Crossroads (Beautiful Biker MC Romance Series) - DD Prince Page 0,149
and Christian house-hunting. He told me he and Laura would live there but probably only for a few months as they were officially now all but living together and she was giving her apartment up in a few weeks. She told him she wanted a house outside the club. We might repurpose part of the space into a VIP apartment for visitors when that happened or use some of it to add more bedrooms as our chapter grew.
Today, we had a lot to celebrate. In addition to this being a club wedding reception for me and Christian, we now knew that we didn’t have an enemy with the Freebooters.
I didn’t know all the details, but Brady’s father, who was a member and had been in prison since before I was born (for murder one), had recently become cellmates with a Freebooter. Brady’s dad and that senior level Booter had developed a friendship and this served as a way to forge a peace treaty between us.
Freebooters would not be supporting any former Wyld Jackals. They were on their own. This was good. Very good.
But it was also nerve-wracking, because we had no idea what move the few remaining Ipswich and Sioux Falls Jackals would make next. Any other chapters they had were completely gone. To our knowledge there were less than a dozen of them remaining, including Mantis’s father Alec (who had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel), Sarge (their Sergeant at Arms), Wild Will (who was in hiding somewhere) and a few other remaining members, a few of which had gotten out of prison or jail after their MC had been dismantled.
Would they go away? Would they strike back one more time? We didn’t know.
Alec had reportedly sent word he wanted to die in peace. Christian told me that he told my father not to believe that for a minute.
“That man will wreak havoc until his dyin’ breath,” he said. “And he’ll leave orders for someone to continue wreakin’ after he’s gone.”
“I believe it,” I told him.
Christian went back to work the day after we got back, telling his boss that he’d gotten married. His boss would be here tonight at our reception, too, with his wife. This made me so happy. Christian had people in his life that cared, and he could see that, could see he had a circle around him of people that were his people. Instead of him being alone in the world just trying to survive, he had his mom, his brother, his aunt, uncle, and Ella and her little brother (who idolized Christian). And the Valentine crew. And the rest of The Dominion Brotherhood.
And me.
My man had a bit of a spring in his step these days, but I still saw trouble in his eyes. I knew he was diligently watching, waiting for a viper to strike. The night before our party, he had to go back out to the Jackals property to update the batteries in the trail cams again. He told me nothing but wildlife had tripped them other than him and I a few weeks before but wildlife tripped them often enough that the batteries ran down quickly.
***
Meeting Uncle Stu wasn’t easy, but I somehow partly held myself together. I could see emotion on Christian’s face as his mom emerged from the crowd with Uncle Stu after everyone yelled “Congratulations!”
He didn’t shed tears or anything like that but his face first looked haunted and then very, very humble when the frail-looking man with a cane put both arms around him and hugged him hard, a tear in Uncle Stu’s eyes as he said, “Always knew you were gonna be a good man, a man who would come back to us. No matter what life threw at you, and I know it threw some doozies, Chris… knew you had it in ya to make it through to the other side.”
When Uncle Stu put his arms around me, he trembled a little and whispered, “Good to meet ya, honey. Thanks for giving him a home. He hasn’t had one in a long, long time.”
“He had a home here with my family before I convinced him to pay attention to me,” I whispered.
“He didn’t believe it was rightfully his. But I think he does now. And me, my sister, and his brother thank you for that.”
“Give her back now, Uncle Stu…” Christian grunted fake-annoyed.
“No way, kid. You snooze, you lose.” Uncle Stu squeezed me harder.