Now I was on my way to visit my Mum. My parents lived about twenty minutes away so I had caught a lift with one of the guys. As we pulled up to the house I was hit with the memories of growing up here. Mum and Dad had given Scott and I a good life. We had been surrounded by lots of love in the form of club family. I remembered tons of get togethers with the boys and their families; parties, barbeques, you name it, my Mum was always organising something. My Dad may have been the club president but my mother played a huge part in keeping it all together and running smoothly. I didn’t know how aware she was of the day to day business of the club but I truly believed that she was the strong woman who stood behind my father and supported him in everything he did.
Sharon Cole was a woman that most people tried not to mess with. She was a hard as nails, straight up, ballsy woman who loved fiercely, and lived and breathed Storm. Her father had been a member of Storm, and she too had grown up in the life. She had met my father when he joined the club and the rest is history. They had been through a lot and had built Storm up to be the club it was today; a force to be reckoned with. Storm had a reputation for getting the job done and it was a club that others didn’t fuck with, although that reputation had really only come about over the last few years.
Even though I hadn’t had much to do with Storm since I left two years ago, I had heard whisperings from friends about the lengths the club would now go to, to protect its business dealings, its members and their loved ones. As much as I wasn’t aware of within the club, I wasn’t naive; I had seen enough to know there was a lot of violence involved, and it seemed that this had only intensified. I had struggled with this when I dated J; he had sometimes come home bloodied and bruised, and when I asked about it he had told me it was club business and I didn’t need to know. Thinking about my mother now, I wondered how she dealt with this side of Storm. We had never talked about it but perhaps it was something I needed to ask her; perhaps learning how to deal with this would help me move past what had happened with Rob.
I never knew just what J was capable of until Rob. I shuddered thinking about it but the thing was, I had to think about it. I had pushed it to the deep recesses of my mind for too long now. It had everything to do with why J and I broke up, so in order for me to start sorting through my feelings about him, I needed to work through this first.
“So, I hear you’re staying,” my Mum said as she made us coffee. She had been happy to see me and I could hear the relief in her voice now.
I smiled; it was so good to see her. “Yes,” I took a moment to get the words out right, “I haven’t wanted to come back because I wasn’t sure how I would cope with everything here. I thought that seeing J again would he hard and to be honest, I was trying to get away from the club. But you know what? I think I’ve missed the club and even though he is pissing me off, I’m okay with being around J.”
She nodded, “You were in a pretty bad way when you left, Maddy, but I think you just needed that time away to get your head together. It’s done you good, honey.”
“I want to stay so I can watch out for Crystal but being here with you now, I realise I’ve really missed you, even if you are overbearing sometimes,” I said with a cheeky smile.
Mum laughed, “I’ve been good lately, haven’t I?” she asked.
“Yeah, Mum, you have. And I need you to let me do things my way if I’ve got any chance of starting over here and keeping my shit together. Okay?”
She held up her hands. “Okay, okay. So, what’s your plan? Do you want to move in here with us until you sort yourself out? I know your father would love to have you here.”
“He’s got a funny way of showing it. He bit my head off yesterday.”
“He is very stressed at the moment with what is happening with Nix. Honey, he has been worried about you and yeah, pissed off with you. He just wanted you home where he knew you were safe and all you did was fight it. He and Scott have been constantly arguing about you and I’ve got to say, it’s been pretty hard living with him the last little while. So, I am really happy you are home.”
“What do you mean they have been arguing about me?” I asked, having no clue what she could possibly mean.
“Your father would have just come and dragged you home, nothing would have stopped him. But Scott stood up to him and argued that it had to be your decision. He understands how hard it has been for you, and he was so proud of you for quitting drinking; he just didn’t want you to go backwards.”
Well, fuck me. Scott was actually on my side. News to me. “Men! I can’t fucking work them out,” I said, totally exasperated with it all.
“Join the club, but I’ll tell you one thing, and you make sure you listen closely. Scott and your father love you and will do anything for you. This vendetta against Nix started after he beat you, and it has only gotten worse since then. It has put a lot of pressure on Storm and they have copped that. For you. So, you need to cut them some slack and start working with them rather than against them.”
“The problem is that they never give me the full story. You know what they are like...”
She cut me off, “Yes, I know exactly what they are like, Madison, but the difference between you and me is that I trust them. I know in my gut that everything they are doing is for us and for the club. I don’t need to know the details but you seem hell bent on having to know every little thing. And you haven’t ever given them your complete trust. Dare I say it, but I think that’s where a lot of your problems with J come from too; you didn’t trust him.”
“How can I trust any of them when they don’t trust me enough to tell me stuff?” I argued.
My mother sighed; that sigh I had grown up with that told me she was getting frustrated with me. “Honey, it’s their way. The club way. It’s what their fathers did and their fathers before them probably; it’s all they’ve ever known and it is drilled into them when they join. What happens in the club stays in the club. And if you can’t live with that you should never date another member again.”
My natural reaction to all of this would normally be to continue arguing but I decided that perhaps it was time to start listening to my mother. She had been living this life for a long time and knew what she was on about. I had been fighting these ways for so long and it had gotten me nowhere. So, I took a deep breath and asked her a question. “How do you live with the shit that goes on? How do you deal, knowing what Dad is capable of?”
She didn’t skip a beat, “We’re all capable of bad stuff, Maddy, but the shit they do is done for a reason. We’ve got a lifestyle that needs protecting, and your Dad and the boys aren’t afraid to protect it and us. I deal with that by choosing to love your father unconditionally and I make no apologies for it. When you really love a person you trust them, and believe in them and everything they do.” She cocked her head and gave me a quizzical look, “Are you thinking of getting back with J? Is that what all this is about?”
“I don’t know what is happening with J. What I do know is that I need to find a way to be okay with what they do.” And yeah, I also needed to decide if I wanted to be with J again but I was keeping that to myself for now.
“Nothing’s fucking happening with J.” We both jumped as the snarl of Nix’s voice swept through the room.
I screamed just as one of his guys grabbed me from behind and covered my mouth with his hand. Fear sliced through me, and the stench of sweat and tobacco overwhelmed me. Nausea hit and then the blackness took over.