Filthy Bastard (Grim Bastards MC) (17 page)

Smoke instantly steps back and says, “Go slay some demons, Red.”

After taking a deep breath, I look down the hall and see Brew and my mother nose to nose. Boz is standing in front of my father, with a smirk on his face. Neither of them are letting my parents even get close to Alex’s room.

I rush forward and ask, “What are they doing here?”

Brew whips his head around and orders, “Get back in the room, now.”

“I can’t do that,” I reply, moving closer to my mother. “I need to talk to them.”

Her eyes come to me, and the anger in them nearly has me stepping back. Instead, I square my shoulder and take a step closer. My eyes never leave hers as I draw to a stop a foot in front of her. Of course, Brew grabs me and pulls me into his side.

His eyes are a dangerous shade of brown as he shakes his head. “You’re never gonna be an old lady that does as she’s told, are you?”

“What?” I mumble out, sure I didn’t hear him right. “What did you say?”

There’s no way he insinuated I was his old lady, is there? That takes time and a hell of a lot of commitment, something we haven’t had. Then, I remember that Trix got claimed in a much shorter amount of time. Maybe I did hear him right, after all.

Instead of answering, he places a kiss on the top of my head. “It’s okay. I always wanted my woman to have a bit of fire in her. Guess I gotta take the good with the bad.”

“I want to see my daughter and my grandson,” my mom says, bringing my attention back to the task at hand. “These men seem to think they have the right to tell me no.”

“They do, considering your daughter asked the hospital to bar you and Dad from her room,” I tell her, enjoying the flash of surprise I see in her eyes.

“Alex cannot do that to your father and me,” Mom says, squaring her shoulders.

“Considering what you’ve done to her, I think she has every right to bar you from her room,” I say, reminding my mother of her sins.

Instead of replying to me, she looks over to my father. “You need to put a stop to this mess, right now, Timothy. If not, I’m going to be very upset.”

“Do you really let your woman talk to you like that?” Boz lets out a snort, showing his disgust. “Did she take your balls when you said I do?”

Of course, my father doesn’t respond to him. Instead, he turns around and walks to the nurse’s station. He’s off to do as he’s told, proving Boz right. Dad did lose his balls the day he married my mother. He handed them right over to her on a silver platter.

“We’ll see what happens now,” Mom says, one of her superior smiles on face.

For a second, I let fear take over. It goes away quickly when I see how relaxed Brew looks. If he was worried that my parents had a chance of getting into Alex’s room, he would be angry. Realizing this, I let out a relieved breath and look back at Mom.

“I want you and Dad to stay away from Alex and me. Neither one of us wants a thing to do with you,” I tell her, hoping she hears the strength in my voice. “From the moment I found out you knew what Blake was doing, you were dead to me. As soon as I told Alex, you lost her and her son also.”

I don’t bother telling her that they lost us a long time ago, the day she made Alex marry Blake, because she wouldn’t understand how much her betrayal hurt Alex and me. If she did, she wouldn’t care. If she can’t control us, we’re worth nothing to her or Dad.

Mom doesn’t reply, just stands quietly waiting for Dad. When he does come back, the look on his face is almost comical. His fear is easily seen, and the fact that he’s scared of my mother is sad. I stare at him for a few seconds, wondering why he allows her to control him. It doesn’t take long for me to realize there isn’t an answer to my question.

“Lydia, we need to leave,” he says, begging her with his eyes not to start to a fight.

Of course, she does anyway. “What do you mean, leave? I’m not going anywhere until I see my grandson and Alex.”

He walks to her side and whispers, “If we do not leave within the next three minutes, security will be brought up to remove us.”

“They can’t do that,” Mom shouts, losing her legendary control.

“Please, lower your voice,” Dad says, attempting to sooth her. “We wouldn’t want our friends to learn of this misunderstanding.”

“Of course not. Let’s leave, Timothy.” In the blink of an eye, she’s back to the mother I’ve grown to know. “But this is not over.”

Her threat flows over me, not causing the desired effect. “Goodbye, Mom.”

As they walk away, Brew says, “Your parents are crazy as fuck, Red.”

“That they are,” I say, leaning into him. “But they’re not my parents anymore.”

