All the Sky (39 page)

A road name. For their unborn son. Matt had named Nolan for a baseball player. Havoc was naming their son a biker.

Men. Seriously.

“Come on…you know that name is badass. And Havoc...Loki…it’s perfect.”

“And if he decides he wants to be, say, a ballet dancer?”

“Never fuckin’ happen.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. If he was throwing down like that, she was ready to have a go with him. Their kid got to be whomever he wanted to be.

Havoc grinned sheepishly, avoiding the fight. “And even if he does, it’s still a badass name.”

“His choice, Hav. His choice.”

He gave her a wide-eyed, innocent look. “Of course!”

She’d make sure he meant that.

~oOo~

The first big gathering at their new house, other than the wedding/moving-in party that had become a pizza and booze bash, was Nolan’s sixteenth birthday party, a Saturday late in April. He was back to his old self—one leg a little on the skinny side, but otherwise, the lingering effects of that horror on Thanksgiving night were behind him.

They had a barbecue in their back yard—which was fairly well under control and looked, to Cory, pretty good. With the exception of little Gia, almost four, and Bo, about one and a half, Nolan was the only kid at his party. He had little patience for kids his own age, and they had little interest in him. His friends were the Horde. Besides Havoc, his best friends were Badger and Dom, both of whom were several years older.

And Omen, whom they’d lost.

Nolan had taken Omen’s death in a way that had made Cory proud and anxious all at once. He’d been sad, and he’d owned that sadness, letting his grief show and not feeling weak because of it. But he’d also taken it without shock. Not as something to be accepted, but as something that was a part of life. She thought he was awfully young to have come to the conclusion that the death of a twenty-six-year-old man should not be surprising.

She’d never pried into what he and his friends talked about—or did—but he talked to her openly, and she knew he had a decent head on his shoulders. But he was moving into a world that was harder and more worldly than she’d hoped for him. Her dreams for her son had been a bit more watercolor, soft-focus. But his dreams for himself seemed to be coalescing around the Horde.

Still, he was talking about college. He’d decided he wanted to do something in art or in game design, and Havoc was all for it—more than that, he strongly encouraged Nolan to at least try college, to get out into the world some before he made any kind of decisions about how he wanted his life to be. She’d walked past the open living room windows one day not long ago and heard them out on the front porch, sitting in the used wicker chairs she’d found in a Main Street shop and had painted bright purple, talking about Nolan’s future. “The Horde will always be around, kid,” Havoc had said. “We’ll be here. Go out and figure it out first.”

She hadn’t lurked longer to eavesdrop, but those few sentences has told her two important things—or had proven what she’d already known—that Nolan wanted to be Horde, and that Havoc loved and respected him enough not to push him too hard in that direction.

Proud and anxious. Pretty much described her steady state in matters regarding her firstborn.

The party wound up after dark, but not late, as most of the grownups headed over to Tuck’s for music, dancing, and much more rowdiness. Lilli took her kids home to bed. Shannon lingered, helping Cory clean up and then sitting with her in the now-quiet back yard, the embers still glowing in the fire pit Havoc had built. They talked about the men, primarily, and how to navigate around a world like the Horde. Shannon’s experience with Show was different from Cory’s with Havoc, though. Show was a thinker. He was slower to react and less likely to lay down the law. She could see that simply as an observer, and talking to Shannon only reinforced her impression. So Cory found herself getting a bit annoyed.

“It’s different with Hav, Shannon. Show’s steady. Hav’s not. He reacts first. Thinks later. Maybe.”

Shannon nodded. “You’re right. Show’s got experience being a family man. And he’s definitely a thinker. Sometimes too much. But I think they’re all just trying to take care of their families. You know, I don’t have the first clue what to expect out of the way things are now. When I met Show, when we married, everything was quiet. No drama at all. Just a quiet, small town life. Then there was a flare, not long after we got married, about two and a half years ago, when they were making that movie. But now things are just crazier all the time. Show’s holding stuff back, and he’s never done that.” She sighed and turned in her chair. “I guess all I’m saying is we love these guys, right? We’re making homes and lives with them. But everything that’s happening is new and sometimes scary. I think the three of us—Lilli, you, and me—need to stick together. Keep the home front as stable and safe as we can, and trust the men to do everything they can to come home at night and keep us safe.”

