Page 23 of Always My Fate

Later, after prospects cleaned the blood from the wood, Blackie sat alone at the head of the table. The weight of the presidency pressed heavily on him.

“I ain’t failin’ you,” he’d whispered into the empty room, gripping the gavel tight. “Not my woman. Not my kids. Not this club. I’ll burn it all down before I let it touch what’s mine.”

That betrayal had forged him. It taught him to trust slowly, to watch everyone, but to reward loyalty like gold. It turned him into the president who protected his chapters fiercely—Horse in Belle included—while never forgetting that family came first.

Blackie blinked back to the present, still sitting on the edge of their bed. Peaches was watching him quietly, her hand resting over his on her belly where Daniel kicked steadily.

He leaned down and kissed her forehead, then her lips, slow and reverent. “Just thinkin’ about the old days,” he murmured against her skin. “How far we’ve come. How hard I had to fight to be the man you and these kids deserve.”

Peaches smiled softly, threading her fingers through his hair. “You are that man, Blackie. My word on it.”

He nodded, the old lessons settling deep in his chest. The betrayal back then had shaped everything—his ruthless protection of the club and his fierce love for his family. He wouldn’t fail them now.

Not with MDMC ghosts circling. Not with another son nearly here.

He’d earned this life the hard way. He’d protect it the same.

***

Roscoe

The old lady’s voice crackled through the burner phone—tired, sharp, and carrying the weight of every bad decision she’d ever made with their father. Roscoe stood in the doorway of the latest abandoned house, shoulder braced against the frame, listening while she laid the information all out.

“Peaches had a scare with the pregnancy. They took her back to the hospital. They got her home now, but it was touch and go for a minute. Your brother...he’s not sleeping. Pacing the floors like a caged animal. Trying to be everything at once—her man, daddy to those babies, and hold the club together. Never seen him like this, Roscoe. He’s turning himself inside out.”

Roscoe’s grip on the phone tightened until the plastic creaked. Peaches. The pregnancy. A kid—his brother’s kid—almost lost before it even started. For a second the old instinct kicked in hard, the one that remembered scraped knees and shared beds in shitty foster placements and Blackie standing between him and the worst of their old man’s rages. His thumb hovered over the keypad before he even realized it. Call him. Just ask if she’s okay. If the baby was going to be okay.

The thought tasted like weakness.

He killed it fast.

Because out there in the dark, Ruiz and the others were already moving pieces. Small runs at first, like they’d talked about. Pot. Guns. Testing the edges of Blackie’s carefully drawn lines. And if those lines got crossed later—if things escalated the way Roscoe’s anger kept whispering they should—then one day his brother might not come home at all. Might bleed out on some back road or in the middle of a meet gone wrong. And Roscoe would finally be free of the shadow that had swallowed his whole fucking life.

He couldn’t have both. Couldn’t play the concerned brother and at the same time sharpen the knife.

“Yeah,” he said finally, voice flat. “Sounds like Blackie. All the time gotta be the hero.”

His mother sighed on the other end, the sound heavy with things she wouldn’t say. She’d lived through enough with her husband, their father, that Roscoe knew she wouldn’t go any farther. She didn’t have a crew behind her anymore, anathema to their old man’s club. He was sick of her weakness. Roscoe ended the call before she could push.

He stood there a long minute, staring at the silent phone in his hand. The uncertainty gnawed at him—ugly and unfamiliar. She’s home. She’s breathing. The kid’s still in there. He could almost hear Blackie’s voice in his head, steady and pissed off, telling him to stay the fuck away.

Roscoe shoved the phone into his pocket and grabbed his cut.

The liquor store on the corner was open. He bought the biggest bottle of bottom-shelf whiskey they had, the kind that tasted like regret and burned like battery acid. Back in the abandoned house he didn’t bother with a glass. Just twisted the cap, tipped it back, and drank until the pain drowned out everything else—the worry, the hate, the blood that tied him to a brother he wanted to both save and destroy.

By the time the booze was half gone, the room was spinning and his thoughts had gone blessedly, stupidly quiet. He slumped against the wall, knuckles white around the neck of the bottle, and let the darkness take him.

Chapter Twelve

Blackie

The Longview clubhouse was alive with the kind of noise that reminded Blackie why he’d fought so hard for this life. Music thumped from the speakers, brothers laughed loud and rough, and the smell of grilled meat and spilled beer hung thick in the air. The party wasn’t a full-blown blowout—just enough of a gathering to boost morale and let the club breathe for a night while Peaches recovered at home.

Blackie leaned against the bar, a beer in one hand, his cut feeling a little lighter with Rook and Oaky stepping up more. He missed the fuck out of Duane but knew Horse appreciated having such a stanch second. Then that bastard Gunny was visiting again, holding court with a story that had half the room roaring.

“—and then the stupid cuntmuffin actually tried to outrun Shamu,” Gunny finished, slapping the bar. “Dog nearly took his ass off at the knees!”

Blackie barked a laugh, deep and genuine. “Serves the shitheel right. Horse said that dog’s worth more than half his chapter some days.” He clapped Rook on the shoulder hard enough to make the man stagger. “You hear that? Next time you fuck up on a run, I’m sendin’ Shamu after your sorry ass instead of a prospect.”