I actually caught my emotions start to lean toward him in sympathy and the urge to touch him, to comfort him arose, the strong feeling every bit as familiar to me, as natural to me as when we were children.

Before he’d—

Oh no, I wasn’t going to feel bad for him like I used to. No way. Cage was a slut and dumbass, and it wasn’t my fault Deuce liked to remind him of that every other second.

Deuce was next to storm into the kitchen, giving out glares as freely as he breathed. As much as I appreciated all the man had done for me financially, he had such a serious caveman complex that I was loath to comprehend what Eva saw in a man that was just so…

I glanced back at Cage, then again to Deuce, and shut down my line of thought. I knew exactly what Eva saw in Deuce. It was the same thing I saw in Cage. It was the reason I kept sleeping with ZZ. They were all just so…

Men. They were fucking men. Hard-core, badass, live by their own set of rules…men.

Goddamn, I was such an idiot.

Taking his seat at the head of the table, Deuce gave everyone his signature once-over, then he growled, “Eat.”

And eating commenced.

I rolled my eyes.

“Tegen?”

I glanced to my right where Kami was offering me a large bowl of mixed vegetables, looking more like a vegetable model than a mother of two, a wife of a heavily tattooed biker just passing a dish full of food. Tall, waif-like, blonde, blue-eyed, and beautiful, Kami was a runway’s wet dream.

She smiled at me. “It’s nice to see you at dinner, T. You should come home more often.”

Forcing a smile, I accepted the bowl. Avoiding all carrots, I took a small helping before dishing my brother out an equally small, carrot-free helping, and then passed it to Danny.

“Carrots are good for little kids,” Danny said, frowning at Christopher’s plate.

“Carrots are fucking disgusting,” I retorted, my bad mood rearing its ugly head.

“Carrots are fucking disgusting,” Christopher mimicked and Cox burst out laughing.

“See,” I said, smiling sweetly at Danny. “He agrees.”

Danny glared at me, her icy blue eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Oh, shut up,” she said, sounding every inch like the valley girl she resembled.

“Momma!” Harley cried, looking properly horrified. “You said shut up is a bad word!”

“Mommy tells Daddy to shut up all the time,” Diesel said, pointing at Kami.

“She tells him way worse than that,” Devin muttered.

Ripper started laughing, only stopping when the fork Kami threw at him nearly hit him in the face.

“Hey!” Danny snapped.

“Damn, Ripper,” Cox said, snorting. “You’re so pussywhipped you need your old lady defendin’ you?”

“Cox, don’t speak,” Kami said. “It makes you less hot.”

“Shut up isn’t a bad word,” Ivy said matter-of-factly. “Goddammit is a bad word.”

“It is a bad word!” Harley insisted.

“It is not!” Ivy screamed.

“Stop it,” Deuce growled, looking at his youngest daughter. “You don’t need to be sayin’ it either.”

Ivy’s face contorted into what I liked to refer to as Danny’s prissy angry face. “You like her better than me!” she screamed. “You wish Harley was your daughter and not me!”

Harley grinned at Ivy. “Papa loves me best,” she said, her tiny voice sugary sweet.

Eva closed her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. “Nobody loves anybody more than anybody else. Everybody loves everyone the same.”

Cage snorted and Deuce turned his glare on him while Ivy stuck her tongue out at Harley, who scowled back at her.

“Fuck me,” Deuce muttered, picking up his beer and taking a long swallow. Setting it down, he looked at Eva and pointed his beer toward her stomach. “That kid in there better not be a girl. And will someone give me the motherfuckin’ salt?”

“You put enough salt on already!” Eva yelled.

I tuned out after that, listening but not really, pushing my food around on my plate as the bickering continued much the way it always had. Nothing had changed, not even with the latest wave of bikers and old ladies-to-be.

Just another generation of aspiring criminals and the sad, pathetic women who will love them despite their inability to keep their dicks in their pants.

Halfway through the horrible ordeal, my endurance nearly shot, the doorbell rang. Ivy shot out of her chair and raced through the kitchen, screaming, “I’ll get it! I’ll get it!”

My head started pounding.

“Hawk is here!” came the high-pitched scream from the foyer. “Hawk is heeeeere!”

The pounding in my head worsened.

Hearing his father’s name, Christopher’s green eyes widened. “Daddy!” he shrieked, jumping up to a standing position in his chair.

