Dex ARe Read Online Free Page B

to figure out some kind of permanent living arrangement. But my brothers had welcomed me home with open arms and a flowing tap. I felt some of the hard years melt away, if only a little.
    “Mo made enough flapjacks to feed an army down there.”
    Mo was Cora Mo McGillivray. A mouthful for as small a person as she was so Mo stuck before most of us were born. She was, Charlie’s long-suffering girlfriend and self-appointed den mother to us all. They’d been together over twenty years and she wouldn’t marry him. It was out of spite for her bastard of an ex-husband, a member of a rival M.C., the Devil’s Hawks. He paid her a good chunk of alimony every month that would stop the minute she remarried. I don’t think she’d ever spent a dime of it, but she relished the satisfaction of taking it from him. The arrangement seemed to suit Charlie fine.
    When Charlie opened the door to the hallway, sure enough, the kitchen smells reached my nostrils. I swear to God, just the scent of Mo’s cooking had to be the best hangover cure known to man.
    “Lemme just scrape the fuzz off my teeth and tell her I’ll be right down.” My stomach punctuated my statement with a growl that Charlie could hear from the hallway. He laughed again and waddled toward the stairs.
    I grabbed my duffel and pulled out fresh clothes. Ten minutes later, after a hot shower and toothpaste, I felt like a new man. I pulled a new white t-shirt over my head, savoring the clean smell of bleach. I threw my cut over my shoulders, shoving my arms through it, and headed toward the heavenly scent of Mo’s pancakes.
    ***
    “You up for a sort of field trip?” Sly leaned against the kitchen counter sipping coffee out of an oversized mug that said “GWG.” I still didn’t know what the hell that meant.
    I finished the last dregs of my own cup and set it down. “I don’t have any other big plans for the day. What’d you have in mind?”
    Sly set his cup in the sink behind him. It had a deep, industrial-sized stainless steel basin. In fact, everything about this kitchen was industrial-sized. The Den had a commercial kitchen off the bar but Sly had built a second kitchen, just for the members. It was open, with a long, granite-topped bar right in the middle of it. Back in the day, before Sly rebuilt the place, the members would hang out in the basement or around the conference table. We had a bunch of mismatched tables, folding chairs and a cooler stocked with beer. This was a vast improvement. He had two walk-in coolers stocked with enough food and beer to satisfy about forty starved and thirsty bikers.
    “You ready to go back to work?” Sly raised a blond eyebrow at me and I leaned forward on my stool, resting my weight on my elbows.
    “Again, what’d you have in mind?” That question had weighed on me as much as thoughts of Ava did. Thirteen years ago, I knew where I fit into the club. Blackie Murphy had been a son of a bitch and took the club in directions that weren’t good for us. Directions that had made me the perfect target for the set-up that landed me in prison. We were the muscle for some bad and powerful organizations. Blackie justified it, claiming we weren’t the ones actually dealing drugs or guns. We were the peacekeepers. His own fucked-up version of the U.N. And when the feds zeroed in on Pagano, we should have seen it coming a mile away that he’d use one of us as his scapegoat. I never dreamed it would be me.
    But even with all of that, I understood the path in front of me when Blackie was in charge. A path that was supposed to bring me to the head of the club when he stepped down. Now Sly wore Blackie’s patch. I didn’t begrudge it of him. Not for one damn second. But it left me unsettled. The shrink at Marion warned me to expect this. Of course I was glad to be out. But it was going to take me some time to figure out my next move. Freedom can be an overwhelming thing when you’ve been without for as long as I had.
    Billy came into