I wake with the light peeking through the windows. I don’t even remember falling asleep last night. I thought I would’ve been waking up every few minutes like I have been since I left the compound. I yawn and stretch my arms. The hot shower felt wonderful on my body last night, but when I got out the only thing I wanted to do is sleep. I thought I would just shut my eyes for a few minutes. I never made it downstairs to talk to Cooper and Sean. I start to get out of bed and then I see a sandwich and a bottle of water on the nightstand next to the bed. Someone had checked on me and I didn’t even hear them enter the room. I was careless. I get out of the bed and walk to the door and check the lock and it’s locked. I don’t know why that gives me a warm feeling, but it does, and I don’t know why I feel safe here, but I do.

Today is going to be a difficult day. I am going to hear information on my family, and I know I am never going to be the same again. I don’t know how I know, but I feel it in my bones. Then on the other hand I’m going to need to face Brody and explain why I took off in the middle of the night. I think Rebel is going to be more pissed, but I’m worried about Charity and Brody. Whatever touches my sister also touches Brody. I don’t know who will show up this morning but if it’s not Con, then I’m okay with it. I’m not ready for his condescending attitude. I don’t think I ever will be. Now if I could just get over the way my body reacts when I see Con or how I react to his voice and him being close to me. I pull myself out of my inner thoughts and away from Con. I have more important things to concentrate on today. I walk into the bathroom and get a quick shower to tame my hair and to get this day started.

I am dressed and down the stairs because I want answers. I stop halfway down the stairs when I hear voices that I recognize but the one voice I was expecting I haven’t heard and one that I didn’t want to hear is loud and clear, Con.

“I am claiming Faith as mine. I understand she’s young, but she’s mine, none the less. I had talked to Charity before we left this morning and if Faith is on board with it or not, she’s my responsibility and I don’t care who likes it or don’t. We voted in our club last night and it’s a done deal. Age of consent is seventeen in the state of Texas.” Con is talking to someone in that tone that drives me insane. The one that gets on my very last nerve.

“I think it will be up to the lass, just like I said, but it would help in some of the complications that go along with having our blood running through her veins. Marriage is a better way.” Cooper says insistently.

“You are insane. I’m not marrying anyone. She is going to be my ol’ lady and that’s all she will need. She will have my leather on her back and that will show people not to fuck with her. In our club and world, an ol’ lady is given more respect than a wife.” I hear Lachlan and Sean laugh.

“Let’s wake Faith up and get on with this. I say she’s mine.” Con sounds convinced but I will not let myself be owned by anyone. He treated me like a child, and now he says I am his woman. I think not. I walk the rest of the way down the stairs and then up the short hall, Ewan is the first to see me and he walks over and takes my hand and brings me to a chair and I sit down. I turn to look at Rebel, Shine, and Con and none of the three look happy.

“Where are Brody and Charity? I expected them this morning.” Shine starts to say something but Con interrupts him.

“Charity is in the hospital from worrying about her runaway sister and Brody is there with her. Your sister was scared out of her head for you. What the hell were you thinking?” Con is staring me down with fire in his eyes. Yes, he’s pissed. I never meant to worry Charity. I stand up and put my hand on my hip and walk up to Con. I won’t let him intimidate me.

“I was thinking that I needed to help find some answers so the people that were trying to help us would quit dying. I was thinking I wanted my sister and her unborn child safe. Charity and I both felt eyes on us and I knew someone was watching us and that we were still targets and I wanted to make sure this was all handled before an innocent child is brought into this world that would have a target on his or her back. That’s what families do, they take chances with their own lives to make sure others are taken care of. Have you never heard of a thing called love?” I am fuming by the time I am finished. “I will not be your old lady or whatever it’s called. I don’t accept. You ridiculed me for looking at you twice. You are a hot biker. I’m not blind. Are you not used to the attention? You seemed to be just fine with more than that from the women that hung out at the clubhouse. Now get over yourself. I have gotten over my attraction to you. I have more important things to worry about than some arrogant biker.” I am so going to hell for lying, but I will never give Con the satisfaction of letting him know I am still attracted to him or the thought of being called his makes my heart speed up.

“Calm down sweetness, Con is just saying that you’re under his protection and that he’s responsible for you now. I can understand the concept, but we have always believed the woman in a relationship has a right to decline a courtship. I was telling him that marriage is a more acceptable arrangement for people in our bloodline.” Cooper looks at me and I can already see that the man cares about what happens to me. I just don’t know why, and I don’t understand why he talks with a proper tone. I also don’t understand why there are no women here. They may have sent them away for this meeting. I still feel no discomfort or uneasiness

“I don’t take kind in you referring to my woman as sweetness. Hell, you just met her.” Con tells Cooper, but Shine reaches for Con’s arm to calm him down.

