He kept going.

“After I lost you, Chaos descended. Got in deeper everywhere. Lookin’ back, this was solely Crank’s fuck-you to Tack, who had other ideas about the Club and was puttin’ ’em into action, quiet-like. Crank was full-on paranoid that Tack wanted the gavel from the early days and he set about tying us up so tight in shit it was impossible to get loose from knowin’ it would tie Tack’s hands. Don’t think Tack gave a shit about the gavel until Crank started fuckin’ with the Club. Then Tack was all about wrestin’ that gavel from Crank. Crank underestimated him. Lotsa folks underestimated Tack back then. Tack proved that’s a mistake. Only Valenzuela does it now.”

“I haven’t seen Crank,” she said hesitantly.

“That’s ’cause Crank’s dead,” he returned emotionlessly, watching her eyes widen in shock.

“You were close,” she noted, still cautious.

“We were. Then we were not.”

“Why not?” she asked like she didn’t want to know.

And she didn’t. He knew it.

But she had to know.

He tightened his arm around her, slid his hand to her jaw, and held her eyes.

He also gentled his voice.

“ ’Cause Crank ordered Black to be whacked.”

That was when he watched her face pale and it jabbed into his heart as she whispered an agonized, “No.”

“Yeah, baby,” he confirmed.

“I haven’t seen Black.”

“Ordered it, Millie, beautiful, and it sucks to tell you this, but that hit was carried out and it was done successfully.”

The agony hit her eyes.

Fuck him.

Fuck him.

Seeing her deal with it was reliving it.

Fuck.

“He’s dead?” she asked, like she wanted him to take that shit back.

He wished he could.

“Tat, babe, on my ribs, to remind us never to forget what’s important. Brothers. Blood. Family,” he stated. “The name on the other side of the scale is Cherry, Tack calls her Red, you know her as Tyra. Tack pulled the Club loose of the shit Crank tied us up in, turned the brothers around, turned it all around. Me and Arlo were not down with that. Money was less. Club’s reputation took a massive hit. We worked our assess off and put a lot on the line to get both only to pull out. And in the early days, because a’ that, danger was more for the brothers and our families. We lost Black. Chew renounced the Club. Crank had to be dealt with. All that shit went down ugly. But threads dangling from Tack’s cleanup that didn’t get snipped ’cause we were squabblin’ in the Club caught up Cherry. She was kidnapped. Stuck repeatedly. Nearly bled out in some house no one had ever seen. Tack found her, saved her. She survived. The Club pulled together. Now we’ll never forget.”

Her eyes were huge. “That happened to Tyra?”

“Yep,” he replied.

“Oh my God.”

“She’s a good woman, Millie. I know you have cause to have issues with her but she saw what I didn’t see in you and moved on it. I hold no grudge. You shouldn’t either.”

“I don’t,” she told him.

That was his girl.

Fancy house. Designer duds.

But she got the life. You knew when to hold grudges. You knew what earned retribution.

You also knew when to forgive and you didn’t fuck around doing it.

High gave her a squeeze.

He figured she didn’t feel the squeeze when she said, “I just can’t... it’s impossible to believe...” She shook her head. “Low, that’s two old ladies who got caught up in Chaos business. Mine was nowhere near as bad but—”

“Tyra got caught up in it not just ’cause of the Club but because of what her girl’s fiancé was into. Club had history with the man who perpetrated that but it was because of Lanie’s dead dickhead of a fiancé she got stuck. Club history just didn’t help things.”

“Lanie’s fiancé?”

“She’s Hop’s woman now. Her fiancé bit it and she went on to better things.”

“I met her,” she said.

“Know you did. She’s a good woman too. They all meddle. They’ll drag you into that shit. It’s just the way it is. But it comes from a good place.”

She wasn’t interested in that.

She was interested in something else and she didn’t mess around with telling him what it was.

“What did Crank tie you up in that you found it hard to get loose?”

The rest he gave her was far from easy.

This was going to kill.

But he had to do it. Nothing between them. Nothing held back.

Not this time.

“Whores and security,” he replied. “Chew pimped the girls. Arlo and me were in charge of security.”

Her eyes were again huge and her face was beyond pale.

“You ran security for Chaos prostitutes?” she asked in disbelief.

“No, babe, I ran security for shipments of drugs and guns through or around Denver.”

“Holy God,” she breathed, pulling away from him.

Gentle, he pulled her back to him.

And he laid it out just as gentle but he also did it straight.

“You hooked your star to an outlaw, baby. You knew it back then. We didn’t discuss it but you can talk ’til you’re blue in the face and you won’t convince me you didn’t know. You loved me. You didn’t give a shit. You loved an outlaw and you took me as I was. That didn’t change except Crank put me in charge of it rather than me just bein’ a soldier. Things started goin’ bad for me and Crank when he took on the girls. It never got better.”

“Chew pimped women?” she forced out.

“There was an asshole under the decent guy. It was buried deep but it was there. Crank sniffed it out, then pulled it out. Hop was an enforcer for the girls and at Tack’s orders outside the table, he used Hop to get them ready to move on when Tack took over and cut all the girls loose. When Hop started that work, one piece of gash talked to Crank. Crank made a decision about what would be the catalyst to unite all factions in a brotherhood that was broken. Takin’ a brother out was the only way. He ordered that shit, blamed it on an enemy. Tack’s never been stupid, swear to fuck, he didn’t sleep until he had it solid the hit came from Crank.”

“So who took down Crank?”

He felt his jaw get tight.

Her voice was pitched high when she asked, “You?”

“No clue which bullet did the final deed, seein’ as he took one from every brother’s gun.”

Her body, not relaxed into his, but tense as all fuck, reared like she was trying to flee.

High held on tight.

“Keely goes to Black’s grave every week, Millie. Years have passed. Every fuckin’ week.”

She stilled when the tears hit her eyes.

He kept at her in order to get it done.

“They had two boys after you were gone. Both too young to know their dad was solid as a rock. A good man to his core. They can be told that. They’ve been told that. But they’ll never know.”

A tear slid down her cheek.

High kept going.

“Crank picked Black because no matter the split in the Club, Black was the glue. We all felt it. We all knew big shit was coming and the Club might not survive. Only man who held us all together, both sides, even though he’d chosen one, was Black. That was why Crank picked him because he knew we’d all suffer that and bond together for vengeance. He took out a brother, Millie, and that is not okay. But he made that decision pickin’ the best of us. The most decent of us. The most loyal. And that is seriously not okay.”

Her “No” was shaky but at least she said it.

“Now it’s done,” he stated. “We all suffered black marks on our souls doin’ it and gettin’ it done. I’m not proud to say I got more of those marks than most. Not proud to share that Valenzuela knows part of this shit and that’s why he targeted me through you. I was weak. I was hurt and it made me weak. But I’m not gonna hide that because it’s done, because it’s part of me and because you need it all.”

It wasn’t shaky, it was tortured, when she stated, “So it was me who did that to you too.”

“Fuck no,” he clipped, and at the intensity of it, she stared. “Babe, I chose that path. I did. I chose the path that led away from you. You made it so I had no choice but to walk away. You did not make it so I couldn’t go back. I didn’t go back. That was my choice. And it was my choice to do everything I did in between. Every shipment I escorted through town. Every blind eye I turned to Crank’s bullshit. That’s on me. I live with that. It ain’t easy but God’s chosen to keep me breathin’ so I figure He’s got work for me to turn that around and do good. Be a good dad. Get you back and take care a’ you this time. Whatever it is, I’m here to do it. I got His message. And I’m grateful.”