“So that’s why you turned rat in the first place.”

Chop cleared his throat but didn’t say anything. I took Sadie’s temporary silence as an admission.

“I love you, too, you know,” she said, this time to me. “I—”

I cut her off. I’d already heard more than fucking enough. “YOU are NOTHING to me!” I roared, pulling at my own hair in frustration. “I don’t give a fuck where you’ve been or for how long or what the fuck Chop did to you. There’s only one fucking thing I care about right now.” I narrowed my eyes and gave her one last warning. “You better tell me where the fuck she is, and if you so much as laid one fucking finger on her—” The sound of bullets grew even louder, but I didn’t care. They could be sailing through the room and I still wouldn’t have taken my eyes off of the bitch who had my girl.

Sadie’s shoulders fell, but it was like I wasn’t in the room. The conversation she was having was entirely one sided. I didn’t know what I needed to do to get her so she could tell me where the fuck my girl was. “I came back for you once, you know,” she said. “Escaped all on my own.” Chops eyes widened like he hadn’t known that. “I disguised myself. At first I was going to take you away with me, that time for good. You were sixteen at the time and when I finally found you, you were at some biker bar. Some whore was sitting on your lap. You were snorting that shit up your nose off of her legs. That’s the very moment I knew it was too late.” She searched my face, “You looked just like him sitting there. A spitting image. I knew then there was no saving you. I could have just left then. Disappeared. But I didn’t. I had to make sure that the two of you were put down and the best way to do that was from the inside. So I went back down into my hole before Chop even realized I was gone and I put up with his abuse every single day knowing that I wouldn’t stop until I took every last one of you leather-wearing psychopaths down.” She turned her nose up at us. “Especially the two of you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Great speech. Now, where the fuck is my girl!”

Sadie laughed and stepped to the side of the door. “I’ll tell you. But you need to move, outside. NOW!” she ordered, and when neither of us budged she fired at the light fixture, sending glass raining down around us.

Chop moved first, and I followed. Sadie stayed out of arm’s reach, as we stepped through what was left of Gus and made our way out to the balcony of the second floor, which overlooked the courtyard where sporadic gunfire was being exchanged.

A monster of a man wearing overalls with no shirt underneath walked casually beside the pool on the floor below, holding a semi-automatic in each hand, and I could have sworn I heard him whistling, but when I looked down again, he was gone.

“On your knees,” Sadie ordered. I lowered myself to the ground but only because she still hadn’t answered my question about Ti, and Chop did the same, because we were cuffed and he didn’t have a fucking choice. “I’m on my fucking knees, bitch, now tell me where the fuck my girl is.”

Sadie clucked her tongue and moved to stand beside us. “Unfortunately for you, I needed the girl in order to get you here, and since Gus was so insistent on joining me here tonight, he hired outside help to do the sick shit he wanted to do her and tape it. I’d show you the tape, but something tells me you won’t be around long enough to watch it.”

“I’ll fucking kill you!” I shouted, rising off my knees. She fired, sending a bullet straight through my thigh and sending me crashing back down to the floor.

Chop remained silent, only watching as I flailed around on the floor, clenching my teeth together, warring against the agony tearing through my leg. “Where was this girl when I needed her?” Chop suddenly asked, drawing my attention away from the pain. I managed to sit up on my good knee and with my free hand I pushed against the wound to slow down the blood loss. “Where was this girl twenty-five years ago?” he asked. “Why, my Sadie girl? Why did you turn on me? You could have come to me. You could have told me what was going on. What you wanted to do. You had a choice, and you made the wrong fucking one. It’s your fault. You made me pull that fucking trigger!”

Sadie turned to him, her eyes rimmed with red like she was on the verge of tears. “I did what I thought could get us out from under your shit,” she spat.

“But don’t you see?” he asked. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill you even when I should have after what you did. So I kept you. I kept you all to myself because you were mine.” Chop shook his head. His face reddened. “You were a rat who deserved to fucking die but I didn’t kill you!” he said, raising his voice to a scream. “You claimed to have loved your kid, but I can see right fucking through you. You never once asked to see him in all the years I had you. You didn’t love him, you were jealous of him. Of the club. Of anywhere else my attention was besides you, and you couldn’t fucking handle that, so you ran to the law with your tail between your fucking cunt like the bitch you are.”

“You still don’t get it do you Chop-Chop?” she asked. “None of that matters now.” Sadie stood behind me and pressed the gun to the back of my head. “I’ll kill your precious son first, so you can watch him die. Then it’s your turn, baby.” She blew him a kiss.

She leaned in and whispered in my ear. “I may not have had the chance to raise you up, baby boy, but I’m not going to pass up the chance now to put you down.”

“Let me do it,” Chop said. “Give me a gun. You can still kill me after. Just let me do this one thing right for you.”

“Fucking pussy,” I muttered.

Sadie was quiet and my head wasn’t blown off, but I couldn’t believe she was even considering what he was offering, and even after all the shit Chop had done, I was mad at myself for being surprised at the offer.

I couldn’t believe it even more when Chop raised up to his feet and was suddenly the one standing behind me with a gun, my arm that was cuffed to his was pulled backward at an awkward angle. “This is for you, baby,” Chop said with a sadness in his voice I’d never heard before.

Chop pulled the trigger.

The sound of the gun shot was fucking deafening.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Bear

THE ENTIRE COURTYARD rattled like a cannon had been fired. So did the inside of my head. Wet and warm liquid poured thickly over my head and shoulders. The heaviness that was Chop’s lifeless body descended over me, forcing my face against the rusted railing.