“Would you gentlemen like some coffee so we can get down to business? I promised Faith some answers this morning and I am a man of my word. Sweetness are you hungry?” Cooper tells Shine, Con, and Rebel. Then he gives me his full smile. The three men never get a chance to answer the question about coffee, another of the men in the kitchen brings the pot of coffee over and three cups. “Faith, would you like something to eat or some juice or coffee? I brought you a sandwich up last night and you were sound asleep, so I left it in case you woke hungry in the middle of the night.?” I knew it was either Cooper or Sean that left the food for me. “Did you sleep well? I locked the door before I left you, so you would feel safe.”

“Could I have some juice, please? I’m not picky, so any kind will work. I can get it if you tell me where it is.” I see the refrigerator, but I am not presumptuous enough to just get my own without permission. Ewan moves to the cabinet and gets a glass and goes to the refrigerator to get my juice. It’s only a minute before he has it in front of me. I smile at him and he smiles back. “Thank you, Ewan, it’s very thoughtful.” I look over to Cooper and he’s smiling, and I wink at him and that makes him laugh out loud.

“You are trouble, aren’t you?” Sean says with a smile on his face.

“No more than any seventeen-year-old. I slept very well, and I felt safe. Once I had a shower I couldn’t hold my eyes open.” I see Rebel is getting impatient.

“Now that everyone has had a nice little chat, do you think we could get down to the information. We have things to get back to.” Shine speaks up.

“Quinn get the fireproof box with my important papers in it.” Cooper gives the order, and one of the young men in the room that I hadn’t met hurries up the hall. “Gentlemen, I understand you had some trouble out of the community. Damn, I hated that name. This is going to take a while to explain so this won’t be fast, and I also need answers. I have arranged for one of the local doctors to come and do a DNA test on Faith, Sean, and myself to clear up who is her father. Faith agreed last night. I also will need to have one done on Charity if she is willing.” I did agree to the test. I would like to know the answer myself.

“Are you people a motorcycle club of some type? I see the cuts but no name, only lost ones. What the hell does that mean?” Sean laughs. Rebel, Shine, and Con all give Sean a go to hell look that says they don’t find anything funny. “What is your association with the Hell Keeperz MC?”

“And the community?” Shine adds. Quinn walks back in the room with a huge safe looking metal box. I don’t see how Quinn can handle it by himself. He walks over and puts it down beside Cooper.

“I only know of the Hell Keeperz MC from the community. One or two of their members stopped in our store and tried to intimidate one of my workers into giving them money and saying it was protection. The worker hit the silent alarm and we chased them out of town. They haven’t been back, but I expect they will one day and we will have a situation to take to counsel, but they won’t be taking any of our money. It’s law.” Cooper never raises his voice or acts like he’s mad at what the Hell Keeperz MC did. Cooper has opened the box and has set some papers on top of the table. He has two stacks wrapped together with a rubber band, and he slides them down the table to Shine. Shine picks them up and starts going through them. He hands some of them to Con, and some to Rebel to read. “Long story short is Sean, Darren, and I are half-brothers. We are from a small town in Ireland, or that’s where we were all born. For some reason our mam moved around a lot, but every time she was close to her time to give birth she went back to this small town.” Cooper looks up to be sure we are all listening. I already heard this part last night. “Our mam’s family is in the Irish mob. Mam didn’t like her family, and they didn’t like her much either, she was disowned. She was a bit of a scrubber and they thought she brought shame to a bunch of thieves and murderers.” Cooper sits back in his chair and takes a drink of his coffee and then continues. “Mam kept us a secret from her family or, so we were lead to believe. She saved the money that she made at the pub she worked at and some from the men she blackmailed and sent Darren to the United States with papers stating his name, but different parents. A man and a woman that mam trusted, and they became Darren’s family. A couple of years later Mam got a windfall of money from blackmailing a very rich married man. She was able to send both, Sean and I over here. Different parents, but we were cousins on the paperwork. I was too young to understand anything about the paperwork or why we were sent to live in the United States. I just knew Mam said we would be safe, and she would try to join us when she earned more money. She never made it over. She met her end by her own brothers gun a few months after we arrived in the United States. The people our Mam sent us to the states with were good people. They cared for us as their own. We were able to visit with Darren from time to time, but Sean and I were lucky enough to live on the same block in a small town close to Dallas. Darren was the oldest, and he was very intelligent when it came to new electronic technology and communications. Then he met Alice. She was a different sort of woman than we were ever around, or Sean and I anyway.” I am into what Cooper is saying. “At first, we met her just a few times, but the difference that overcame Darren when he was around her was noticeable.” I always thought it was Pop who had the dominance over Ma. That’s how it always appeared to me anyway.

