Free Always (Wesson Rebel M.C. Series) by Shyla Colt

forced to get back up. It made me stronger, but it came at a high cost. When my mom died, it broke something inside him and it never healed quite right. He became cold and distant. I lost my mom and in so many ways my dad too, which was far worse. Seeing him day in and day out, but never being able to connect became a slow torture I learned to live with. I decided I’d be the best biker badass I could be, but even that was never truly enough. The thought of my son wilting under my guidance makes me sick. I pull into the parking lot of the first motel I see with an attached restaurant and park. They’re better without me right now. Cora and I are no stranger to turbulence. Once I get my shit together. I’ll go back and we’ll mend the cracks running through our family.
    I get off my bike an d my mind is flooded with images of Cora. Wherever I go, I carry her with me. She’s the rhythm of my heart. The very reason my blood continues to flow through my veins, keeping me upright and breathing, despite the beatings I’ve received from life. 
     
    Past
     
    “What the fuck were you thinking, Dallas? When you saw shit didn’t look right you should’ve bailed on the run. Fuck. How long you been doing this?”
    My father ’s hot breath assaults my face and his bellows make my ears ache. His words bounce off the walls in the tiny office where I’m getting bitched out. I stare straight ahead.
    “Answer me, boy.”
    His snarling growl raises the hairs on the back of my neck. I look him in the eyes. Twenty-five years old and my old man still has the ability to make me want to piss my pants. “I don’t know what you want me to say, P.”
    “You don’t know what? ” He looks up at the ceiling and shakes his head. “That’s all you got for me? Please tell me you aren’t bringing this sorry shit to my doorstep. I trusted you to do this. Have been trusting you for months. Do I need to start wiping your ass again, every time you take a crap?” His brown eyes are like lasers seeking to destroy.
    I flinch. His words are like bullets, tearing at m y skin, shredding up my insides and destroying my self-esteem. It’s a sick ass cycle. I live to please him and I think he lives to put me back in my place. I knock you down, so I can build you back up, better and stronger, he always says. “It looked okay to me. Nothing seemed off, same drop off, same people. There was no way I could’ve known the shit would go south.”
    He narrows his eyes and I feel my six foot frame sink to about five eight. He has that effect on people.
    “You sure about that?”
    “Yes, I’m damn sure. We deliver the guns, they come out with the duffle just like every other time, and then next thing I know, it’s fucking raining bullets. You think I’d put my brothers in harm’s way like that?”
    “Would you?”
    “Fuck no.”
    “That’s not how I heard it told. I hear they were antsy.”
    “They were forking over fifty G. It made sense to me that they’d act a little wary.”
    “There’s your first mistake , thinking instead of doing what I tell you to.” He grabs my cut and pulls me to him. “If we lose Torch over this shit, it’s on your head.”
    My head pounds and my temples pulse along with my heartbeat. Images of my friend covered in blood fills my vision. He’d been right in front of me when he’d been mowed down. We returned fire, but that did shit for him. The sand below him turned red with his blood and his rattling breaths were some of the most horrific sounds I’ve ever heard.
    When Shipley retreated, I knelt beside him, stripped down and placed my shirt over the wound. We load him into the cage we used to transport the weapons and rush him to the hospital. I watch as the life begins to slip from him as his breathing went faint, then his skin goes pale and cool to the touch. “You think I don’t already know that?” I asked, swiftly retreating from the incident too raw to examine.
    “You want to take this outside? You