Colson (The Henchmen MC #20) - Jessica Gadziala Page 0,54

someone outside the club, this would be a non-issue. But that shit doesn't fly here. Not even if I am missing. Or dead. He knows that now. So you two," he said, nodding toward us. "You're a thing?"

"I, ah," I stammered, unsure how to respond to that. Because, well, we were sort of starting a thing, but did that qualify as "a thing" yet? I didn't think it did.

"It's new, but yeah," Colson answered.

"Okay. In that case, babe, your brother..."

"I know," I cut him off. "I understand. And, I mean, that's the lifestyle he chose. These are the choices he continues to make."

"He's still your brother."

"He stopped being my brother when he tried to turn my son against me and get him into a gang," I told him, hearing the heat slip into my tone as I turned to make coffee. "How do you take it?" I asked, waving toward the cups, knowing how Colson took his.

"Black is fine. My brother says you have a mother at home," he said as I handed him the coffee, careful to place it so he could easily reach for it with his good arm.

"I, ah, yeah. She has dementia."

"I'm sure you're eager to get back to her, but I think it might be best for you and Jacob to stay here for another couple days."

"Colson already told me I have to and that I can't go to work," I added, feeling my stomach twist.

"Will you lose your job?"

"I have sick leave."

"Okay. It won't be long. We just need to have church to talk it over."

"You talk things like this over at church?" I asked, brows drawing together, getting a chuckle out of Reign and Colson.

"It means a meeting," Colson explained. "Just the brothers."

"Oh, okay. That makes more sense."

"Feel free to make yourselves at home. I'm sure you're comfortable in Colson's room, and we can put up Jacob in the barracks. Seems we have an empty bed open now."

My gut twisted a bit at the reminder about the man in the basement.

I would have to become okay with things I never would have been alright with before, I realized, if I continued to let something grow between Colson and me.

He was a biker. An outlaw biker. He ran guns for a living. As did all his brothers.

That lifestyle brought with it certain risks. And it came with an understanding that traitors couldn't be tolerated, that blood would be on the hands of everyone around you, that the law would always look sideways at you because of your association.

How did the women—especially the ones who had led very normal lives previously—come to accept these risks and this lifestyle for not only themselves, but their children?

I suddenly wished the women weren't swooped off to the paramilitary camp—Hailstorm, they called it—so I could pick their brains, understand how they came to make this decision, live this lifestyle.

I understood Colson's reasons. If I were in the position he had been all those years ago, out of work, no hope for anything better on the horizon for him and his daughter, and someone offered this as an out for me, I might have taken it too. You'd do anything to give your kids a better life, the best chance at a better future.

But what was the motivator for these women to give up a life of relative normalcy to worrying about guns and kidnappings and having to drop everything to go hide out at some camp with armed guards and razor wire?

Was it love?

It had to have been love.

The kind of which I wasn't familiar with.

I'd loved Jacob's father in an immature way, full of superficiality and the infatuation that came with being intimate with someone for the first time. It wasn't a genuine love. I don't even remember being all that upset when he decided he didn't want to be with me anymore.

And since then, there had simply never been time for things like falling in love.

I couldn't wrap my head around it.

But it had to be the reason, right?

People killed for love, went to war for love. Certainly, they could become "old ladies" to outlaw bikers as well for it. With all the unpleasantness that entailed.

"I'm sure you want to reconnect with your friends," I said, feeling like that word was clumsy on my tongue. Friends didn't do the things these men had done for him, family did. "I will go back to Colson's room and get out of your way. I'm glad you're okay. And thank