“This is a nice stroll down memory lane, but can you get to where this involves Charity and Faith. We have places to be.” Con is always butting in. This may not be important to the bikers, but it is to me.

“I am getting to it. It’s all relevant if you want all the information.” Cooper responds but I can see that Con is saying the words, but Rebel and Shine feel the same way. “We didn’t have much contact with Darren once he was with Alice. It wasn’t like we had contact with Darren constantly before Alice, but it became less and less. Time passed, and then it was time for Sean to graduate high school, I graduated the year before, and they attended the ceremony and after that we were either receiving phone calls daily, or they came to visit every weekend. Sean and I started college the next semester. I could’ve started the year before, but I didn’t want to leave Sean behind. Our school was three hours away from where we lived, and we weren’t going to be separated. We only spent one year at the little college town and then we both signed up to go into the military and for the next twelve years we both did our service to our country and met some good people along the way. Most of those friends we made were all pipe hitters and our bonds became strong.” Cooper looks like his mind is far away, but he stops talking to catch his breath or get his thoughts straight. I am not sure which, so I ask the question.

“What is a pipe hitter?” I ask and wait for his answer. Cooper and Sean look at each other and then back to me.

“I’m sorry, sweetness, I should’ve realized such a young lass wouldn’t know what it meant. A pipe hitter is a military term that means someone willing to go to the extreme to get things done. Every soldier in our unit was just that, and it was a brotherhood to us. Most of the men from that unit live in this town. Every man that’s part of our brotherhood, and town serves at least four years in the military. We do our service with honor and then come back to our family and then we serve our town and families. Quinn and Ryan will be leaving for boot camp at the end of summer.” I take that in. I know Quinn is the one that went and got this big box, but I haven’t met Ryan yet. I guess Cooper sees my confusion. “Quinn is my youngest son. You met Ewan and Lachlan last night and they are both my sons.” Cooper points to the young man standing beside Quinn. “That is Sean’s youngest son, Ryan.” I look at him and he does resemble Quinn a little. Ryan blushes. Then Cooper points to another man standing by the counter. “That’s Connor, and the one standing by the back door is Riley. They could be your cousins or possibly brothers.” I wanted to ask about that, but I know Cooper needs to get on with story or I will be pulled out of here by three angry bikers.

“Get on with it.” Rebel pushes Cooper to get to the point, but I can see Rebel, Shine, and Con are agitating Cooper. Sean is the one that speaks up.

“Aren’t you the ones that need information? Just listen. We have thirty years of information and we don’t know what’s important to you or not. Isn’t it better to be thorough, besides we are still waiting on the doctor.” Sean is up out of his seat with one hand on his hip and his hand pointing at Shine as if that’s going to get the big biker’s attention. Good luck with that one. I do understand that we need to get back, so I can check on Charity.

“I know this is a long story, but could we get a condensed version. I need to check on Charity.” I hope she and the baby are doing alright. I never meant to put extra worry on Charity. I should’ve known.

“Now she thinks of her sister.” Con says in a hushed tone, but Cooper heard it.

“You are an arrogant little prick, aren’t you? I don’t see what sweetness sees in you, but to each their own. I see the attraction in both your eyes, but you’re fighting it and sweetness accepts hers, no matter how many times she denies it.” Cooper says to Con, but then he looks at me. “You deserve much better, sweetness, and you are more than welcome to stay with us. You have a good soul and you are loyal, that is the marks of a good woman.”

“I told you old man that I don’t like you calling my ol’ lady sweetness. Last warning.” Con, says in a menacing voice. What has happened to Con, while I was gone? Except for the first time, Con let me know he thought of me as a child, Con is a jokester. He’s always has a quick joke to say no matter the subject talked about. This Con sitting beside me is too serious. What could have happened?

“Let’s fast forward a bit.” Sean says. “Whatever is left out it is their loss if they need it.” Cooper and Con are in a stare down.

“Very well, have it your way.” Cooper says to Sean and the look between the two of them is intense. “A few years after Sean and I left the military Darren once again contacted us for a meeting. We would never turn our brother down. In the time we had been apart from Darren he took a drastic change and not for the better. Neither he or Alice were the same. They were disgruntled with the way their work was going at the NSA. They both received jobs after Darren came clean and proved the way he had come to the United States. One of the first things that we were made to do when we became of age was to get our citizenship. That’s when we found out that not only did our mam sign over rights of all three of us to the parents we lived with, but she had also let them adopt us with the stipulation we kept our last names. One of each set of the parents was a citizen of the United States. I don’t know how, but the why is our mam knew the laws that pertained to children to get their citizenship. She made sure we became citizens, so we couldn’t be drug back to Ireland. When Darren had to get his security clearances he was made to come clean and they raked him through the coals getting answers and information. From what Darren said it was a lengthy process but the NSA wanted his intelligence working for them, so they approved the clearance.” Cooper stops to catch a breath and I look at Shine and he looks like he is taking this all in and his anger is gone. “Sean and I chose the military, but while we were in there Sean was in the army intelligence pertaining to communications and I was more into the tactical part of intelligence. Somehow Darren kept up with us when we were enlisted and our job skills and that’s why he reconnected with us.”