Brew

LEAVING THE
women to coo over the baby, I walk out of Alex’s hospital room and see Boz and Smoke standing guard in the hall. Other than a few quick runs to change or grab food, they’ve been here the entire time. I told them both to head home, told then I could handle this shit on my own, but they refused to leave.

Lifting my chin to them, I ask, “I need a smoke. Wanna join me?”

Actually, what I need is a drink, but a smoke will have to do for now. Addy and Alex have been arguing all morning over the baby’s name. Alex wanted to name him Cameron, but Addy hates the name. She wanted her nephew to be named after his mom, but Alex didn’t like the idea. They bitched and bitched with each other until I was ready to throw Addy over my shoulder and stomp out of the room.

More than once, I told my woman that the boy was Alex’s son, so she should be able to pick his name. Addy would hush me and continue on arguing. I swear, watching the two of them was like getting a glimpse of my future. Red is like a dog with a bone when she wants something. In other words, I’m completely and totally fucked.

“Did she give in?” Smoke asks as he shoots a wink at a passing nurse.

A smile spreads across my face as I answer. “Yeah, his name is Cameron Alexander.”

“We need to have a talk, brother,” Boz says as he follows me to the atrium just a few doors down from Alex’s room.

Fuck! I knew this was coming. Addy’s parents have money, as does that fucker Blake. They could bring a shit storm to the club’s doorsteps, and that’s something we don’t need right now. The club has been through too much lately to take on another war, even if that war is with civilians.

As we step into the atrium, I pull out a cigarette and light it. “I’ll deal with this shit on my own. I don’t expect the club to step in.”

“What the fuck?” Smoke mumbles, taking a drag off his own cigarette. “You’re our brother. We always have your back.”

Before I can say anything, Boz cuts me off. “This isn’t just about Addy and her sister any more. Her mother paid Hoss a visit this morning.”

My eyes go to Boz, not believing what is coming out of this mouth. “You’ve got to be shitting me, right?”

“No, brother, I’m not,” Boz replies with a shake of his head. “She wanted him to pass us a message. If Alex doesn’t go back to that dickhead when she leaves the hospital, they’re gonna join forces and take the little boy from her.”

“No fucking way can that happen,” I growl out, running a hand through my hair. “Not only would it break Red’s heart, I can’t stand the thought of that motherfucker getting anywhere near that kid. Not to mention, he needs to be protected from Addy’s mom, too. If she’d let her own daughter be raped, imagine what she’d do to a grandchild.”

“True enough,” Smoke says, anger lacing through his voice. “That kid’s innocent. I’d like to see him stay that way for as long as he can.”

A million thoughts are running through my head at once, and none of them are giving me the answer I seek. I can’t let Addy down again, but how can I stop this from happening? It’s not easy to keep a man away from his kid, even if that man is a no good son of a bitch.

“We got another problem, Brew,” Boz says, growing more agitated with each word he says. “That bitch has been looking into the club.”

“What the hell?” I mutter in disbelief. “What do you mean?”

“She gave Hoss a list of brothers that have seen time inside a jail cell. Also gave him a matching list for his own club,” Boz explains, looking between Smoke and me. “She also gave him a credit report for each patched member, to both clubs.”

“How the hell did she find out that information?” Smoke asks, then goes on, “Even if Red talked to her about the club, which I don’t think happened, there’s no way she even knows who half the brothers are. She sure in the hell wouldn’t know our real names.”

This is where my childhood comes in handy. Being a rich kid, from a prosperous family, I’ve seen shit like this my whole life. Unlike my brothers, I know what’s going on and I know how to fix it. The only problem is keeping them from going in guns blazing.

“Money can buy just about anything,” I say with a shrug. “The bitch saw our cuts at the graduation and got her dogs digging for information right away. She probably had the information on Hoss’ club the first day Addy told her that Trix was a friend.”

“That makes no fucking sense,” Boz says, as Smoke nods his head in agreement.

Trying to break it down in a way they can understand, I bring it back to the world they know. “When someone fucks with the club, what’s the first thing we do?”

“Fuck back,” Smoke replies, pulling out another cigarette.

Boz shakes his head and answers, “We find out all we can about them.”