Ivy came skidding back through the kitchen, Hawk’s booted feet pounding the linoleum behind her. Surprisingly he was freshly shaven, his mohawk trimmed, and not wearing his usual leathers but instead a clean pair of jeans, a plain black T-shirt, and his Horsemen cut.

“Brothers,” he said gruffly, nodding toward Cage and Cox, then Ripper. He stopped next to Deuce and placed his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Prez,” he said, his voice less stony, his face suddenly full of emotion and something else I couldn’t quite place.

I knew there was deep history there. Deuce had scooped Hawk off the streets decades ago, the same as he had with Cox, Ripper, and Dirty, and the bond between them all was more of a father/son one than Deuce had with his own son.

I glanced at Cage, watched him see the silent exchange of respect between the two men, watched him try to steel his expression before he let the hurt show, but I’d known him too long. I had always had my eyes on him and knew every nuance of his face, what every twitch or appearing line meant.

I was still staring at Cage the way I’d always stared at him, everyone else forgotten, when a pair of thick fingers snapped in front of my face. I blinked, my eyes refocused, and found everyone around the table staring back at me, Cage included. And Danny was smirking at me. Fucking bitch.

My face hot with embarrassment, I glanced up to the owner of the fingers.

“How’s your mom?” Hawk asked while scooping Christopher off the chair and into his arms.

“None of your business,” I snapped. Hawk’s eyes hardened.

“Tegen,” he said quietly, his tone hard. “I get it, baby, I do. You fuckin’ hate me, you hate us all, and I don’t blame you. If that was my mama who’d gotten shot, I’d be hatin’ on everyone too, but she’s the mother of my son and I gotta right to know how the fuck she’s doin’.”

I reacted. Jumped up, shoved my plate forward, pushed my chair backward, and got up in Hawk’s personal space. I didn’t even come close to his height or stature but I’d already been on the verge of a nervous breakdown before he’d shown up, and Hawk had only added fuel to the burning fire.

“Fuck you!” I spat. “You ruined her! You ruined me! My own mother doesn’t even know who I am!”

In Hawk’s arms, Christopher’s face fell and his bottom lip quivered but there was no stopping me once I started. Not even I knew how to accomplish that.

“Tegen!” Deuce bellowed.

“You and Jase!” I screamed, ignoring Deuce and shoving my finger into Hawk’s hard chest. “You both destroyed her, along with this fucking club full of drug dealers and murderers!”

Christopher burst into tears, followed closely by Harley, and feeling like shit, damn near tears myself, I spun away from Hawk and ran from the room into the foyer, pausing while I desperately tried to remember where I’d left my backpack. Cursing myself and my never-ending stupid emotional breakdowns, I ran through the living room into the family room, and locked on my bag.

Snatching it up off a beat-up old leather recliner, I turned to run, heading straight through the front door and to my mother’s car, which would take me far, far away from this house full of awful people who did nothing but hurt one another and destroy lives.

Except I didn’t get very far. I turned to run and instead of running, I smacked into a wall of muscle. Two arms curled around me, one hand pressed firmly against the small of my back and the other slid up into my hair, tightly fisting a handful of dreads.

The smell. I knew it instantly. I’d never forgotten it. Sweat and leather, cigarettes and exhaust fumes, and…Cage.

My stupid heart swelled, my body warmed and—

Oh, fucking shit, no.

“Don’t touch me!” I screamed, pulling away, nearly ripping several of my dreads out in my pathetic attempt to dislodge him.

“Shut up,” he growled, yanking me back up against him. “You’ve got all those kids back there cryin’ their eyes out. Yeah, everyone knows you’re hurtin’, Teacup, but…”

Teacup.

Why would he still call me that after all these years, after everything that had happened? I hated it. I hated it so much. All it did was remind me of when we were kids and he’d been so sweet to me, paying attention to me when no one else would.

“Don’t call me that!” I continued to struggle, doing nothing but hurting myself trying to get free.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he hissed, half walking, half dragging me back through the living room while I carried on my pointless struggles.

“What’s wrong with me?” I yelled, my renewed anger drying my tears, shielding my emotions from the one person on earth who had the ability to tear them down in an instant if I weren’t careful. “You’re what’s fucking wrong with me! Your mess of a club is what’s wrong with me!”

Cursing, Cage slammed my body hard up against the hall closet. Grabbing the sides of my face, he forced me to look up at him. Glaring down at me, his teeth clenched, he bent down, bringing us nearly nose to nose.