Final Ride: Hellions Motorcycle Club (Hellions Ride Book 9) by Chelsea Camaron Page A

of him until I kill him with my own bare hands. Yet, not backing down from my daughter’s icy glare, there is a bigger part of me that wants to beat the shit out of myself.
    When I walked away from Tilly, I gave her what she needed to be on her way and never looked back. I never once followed up. Even when Roundman offered to check in on her, I declined. I have never been a man to play the “what if” game in life, but right now, I wonder: What if I hadn’t let my loyalty to put the club first cloud my mind? What if, just once, I had checked in on her and found out she had a daughter? Would any of us be where we are today?
    “Okay, Shannon, time to sort some things,” Amy begins, keeping her voice calm and controlled. “I’m not your father’s whore. We’re in a relationship. I’m sorry that is hard for you, but it’s reality, just like your mother married and raised you with Watson and Fury MC.”
    When Shannon’s glare turns on my woman, my instincts scream at me to yank the teen up from the very chair she sits on and teach her a lesson in respect. However, Amy looks at me and gives the slightest shake of her head to keep me in place.
    “You don’t know anything about Fury, so don’t act like you do.”
    With the confidence of the world in her features, Amy begins, “This isn’t about Fury. I know you don’t know me well. I also haven’t always been in a place to tell someone a single thing about anything. Confidence is something I’ve been working on. Living with your dad, with the Hellions, I’ve changed. I’ve gotten stronger. I want you to listen to me about what your father is trying to do here.
    “Frisco and the club, they are trying to respect your place as a daughter to an original member. This is about you as a daughter getting to have your good-bye with your mother. This is about you having a place to visit her, memorialize her, and work through your emotions.” She sighs. “Honey, this isn’t about the Hellions, even though they put the wheels in motion to give the service to you. It’s not about me. It’s not about your dad. It’s for you to have an opportunity to lay to rest the woman who gave you life; a woman who, maybe was a picture-perfect mom or maybe she wasn’t, but she was a mother to you, nonetheless.
    “The quality of your childhood may not have been what it would have been if Frisco and her were together, but she gave you what she could. This is about taking time to honor what was, what is and, baby girl, what will be for you and what she dreamed for you.”
    Shannon jerks abruptly from her seat, picking up her glass and throwing the sweet tea in Amy’s face. “Don’t you dare pretend like you know what my mother dreamed for!”
    “ Sit down !” I roar, losing my patience.
    Amy’s small hand grips my wrist in a movement of both comfort and a reminder to keep my ass in the seat.
    In all this time, I have never seen her strength as clearly as I do now. The fight inside her, the strength to face whatever life throws at her, and the endurance to ride it all out—I see it, I feel it, and I cherish it.
    Luckily, my daughter sits, though now glaring at the woman across from her.
    “You aren’t a mother, so don’t act like you have a clue what I feel or she felt,” Shannon spits out at Amy.
    Amy looks at me, her kind eyes full of the emotions from her past.
    I shrug my shoulders, unsure if she’s looking for some sort of permission from me, or simply wondering what to do next.
    Barely above a whisper, Amy’s voice cracks with emotion. “I know a mother’s love, Shannon.”
    Her words take me back to her past.
    Amy has gone through a hell I can’t even put into words. The look on her face tells me that she’s about to lay it all out there for my daughter to hear. This is something she hasn’t even shared with her own family, her own friends. The only reason I know is because I was beside her as she went through the agony of it all.
    “Against all odds, against