Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(65)

Graham’s cut.

It took a second before I could reach out and touch the tips of my fingers on the Black.

And just like always, just like it always would be, even if I’d been able to win Hound, the tingle of love and memories, and laughter and loss coursed over my fingers, up my arm, across my chest and straight to my heart.

They’d cleaned it.

Or Tack had given it to Boz so Bev could do it.

Probably paid a mint, cleaning that leather.

And I’d hated them for it. All of them, even Bev.

I’d railed and screamed and even went at Tack with nails bared (not surprisingly it had been Hound that had pulled me back) when they took his cut and had it cleaned.

But it was covered in his blood.

I wanted that blood and the scent of him. Even if one of his goddamned hairs was there, I wanted it.

They’d cleaned it, taking all that from me.

A Chaos brother’s cut was buried with him.

I refused to allow that.

And Chaos allowed me to refuse.

Now I knew why.

They probably knew it before.

Because a time would come that I’d be giving it to one of my boys, and when I did it’d need to be as it was, not have the life blood of their father crusted into the leather and threads of the patches that meant everything to him.

Absolutely everything.

And that time was now.

I gathered up my husband’s cut, put the lid on the box, nabbed it and walked down to the kitchen.

I shoved the stuff I’d thrown there aside, put the cut on the table, spreading it out carefully, then walked the box out to the trash and dumped it.

Only when I was back inside, locked up tight, did I go back to my room, turn out the light, lie in bed and stare at my dark ceiling.

Jean Gruenberg had died last night.

And Hound was done with me.

The first wave came like a hiccup.

The second made me sound like I was strangling.

So I turned to my side when the sobs overwhelmed me.



The back door opened the next morning when I was at the stove.

“Hey, Ma,” Jagger called.

I didn’t look at him.

He’d see me in a second. He’d see my face and know I’d had no sleep. Know I’d been crying. Know pain was at the surface.

With what I had planned, he’d mistake the reason why. Or not exactly. It was just that what he’d think was only part of the reason.

But that was okay. It was how it needed to be. He’d never know and I’d never tell him. Hound certainly wouldn’t.

It was done.

Over.

Now I knew why he didn’t push through the feelings of betrayal and concern of what his brothers would do to start things, really start things, to begin to build a future with me.

Now I knew he thought I was so sad, so pathetic, so selfish I came to get my rocks off, using him.

Using him.

So yeah.

It was done.

Over.

I could forgive him anything.

Even the way he put his hands on me, the ugly words he’d hurled at me, knowing he’d lost Jean, knowing how you could lash out at the people who mattered when you were wounded, knowing all that, I could forgive.

But him using Black against me, thinking I’d put Black between us, thinking I’d ever do what he thought I’d done to him, to Hound, hell, to anybody, but especially not him, I would not.

Not ever.

The start and end of Keely Black and Shepherd Ironside moved just a few feet down a hall but was otherwise entirely contained to a shitty apartment in a bad part of town.

Where it should be.

Right then, in my kitchen, I had to pull it together to do what I was doing.

I knew when Jag saw it. I felt it in the air.

“Ma?” he called.

I turned.

He took one look at my face and his blanched.

“You’re gonna become Chaos, yeah?” I asked.

His eyes were darting from his father’s cut to me, back and forth.

God.

I’d wondered the answer for years if God loved me or hated me, giving so much of their father to my boys.

They didn’t look exactly like him.

But they both had his voice. Identical. Sometimes, I didn’t know which was which or would even think in my wildest moments it was Graham who was calling from beyond the grave when one of them phoned me.

They also both had his mannerisms, his walk, his long legs, his superior ass (I could think that, even as their mother), his broad shoulders.

They both had his hair, dark and wavy. Not mine, dark and sleek.

And they both got his jaw, strong and square.

Jag had the wide of my eyes, both in setting in his face and in the actual feature.

Dutch’s eyes were set deeper in his head, hooded by his brow, like his father’s.

I had brown to my skin, which Dutch got.

Graham had had olive in his skin, which Jag got.

Dutch got his father’s nose, strong and narrow and perfectly proportioned.

Jag got my nose, the masculine variety, straight along the bridge, slightly upturned at the end, flaring out at the nostrils.

They were beautiful boys that had turned into good-looking kids who had grown into knockout men.

Dutch was watchful, responsible, sober and quiet.

Jag was fun-loving, teasing, reckless and loud.