He held my eyes and answered straight out. “Lots of it but mostly, looked after the girls.”

My body jerked under his like it was trying to get away but his weight pinned me to the bed and his thumb swept down to press into my lips.

Even with his thumb hindering my words, I said, “You have a way with gash.”

His eyes flashed at my words. “Lanie, hear me, I did not like doin’ that shit and I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t know that it was a means to an end. Tack made promises, promises he kept, that it was temporary.”

“So you were a pimp?” I whispered in horror and his thumb swept away.

“Chaos pimped. I just took care of the girls.”

“I’m not seeing the nuance of difference, Hop,” I told him, my hands now at his shoulders, putting on pressure, and his jaw clenched.

“Hard to see since that nuance is just that. Chaos is me, I’m Chaos. But I wasn’t a pimp, woman. Another brother had that job. I was an enforcer. A girl got worked over, she came to me and I dealt with it. I wasn’t just an enforcer for the girls, I was one for the Club. I’m good with my fists. You learn that shit when you spend most of your life in bars, you have a guitar in your hands or not. When we were starting out, some of those bars were rough and shit happens. The president of the Club back then, he noticed I had talent in that area and he was a man who used that kinda talent. I took their backs. The girls just trusted me. I don’t have a way with gash, Lanie. But a john works you over and a man goes out and makes him bleed for that mistake, that bitch is gonna be grateful. It came natural and those women would have given it to any brother who took their backs like that.”

He was angry at my comment. I knew it because I felt it but I also knew it because he called me “woman” and he’d never done that.

It was also interesting to understand how he felled monster truck man so easily.

I didn’t share this with him.

I told him honestly if cautiously, “I’m not sure that’s much better.”

“You would be right,” he retorted. “I’m not gonna lie to you. I did what I did but it wasn’t my choice and it wasn’t my decision. But it was my decision to join the Club, take Tack’s back, help him maneuver himself to the gavel and be a soldier in the war that would get us out of that shit. In order to do it, I had to do what I had to do.”

“Did you sleep with those girls?” I asked.

“Fuck no.”

“Give them drugs?”

Hop went silent and bile crawled up my throat.

I pushed through the sick. “You gave them drugs?”

“No, but Chaos had access and brothers, brothers that are gone now, did.”

I closed my eyes and turned my head to the side.

Hop moved it back into position and I opened my eyes to glare at him, because I did not like this, any of it, only to see him scowling at me.

“Two years, Lanie, two f**kin’ years I worked those girls, keepin’ them together, tryin’ to get them straight, helpin’ them plan for when Tack executed his takeover and we cut them loose. That life, not a good one and you’re hooked on shit, you’ll do pretty much anything to keep yourself supplied with it. I tried to do it smart, keep them quiet and move them out of the life and two of those bitches talked. We lost a brother because of that, Lanie. They opened their mouths, shit got out to the wrong people and Tack had to move to shut it down and we lost a brother. Takin’ us out of that life into the one where we are now was not easy, everyone’s hands got dirty. Blood flowed but, where we are now, what we can give to our kids, it was worth it.”

“You lost a brother?” I asked and he unexpectedly knifed away, lifted an arm and pointed at the tattoo on his bicep.

I’d seen it before, time and again, not only on Hopper but all the brothers had it. It was a set of unbalanced scales. The top scale had the word “Red” inked in it, rivers of red blood dripping over the sides. I knew, without anyone telling me, that this indicated Tyra and what happened to her because of Elliott. The bottom scale had the word “Black” with a hooded, skull-faced reaper that had creepy blue eyes and a scythe in his skeleton’s hand. The support of the scales was fashioned out of the words, “Never Forget”.

“Black. A brother. Dead because of gash. Gash and greed, Lanie.”

He sat in bed staring down at me and kept talking.

“I get this is a shock and I get why. Trust me, babe, I like it a lot f**kin’ less than you do I got that shit in my history. I like it less knowin’ Black is no longer breathin’ on this earth. He was a good man. He wanted good things for the Club and his family. So much, he died for it.”

This wasn’t easy for Hop, I knew, I could see it, but I was too shocked about all he was telling me to do anything about it.

Hop continued.

“You would like him because he was likeable, loyal, smart, solid. I am not a soldier in the normal sense but I know by experience, you fight a war for something you believe in, you gotta be prepared to do some serious, sick, crazy, messed up shit to win. I came into this Club knowin’ where Tack wanted to lead it, what he wanted to give to his brothers so they could give it to their families, and I came into it goin’ all in. I never had a good family and anyone who spends five seconds with Tack Allen knows the kind of man he is. He promised me he could deliver me to something I wanted. I believed in him and I was right. I enlisted to fight that war, Lanie, and I’m not proud of what I did to help win it but I’m proud that I did my part to get what we won.”

I stared up at him not knowing how to process his words, the hard, determined look on his face, or the information he’d just given me.

I also didn’t have the considerable time I was certain it would take to process this before there was a knock on the door.

Our discussion and that knock, what it might mean, who might be behind that door, sent a wave of panic through me and before I told my body to move, it did.

In a flurry, I threw back the covers, rolled out of bed and snatched up Hop’s t-shirt, chanting, “I’m not here, I’m not here, I’m not here,” as I pulled it on and ran to the bathroom.

I shut the door and deep breathed.

I knew Tack’s eldest son Rush having the boys for a sleepover meant no way Tack or Ty-Ty were coming back down the mountain. Both of them were older than me and I was far from the days where my biggest hope was making the high school cheerleading squad but that didn’t mean they didn’t go at each other like jackrabbits. Until I had Hopper, I didn’t know men with the kind of libido Kane “Tack” Allen had existed. I thought he was an anomaly, a happy one for Tyra, but one all the same.