“The Satan’s Knights,” I remind her.
“That’s the one,” she smirks.
“What?”
“That’s some name.”
“Yeah, well there aren’t many motorcycle clubs that call themselves Holy Rollers,” I say sarcastically.
“I think I’ll make my next book about a motorcycle club. They’re all the rage these days and I’ll name my fictional club the Holy Rollers.”
“It’ll be a bestseller for sure,” I tell her.
She smiles.
“One day,” she says wistfully.
Yeah, look at that. Who knew my mother was a dreamer? Not me.
“My non-fictional motorcycle club has something going on today. Something I need to take care of,” I tell her.
“You want back up?”
My mother’s got jokes.
Most of them are funny, some not so much.
Another thing I never knew.
“Thanks but if you show up with your gardening tools you might intimidate the fellas.”
She laughs.
A beautiful laugh.
“Well, if you’re telling me this and you don’t need back up then I can only assume you’re telling me because you will be entrusting me with your pretty girl.” She wiggles her eyebrows.
“You caught that, huh?” I ask, running my hand down my face.
“She’s going to be fine you know.”
I drop my hand from my face and stare back at my mother as she walks over to me and takes a seat on the step next to me.
“She’ll be fine because she’s a woman and we’re not wired to stay broken,” she says as she pats my knee. “It’ll be hard at times. She’ll want to give up, sometimes she will, but she’ll pull through and scrape all her happy from the floor.”
I nod in agreement.
She will be okay.
“You’ll want to save her. You’ll see her struggle and you’ll want to help, but there will be times when your help won’t be what she needs and you must take a step back and trust her. Trust her strength. It’ll be hard. You’ll see her hurting and you’ll lose it, you’re too good of a man not to. You’ll see her hurting and your first instinct will be to make it better. When this happens, you call your mother and I’ll talk you off the ledge.”
Sighing, I drape an arm over her shoulder and bring her close.
“I’m glad I came here,” I admit.
“Does that mean you’ll come more often?”
“At least on holidays,” I tease. “Always on your birthday,” I promise.
“Your girl is safe here,” she assures me.
“I know, that’s why I brought her here,” I reply, kissing her cheek.
“Do you think you’ll marry her?”
“I already proposed over meatloaf,” I wince.
Maybe I should read my mother’s romance novel. Maybe I’d learn a thing or two.
“I didn’t say yes.”
We both turn around at the sound of Gina’s voice. My mother laughs beside me as I remain silent and stare at her.
She’s not wearing any make-up, all she’s wearing is a smile that lights up the whole fucking world.
“So, what does that mean?” I ask as I stand and climb the few steps so I’m standing in front of her.
She chews on her lower lip as she shrugs her shoulders.
“It means you’ll have to ask again,” she says simply.
“It means you need to get her a damn ring when you ask and get down on one knee,” my mother says from behind me.
“Whenever you’re ready,” I tell her.
“Is that a fact?”
“Yeah, pretty girl, that’s a fact.”
“I think I owe you some facts,” she says, stepping closer to me.
“How about we get out of here for a little while and you give me all the facts you want?”
“Okay,” she smiles as she closes the few steps between us and wraps her arms around my waist. I take her in my arms and kiss the top of her head.
“Let me get the keys to the van,” I say, pulling back a fraction as she gives me her eyes and shakes her head.
“I was thinking about what Jack said,” she says, toying with the zipper of my hoodie.
“Christ, that can’t be good,” I joke, earning a pinch from her.
“Let’s ride,” she whispers.
Shit.
That’s all kinds of beautiful right there.
“Yeah? You sure you’re up for it?” I ask, pushing her hair away from her face as I tip her chin up and study her expression.
“Give me the words, soldier,” she says softly.
“I’ve got you, pretty girl,” I rasp.
“Then yeah, I’m sure.”
Beautiful.
So fucking beautiful.
Gina
Ferocious.
That’s me.
And this is me taking the first step at reclaiming my life.