My brother’s getting it. Just like I told Addy, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. What you don’t know can hurt you, so we need to find out every secret Addy’s parents and that dick head have hidden, then use them to bring them down.

“To Addy’s bitch of a mom, we were fucking with her well laid plans. She didn’t want any of us anywhere near her daughter. She knew if she pushed too hard, Addy would rebel,” I explain, taking a drag off my smoke. “Instead, she got the information she needed. Then, the bitch sat on it until she needed it.”

“We fight fire with fire,” Boz says with a decisive nod of his head. “Let’s open up the bitch’s closet and see what skeletons she’s hiding.”

“I say we just take the fuckers out,” Smoke adds with a shrug. “We could make it look like an accident, take them all out at once.”

A grin spreads across my face at the sincerity on my brother’s face. “I wish we could, man. Hell, I already had that planned, but it can’t happen now. What she showed Hoss isn’t it. There’s no doubt in my mind that she has a hell of a lot more that she’s not showing. We need to find out what that is before we end them.”

“Fucking bitch,” Smoke growls out, his hands tightening into fists.

After nodding in agreement, I look to Boz and say, “We need to call Hack in from the road, get him to dig into their financials.”

Hack is our club treasurer, a good friend, and a great brother. He’s also one of the best hackers in the US, if not the world. When he was twenty-three, he was caught hacking into the FCC’s database. He spent four years inside. While there, he met one of the brothers. When he got out, he wanted a cut. It didn’t take him long to earn it.

His old lady was side-swiped by a big rig about eighteen months ago. She spent two weeks in a coma before she finally gave up the fight. After that, Hack went off the rails. Every day, we had to watch him die a little more. Finally, three months ago, Boz told him to hit the road and stay there until he figured out that he still had a reason to live.

“You think he’s ready for that?” Smoke asks, tossing his cigarette on the ground.

“I do,” Boz replies, looking between us. “I’ve already called him in. He should be at the club by tomorrow night.”

“Good,” I mumble, thinking about everything that needs to be done. “I want my woman safe.”

First things first, I’m gonna have to have a long talk to Addy. She’s gonna have to tell me how this shit got started, from the beginning all the way through. I get her part in it. It’s hard to stomach what she had to do, but I understand she felt she had no choice. What I don’t understand is how it ever got to this point in the first place.

“I’m not doing this for Addy. I would, but I can’t. Until you claim her, she doesn’t get club protection.” Pres then zeros in on me and adds, “This is for the club, because that bitch thought she could mess with me and my brothers. Bonus, Addy and her sister gets protection, too.”

I nod, letting him know I understand. “She’ll be claimed, and it’ll be happening soon.”

Addy

BREW SHOVES
the bassinet into the van, the same van he used when he kidnapped me, and slams the door. “Do you think the little man’s gonna need anything else?”

Alex and Cameron are getting to come home today. Since they have no home anymore, Brew insisted we come back to the clubhouse with him. Even Boz agreed that it is the best option for right now. I’m not sure that taking a newborn to the clubhouse is a great idea, but the thought of being there again fills me with both excitement and happiness.

Before they leave the hospital, though, we needed to pick up some stuff for them. Since everything Alex owns and everything we’ve bought for Cameron is at Blake’s house, Brew brought me shopping to get them what they needed. We sure did that, plus some.

Considering everything he bought for my nephew, it’s doubtful. “I don’t think so, but if he does, we’ll get it later.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Brew says, grabbing my hand and pulling me across the street. “Let’s get something to eat.”

“We need to get back to the hospital,” I reply, giving his hand a tug. “Alex will be worried if we’re gone too long.”

Even though Trix and the guys are there with her, I’m still worried. The delivery was hard on her heart. She made it through it, but the doctor said it was touch and go. It scared the hell out of me. I doubt I’ll be forgetting that fear until after she has her heart surgery. I just hope Blake doesn’t drop Alex’s insurance before she can have it.

I bared my heart to Brew, told him everything. He now knows all about Blake, everything that has happened, and how long it lasted. He also understands that Alex’s situation was every bit as bad as mine. Instead of berating me, blaming Alex or me, he promised that her surgery would be covered. I realize he probably doesn’t understand how expensive it will be, but his promise was still a balm to my soul.