Dillon: A Wings of Diablo MC Novel by Lake, B. (rosie project txt) 📕

even while we play someone has to make sure that no one is stupid enough to roll up on us." He looks back towards the horizon.

He was doing a perimeter run. Good fucking job. "That's good. Has there been any threats that I need to be aware of? Anything with Rooster?"

"No, it's like that bastard has fallen all the way off the grid. He knows that we are all coming for him. Even the fucking spawns exiled him completely and are looking for him."

"Yeah?" That was news to me. Though I didn't know how much of it I would say that I believed, these were the same people that I had called brother. The same ones, who had used me and my club as a front for their shady business.

"Yeah, Shepard took over. They are doing a whole fucking rehaul. It's admirable." Pope shrugs and takes a step in my direction.

"Admirable? You think all of them have changed. They are only looking out for themselves." I would never trust them again no matter what any of them said to me. They were all fucking snakes in the grass.

"Yeah, I don't doubt that. But then again just because they are looking out for themselves doesn't mean that they are bad folks … just selfish, everyone can make amends. I don't think selling women off to the highest bidder is Shepard's motive of operation. Drugs on the other hand is a whole other story." Pope laughs slightly before he crosses his arms over his chest. The look on his face tells me that he was about to divulge something I didn't want to hear. "So, I heard what you said. I wasn't trying to spy, but I was standing right here."

I roll my eyes and start back toward the clubhouse. I didn't need another person telling me how it’s not my fault or that I didn't need to feel like this. "Yeah, don't worry about it."

He rushes to get in front of me. Pope is a newly patched member, but he was around for all the bullshit.

"Look, just hear me out." He puts his hands up so that I stop, "I know what you're going through, I've been there myself. Fuck, I'm still there."

"What the fuck are you talking about? You know shit about what I'm going through, none of you do." I scream in his face.

"I do, I know that no matter how many of us tell you that it's not your fault it'll never do anything to take away the guilt. You need to figure out how to live with it. You need to figure out how to get the fuck back up with this heavy weight on your shoulders and come out the leader that you once were. It'll kill you if you don't ... I killed my son."

Suddenly all the anger that I was just feeling evaporated, what the fuck? How did I not know about this?

"What? Are you serious?"

"Yes, I did. I didn't pull the trigger, but I put him in a situation that he shouldn't have ever been in. I used to be heavy into smuggling and forgery, all the way up to the highest fucking level. But my woman told me that they were getting too comfortable with me. That it was becoming the norm now for someone to show up in the middle of the night and just drop some shit off without me knowing anything about it. She told me that we would be the ones to suffer, because of it. I didn't listen though. Instead, I was so sure that they all had my back, that I was irreplaceable. They set me up, made it look like I was skimming off the top. When they came to me looking for product that I didn't have … they laid my baby in my lap and blew his brains out. He was only 4." Tears rest heavily on his eyelashes and the wind forces them down his face.

"I was lost after that. I was worth shit to my wife. The rest of my family gave up on me. I had nothing to offer anyone, because I knew that I would never trust another decision that I made. I mean how could I if I didn't see what was coming down the line. How could I say that I was the one to protect my family when it was my decision that took Blaine away from me. After a few years of doing nothing, and I mean nothing, but breathing I figured out that the pain is never going to end. I'm never going to feel better about what I did, but I could hold the pain and still live. I spent the next five years in a monastery training to be a priest. All the while just trying to find a way to atone, find a way to help others. To this day I know it was my own actions that destroyed my life, but I can work on not doing the same things again. I can make sure no one else does it as well. Trust me when I say that you have to pull yourself out of this, you going from place to place trying to outrun your guilt is never going to work. It'll be with you for the rest of your life."

I had nothing to say, part of me wondered if he could be right? Did I need to accept what I'd done and just make it a part of who I was now?

"I'm sorry man. I had no idea."

"Yeah, it's not something that I go around announcing to everyone." He wipes his face, but doesn't look away from me.

"How did you start? I don't even know what the first step is." I admit to him.

"The first step is believing in yourself. Everyone knows that you are a good man, it's time you believe it too. Just think about it. These boys need you. We all do." He