured.

“You obviously needed it, I don’t mind so long as you don’t make a habit of pawning breakfast off on me.” I winced at that, and couldn’t meet his gaze.

“Jesus, Mel. What the fuck happened to you?” he asked and I looked up sharply.

“Language in front of Noah, please.”

“Sorry,” he grimaced. “My question stands though, what’s going on? You’re not the same woman we left behind.”

“Of course I’m not,” I said gently, “The girl you all left in Arizona was scared and pregnant with her first child; the woman you see now is a mother to a one and a half year old boy. They’re worlds apart, Archer.”

He looked like he tasted something bad, took a drink of his coffee to wash it down and said, “Well regardless, the Pres out here wants to see you and the boy on Friday, so fix you and the kid some dinner and meet me at the club after I get off work,” he said. I felt myself pale and he eyed me, before asking, “Now what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, he isn’t… I mean I won’t be expected to…”

“Naw, he just wants to meet you. May not have been official, you bein’ Grinder’s ol’ lady, but the chapter out here agreed it best that you be treated that way.”

“What way?” I asked needing to hear precisely what he meant.

“As the property of a fallen brother, with all the protections and aide that comes with it. You know how it goes, Mel. We take care of our own,” he said softly.

I nodded, I knew how it was
supposed
to work, yes, but the Arizona chapter sometimes had its own ideas, and back there, Noah and I were nothing but a laughing stock and little better than trash. I may have earned it, I may have gotten in way over my head as little better than a slut to be passed around between brothers, but it’d been better than the alternative of staying under my parents’ roof. Plus, title aside, I didn’t
feel
like a slut. Grinder was the only brother I’d really been with. He’d protected me from the others despite his refusal to be faithful to me, or to make me any kind of an official girlfriend or ol’ lady.

When I’d come up pregnant, I might as well have turned into a leper as far as the rest of the guys had been concerned and when Grinder had left? Well, I found myself alone and I didn’t want to be passed around so I simply had stopped going around the club and its brothers. At least until I started to really show, and by then, it was like they’d all decided I was contagious or something. None of them wanted anything to do with the pregnant me. I’d thought it was because I was the reason Grinder had left… now I knew different. Now I knew it was likely because he had died and the Arizona chapter’s president had told the lot of them not to tell me.

“Mel?” I snapped out of it, before I could dwell on it too much, my refusal had spurned the Arizona chapter’s Pres. but good. I’d had to think about Noah, and Dom’s reputation for turning out girls, getting them hooked and strung out and eventually turning tricks for him – well I’d wanted no part in that. Not with a baby on the way.

“What the fuck you thinkin’ about so hard in there?” Archer demanded and I rubbed my face with my hands.

“A lot of things,” I said and drew in a shaky breath.

“Well lay it on me, I’m not too keen on the zombie staring off into space routine when I’m tryin’ to talk to you,” he said and I flinched inwardly. Shit, last thing I wanted was to trip Archer’s famous temper.

“After you left, to follow Grind out here, Dom started making hints about taking me for his own for a while. ‘Trying me on for size,’ he called it. I turned him down, told him I was pregnant and it was Grinder’s. It seemed to piss him off. They all left me alone for the most part after that. I think that’s why no one told me. Dom told them not to, because I wouldn’t go there, you know?”

Archer chewed the corner of his bottom lip and gave a single nod, once down, once up, “Yeah, I could see Dom pullin’ some shit like that. If word got out he got a pregnant bitch hooked on his shit and was turnin’ her out for profit, especially with Dragon and the mother chapter sniffing around, things would’ve gone real, real bad for him. These boys out here don’t play that kind of shit at all. It’s supposed to be one of the club’s tenants. ‘No women, no children,’ but Dom always had a slightly different idea of what that means.” Archer heaved a sigh, “It get much worse once Grind wasn’t there to keep him in check anymore?”