EPILOGUE
Tank
Axel was thumping me on the shoulder when Kylie walked into the Rusty Pelican. We’d been celebrating all day. The beers were being popped open, and the music was turned on loud. We had managed to safely bring in the twelfth shipment of weapons and Axel had asked me to oversee it.
The Dragon Knights were reduced to rubble by now. When word got out that we had stopped their deal with the Four Skulls no other gangs were interested in working with them, for fear that we would retaliate on them. And, even though we had other problems to deal with and more wars to wage; today was a good day for us. We cheered and clinked beer bottles together, as Kylie walked towards us. Hunter reached out and hugged her, and after they were done kissing; Kylie turned to me.
“What are you still doing here?” she asked, with her brows crossed.
“What are you talking about?” I said, and she looked at her wristwatch.
“Didn’t you get Brooklyn’s message? Jolie needs to be picked up from their house because Brooklyn has a doctor’s appointment at seven,” Kylie said, and I looked at my watch. It was already half past six, and I thanked her and rushed out of the bar.
Jolie was seven months old and a handful, despite the fact that she was the cutest little angel I had ever laid my eyes on. She had her mother’s large blue eyes and dark brown hair, which was in the form of a halo of tight ringlets around her face. She could scream till her lungs hurt if she didn’t get her way; and my daughter, at the small young age of seven months, always got her way. And she knew it. She knew exactly how pampered she was, at least around her daddy. Noelle was the one who had to lay down the rules because she believed that if she didn’t; Jolie would turn out to be a rude, spoilt brat.
Noelle still worked at the hospital because I didn’t want her to give up her career just because she was a mother now. For the first six months of Jolie’s life, Noelle had stayed home to look after the baby, and it had only been a month now since she started taking up a few eight-hour shifts at the hospital each week.
She had worried about how it might affect our lives, given that I never returned home before midnight these days because of the shipments that were on their way. But I insisted that we would manage. With the help of the other old ladies from the MC, and working around my schedule a little; Jolie was cared for while her mother worked and I was determined to make sure that Noelle didn’t feel like she had to give up everything just to be with me. She had already given up enough, by cutting off all contact with her parents when they didn’t turn up for our wedding.
All these years, I had never imagined myself as a family man. I had in fact run away from the idea. My parents had set the worst example for me, and I had no idea how to be any different. But Noelle had changed everything. I proposed to her within six months of being with her, and we got married a few weeks after Jolie was born.
Now, the same guy who never brought women back to his apartment because he was afraid of attachment and feared commitment lived in a two-story brick house with a beautiful wife and a wonderful daughter. Our neighbors stared when they saw my bike parked in the driveway, but Noelle had told me that she didn’t give a fuck. She was fiercely loyal to her man, and I loved her for it.
At Gunner and Brooklyn’s house, I picked up Jolie at the last minute before she was about to leave for her appointment. Jolie was delighted to see me, and I wrapped her in the sling around my chest so that I could ride with her.
I had trained myself to ride slowly when Jolie was attached to me, and I’d even bought her a baby helmet. Noelle had initially disapproved for safety reasons, but she soon saw that I would have done anything to keep our daughter safe from harm and that I would never put her in danger.
I rode us back to our house and carried Jolie in. Noelle was still not home, and there were still a few more hours to go before she returned.
It was difficult to imagine what my life looked like all those months ago, before I met Noelle and before we had Jolie. I would definitely not have been at home, trying to make baby formula at this time of the day. It was just seven, my day would just be beginning.
And now, every time I turned to look at my daughter, sitting on her high stool and flailing her arms around, I felt like I was at peace. I didn’t feel like I missed being at the bar with my brothers. I wouldn’t have been anywhere but at home with Jolie and Noelle.
Jolie giggled as I flipped her feeding bottle in the air for sport. I walked back over to her and presented it to her, on bended knee like she was my Queen. Which she was. As I fed Jolie, stroking her soft curly hair as she drank her formula, I realized that now more than ever; I was determined to keep doing my job. No matter how dangerous it was for me, I was going to make sure that nothing ever touched my wife or kid. And Noelle was my perfect partner in crime.