“Weren’t you the least bit suspicious of Darren since he knew of your whereabouts, and the skills you were trained for?” Shine asks.

“We had learned to be suspicious of anything doing with Darren, Alice and their friends. We trusted none of them.” Sean tells Shine.

“When Darren contacted us, it was like he was suspicious of us. The questions he asked were pertaining to job skills we achieved and nothing personal. We were interested in a family reconnection, but he wasn’t. He was cold and calculating. Alice was quiet, but she never missed anything, and they were always together. We were never left alone with Darren. Sean you talk a while.” Cooper sits back, and Quinn brings the coffee pot over and refills everyone’s coffee.

“Darren and Alice started visiting us every weekend. They lived in Maryland so, yes, we were suspicious. We knew they were working up to something big. When we got out of the military we located in the Dallas area, but our parents had moved to Florida to a retirement community. They signed the deeds to our homes that we grew up in over to us saying our mother had paid for the property, and that was her instructions. Our army buddies were getting out of the military a few at a time, and they started moving close to us, some on the same street as us and then others in the same town. Darren was always asking questions about our friends and what they did in the military. That’s also when Alice started to want family time and for us to get to meet their friends. Neither of us was okay with that. We are not politically correct people. We don’t rub elbows with the rich. We are, who we are, soldiers wanting to find our niche in this world. We just wanted to be left alone and that isn’t what Alice had in mind. She began making advances to either Cooper or myself. At first, I thought she was trying to do it on the sly, but then she started doing it openly in front of Darren. This isn’t something either of us was comfortable with, but when you are a young man we were thinking with our dicks and not with our brains.” Sean seems like this is hard to say.

“Sean it’s alright, please, speak freely. So much has happened to me in the last few months that I am not some innocent girl. I am six months away from being eighteen, but I feel way older and none of this is making me uncomfortable.” I try to ease Sean’s mind, so he can go on.

“But she acts like she’s twelve most days.” Con comes backs with. Sean levels Con with a stare.

“For someone that says he wants this woman to be his woman, you sure don’t know how to go about making it happen.” Ewan says with a snicker.

“Enough Ewan. Let him dig his own grave alone,” Cooper says. “What Sean is trying not to tell you is that Darren and Alice had fallen into extracurricular activities in their marriage. The friends they had shared their women, but only of the husbands choosing, never the wife.”

“That was the practice of the community since I could remember. The men could have multiple wives, or they could choose to share their wives with another man in the community. That’s why Charity chose not to become a wife, because once they were bound on paper the women never had another say when it came to their bodies or anything else. The man was the head of the family unit, making the rules in the community, and the leaders were the head of the men.” I try to explain it, the situation, so everyone understands how I was raised. Cooper and Sean are shaking their heads.

“That’s a shame. This little game Darren and Alice was playing with us went on a few years. Their visits were every weekend and they brought some of their friends with them. We discussed how the government didn’t take care of veterans and government workers. Darren brought up that the government was making profits off people’s intellect and it wasn’t fair that they weren’t compensated fairly. We listened but when they returned home to Maryland we went about our business. All our buddies had made it out of the army and we located close together. Then one day Sean bought his first Harley and all of us fell in love with it and one by one we all bought one and the freedom of the road called to us, so we started having weekend rides, and we were not around for Darren to make his visits. He was furious, but Alice was livid. She called us constantly, and then started contacting our buddies through their wives. We all became tired of it, and we were tired of living in the Dallas area. We thought of moving towards Florida. That’s where our only other family lived, but when one of the wives let Alice know about it, Darren made a visit to us during the week. He tried to convince us to stay put because we owned our property. We dismissed his concerns. He told us that he and his friends had decided to take a leave from their job and locate in Texas. Here in Saltillo and they were going to start a community of their own. No outsiders but they wanted our group to go with them. The plan that they told us that visit was beyond anything our group would do. They were going to steal from the U.S. government. They said it was just communication technology that they developed and that they had buyers for the technology and they were going to use it for their use to stay off the grid and from being found.” Damn, my family is screwed up. Cooper starts to go on.

“If I understand this right, the community stole from the government and no one was caught, and no one was jailed for it. How is that even possible?” Shine asks. I know Shine has heard part of this story before.

