Page 7 of Kobra's Opal

“How would you know that?” Her hand curled into a small fist. “How could I love you, after everything you’ve done to me? After everything we’ve been through. How could you say I feel love for you?”

“Fine. You hate me then,” I didn’t argue with her. “Regardless what you call it. You know we aren’t over.”

She scoffed, crossing her arms.

I leant forward on the small table. “Did you tell your mother, ya done with the business?”

If she thought I was letting her escort, she had another thing coming. Ain’t no way in hell, I was letting her work in that field. If I knew she was back working for Madam, I would have fucking stopped it earlier.

I shouldn’t have taken my eyes off her for a moment. I had let her work as an escort of five years—and that was on me. No one else to blame but myself. Couldn’t even blame her because it was the only lifestyle she knew.

I saw defense in her eyes.

“I’m not yours anymore. I haven’t been for a long time.” I hated that she reminded me of that. She stared at me for a moment longer. “Look after yourself, Kobra,” she said and slid out of the booth. Not answering my question and leaving.

Didn’t she know she would always be mine? Watching her leave the café, I realized in that moment. I can’t do this any longer. I can’t keep trying to get her back, just to let her go. Was I all in? Why was it when it came to the club, I was all in? But when it came to the woman, I loved—I couldn’t fully commit. That’s when it hits me, in a busy café, within the middle of the afternoon. I finally understand my actions. I thought I had to pick between the brotherhood and her. Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? Have her in the lifestyle or not at all.

I loved her enough to want more for her. I saw my sisters looming for this lifestyle and saw the strength it took mom to love dad—within the darkness of his decisions. I wondered for a moment was I protecting Opal from the lifestyle, or was I protecting myself? Was I protecting her from seeing me fully? I was the son of Hades Kincaid. There are exceptions of me. I would never be the guy that worked nine to five and had a functioning citizen life.

Some days I felt like the man I was meant to be. But often I felt like a fraud in my father’s shadow.

Opal loved me once, the good and the bad. Though back then, I hadn’t tainted to like I have now. Still, she stood by me and the last name I carried.

Having the last name Kincaid meant to have a back bone. My father ruled the underworld with a bloody fist. I was expected to do the same. All the foolish decisions I had made when it came to Opal, came clear in that moment. I wasn’t protecting her from the lifestyle. I was protecting her from seeing who I fully was and then leaving me for good. Because rejecting me, while knowing who I fully was—that shit scared me.

So did I let her in? Or did I keep this deluded thinking that I only wanted her to love the light side of me—and never see the darkness of this cut I wore and the brotherhood I rode for.

* * *

The brotherhood was within trying times. My father was balancing a possible war, while trying to extend our outlay and profits. There was no questioning it, it was a trailing time within the brotherhood.

Satan’s Bastards had never seen times like this. Hades ruled the underworld bloody and handled the corrupt. But it was reaching the time. He needed to make a call. Did we go to war, or did we back down from the bait?

I knew it wouldn’t take much for my father to decide to bring our one percent club to war.

I lit up a cigarette, my eyes going to my old man. We were sitting down in the boardroom. I was acting Vice at the moment. He needed to patch someone else to the table for the position. I wasn’t ready to take a vice rank permanently.

“Do I need to remind you the last name you carry?” The old man asked. I know now that we are in for a fight and it was all over my ‘poor behaviour.’ “Kincaid’s are leaders, we set an example.” He added with a growl. “I’m hearing shit Kobra, and it ain’t looking like you understand what is expected of you.”

I scoffed, turning to him fully. “No one needs to remind me of the exceptions of me as a Kincaid.” I wore the last name with honour but also with mixed anger. I’m the son of Hades Kincaid. Gangsters, members, other ruling brotherhoods—expected me to live up to reputation I hadn’t yet fully created.

“If that is so, you want to explain last night?” He arched his eyebrows at me. “You are fighting members like they are your enemies, son.”

I gritted my teeth but just took the lecture, not fighting back. Truth was those members copied with my anger because of my personal life.

“Ya mad, and I get it.” He added.

“Do you?” I glared at him. “You sit there, telling me to be a Kincaid. Like I’m failing you by being who I am.”

Dad sighed and leant forward. “I lived in my own father’s shadow and brothers. I know the pressure of this last name.”

I said nothing.

“Kobra, ya not just a member of this club. Ya the future.”

“And I never got a choice in that did I.” I bite back at him. “I’m Hades Kincaid son, first. Everyone is expecting me to step up, or step down.” I leant forward. “How can I make a name for myself, when you are making the name for me? You want me as President. You want leading the brotherhood.” I felt the resentment boil to the point I can’t contain it. “I love the club, Dad. But I won’t die just being known for being a member. Not even a leading one at that.”

Kincaid’s don’t feel fear, we create it. However, in this moment as I declared to my father I wanted more from this life. I felt fear. Fear that I would fail, at my own attempt to want more from the life than a leather cut of an outlaw. I wanted a purpose.

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