Holding onto Stryker as he takes me on the ride I’m sure I’ll remember for the rest of my life, I close my eyes and let the adrenaline take over. I lose myself to the wind and find the beauty in life, the beauty we sometimes take for granted. There are things ordinary people don’t realize are precious gifts. Sometimes it takes the ugly in the world to remind us of those gifts.
A nation healing.
A soldier coming home alive.
A flag, tattered and torn yet still beautiful in all its glory.
A club that’s still breathing.
A brother and sister forgiving one another.
A mother and her son embracing.
A woman becoming her own hero.
That same soldier finding peace in a pretty pair of green eyes.
That same soldier giving peace in the form of words to his pretty girl.
He turns off the engine and dismounts from the bike before he helps me off. I unclasp the chin strap and remove my helmet as he takes my free hand and leads me toward a park. Silently we walk hand in hand down the path and then I spot a bench and pull him toward it. It might not be a beach, but it’s similar to our first date.
Then it dawns on me.
This is our first date.
The first date of the new us.
He sits next to me on the bench and I lift my hand wiggling my five fingers in his face.
Jack Parrish was wrong.
The medicine that heals all is hearing Stryker laugh.
“Five facts,” I begin, leaning my head on his shoulder as I hold up my thumb. “I love your mom. Oh, and I downloaded her book.”
“Of course you did,” he mutters.
“Two, I called and quit my job today.”
His body goes as stiff as a board as he leans back and glances down at me.
“You did what?”
“I quit my job and not for the reasons you think, although they probably have had a hand in the decision but I’m not ready to admit that kind of defeat. The reason I quit is because I’m reevaluating my life and I’m changing the things I didn’t like about the old Gina. I hated that I worked all the time and didn’t enjoy the simple things, things like this. I love being a financial advisor but I can do that in a bank. There’s a Chase on the corner of my block. I think it’s fitting.” I wink at him. “And if I change my mind, then I’ll slip into my heels and jump on the express bus.”
He doesn’t reply at first and I know it’s because he’s searching my face making sure that it is really what I want and not something I’m saying out of fear.
“Three.” I wiggle three fingers. “I want my brother to know I forgive him. I want him in my life and you two will just have to try to play nice,” I say, giving him the stink eye for extra emphasis before my lips break into a smile. “Four, and this is a big one, like huge…I want to be a mom someday. I want boys too, like a whole house full of boys that always remember their mom’s birthday.”
“Jesus,” he hisses.
“Yeah, I know…big stuff.”
“What’s f
act number five?”
“It’s the biggest fact of all. I don’t know if you’re ready.”
“You just told me you want a shit ton of kids; I think I can handle it. Lay it on me,” he rasps.
“I love you, Stryker,” I whisper, wiggling all five fingers. “Five facts but that last one—”
“That last one is everything beautiful in the world, pretty girl,” he says softly as he touches his forehead to mine.
When you feel like there is nothing beautiful in this world, look around you.
Find your beautiful.
And remember the girl who wakes up every day and finds hers.
Remember me.
-Forty-one-
Stryker
When we pull up to my mother’s house her yard isn’t only decorated by the pretty flowers she’s been planting all morning, but with some pretty impressive chrome. They’re all there, just as Jack promised they would be. Even Wolf is ready to roll, straddling his bike as he checks my mother out.
“Is everything okay?” Gina asks as I kill my engine and throw down my kickstand.
“Everything’s better than okay,” I tell her. It’s the truth. We’re okay. She’s okay and what’s about to go down is just the cream.
“You mind hanging out with my mother for a couple of hours?” I ask her as I climb off my bike and glance at Jack.
He’s leaning against his bike with his arms crossed against his chest as he chews on a toothpick and tips his chin toward me. Diverting my eyes to the man next to Jack, he’s the man who led our army the last time we rode looking for retribution. Blackie sticks his finger in the air and rotates it in a circle.
Round ‘em up boys.
