Unlawfully Yours (Lawless MC #1)

1

“Shit!” I exclaim, as the heavy box slips through my hands. It crashes to the floor, the contents letting out a clink and I wince, hoping whatever is inside is still in one piece.

“You okay, honey?” Kate, my mom asks, her soft voice floating through the phone which is currently sandwiched between my ear and my shoulder. Just the sound of her voice makes me already homesick and it’s only been three days since I saw her.

Kate’s not my real mom, but she’s the closest I have to one since she and her husband, Jeremy adopted me when I was seven, and after everything she’s done for me over the last twenty years, she’s my mom in every sense of the word.

“Yeah, that last box was a little heavier than I expected,” I reply, taking my phone in my hand.

“Oh, Al… I wish I was there to give you a hand.”

“You could’ve come with. I did offer but you didn’t want to,” I remind her, trying my best to cover the bitterness in my voice.

Her and Jer came up with a million and one reason why they were opposed to me moving to Stillwater Falls and found just as many reason as to why they couldn’t come to help me move in. Jeremy has to work… Kate can’t drive so she won’t be able to get back…

Even now months later, the whole situation still has me puzzled. They’ve done everything and more for me over the years, giving me more than I could have ever needed to ensure my childhood was a happy one despite everything that happened prior, so why was this any different? One of the biggest milestones in my life and it’s the first one they’ve been absent from. They never even offered to come and visit once I’m settled. Why?

“So, how was the drive?” she asks, not-so-subtly changing the subject with her higher-than-usual voice as she always does when she doesn’t want to talk about something.

“Exhausting,” I reply through a yawn, crashing down onto my new plush couch with a bounce, the light grey chenille fabric soft under my touch. “I’m just glad I can have a decent shower and eat some proper food tonight.”

For the past three days I’ve been living out of my suitcase, living off of instant noodles and takeout, staying in cheap motels after an long, draining day on the road. The first motel just outside of Dallas was rundown to say the least. The seventies wallpaper was yellowing and hanging off the walls, the only running water was freezing cold and I swear to god something bit me while I was sleeping. The second motel was on the Mississippi/Alabama border and even now I’m surprised I made it out of there alive without being raped or murdered. Don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware of how to defend myself, after all it’s part of my job to be able to fight back, but that fact didn’t ease my anxiety any. Especially since the lock on the door was broken, so I ended up shoving the bed up against it just to make sure no unwanted visitors stopped by.

I knew driving over a thousand miles across the country wouldn’t be easy, but I didn’t have any other option seeing as how I would rather walk barefoot from Colorado to Georgia than ever set foot on a plane. I’ve only ever been on one plane, and it was the single most terrifying moment of my life, well, all except for one.

“And the house? What’s it like?”

“It’s beautiful, a lot bigger than I expected.” It’s a three-bed, one bathroom detached house just outside of the centre of the town which is now the place I call my home.

Stillwater Falls.

I fell in love with it as soon as I saw the ad, and the fact that it came semi-furnished was an added bonus. The real estate agents were kind enough to offer me a virtual tour of the place so that I didn’t have to make the trip in person, and after extensive research, I took the plunge and bought my first house. Aside from a couple of the rooms needing a fresh lick of paint and some updating with modern furniture, the house is perfect. The wide bay window in the living room looks out over a decent sized front lawn, the ideal spot to curl up under a thick blanket during the colder months, a mug of coffee in one hand and a good romance book in the other.

I can’t wait.

“Gosh, my girl’s all grown up, I can’t believe it. The house already feels empty without you. I hope you know how proud we are of you.”

I smile. “I do. It feels weird being in a house all by myself and it’s not even been half a day yet. I’m actually starting to miss Jer shouting at the TV when the Broncos are losing.”

As if on queue, I hear Jeremy in the background complaining about one of the players being wrongly fouled.

“Some things never change,” she laughs. “Al, will you promise me something?”

“Of course.”

“Make some friends. I hate to think of you all alone. You throw yourself into work and never leave time for yourself and it’s just that… well, you’ve never been great at making friends in the past.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“All I’m saying is that you have a tendency to push people away, like you’re protecting yourself from getting hurt.”

She’s not wrong. I’ve never had a problem with being on my own, I enjoy my own company and I find it’s easier that way. No one to hurt you. No one to let you down, but I can’t deny that a part of me longs for some companionship from time to time.

