Inc's Regret (Satan's Raiders MC #1) - Elizabeth Knox Page 0,3

family I have left. I’ll lose my ma, and I can’t bear it. Cancer has almost taken her so many times . . . I can’t bear the thought of losing her because of who I am . . . who my father tried to pray out of me. Pray away the gay as they say.

Octavia doesn’t even know how my father was to me when I was younger . . . but I don’t ever want to let her know about my torment.

Before Zane brings me my water, I’m putting my clothes back on. Octavia must figure somethin’ isn’t right, ‘cause she comes up to me and places her hand on my forearm. “What’re you in a rush for?”

“I’m leavin’, O’. I can’t do this,” I say, grabbing my cut I slide it back on and go for my boxers and pants. As I’m getting dressed, she’s trying to plead with me, begging me to stay, praying I won’t leave.

Eventually, I grab her forearms and look her directly in the eyes. “I’m sorry O’, I tried this for you . . . but I can’t. I can’t fucking do this, okay? So, let’s leave it at that. Fuck, you probably knew this wouldn’t work anyway.” I rip my hands from the grip I have on her forearms and start walkin’ for the door. Zane’s leanin’ against the wall, maintaining eye contact with me like he knows what’s going on. He might think he knows . . . but he doesn’t have a fuckin’ clue.

I grab the keys to my bike from the dresser by the drinks and shut the door behind me. A thump hits the floor and the heart-wrenching scream coming from the room I just left is almost enough to cause me to go back and tell her the truth.

I can’t.

At least, not now.

Whenever my mother passes things might be different . . . ‘cause at the end of the day I’ll always long for the woman I’m leaving behind. I just can’t risk not being there for my ma when she needs me the most.

She’s the strongest woman I know, but the illnesses that plague her won’t keep losing forever. I just need to do right by my family and be there for her when the time comes.

After that . . . well, then I can have the woman I love again . . . if she’ll have me.

Chapter One

“You will always be motivated, so you must learn to always be disciplined.”

~ Bald Brothers

Inc

Present Day . . .

“Sierra, what’s going on?” I ask my sister, who barely ever calls me these days. It’s not that we don’t get along or anything, but life gets in the way and we slack a bit. She lives in Charleston, West Virginia about a half hour away from our parents while I’m all the way across the States. They live in a small town on the literal side of the mountain. I think they only have one gas station out there these days because all the mom and pop shops have shut down.

If it weren’t for the fact she called me three times in a row I might not have even answered. Breaker sent us a text a few minutes ago tellin’ us all to meet him at the club for church, so I rushed back over here. I didn’t even feel my phone vibrating in my pocket until I was pulling behind the club, parking my bike in my usual spot.

“It’s Dad, he . . . um. He fell about an hour ago off a ladder.”

“A ladder? What the fuck was that old geezer doing?”

Sierra sighs, giving me the only indication, I need to know it was something he shouldn’t have been doing. “He was trying to clean the gutters and wouldn’t wait until Saturday for the guy I hired to get there.”

Of course, he fuckin’ wouldn’t. “Serves ‘em right for not waiting.”

“Tanner!” Sierra yells my name in a shriek chastising me for saying what she’s already thought.

“Don’t even start with me on that shit. If he hadn’t of gone up there, he wouldn’t be in this position, now would he?” I question her, but she can’t say jack shit to me because she knows it’s the truth.

“Mom’s a wreck,” Sierra says, lowering her voice quite a bit. Mom must be around her, but I guess she is a wreck. They’re in their late seventies and her husband just fell off a damn ladder.

“He break his hip or anythin’?”

Sierra