“That’s where it gets tricky. The technology that they took wasn’t the cutting-edge thing at the time. It was something they had worked with before. They covered their trail and blackmail. They had some dirt on some high officials that had been paying them cash payments for a while and then they settled with a favor of helping cover their trail.” Sean answered. Shine looks critical of the answer.

“Darren and Alice came straight to us while the rest of the group stayed hidden. They wanted us to move here with them. We refused, and they left. Two days later both sets of our parent’s houses burned the same night. We lost the only people that we had as family beside Darren. We were grief-stricken and never thought Darren would go to such extremes. We buried our parents and then Darren offered us a payoff with a lot of zeroes to accompany them here and provide security while they set up the place. We took it to our brothers and we voted, and the vote went Darren’s way. Long story short we stayed on and bought land here. We liked the people and the quietness. I had a woman and Sean had a woman and we already had sons and we grew some more. We worked our land, raised cattle, and raised kids. Our group did our thing and your pop, and his friends did theirs. Then things started changing. Some of our group started liking the way Darren ran things. We weren’t their keepers, so they changed sides. Alice got pregnant, but we noticed that Darren was sharing her again and so were the other men of their group.” Cooper stopped for a minute and looked at me. “The next part, I am not proud of it, but the rest of our group started acting like fools. We weren’t faithful to our women and started sharing with Darren’s group. I knew, and Sean knew that the women in our lives didn’t agree with the change, but when they refused to participate then we sent them on their way. It’s not that we were married or anything, but it still wasn’t right the way we disrespected our women and in the end a lot of good relationships were lost because of our stupidity. We paid a high price for it, we lost people we cared about when they packed up and left. We also wouldn’t let the women take our sons, and that’s when the rift became bigger. Darren wanted us to let the boys go so the law wouldn’t come around. We refused.” A thought runs through my head.

“You let them take your daughters and not your sons? Why? Didn’t you love them equally?” Sean laughs.

“Faith, Darren’s girls were the first girls in our family for five generations, or so Mam told us. We don’t know about our dads’ family.” Sean says in a quiet voice. I see it is a sore subject for Sean.

“After the big fight over lawyers and such things went downhill from there. Alice gave birth to a daughter, and we were all in awe. A sweet angel to bless us all. When Alice was healed from childbirth she tried to smooth things over with sex. She pursued both Sean and I shamelessly. We were weak to the pleasures of our body, and we were both with your Ma, on more than one occasion. She wasn’t the only one and we weren’t the only men.” Cooper seems sad, as he tells the story.

“This seems more like a personal story than one that’s going to help us.” Rebel says with impatience in his voice. “It gives us a better mindset of the people we are dealing with, or part of the ones we are dealing with, but we already knew they were damn crazy. They kidnapped me and thought I was going to have sex with a woman and then blackmail me with it. It wasn’t happening. Who wants to hurt people that way for shits and giggles?”

“Do you have a woman at home?” Sean asks.

“I have an ol’ lady that is my wife, and mother of my children, and I would never hurt her that way. I would die first.” Rebel says with conviction. I knew Rebel was a good man.

“You are an honorable man then. Cooper give it to them. This is important to them.” Cooper shakes his head in agreement.

“While Darren and his group were making money left and right the rest of our group dug into this town. Hope was born, and it wasn’t long until Alice was pregnant again. The question was which brother or other man, was the father. She swore it wasn’t Darren’s and some of the other women also became pregnant without knowing who the fathers were. No one used condoms and they started using that against us to coerce us into doing what they wanted. They knew how our brotherhood felt about family.” Cooper looks at Sean.

“Saltillo is a town that gets left behind. We divide two counties, and the law is sparse at the best of times. We picked up the slack and weeded out the druggies and made this a drug free zone. We had no school and our children were bused another county over, so we built a school. We had no church and we built a church. We did this with our money, but Darren fought us every step of the way and then his group came to us one day and said they had sold a few of their systems and there would be people coming into Saltillo to seal the deal, and cash traded hands.” Sean looks at Shine. “When the people arrived, it was two biker clubs, and they came into our town and started taking over. We weren’t included in the conversations, but Darren came to us and said that we needed to accommodate the bikers while they were here. At first, we were confused, but what they were getting at is the women of our brothers were expected to be there play dolls. The women who left with our men were wives, and we would not even consider their demand. The next time they came to talk to us was a day later, and these bikers wanted to move here and build their clubhouse. They were making two clubs into one, and they wanted to come here because very few law enforcements ever came out here, and they said we had lost our way and we could leave. In other words, they thought they had people who could throw us out of our homes. That wasn’t the way it played out” Sean has fire in his eyes.

