"I didn't take it off for you. I took it off for me."

"Why?" I chimed in.

"Because I found out who the mole is."

"What mole?" I asked.

"The one who fed intel to Isaac and then to Eli. The one who tried to have me killed twice, but still can't seem to get the fucking job done," Bear informed me. "But it doesn't matter now, because Chop wants to kill me himself."

"Three times," Gus corrected.

"What?" Bear asked, his brows creasing with confusion.

"Three times," Gus said. "The first time was when he let Isaac into the club when he knew what Isaac's plans were. The second time was when he told Eli where you were. The third time was today, right now."

Bear sat there silently and took another drag of the joint, rubbing his temples with his thumb. "Fuuuuuuccck!" he roared, standing up on top of the table.

"I don't understand," I said. "What does you leaving the MC and the mole have anything to do with one another..." I stopped when the realization hit.

Bear looked down at me and nodded.

"The mole is..." I started, but stopped as it all sank in.

Bear growled and finished my sentence.

"My fucking old man."

Gus nodded. "Chop. Chop is the mole."

Thia So much for normal.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

Bear "So your old man was gunning for you long before you threw down your cut? Why?" King asked, lighting a joint and passing it to me. "That doesn't make any fucking sense."

"I know. There has got to be more to it. My old man's a son-of-a-bitch, but he's not fucking stupid. The problem is now that we can't get any more intel. Gus laid down his cut. He's out, which means I don't have anyone left on the inside." We were back in his tattoo studio and I'd just told him what had gone down at the park. Luckily, Gus was all too eager to handle the cleanup on his own, so we left him to it. "It's not like it fucking matters. If he wants me dead, he wants me dead, the reason isn't important anymore. The only real problem is that he's willing to go through Ti to get to me."

"But why Thia? You have other people he can get to. Me. Grace. Ray. Why choose her?"

"'Cause Chop's a cocksucker, but he's not fucking stupid either, he took one look at her and knew..." I paused. "He's following code, or at least he's making it appear to the brothers like he is, meanwhile he's been going behind their backs, planning to have me killed for fuck knows how long now."

"But that still doesn't make sense. How could going through Thia to get to you..." King started but stopped when I flashed him a knowing look. He answered his own question. "Girls in the club, old ladies, even the BBB's, they aren't considered civilians. She's fair game as far as he's concerned because he thought you'd claim her."

I leaned my head against the wall. "I have claimed her."

"Oh shit."

I stood up from the couch and pretended to be interested in the new sketch King had been working on to finish Ray's sleeve. It was all three of their kids' names woven into a mangrove tree on the bay.

"Never thought I'd see the fucking day, man."

"It was stupid. Twice now and I didn't wrap up either time."

King laughed and motioned for me to bring the joint back to him.

I shoved it into his hand. "What's so fucking funny?"

"Let me ask you something, man. Of all the girls you've ever fucked how many times you forget to wrap it up with?"

"None. Not a single fucking one," I admitted.

"It's funny 'cause that's how you know. Never thought about it with Ray. Never crossed my mind and honestly, if it had, I didn't give a fuck about the consequences. Anything to keep her linked with me was all right by me. I may not have known that at first, but I sure as shit know it now."

"Now you got three kids, man. Two of which are tearing the house apart block by block."

"Yeah, it's pretty fucking great. Still don't think to wrap up either," he said with a laugh.

"I'm not thinking about having kids right now. I'm thinking about how to keep this girl alive."

"Your girl."

"Yes, MY girl! There I said it, does that make you happy now?"

"It's a start," King said. "So you think about what Bethany said to you? 'Cause if you are going to go through with it then you need to tell her. She should know what she's in for. There are things you need to go over with her. I've been there man. You don't want her going in blind."

I lit a cigarette. King was right, but I had no idea how to start the conversation with her. "I got something else in mind," I said.

"If you're thinking of doing something stupid, don't," King warned.

"Stupid was taking her into a public place and almost getting her killed. Stupid was making a promise to a ten year old I never intended to keep. Stupid is every fucking thing I've ever done in my life up until this point. I got to keep her safe." I stubbed out my smoke in the ashtray on the coffee table. "Nothing stupid about that."

Thia was up at the house to help Ray with the kids or dinner or something, to be honest I hadn't been paying attention because I was too focused on the fact that if it wasn't for Gus or Ti's quick thinking, she wouldn't be breathing right now. I was too busy thinking with my cock instead of worrying about keeping her safe.

You were thinking with your heart, dumbass. It's that other useful organ in your body. Preppy informed me.

