Epilogue

Mama

We were on our way back from the West Coast when I realized we'd gone as far as we were going. I led us off the main highway to a rural back road. Took a couple hours to find what I wanted, but it was worth the wait.

We pulled up outside an old barn. Pops stopped beside me before killing the motor. He looked up at the structure with a puzzled expression.

"Why we stoppin' here?"

I shrugged, though I was starting to feel a panic setting in I wasn't expected. "Thought it looked interesting."

"Uh-huh." I could feel his gaze on me as I studied the outside of the barn.

"Looks sturdy enough." I said in a cheerful voice. "Been a while since we camped out. I thought it might be fun to do it one more time before the baby was born."

"Right." He slowly, deliberately climbed off his bike, moving around it to my side. He put a hand gently on my shoulder. "Mama?"

"Hmm?" I looked up at him innocently, trying to keep my cheerful mien.

"You OK?"

"Of course! Why wouldn't I be?"

He seemed indecisive about what to do. Like he was a hunted animal who'd just walked into a trap and was trying to back his way out without springing it. "Camping? You said you hated camping."

"You know I was just joking. It's fun. You know. Getting back to nature. Away from everyone. Out here all alone in the great big Texas sky."

"Right. How about we get inside out of the heat. Yeah?"

"Sounds wonderful." I climbed off the bike carefully. My balance wasn't great with a baby so close to being born, and the last thing I wanted to do was fall and injure myself or my child.

Pops took my elbow gently, probably trying to help without seeming to be helping. I'd berated him for doing that very thing several times in the past. When I didn't react, he scooped me up and carried me inside the barn.

He managed to get me up a ladder to the loft before setting me on my feet while he moved a small wooden crate next to me against the wall and helped me sit.

"Do not move from this crate, Jo." He pointed a finger at me. His use of my real name told me he meant business.

"Wanna add ‘young lady' to the end of that?" I muttered the complaint, trying my best to look angry when that panic in my chest was growing. As was the pain in my abdomen.

"I might." His gaze didn't soften. "Stay."

"Yes, master," I bit out.

The second Pops was out of my sight, I wanted to call him back. The cramping pain in my abdomen had me gripping my belly and doubling over. I had to spread my legs so my belly could fit between my thighs.

Which was when I saw what I'd been wanting to deny.

"Fuuuuuck…"

Not three minutes later -- I knew because I was counting -- Pops popped his head up over the side and hurried up the ladder. When he fully took in my appearance, he froze.

"Mama?"

"What!" I snapped. Because the first really, really bad pain hit me.

"Maybe I'll just make you a nest. Seems we might need it soon."

"Don't say it!" I snarled. "Do not say it."

"Ain't sayin' nothin'. Not a Goddamned word." Yeah. Pops got the severity of the situation. He hurried back down the ladder to get the rest of our things. It took him two minutes this time. Again, I was keeping count.

"Still with me, Mama?" Pops's gaze found mine the second his head was over the ledge on his way back up to the loft.

"Right here." I groaned, gripping my belly with one hand while the other arm braced my weight on the crate.

"Can you give me two more minutes?" He didn't stop to see if I had two minutes to give, but set about making me a little nest to use as a bed while I…

"Sure. Take all the time you need." I tried to be flippant but was pretty sure any humor came out a little maniacal.

"Christ!" Pops swore as he finished. The second he moved me, what I'd been trying to ignore the past ten minutes became impossible to confront. "When did your water break?"

"Um, I'm not really sure?"

"Let's get you undressed so you can be comfortable as you can be. Then I'll get the rest of it ready."

"Might want to hurry." This time, I couldn't contain the cry that tore from my throat. The pain was nearly unbearable. Nothing I'd ever experienced prepared me for what just hit me.

"Yep." Pops's curt reply was all I heard before the pain crested. Someone let out a long, pained yell before gentle hands pulled me upright so they could pick me up and carry me to the nest.

Pops moved over me, propping my head up and putting a blanket over my naked body. I'd put a birthing kit together shortly after we'd left Somerset several months ago. Everything we'd need to deliver this baby ourselves was in a backpack I'd taken great care with. Blankets. Surgical scissors. Umbilical clips. And a gentle cleanser to clean the child after she was born. Because there was no way I wasn't having a girl. Just to annoy Pops. It was the least he deserved for knocking me up and making me go through this horrid pain…

Another hole was ripped in my abdomen. At least, that's what it felt like. The contraction seemed to go on forever and it felt like something was trying to tear me apart from the inside out.

"Mama?" Pops hurried to kneel in front of me, crouching so he could see the gaping maw where a watermelon was trying to push its way out of my fucking pussy!

"Get this fuckin' thing outta me! Fuckin' shit!" I yelled, then strained as I screamed. Pops reached between my legs just as I pushed a second time.

"Hold up! Hold up!"

"Don't you fuckin' tell me to fuckin' hold up! What the fuck, Pops? You fuckin' hold up!" And I pushed again. Until Pops smacked the inside of my leg.

"I said stop!"

"How the fuck am I supposed to do that!"