“After we told them to go straight to hell, that night two wives disappeared. They were gone for days, and we looked everywhere. Sean had a suspicion and when we had the chance we went into Darren’s barn, and the two women had been beaten and raped. They were in chains. We lost Edith from her stab wounds. She had repeatedly been stabbed. Elsa told us who had taken them, and who had joined in their torture and rapes. The men from Darren’s group had lured them away, and then gave them to the bikers. After three days Elsa took her own life. The Possessed Blood Soul MC lost four members and left our town. King, the vice president assured us that none of his other members were involved. They were from another area and their president had set up the meet here and were going to patch the Demon Hearts MC over. Both clubs had bought some of the communication technology from Darren. There were very few of the Demon Heart MC that made it out of Saltillo alive. We put the cur dogs down. We didn’t have as many men as they did, but each one of us had our own skill set and we were used to working together.” Cooper looks at Sean. The way they’re giving the information like a team shows the bond between them.

“Darren was making a move to take over Saltillo while we were busy with the two clubs, but we nipped it in the bud, and that’s when we found that Darren and his group were partaking in drugs and selling them. Scamp, one of the Possessed Blood Soul came back and gave us information on everything that Darren’s group had been doing including all the technology that Alice and Darren had stolen. Things that neither worked on. We were under the impression that everything they took with them was their work. We were wrong and that’s the day we lost all trust in Darren and his group. Scamp also told us that Richard Denson had used one of the signal blockers to come up with the idea of using buses and RVs to set up moving drug houses. Using generators and the small solar panels for electricity. We don’t support anything to do with drugs. We played it off until we could get confirmation for ourselves. At this point we had decided to trust no one. Your Ma gave birth to a second daughter in the time it was taking us to confirm what Scamp had told us. Darren was our blood brother and we loved him and Hope. That little girl was everyone’s princess. The day Alice gave birth to a second girl was the day we found the bus they were working on for the first moving drug house. We didn’t even see your sister after she was born when we confronted Darren. We told them to take all their things with them and leave or we would turn them into the government. There was a small fight, and blood was spilled but we took care of business. We gave them one week to get out. That’s when we took the Lost Ones emblem and wore it like a flag of us rising, and taking our lifestyle, and integrity back. We are not a club or any kind of organization. We are just like thinking men and families that keep to ourselves and try to make a town we are proud of. We ride bikes and live our lives our way and Darren and Alice couldn’t accept that.” Sean looks at Cooper.

“That wasn’t our last meeting with Darren and his right-hand man Denson. They moved west of a town named Pittsburg on a place called Couch Mountain, but they kept trying to get us to see their ways and entice us with money. After they left we opened the sex shop to bring in extra money, and we have made a very good profit with it. We also opened the small convenience store with the fuel pumps and a laundry mat. We share the profits evenly to supplement our regular jobs. We aren’t rich, but we are comfortable, and we didn’t want drug money or any other illegal money. We had heard that Darren and Denson had started selling young women and that their satellite system was becoming obsolete, and they associated themselves with a motorcycle club.” Cooper looks at me. “Your ma came to us begging us to come back in the fold. We declined, but while she was here we did use her body again. It was our way letting Darren know we had hardened our hearts to him. Alice also let us know that Darren was losing his way and thinking he was above all laws and that he was the supreme leader of the community. He made everything happen and he was in control, but Alice lead us to believe that he had become sadistic, and taken many wives that bore him many children, and that he was replenishing this earth with worthy people to run it. Those children of his, and the other leaders of the community were sent out and educated after they were brainwashed to only believe in the ways of the community. They had plans to put those young adults in places of power, and then use that power for the community benefit, but it all went to hell. After the children were integrated into the real world they discovered things they had grown up knowing was lunacy. One being that name. Darren thought the place they lived was of no significance, only that they were one. That’s why the c was never capitalized when written about, and it was only referred to as community, and not home. That shows how he was unraveling, but I warn you Alice is just as evil as Darren ever was and maybe more so.” Another man walks in the back door without knocking and Shine, Rebel, and Con all have their hands on their guns, but no one else seems alarmed. I see a shorter man following along behind the first man in the door. “She is also just as smart so if she is still out there you and your sister are still in danger.” Well crap. Cooper stands up and shakes the shorter man’s hand.

“Thanks Hank for getting here so fast. This is Faith and we would like two DNA test done. One for Sean and one for myself.” Cooper looks at the man and the man looks nervous.

“I suppose you want this done as soon as possible and put a rush on it.” Cooper shakes his head yes. The doctor sets his bag on the table.

“We’re going outside to make some calls.” Shine stands up. Sean looks uneasy but doesn’t say anything.

“That’s fine. but don’t have any more of your men come today. We have guards riding our property and watching the roads and we may seem like peaceable men, and for most parts we are, but if you fuck with what is ours, we will spill blood. That seems extreme when we are just having a conversation, don’t you think?” Cooper never cracks a smile, so I know he is serious.