I made a promise to myself that although all this shit started out as a lie, I would keep my promise to her. I would protect her, but I made another promise to myself too. I would not just protect her, but I wouldn't let her get sucked into my life. She was better than it.

Better than me.

I would keep her safe.

I just couldn't keep her for myself.

Thirty minutes and one text message later, a practiced hand was wrapped around my cock.

I'd drank straight from the bottle of Jack until I didn't care, which although I was hammered, still wasn't working. Because Ti was going to walk through door at any second and see what kind of man I really was. I was hoping I would be drunk enough not to see the look of hurt in her eyes. Not to register the look of disappointment on her face.

Why did I even care?

She knew I'd planned to leave from the moment we met. I never told her that had changed. I never promised her that I was going to stay.

Or that she was going to stay.

King was locked up for years. I made him promise that he would call in all the favors he still had on the inside because I could protect her for now, but wouldn't be able to when we weren't together anymore.

Fuck, why does this hurt so bad?

"Mmmmmmmmm..." she murmured, like I wasn't paying her to jerk me off. I wasn't even hard.

Every time I started to wake from whatever self-induced coma I'd put myself in, my newly conscious state always brought a wave of disappointment with it.

It's not that I wanted to die. I just wanted to live in a state of oblivion. Was that too much to ask? Oblivion didn't have thoughts of being a biker without a home. Oblivion didn't have confusing thoughts of Ray, although in recent days those had started to fade away.

Oblivion definitely didn't have HER.

And come tomorrow, I wouldn't either.

I wanted it to be her hand on my cock and I imagined it was, living in my imagination and in the lie for just a few more ignorant moments.

Jodi stroked me. Or was it Dee? Danni? Denise?

Regardless of the expertise being used to get me off I felt myself going softer and softer. I thought of pale pink lips and strawberry blonde hair, but every time she appeared behind my closed eyelids, she disappeared just as quickly.

I groaned in frustration. The girl getting me off took the noise as a sign of encouragement, picking up her pace. Jerking me harder. Long fake nails clicked together as she worked me.

There was no fucking way I was going to come, and I was glad for it. I wanted to punish myself for what I was about to do.

For what she was about to see.

Sadly, the only coming I was doing was coming down from my high, which was the last fucking thing I wanted. It was a shitty-ass time to sober up.

I changed my mind.

I couldn't do this.

I couldn't hurt her. I would find another way. I grabbed what's her name's forearm to make her stop her pointless hand job, but it wasn't her my eyes darted to.

It was Ti.

MY Ti.

Standing at the foot of the bed.

She appeared straight faced. Impassive. Almost expressionless. I knew better than to take her at face value. Thia ran deep, but covered up even deeper. What I saw behind her flat expression scared the shit out of me, because it was more than her usual spitfire self.

She was mad.

Pure unadulterated RAGE mad.

The naked bleach blonde kneeling next to me barely paid Thia any attention, and continued to stroke me as she looked back at her despite my hand on her arm trying to stop her. "You want in?" she asked Thia.

Maybe she wasn't there. Maybe I was just dreaming. Because Thia Andrews had been occupying my dreams since that first night in the shower.

It wasn't until she spoke that I knew for sure it wasn't a dream after all.

I thought she'd run.

I'd done this so she would run.

Not from the house. From me.

But she didn't. The girl was always surprising me.

She walked right up to the bed with a look of determination in her eyes that I'd never seen before. She reached over me and plucked one of my guns from one of my holders, which was the only thing I was wearing. She aimed at the naked blonde and cocked it. "Get. Out. Now." The fake seductive look on the blonde's face instantly disappeared and was replaced with fear. She jumped from the bed and ran out the door without a backwards glance.

I know it was the asshole thing to do but I couldn't help it.

Maybe it was because I was drunk.

Maybe because I was tired of not knowing what to do or who to trust or how to protect the girl who had wiggled and smiled her way into my broken heart.

I laughed.

Not just a little laugh either. I laughed at the absurdity that my life had become as well as the situation I was currently in.

Thia turned the gun on me and that's when I noticed the tears threatening to leak from the corners of her beautiful green eyes.

I froze.

"Shit."

Ti sniffled, although she was obviously trying to hide the fact that she was on the verge of crying. An unfamiliar feeling took over. My heart lurched into my stomach and I felt sick.

Guilt.

I'd committed every crime there was to commit. I'd done shit that sane men would never dare to even think of, yet I'd never felt a shred of guilt for any of it.