The deepest, best sleep of my entire fucking life is interrupted at three a.m. by the sound of my phone vibrating next to my head.

Groaning, I carefully detach myself from Jenna and lean over to grab the thing from the nightstand. Angel’s name flashes on the illuminated screen. I turn away from Jenna’s sleeping form and press the button to answer.

“Hey,” I mutter quietly into it, hoping I won’t wake Jenna.

“Hey,” Angel responds. “I need to talk to you. Need to give you a heads up.”

“You find him?” I ask.

“Yeah.” Angel sounds tired, and pissed, and stressed. “I had a hunch about where he might have gone to hide out. Turns out I was right. Abe’s been fucking double-dealing all along. With the Lords, and with the Iron Spiders, too. You know that deal he was trying to close with Rock and our club for the loan? Part of the money was gonna go to pay off a debt he already owed to the Spiders.” Angel’s voice turns angrier. “And when the club voted against the loan, Dad went to the Spiders and offered to try to sell them information on us as another way to pay them back.”

“Son of a bitch,” I swear. I swing my feet to the floor and sit up.

“No shit,” Angel agrees.

“So, is that why Hurt bugged Jenna’s place?”

“Yeah.” Angel laughs, a short, dry sound. “I guess Hurt told Dad about you and Jenna, and Dad was fucking desperate enough to think maybe he could get some intel on us through listening in on you.”

“What was Hurt’s angle, you think?” I ask him.

“Dunno.” I hear Angel light up a smoke on the other end. “Dad freaked out when I told him Hurt said he was working for the Spiders. Maybe Hurt figured he could cash in by selling Dad out or something.” He takes a long drag and blows it out. “Not sure we’ll ever know.”

“Rock’s gonna want Abe’s head for this, if he finds out,” I say carefully.

“I know.” There’s a sound in the background that might be a voice. “If the Spiders don’t get to him first, that is. The only way to keep him safe now is to get him out of town. Maybe out of state.”

“Where are you at right now?”

“It’s best you don’t know,” he says, his voice flat. “I probably shouldn’t even tell you this much. But I’d have to tell Jenna. And you’re family, now.”

It’s true. Jenna’s family is mine now. Just as much as the club’s my family.

“What are you gonna say to Rock?” I murmur.

Angel sighs. “The only thing I can tell him. That I went out looking for Abe and couldn’t find him. That I assume the Spiders got him. That I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

“Jesus. That’s a pretty serious, uh, lifestyle change for your dad,” I say. “He prepared for this?”

“It’s better than being dead,” Angel says bitterly. “He says he’s got someplace he can go. Some assets he can draw on. I think maybe he’s been preparing for something like this. I ain’t gonna ask him where he’s off to, though.”

I nod to the phone. “Probably best.”

“Thing is,” Angel continues, “The three of us are gonna have to stick to that story. You, me, and Jenna.” He pauses. “I know that’s a tall order, brother. Asking you to keep a secret from the club.”

It is a tall order. Rock expects absolute loyalty from everyone in the Lords of Carnage. And that’s as it should be. You don’t survive as an outlaw MC unless you have that from every one of your members. That’s why it takes so long to prospect. That’s why the vote for someone to get patched in has to be unanimous. Every single member of the club has to be confident that anyone new would fight and die for us all.

And I would. I’d lay down my life for any one of my brothers. That’s a given. They’re my family.

But Jenna’s my family now, too. As is Angel. And as fucked up as Abe Abbott is, he’s my children’s grandfather.

I understand the need for vengeance. Club justice is Old Testament shit. An eye for an eye.

But in this case, I’m not going to let Abe Abbott’s stupid mistakes hurt everyone around him. I won’t let his fuckups hurt my family.

I make my decision.

“You’ve got my word, brother,” I tell Angel.

I hear him exhale. “Okay. Thanks. You’ll tell Jenna?”

“I’ll tell her,” I say.

Next to me, she stirs and opens her eyes. “Tell me what?”

“That her?” Angel asks. “Shit, I don’t mind telling you this is gonna take a little getting used to, you and Jenna.”

I laughed. “You’ll have plenty of time, brother. Talk to ya.”

I hang up and gather Jenna into my arms. I tell her it was her brother on the phone. I explain everything that Angel just told me: what her dad’s been up to, that Angel’s with him now, and that Abe is going to have to disappear. She cries. I hold her.

Later, after she’s mostly stopped crying, Jenna tells me about the Abe Abbott she knew. About the father she remembers.

“It’s so sad,” she says, looking down at her hands. “My dad has made some shitty choices in the last few years. Ever since my mom died, it’s like the only thing he cared about was money and power.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Even to the extent of cutting a deal with the Iron Spiders, apparently. God, I never would have guessed he was capable of that.”

I understand what she’s saying. Angel told me back then that he’d overheard Abe on the phone one day not long after their mom Maria had died in a car accident. Abe was talking to Rock. Apparently, Rock thought Maria’s death might have been payback to Abe for striking a deal with the Lords instead of the Spiders for territory. If he really believed that, it’s fucking sickening that he’d enter into any kind of deal with the MC that killed his wife.

“My dad was never really the same after my mom died,” Jenna continues. It’s almost like she’s talking to herself. I just listen, and let her say what she needs to say. “I mean, he was always driven, you know? He was always really proud to be a successful and important man in Tanner Springs. But after the accident, he just sort of… disappeared as a father.” She looks at me. “I think maybe every time he looked at Gabe and me, he just saw an empty space where my mom should have been.”

Jenna sighs. “Pretty soon, the only thing that seemed to drive him was making deals and getting reelected.” Jenna shifts now, and sinks against my chest. She sounds so tired. “Maybe doing business was the only way he could forget what happened to his wife. To erase that part of his life. To feel like carrying on living actually had some meaning.” Her voice cracks, and turns tinged with acid. “I guess he did a pretty good job of forgetting all of it, if he could stand to do business with the Iron Spiders.”

Jenna starts crying again, quietly. I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything. She collapses against me, and a wave of protectiveness rears up inside me, so fierce it almost scares me.

I will never, ever let her get hurt again.

“Jenna,” I murmur, my voice husky with emotion. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you have to go through this.”

“It’s just,” she says in a small voice, “I feel like my whole family is disappearing.”

“I’m your family,” I tell her fiercely. “You’re my family.” I put my hand on her belly, marveling that there’s a whole other life in there. One that we created together. “This is our family.”

“I know,” she whispers. She lifts her head to look at me. Her eyes are shining with tears, and with something else, too. “I love you, Cas Watkins.”

“I love you, Jenna,” I say, feeling the strength in the words, like a prayer. “Forever.”