“Do you shoot? Did Show teach you?”

“I learned when I was a kid. But yeah, Show and I go out and practice sometimes. Do you?”

“Not yet. He’s going to teach us both, but Nolan needed out of his cast, and Hav won’t teach me until I have the baby. But we’ll learn.”

“Good. We can’t sit back and just assume that the men can do it all. We have to claim our place in this world, too. It’s not a world I ever would have thought I’d end up in, but now it’s not one I ever want to leave. Where Show is, I am.”

Cory understood that. “Yeah. It’s home. More than I’ve ever had before.”

~oOo~

When Shannon left and the house was quiet, Cory realized…that the house was quiet. It wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. Had Nolan already gone to bed? She checked his room—not there. If he went on a walkabout, she’d break his other damn leg. She was no longer feeling nearly as mellow about his nightwalking—since the last time he’d done it he’d ended up in a ditch, almost dead.

She went outside and saw that Havoc’s bike was parked in the drive and the garage lights were on behind the closed garage door. Crossing the yard to the side door, she peeked through the window.

Havoc and Nolan were in the middle of the room. Havoc was squatting, and Nolan was sitting cross-legged on the floor. They were surrounded by metal and rubber pieces; they appeared to be sorting. Then, off to Havoc’s left, she saw a skeleton—two wheels, a rusty frame, and a battered gas tank.

A motorcycle. A pile of rusty junk. Either way.

She opened the door.

Nolan looked up and grinned. “Look what Havoc gave me, Mom. ’72 Sportster. We’re gonna rebuild it together.”

Havoc had not told her of this plan. Another major life decision for which she had not been consulted. She sighed and looked down at Havoc, who was watching her over his shoulder.

“It’ll take us a long time to get it right, working on it when we have time. Years. But when it is, when it’s ready, it’ll be beautiful.”

She surveyed the scene—from the dopey grins on both their faces to the scattered pieces of rusty danger on the concrete floor. It seemed to her to be an apt metaphor—her son sitting with the best father he’d ever had, cooing over the pieces of a motorcycle that had obviously lived a very hard and dangerous life. The two of them bonding together over making it whole and bright.

She met Havoc’s eyes. “When he’s ready. Not before.”

He smiled and nodded. “And it’ll be beautiful.”

EPILOGUE

Jesus fuck, the kid could scream. Havoc unwound an arm from Cory and leaned forward over her, swatting at the baby monitor as if it had a snooze button. He only succeeded in knocking it off the nightstand. And then Cory was scooting out from his hold and sitting up.

He sat up, too. “I’ll get him.” She’d been pretty run down since the baby. The least he could do was bring the kid to her.

But she turned and rubbed his arm. “No. I’ll feed him in there. You just got to bed a couple of hours ago. Go back to sleep.” She stood, set the monitor back up on the nightstand, and left the room.

Luke was still screaming like his hair was on fire, and Havoc turned the monitor down to a whisper, then puffed up his pillows and turned onto his back. Cory was right—he should sleep. But his head was turned back on, and there were thoughts demanding to be thought. It had been a long night.

They’d been running weed now for almost a year, still trapped in bed with the Perros. After the run that had cost them three men, and Len his spleen, things had settled back down into the regular rhythm, at least for the Horde. That debacle had exposed cracks, though, in the cartel machine. Nobody was happy working with the Perros. The Horde had signed on not knowing the true source point. The money was excellent, but the Scorpions, the Brazen Bulls, the Horde, and the Wayfarers, the crew most eastward on the line, all had lost men to the Perros’ jittery trigger fingers and rabid sense of justice. The crews were already—or had once been—allies, before the cartel. Those bonds were beginning to set harder. Sam and Isaac had even come to a steadier, stronger truce. A strong enough alliance of crews against the cartel might succeed in breaking clean.

If they were all willing to stand up and put everything on the line.

