Unlawfully Yours (Lawless MC #1)

28

Allie leaves early the next morning before Kit wakes up, avoiding any unwanted questions as to why she stayed over, questions even I don’t have the answers to just yet.

I won’t lie and say I’m not enjoying this because I am. I love being around her, I love her laugh and how unapologetically herself she is. I love touching her and being touched by her. The sex is incredible and I don’t want it to end. I want more.

We’ve yet to discuss what this is, but I’m honouring her wish for now; no explanations, no expectations, just us, and maybe what we need is exactly that. Labels and expectations add pressure, something that neither of us need. Right now, I’m happy to see where this goes and take it at her speed. If it goes nowhere, then I’ll have to suck it up, but I won’t back down without a fight because I want her.

I want everything.

“How did you sleep, bud?” I ask as Kit enters the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Okay, I guess.”

His reply has me frowning. “Hey, you should be happy. Two whole weeks off school that you can spend in your pj’s playing Xbox, how can the life of an eleven year-old get any better than that?” I ask, turning to grab the carton of orange juice from the fridge.

“Did my mom not want me?”

I stop, my hand holding the carton suspended in mid-air as my heart constricts in my chest. His question comes so unexpected, I wasn’t prepared for how to answer it, especially not so early in the morning.

I turn to face him, setting the carton down. “What makes you ask that?”

He hesitates for a moment before answering. “I heard you talking to Allie last night. I didn’t mean to listen, honest. I came down for some water and I didn’t want to interrupt. I heard you talk about her and I listened. I’m sorry. Don’t be mad.”

My shoulders deflate, the sadness and confusion in his eyes breaks my heart.

I round the island and take a seat on the stool beside him. “I’m not mad, Kit. I could never be mad at you, and I’m sorry you had to hear us talking last night.”

He fidgets with his fingers in his lap. “Is it true?”

I take a moment to think how best to tackle this. It was a conversation I knew would be coming my way as Kit got older, I just never expected it to be now. “What I need you to understand, is that it is in no way a reflection of you, you’re the son parents only dream of having, and I get to be the lucky son of a bitch who was blessed eleven years ago. Your mother’s absence from our lives was her choice, it was never your fault or anything you did wrong, okay? Kit, some people aren’t cut out to be parents and unfortunately, your mother wasn’t.”

“You told Allie that she left me once, when I was a baby,” Kit says.

“Yes, and it’s a day I never want to think of again. I thought I was going to lose you, and aside from the shooting, I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life. I don’t think she wished you any harm, I can only assume she left so suddenly because she knew what I’d do if I found her that day, but her actions were unjustifiable and unacceptable. We’re better off without her in our lives, bud. I won’t stop you if you decide you want to meet her, and I’d understand if you did, but I’d rather you not know her than to know her and be disappointed.”

It’s not my place to dictate whether he can or cannot see his birth mother, he’s old enough to decide that on his own, I just have to be okay with his choice if he decides he wants to.

He chews on the inside of his lip and after a minute, he shakes his head. “I don’t want to meet her. I don’t like that she left us, and it’s her loss ‘cause we’re awesome .”

I laugh. “Damn straight.”

He takes me by surprise for the second time this morning when he leans into me, hugging me with his good arm. “I love you, Dad.”

A lump forms in my throat as I clutch him tighter to my chest. “I love you too, bud. So much. I don’t know what I’d do without you. It’s us against the world, always .”

He sighs. “I wish Allie was my mom, she’s nice.”

My heart lurches. “Yeah, she is nice.”

Every boy needs a mother, there’s no doubt about that, but Christina? I don’t think there’s even a tiny part of her that’s even remotely maternal. I always believed I was enough for my son, that I was all he would ever need, but now I’m not so sure. Seeing him with Allie, how at ease he is around her, how his eyes light up when she enters the room, showed me just how much having a mother figure in his life would benefit him.

After breakfast, Kit disappears back upstairs to do some of the homework school sent him to complete while he’s recovering. With him gone, I use the opportunity to follow up on some things.

“Prez?” Cruiser answers on the second ring.

“Any update on the Christina situation?”

He groans. “ Fuuuck , sorry, Prez. With everything going on with The Cobras and Kit, it completely slipped my mind. Shit . I’m on it now.”

“Thanks, man. No worries.” I can’t blame him with all the other shit going on just lately.

“Want me to dig up some dirt?”

“Dig as deep as you can.”

“Consider it done.”

Christina hasn’t got shit on me and no judge in their right minds would ever allow her custody after all the shit she pulled when he was a kid, but I want to be ready should she come for my son.

Over my dead fucking body will she ever take him from me.

It’s not until almost seven thirty that a text comes through from Cruiser.

A few moments later, a photo attachment joins the message and my heart comes crashing to a halt. It’s fairly recent, can’t be any older than a year or two. It’s a photo of Christina with a man I know all too well.

Tobias fucking Grimes.

What the fuck?

My fist tightens around the phone as I stare at the photo. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. There’s an intimacy between them, his hand placement low on her waist, how she leans into his touch.

My phone pings with another incoming photo, this one of them kissing.

My mind swirls with questions. How? When? Why?

I thumb out a message, attaching the photos to it and dragging up Christina’s number.

I don’t have to wait long for a reply.

I hurl my phone across the room with a roar and it lands with a clatter across the wooden flooring.

I’m seething. My pulse is thunderous in my ear drums. Every fibre of my body is vibrating with rage. I need to hit something, anything .

All this time, all those months I’ve been paying her off, inadvertently funding Grimes and his fucking club, no doubt. Funding those bastards to help bring my own club down, gun down my son and deal drugs on my streets.

I bend to retrieve my phone and by some miracle, despite the huge crack from one corner of the screen to the other, it still works.

“Kit, I need to go out for a while. Stay in the house and call me if you need anything,” I call up the stairs as I tug on my jacket and my kutte.

“Okay,” he calls back as the front door swings closed.

I climb onto my bike and rev the engine, the loud rumble replacing some of the anger in my veins with adrenaline as I back out of the driveway and take off down the road.

I park my bike outside The Ape Hanger, backing it up against the curb alongside the others. The parking lot is heaving, but it’s to be expected during fight night.

The bar is virtually empty as I storm through.

“Hey, Prez,” one of the Prospects greets as he mops the floor but I don’t respond. Instead, I head towards the basement door, the noise from downstairs getting louder as I descend the stairs, the air getting thicker and hotter as I reach the bottom.

A crowd has formed a square as they await tonight’s fighters, the energy in the room is potent. I look to the corner of the room off to my left. Killian is in the process of wrapping his knuckles, readying himself for tonight’s fight, Jett and Cruiser flanking him.

I wade through the crowd towards them. I need to work off the anger before I do something I regret.

Just as Kill takes a step towards the ring, I place my palm on Kill’s bare chest to halt him. “Tonight, the ring’s mine.”