"You can. Hold your breath five seconds." Then he proceeded to count while he got everything ready to bring our child into the world. I'd coached him on this at least a hundred times. Gone over every possible scenario I thought I could teach him to help me live through it. I knew what he was doing down there and why he was instructing me not to push and enforcing his order. But Goddamn, nothing had ever hurt this bad or been this urgent! I'd delivered a few babies in country, but this was nothing like they teach you. And Goddamn them for not accurately describing the kind of pain a woman is in when she births a baby anyway! Buncha Goddamned motherfuckers every fuckin' one of ‘em.

"OK, now push, Mama. Push!" Pops was looking down where his hands were between my legs. As he told me to push, he got this big shit-eating grin on his face. Which was just a little bit more than I was ready to take.

So I kicked him in the face. The bastard just took it and laughed. So, I kicked him again.

"Go ahead, little mama. Kick me if you gotta. But I'd really like to meet my son."

"Not a boy! It's a girl! And she's gonna give you complete hell, and I'm gonna help her slip out of the house to go fuck her boyfriend just to drive you crazy!"

"We bettin'?" He grinned up at me.

"I'm gonna kick your AAAAAAHHHH!"

Yeah. Not my finest moment.

Our son, Kurt, was born at three in the morning on Christmas Eve. Child was close to ten pounds of screaming, demanding, baby boy. I loved him from the moment I first held him. Hardest thing I ever had to do in my life was watch the man that baby had grown into disappear much the same way Pops and I had. He severed all ties with us. It wasn't until decades later we were reunited with a part of my son. Celeste Pleasant and her daughter -- our granddaughter and great granddaughter -- would come back into our lives. Thanks to some old friends.

And another devil.

Yeah. Life has funny ways of sneaking up on you.

So what did the future hold for us? We helped build a motorcycle club from a bunch of ragtag veterans to a force to be reckoned with.

But it wasn't just us.

Rylan "Ry" Gill would become president of Bones MC. He and his woman had one son, Joe Gill, who eventually took the name Cain and made a great MC president in his own right. He also started the company ExFil, a paramilitary organization that specialized in protection and extraction. That company, along with a bar called the Boneyard, kept the club financed well.

Ian "Mac" McGregor became vice president of Bones for a while. When drugs started moving steadily from Florida to Kentucky and Ohio, Mac took a few members of Bones to Palm Beach, Florida to start his own club. Mac was going to make it a second chapter of Bones MC but thought they'd be too far away to make that relationship work. So he started a new club and named it Salvation's Bane. Most members of Bane worked for ExFil, including Mac's son, Colin, who took the name Thorn. Thorn would go on to become president of Salvation's Bane.

Alex and Gracie's son, Abraham, had a son named Derrick. He took the name Shadow and became a patched member of Bones. Along the way, in Oklahoma, he would befriend a scruffy kid named Stunner. Stunner would catch the attention of a young El Diablo. Liam took over for his father as El Diablo, The Devil, for the Brotherhood. I have no proof, but I'm pretty sure Liam intended for Stunner to replace him since he had no male children. At least, not at the time. Stunner married Cain's daughter, Suzie, and later became sergeant at arms of Bones after Bohannon left to start a sister chapter in Nashville.

Liam Rodrigues did indeed follow in his father's footsteps, becoming the most feared assassin in the world. He held the title of El Diablo longer than anyone in the history of the Brotherhood. Liam was also the man to put a crack in the mystique of the Brotherhood. As of the present day, the organization that once ruled the world from the shadows was splintering and warring with itself. Which suits El Diablo fine. They leave him and his city alone. They leave all those El Diablo claims as his alone.

Mitch Bohannon had a son, Gage Bohannon. Bohannon became sergeant at arms for Bones after Cain took over as president.

Gerald "Mo" Ferguson's son, Gavin "Torpedo" Ferguson, became vice president of Bones under Cain.

Mason Gray, or Gray, was a loyal member of Bones until his death. His son, Lars "Sword" Gray, became an enforcer in Bones.

Luca Romano eventually helped to found a company called Argent Tech with two of his closest friends and colleagues. They became some of the richest men in the world as well as vigilantes in their home city of Rockwell, Illinois. His son became one of the leading tech geniuses in the world. Giovanni Romano, along with Alexi Petrov and Azriel Ivanovich, would become known as the Shadow Demons.

Me and Pops? Well, we went home to Bones. We try to keep a close watch on all our children. They span over several clubs now. Iron Tzars MC might not have been able to recruit Pops back in the day, but they managed to work their way into our lives a few decades later. Shadow Demons, Salvation's Bane, Black Reign, and Grim Road round out our family, though Grim Road is one of those children who keeps to themselves for the most part. They're loners, every one of their members Black Ops. Some of them were buried in their cover so deep the government forgot about them, making integrating back into society nearly impossible. Most of them would be killed for what they know. A few would get everyone they'd ever met killed if the wrong people found out who they were, that they were still alive, and what they'd done that classified them as Black Ops.

Pops and I are getting older. One day, we'll leave this earth. When that happens, I hope we're side by side on our bikes, speeding down a long, lonely stretch of interstate. I hope the wind will be forever in my hair and that Pops still looks at me with love in his eyes.

I hope our story inspires all our children to do what's right, no matter how much it hurts. I hope we've left our mark on each and every member of every club we nurtured.

I hope… we were loved as much as we loved.