Give Me Grace (Devil's Right Hand MC #5)

Chapter 3

Blade's POV
Present day, August 4th, 2022

I can't feel my ass in this god forsaken chair. I've only been here for a few hours, and my legs are already numb.

God, I'm getting old.

Who knew the big bad Devil's Right Hand President can be taken out by a cheap ass folding chair.

Groaning, I try to shift my weight to get comfortable, but the chair only squeaks in response, warning me that too much movement will send my sore ass straight to the floor. Comfort has never been high on my priority list, though. It has never been a luxury I afford myself.

My comfort isn't of importance.

But her comfort is everything.

Which is why I'm sitting in this damn folding chair in the middle of the clubhouse hallway, staring at a bedroom door and praying the person behind it stays quiet for the night. Praying that for once, she gets the peaceful nights sleep she needs.

The boys are down in the shop with our newest guest, Jack's boss, Taco. Yeah, this fucker's street name is Taco. I haven't made an appearance down there yet, but I trust my boys to handle it. Smoke has recently taken the title of our lead enforcer and the fucker acts like he has something to prove. I won't tell him he's already proven it because that work ethic drives him in a way I've never seen before. Axe is person we call for the eliminations. This fucking twenty-one year old has a dark side that even scares me. And Skillet, well Skillet is driven by a force more powerful than any skill. He is driven by love, by the need to protect the girl he loves most in the world. The girl who just so happens to be my daughter.

It's been hard for me to take a step back to allow Skillet to do things a man needs to do to protect his woman. Because to Skillet, she's the woman who hung the moon. But to me, she's the curly-haired little girl who I never got to meet. She's the nineteen years I missed with her all rolled into one. She's the daughter who appeared when I least expected it.

The daughter she always wanted, but never had.

Immediately, I stop the thought train barreling through my head. Chrissy is the gift I've always wanted, but for Grace, she was a reminder of what she could never have. A reminder of her. Chrissy is the living, breathing, embodiment of all of the almosts and what-ifs.

Over the last few weeks, I've mastered the art of keeping Grace in the neat little box in the back of my brain, but I can't today. Today, everything feels like a fresh wound. Every emotion of the last twenty years swirl together and turn my already fucked up head into a fucking hurricane. But, now a new emotion is thrown into the mix, guilt.

The rational part of my brain knows I have nothing to feel guilty over, but as the white neon numbers change on my iPhone screen, turning to 9pm, I can't help the ball of guilt that forms deep in my gut. Twenty years ago I met the love of my life when she tried to rob me. It's laughable really, that all of these years, the good, the bad, and the ugly happened because of a fucking wallet. But that night she took more than just my wallet. Even though I got my wallet back, I never got back the pieces of me she took with it. The pieces that she continued to take for twenty years.

On this day, the twenty year anniversary of meeting my wife, I'm stuck in this cheap ass chair, waiting outside my daughter's door incase she has a nightmare while my wife is in our house, alone. While she is stewing in her own guilt, regret, and grief.

God, how did everything get so fucked up?

How did I let everything get so out of control?

"No, Stop!" Chrissy's screams pierce my downward spiral and I'm reminded of my reality. Of the reality she caused.