Page 1 of Redemption

Chapter 1

Griffin’s Beach

Colt

Colton “Colt” Nichols races to his mother’s house. There’s a chance, no matter how small, that his wife and kids will be there. There aren’t many places Lex can stay, especially with two kids, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t drag them back to the house. To stay. Where they fucking belong.

Parking in the driveway, he races up the steps and pounds on the door so hard it sounds as though he splintered the wood frame. He feels like he just ran a damned mile, and he tugs his blonde hair back into a hair tie.

His mother answers, closes her eyes, and steps back with a sigh to hold the door wider and let him inside. “I was wondering how long it would take you to show up here. Lex said at least three days, and I told her she was wrong. Guess I was,” Karmen Nichols says.

He stares at his mother. Until six years ago, he referred to her as his estranged mother. Actually, after he caught her cheating on his father with another member of the club, he lost his mind and had a few other colorful names for her. Then her actions killed his younger brother, Noah, because Rush Gable tried to kill his father. Got his brother by mistake. She ruined their entire family, and now he prays she can give him the clarity he needs to figure out what the hell happened with his family. The irony would make him laugh if he wasn’t so fucking pissed.

“Is she here?”

“No, Lex isn’t here. I tried to convince her to stay, to give you time to come to your senses and talk to you, but she refused.”

“But you know where she is?”

She shakes her blonde hair with gray at the roots. Something she never would have been caught dead with before. “No, sweetheart.”

His sister walks downstairs and leans on the banister. “What’s going on?”

“Go up to your room, Klaire,” Karmen says.

“What’s wrong?” The girl he remembers as a timid eight-year-old stands before him as a pretty teenager. If she’s anything like him or their mother, she’ll be defiant in a way Karmen isn’t quite prepared to handle. Serves her right.

Colt sighs, and Karmen visibly restrains her annoyance. “Please, just go up the damn stairs.”

“No, I want to know what’s going on.” Her arms cross over her chest, and an eyebrow raises in obvious defiance.

He’s had enough of this, and he needs to find out where his wife ran off to. “Listen to Mom!” he growls, his nostrils flaring as he stares hard with narrowed eyes. “Get your ass up those stairs right now and stop back talking!”

“I was just worried about what has your panties in a bunch. God!” she says and stomps up the stairs. “No wonder Lex left you. You’re such an ass!”

His mother ushers him into the kitchen, and he sits at the island. “Where is she, Mom?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”

“She showed up here at the house the night she left, and we talked. The kids weren’t with her, and I tried to convince her to stay here. To tell me more, but she couldn’t. I said you’d be by in the morning to get them when you realized they were gone, and she said it would be at least three days before you noticed. That someone could break in and kill them, and no one would know for days or weeks until you decided to come home. The heartbreak in her voice made me want to call and scream at you.”

He sighs. “I didn’t know about any of this, otherwise-”

“Don’t feed me a line of bullshit, Colton. Alexis Dalton would walk over hot coals for you. For her to give up on the two of you – no, to give up on your family – you screwed up. Big time. I heard about what that little tramp from Black Valley had been saying, and she told me what was sent. I don’t blame her for thinking you’re with someone else.”

“Don’t act like this wasn’t planned. She didn’t come up with this idea to have you charter our kids to me on a whim. It’s something she’s thought about for a while. She just took the coward’s way out by leaving when I was gone.”

Karmen shakes her hair, blonde strands falling from the ponytail tied up at the top of her head. “If she waited until you were home, the kids might have graduated high school. How can you not see what you’re doing? You can’t be mad she’s giving you an option to see your kids. Hell, you had every option before this and didn’t take it. She’s hoping this will snap you out of whatever the fuck you have going on in that head of yours to be there for Noah and Calla.”

“She should’ve talked to me first!” He slams his hand on the granite countertop. “She just up and left without a conversation.”

“When was she supposed to have that conversation? Huh? Even your father’s mentioned how often you’re gone when we’ve talked. You’re not present in your own clubhouse, which means you’re sure as hell not present with your family. She said she tried calling you that night before talking to Psycho. Hell, I tried calling you. You ignored me, too.”

“I was fucking busy!”

“Fucking busy, or busy fucking?”

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