Page 15 of Reaper and Abby

I had to admit; I wasn’t around much lately. Setting charters up was a fucking nightmare, but in order for the club to grow — it had to be done. Territory was my target to expand the Satan Sons empire. I had set up charters in towns that had no biker activity before us and now we were booming. We were the venom of society, slowly killing them and creeping through the organs of the towns.

Wasn’t easy- and it had cost me a shitload of time with my family.

But that was changing now. I had planned on Tyson repainting his room by himself, but my dad instinct which was still weird to admit to myself that I had one. Told me my son had shit he had to get off his chest.

6

REAPER

Abby was in her studio when we got back. I had turned the power back on before I left the house. We actually heard the rumblings of her music when we pulled into the driveway. The kids knew better than to go near her currently because I told them in the car. If one of them goes near her in the next forty-eight hours, they’d lose their hour of phone privilege and I’d cut the power again.

Tyson, being sixteen, meant he knew everything and anything to do with life. So when he gave me the look that he’d take off. I reminded him what happened last time he ran away. He’s a good kid, just a bit lost, and I knew that had a lot to do with me, and my absence from his life lately. I missed his fourteenth birthday, as I was behind bars; and this past year I’d spent more time growing the club than being around for my family.

I had left the girls in charge of boiling the soup for dinner and went upstairs to see how Tyson was going painting his bedroom. I knocked on his door, got no reply, and I wasn’t even mildly surprised when I pushed the door open to see him laying on his bed. The paint tub untouched next to the packet of rollers and brushes on the ground.

I had to admit when it came to Tyson and I, he was doing a lot less than I had when I was his age. But that wasn’t due to me. That was because of Abby.

He didn’t look up, just continued to glare up at the ceiling.

Abby thought her parenting was failing him. But it wasn’t that, and I knew it. His behaviour was linked directly to me, and my lack of letting him into the club life. Sure, he came to the parties, the family ones. Member celebrations, and prison freedom parties.

But at an actual club party, my son had never attended. He was sixteen. I knew Jax had let Jack, Tyson’s cousin, prospect at sixteen. I, however, wasn’t letting that happen.

I looked around Tyson’s room. Apart from the destroyed walls with black markings. It was empty. No dirty clothes on the ground, no belongings anywhere. Fuck, was my son even living here?

I closed the door, trying to get his attention.

“See, the painting is going well,” I crossed my arms, looking directly at him.

He pushed himself up the bed, throwing his legs over the side, glaring at me.

“Can I ask you something?” Tyson asked me. With a glint of aggression in his eyes.

I nodded my head.

“Why are you picking now, to come back as a father? Seriously Reaper, why now? You haven’t been around for years, apart from a pop in dinner. Now here you are acting like you give a shit.”

Tyson grabbed a packet of smokes from his bedside table.

“I’ve been sitting here, thinking to myself. Why would the Reaper of the underworld, suddenly give a fuck about his family?” Tyson lit up a cigarette and shot me a look. “The only conclusion I could come to, is you’re worried mom’s gonna leave ya. Makes sense.” He shrugged. “Mom’s got a lot of admirers.”

Keep a fucking lid on ya temperWilson. I said to myself.

He inhaled on hiscigarette, his eyes locked with mine. “After all that doctor really has a thing for her. Sort of got more intense when she hurt her ribs, a few months back. . .”

He was baiting me. I knew what he was doing, cause I’d done it so many fucking times. Pushing someone until they snapped, then he would have an excuse to leave. Cause I fucking would say, anyone else said those words to me—they’d be getting their face reshaped.

I stepped forward, grabbing his cigarette packet and my lighter from inside my cut. No surprise that the cigarettes he had, he’d stolen from me.

I sat on the bed beside him, lighting up. “I get it.” I said three words that perhaps he wasn’t expecting. “I get your pissed with me. Makes sense. You’re my son, you want to be in the club life.” I stared across the room at the wall. “Deuce is two years older than you, already wearing a Vice patch. You’re taking heat from other members’ sons, who are prospecting. You feel like you’ve got something to prove.”

I inhaled on my cigarette. “But you see, son,” and I turned to look at him. “You ain’t a patched member’s son. You are my son. And my son, won’t be fucking prospecting.”

His eyes narrowed at me.

“You’ll be going straight to the table, with a full patch on your back. Cause in this life, you won’t get two years to choose if you want it. And you won’t be learning or doing shit for any other patched member.”

Tyson looked at me with no expression. He truly was my carbon copy.

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