Alone in his marital bed, listening to the sounds of his wife changing and feeding his infant son, Havoc had doubts. But he couldn’t afford those doubts—just by working for the Perros, whether they had intended to or not, they’d already put everything they had on the line.

He thought of his sister. Sophie.

Martin Halyard was in the Perro Blanco inner circle; that much they knew to be true. The only chance Havoc could see to collect on the debt of his sister’s murder came if they were able to bring the Perros down. And the only chance they had of that was if an alliance was forged—and held—of the clubs conscripted into working for them north of the border. That was the Horde’s primary objective these days: forging that alliance, and keeping it off the Perro radar. All of it was risky as shit. Like nothing they’d ever done before. Ever.

Havoc’s head spun. For his whole life in the club, he’d let other, better, smarter men do the thinking and had simply gone where they’d pointed him, done what was asked of him. Got good at the things they needed him to be good at. But now that he had a family, he was not content to sit back. He was finding himself to be more vocal and assertive at the table, compelled almost against his will to push back and dig deeper. If he was going to risk everything, then he had to know every detail of that risk.

The sounds of Cory’s sweet alto rose up faintly from the baby monitor, and Havoc reached over and turned the volume back up. He loved to hear her sing to their boy. The sound soothed him almost as much as it soothed Luke. He needed soothing.

He’d spent most of the night in county lockup, a place he hadn’t seen in all the years that Keith Tyler had been Sheriff. They’d been pulled over on their way back in after their latest run—which made no fucking sense, considering that
after
the run, they were clean, law abiding citizens with only registered, permitted weapons on board. They’d taken to dumping their unregistered metal after each drop—expensive and a pain in the ass, but safer.

Still, they’d been hauled in and held for hours without charges or access to phone calls or lawyers. And then released. Just like that.

Leon Seaver had been in the job for months. Until now, he’d poked them a few times, leaning hardest on Len, but he hadn’t caused them serious trouble. Nothing that had gotten in their way. Now, though, he looked to be staking his claim. Dom had yet to find anything strong enough to use to turn him to their side. There were a couple of cracks in his veneer of legal righteousness, but nothing they could wedge themselves into. Yet.

The baby monitor had gone silent, and Havoc waited for Cory to come back. He wouldn’t be able to sleep until she was with him. His head would calm when he was holding her. But minutes passed, and she didn’t come back. Finally, he got out of bed and yanked his jeans on, then went out to find his woman.

She was in Luke’s room, sitting in the big, upholstered rocker, sound asleep, her head tipped back, and her mouth open a little. Luke was lying on her chest, his head bouncing as he rubbed his little face on his hands. Havoc went over and eased his son from Cory’s hold. She sighed but didn’t wake.

He kissed his son’s head. “Hey, Luke. Close those eyes, little bro. Let your folks get some sleep.” He’d given up the ‘Loki,’ at least for now. It upset Cory—a lot, in fact; she’d been extra emotional since he’d been born—to think that he was pushing their boy in any particular direction in life. He got that, he did. So he called him Luke. But he’d be lying if he said that, even now, when things in the club were often dangerous and might be more, he didn’t harbor a dream of putting leather on his sons’ backs. Both of them. Nolan and Lucas. His sons.

He’d been so afraid he wouldn’t be able to find in himself the love of a father, that he’d be hard and cold and brutal. That he’d be his father. But now he knew for a certainty that that would never be true. He wasn’t sure what kind of father he’d be, or how badly he would screw up, but the love he felt was not something he’d ever be able to hold back. When his boy, still slimy and covered with white goop, had opened those dark, dark eyes and stared hard at him, Havoc had known the kind of man he was.

A man for whom his love for his family was everything.

The man he’d once been had not wanted any of this—no woman, no children, no family but the Horde. The profound changes he’d undergone made no sense or rhyme or reason. But Cory had changed everything. Loving her had changed
everything
. She had healed scars he’d forgotten about, whose presence had shaped him in ways he had not even been aware of before her. He’d thought he’d been happy. He’d been wrong. Now, even as the club contended with another difficult time, another great enemy, Havoc’s life was brighter and bigger and freer than he’d ever thought it could be, like a long, open road canopied by an infinite sky.