“Agreed. Just getting some people working on the information we have found out.” Shine says and then he adds. “I already have men posted just outside of Saltillo so if I wanted men here they would be. This is just taking longer than expected and I don’t want anyone getting itchy trigger fingers.” Shine doesn’t back down from Cooper.

“We knew exactly when your riders arrived, and they are being watched by snipers. We don’t miss much, and we just want peace here. This doesn’t need to be a pissing match.” Cooper comes back. Shine doesn’t miss a beat.

“And we have snipers on your snipers. No pissing match, we are just being careful. We have had an ongoing war going with the Hell Keeperz MC, and the community for a while now, long before we ever knew it. Now I am going to make them calls.” Shine, Con, and Rebel walk out the door. Copper looks at me.

“That is some intense friends there, sweetness.” That makes me laugh. I stop after I realize this is a very serious situation.

“They have been protecting Charity and me for a while, and I trust them. They have had club members die trying to protect us. The community has had people die. I just want it over with. I’m tired of looking over my shoulder every day. I worry because Charity is pregnant, and she was supposed to be married. I just feel so responsible for bringing this danger into their lives. I know they were having troubles before they met us, but it was still our family that brought the trouble to them, and they are good people. I know they are intense, but they are a family and they care.” I spill my thoughts out in words about everything that has been bothering me. The guilt I have dealt with over this has been killing me. I just want to help and feel like less of a burden. I don’t even see the doctor walk up beside me.

“Little lady if you could just open so I can swab your mouth.” I open my mouth. He swabs the inside of my mouth and then puts the swab in a plastic bag from his doctor bag. “Now we are going to be thorough, so I am going to take a blood sample and a swatch of your hair. I will keep all of these on record and when the results come back I will give to Cooper or Sean if either are found to be a DNA match and if not they’re to be returned to you.” I am a bit confused at this, but the swab is done and then he starts going through my hair and he snips some off underneath.

“Why? I mean why the blood and the hair swatch? Why do you need them?” I know there is a good reason. The doctor takes a syringe out of his bag and connects a blood tube. I roll my sleeve up and he wipes my arm off with an alcohol pad.

“Cooper and Sean keep DNA samples of their children. A lot of parents do it these days. Cooper and Sean were just ahead of the times. I think it comes with being in the military.” The doctor says as he puts the band around my arm. I have good veins, so it doesn’t take long for him to stick me and fill the tube. He puts a cotton ball on the needle prick and then puts a band-aid over it. He then swabs Cooper and then Sean. I hear the door open and Shine and the other two walks back in, and then take their seats. “That does it for me. I will put a rush on this.” Sean shakes the doctor’s hand and then the man walks back out with him.

“Ewan make sure everyone’s chores are done, and then go and relieve some of the men on guard, so they can get them some food. Lachlan, you and Quinn follow the doctor back to his office. I don’t want to take any chances.” Cooper makes eye contact with each of his sons.

“Riley, you and your brothers get some sleep, so you can take your rotation later, and be sure to eat when you get up before you go out.” The other three go back up the stairs. I hear doors closing upstairs. Cooper waits a few minutes to start up again.

“Con, are you serious about Faith or is she just a passing fancy for you? You come in here spouting you have claimed her as your woman but is your heart in it because I can tell you that you are going to have a challenging time taming this one. She is young, beautiful and is full of sass. She walked right into our sex toy store and never batted an eye about it being full of men that she had no idea if she could trust. She has no self-preservation when it comes to protecting those she loves, and if I am not mistaken she is quite taken with you. She has a look of more than like in her eyes.” Cooper waits for Cons answer.

“I don’t think that is any of your business. The only thing that matters is for you to understand that she is my woman and I am not taking that lightly. I will protect Faith and she will listen to me or she will find her ass a bright red color. Is there anything else that we need to know before we leave?” Con still doesn’t believe Cooper and Sean.

“Fair enough. The community and this other biker club may be easier to find if you have the same intelligence that they have. I don’t have it, but I know someone that does, and he owes me a favor.” Cooper lets that sink in. “All of your opposition may not just be coming from these two groups. The Irish mob may also be watching and may be trying to get Charity and Faith.” My back goes straight. I don’t know anything about these people, but I am not getting a good feeling, and anything having to do with the mob must be bad. Right? Now I am paying closer attention.

“You need to explain that.” Rebel says.