“I just want you to make some friends. And hey, you might even find a handsome gentleman who sweeps you off your feet.”

Yeah, there is a higher chance that pigs will fly given my track record with men.

“Just promise me you’ll open yourself up to the opportunity, okay?” she adds.

“Okay. I promise I’ll make an effort.”

“Thank you, honey. I just wish you were still here and you didn’t have to leave.” She sighs, and with that one sound I know exactly where this conversation is heading. “You know—”

“I know what you’re going to say, so please don’t. I don’t want to fight with you about this again,” I say wearily, the little energy that I had is nowhere near enough for a repeat of this conversation.

“Jeremy and I are just worried about you, honey. We just don’t understand—”

“We’ve been over this a dozen times, you know why I came here. This is something I have to do, I need answers.”

“Sometimes things don’t have answers.”

“Well, this time it does. I know it. Tell me you wouldn’t do the same if it was you?”

There’s a pause. “Not if it could get me killed, no. If you’re right about this, about what they did, these sorts of people are dangerous and you need to tread carefully. I couldn’t handle it if anything happened to you.” I can hear the fear in her voice and I hate that she’s worried.

“Nothing’s going to happen to me, nobody knows who I am here,” I assure her, but the words are for me as much as they are for her. Because she’s right, they are dangerous, and I’d be stupid to not be a little afraid.

I clear my throat. “Look, I’ve gotta go, I still have a lot of unpacking to do. Talk soon?” I hate having to cut our phone call short, but it’s the same words we’ve exchanged a thousand times and we both know I’m not going to budge on my decision to move here, it’s a little late now even if I did.

She sniffs and my heart tugs. “Yes, of course. I love you, honey.”

“Love you too.” I hang up and toss my phone somewhere beside me as I glance around the room at the stack of boxes that litter the living room floor.

Each one is labelled for a different room, but my eyes fall on the only box that isn’t labelled. It’s smaller than the others, but it’s far more valuable than everything else I own put together.

I slide to the floor and drag the box towards me before lifting off the lid. A photo of me as a baby stares back at me. I’m sat on a woman’s lap. She looks a little younger than I am now, sporting the same black hair that falls past my own shoulders, the same bright green eyes sparkling under the light. We could be mistaken for twins. The wide smile she wears is matched by that of the man’s who sits beside her. He looks a little older than her, maybe late twenties, but handsome. His arm is draped around the woman’s shoulders while his other hand holds mine, my tiny fingers wrapped around his index.

My mom and dad. My real ones. Thomas and Amelia Strong. They look so happy.

Accompanying the photograph is the stuffed lion I carried with me everywhere. One night when I was about five or six, there was a terrible thunder storm that raged outside my bedroom window for hours and all night I hid under the covers in my bed, shaking like a leaf. The next day, my dad bought me home a stuffed lion. He told me that it would give me strength and to keep it close whenever I was scared. It rarely left my side from that day on.

I shake the thought away and dig further into the box. In the bottom is a small velvet bag that holds my dad’s wedding ring. It’s a simple gold band, engraved on the inside with an infinity loop and the words, ‘My love is with you wherever the road carries you’.

This box holds the few possessions I have from my old life, a life that seems so strange and foreign when I think back to it. It’s almost like it was a dream, the memories are faint and patchy, the full picture ever just so out of reach to me. Though one memory remains perfectly intact. A memory that has haunted my dreams for twenty years. The image of that day is seared into my brain like a brand, the sounds of the gunshots and the screams that followed echoing through my mind.

My stomach tightens at the memory as a wave of anger floods my veins.

I pull off the necklace that hangs around my neck and slip my dad’s wedding ring onto it before securing the clasp at the back of my neck, wanting to keep him close now that I’ve returned to the place it all began. Because this isn’t my first time in Stillwater Falls, in fact I was born here, it was my family home before everything I knew was stripped from me.

I begin carrying the boxes upstairs to my bedroom, starting the dreaded job of unpacking everything, unfolding all of the clothes I shoved into my suitcase before hanging them in the closet.

I glance up to the uniform hanging on the closet door. The stone coloured shirt and khaki green pants and my stomach churns. I have a little over a week before I start my new job at the Sheriff’s department as the new Officer, just enough time to get acquainted and get a feeling for the place. Then I can start tracking down the people who killed my dad.