“As we told you, Alice is very calculating and greedy for money. Darren, Cooper and I have never had anything to do with our family back in Ireland after we received notice that Mam was killed by them. I mean, how could we, they didn’t know we existed, but Darren told Alice. In most families in the Irish mobs they want sons to fight their battles on the streets and in the ranks, but we hadn’t had a female child in our family in five generations or that is the story our mam told.” I start to interrupt, but Sean holds his hand up. “Our mam was thrown out of her formal family because of her relationships with men and excommunicated by the church so in their eyes she didn’t exist unless they wanted to make an example out of her, but they would have taken us from her. Irish girls that are in the mob are expected to marry in the higher-ranking members of the mob to keep the bloodline going. It is a sign of prestige, and honor on the family and the only way that our mam’s family could make their family stronger and stay in power. I know this sounds foreign to you Faith but say if a female from our family marries a son of a high ranking from another family it bonds the two families and expands territory. It’s all a business arrangement. Mam’s family was very powerful, but they were also power hungry. That’s how the female children born become an asset and coveted by the family. They need sons to fight but they need daughters to bind families together and have heirs. Mam’s family is strong with soldiers but having no females makes them weak. The women must stay pure and know their place. They are an extension of their fathers at first and then their husbands. Our mam did not fit that mold. If Alice is desperate she will sell you both, out to our family in Ireland. You said Charity was pregnant and intends to wed, she needs to speed that up. Once she is married she will be no good to them, so her danger will be gone at least from our overseas family, but you dear Faith will then be their only option and they will come after her with everything they can. So Con, if you are indeed serious about Faith then marry her.” Sean finishes. I am shocked, and my only concern is Charity and getting her married.

“Have Charity and Brody set a wedding date? It needs to be soon.” Sean smiles at me.

“Always thinking about family first. You are a gentle soul and very loyal, but you need to think of yourself also. What would Charity do without her sister?” Sean sounds sincere and he’s right. Charity would freak.

“Are you willing to set up a meet for us and this man that owes you a favor?” Shine asks.

“Yes, and we will help in any way that we can. We also have done some research on your clubs and by everything on paper, you don’t deal drugs and if you don’t try to pull us into anything illegal then we will do anything to help family and Faith and Charity are family. We’ll know to what extent in a few days. Their safety is now our number one priority, but we will need to discuss this situation with the rest of our brotherhood, but you have eight more men to help you now.” I don’t know who is more shocked Con or me.

“Can I ask a few things to clear up some questions in my mind?” I look to first Cooper and then to Sean.

“Of course, you can sweetness.” Cooper answers me, but my head swings to Con and he seems to have calmed down about the sweetness thing. I am thankful. I don’t want to argue anymore, and I like Cooper calling me that. It makes me feel special.

“Why did your mam’s family hate her so just because she had relationships with men?” I ask shyly.

“I used the name scrubber earlier because that is Irish for a woman that got around, but the truth is our mam was a prostitute and the Irish word seems less harsh. The meaning is the same, but I would never disrespect mam by saying the word whore when it comes to my mam. I use a lot of Irish words that I have no reason to remember but to me they sound better. I do it on purpose as in remembrance of our mam, and for being thankful we weren’t raised with hate in our hearts. Does that make sense? We loved our mam no matter what she did, only like a child can and we don’t judge her for her choices.” I accept Cooper’s explanation. It makes sense to me.

“Why didn’t you try to find out if we were your daughters before now? Did you not care that we might be your daughters?” I ask them with tears in my eyes and I don’t know where they came from.

“Sweet girl, we thought we were protecting you and we couldn’t be sure that you were anything, but our nieces, but we should’ve come and saved you. We knew Darren was losing his grip on reality.” Sean answers.

“Darren had the way of staying under the radar and you and your sister needed that to stay away from our family in Ireland. We could have been selfish and insisted on a DNA test, but we were also worried about Alice and Darren making you disappear, so we let it go and that is a great regret of ours.” Cooper says with regret in his voice and in his eyes. I need to take that regret away.

“What’s done is done. Let it go. We have found each other now. I have all of you now and my heart is full of happiness. Charity is going to be so happy. I can’t wait for you to meet her.” I get up from my chair and walk over to Cooper and walk closer hesitantly, but when I see the glassy look in his eyes I move in a wrap my arms around him in a hug. He stands up and pulls me closer. We stay this way for a few minutes and I feel the love coming off him. I step back and he does the same and I go to Sean and do the same.

“Faith, why don’t you go upstairs and get your things together? Con will come and get you when we are ready to roll.” Shine tells me. I know this is code for me to go upstairs so they can discuss this amongst the men. This should irritate me since I am the one who had to bring the Demented Revengers here, but my mind is on overload and I know once I process all of what I have heard today that I will have a ton of questions but right now I am just overwhelmed with the past.

“Alright.” That’s the only answer I can give.

“Would you like something to eat or drink to take with you?” Sean asks me.

“No thank you. I am just going to try and get this all straight in my head so when I get home I can give it all to Charity.” I answer.

“Don’t try sneaking out of another window or everyone is going to see you get your first red ass.” I have no comeback, so I just flip Con off and all the men but Con break out in laughter.