Riggs fits his sunglasses to his face and smacks his hands together before mounting his bike. Cobra and Deuce are already itching to go with the engine purring and their knuckles white around the handlebars.
Then there’s Wolf.
Still, eyeing my mother.
Two prospects, Petey and Rage dismount and take a seat on the front porch.
Turning back to Gina, I watch as she takes in the same sight as me, but then she turns to me and her face is full of worry.
“I don’t like this,” she admits, taking a deep breath. “Don’t go,” she pleads, before shaking her head. “No, that’s not fair. It’s just…I’m nervous. I may not know much about your life but I’m pretty sure you’re not going to play poker with your buddies,” she whispers, fisting my shirt. “Promise me you’ll stay safe.”
She pauses for a moment, glancing over her shoulder at my brothers before she turns back to me and gives me her eyes that are full of unshed tears.
“You come back to me, Stryker,” she demands, poking my chest. “I need you.”
“No worries, pretty girl,” I bend my knees as I take her face in my hands. My eyes question hers, seeking permission to give and not to take. “I love you, Gina,” I tell her, giving her my words.
She gives right back, stretching up on her toes and presses her lips gently to mine.
Mouth to mouth.
A kiss.
A declaration of affection.
“I love you too, soldier,” she whispers against my mouth.
I cup her face, lean back and take her eyes. The piece of her I’ll take with me wherever I go.
Pretty green eyes.
Dropping my hands from her face I watch as she takes a few steps back and I throw my leg over my Harley.
Music.
Together our engines come to life making music a symphony of brotherhood, vengeance and survival.
I back out of my mother’s driveway, glance back at the two women sitting on the steps of the porch as the brigade of bikes roar and peel away from the house.
“I’ve got you.” I mouth the words that have become my lifeline as much as hers and take off to make the men who dulled my girl’s sparkle, pay.
Jack leads us on a ride that comprises hours on a thruway until we’re back in the city, back on the streets that are ours.
Ours.
Satan’s fucking Knights.
Where we are all property of Parrish.
Pulling into the shipping yard I instantly spot the Maserati parked in front of one of the containers. The engines die and Jack is the first to dismount. Walking toward me, he tips his chin to the rest of our brothers before he throws his arm around my shoulders.
“You ready?”
“Yes,” I say, rolling my neck from side to side.
No one ever asked me if I was ready before I pulled a trigger. They gave me my orders and commanded I follow through with them. But this was different. This was my show and the men surrounding me were there to back me up.
To hold the motherfuckers down as I terrorized them.
Terror is a bitch of thing.
It lives everywhere, in every human being’s eyes and then there are the people who deliver the terror, the terrorists we all fear.
Today I’m the terrorist.
Today my war with terror is in a shipping container and not in the sand in some piece of shit country ruled by extremists.
Today I am the extremist.
“We got the three of them. Yankovich basically handed them to us on a silver platter before he went off the grid. He’s not like any enemy we’ve ever fought. He uses and abuses to his own advantage and then when he’s done with them, he looks to dispose of them. But the motherfucker doesn’t get his hands dirty. He plays you, makes you think you’re getting your due revenge on the people that wronged you but you’re just eliminating his messenger.”
I turn my eyes back to Jack as I climb off my bike and crack my knuckles.
“We’re going to get him,” he vows. “But first there are a couple of vultures that need to be taught a lesson. You know what that lesson is, boy?”
“Yeah, don’t fucking touch what’s mine,” I growl.
He nods, patting me on the back as he leads me over to his bike and pauses. I watch as he reaches into his saddlebags and pulls out two objects.
A rusted pipe.
And a dirty knife.
Jack Parrish is a man of his word.
We move toward the containers, my hands wrapped tightly around the weapons I’ll use to avenge Gina’s attackers and my band of brothers close behind me. Riggs goes to open the container and when the doors burst open Rocco is standing before me covered in blood.
My eyes narrow at him and my knuckles whiten as they grip the knife and pipe with every ounce of strength I possess.
“They’re all yours,” he sneers, stepping aside and allowing us room to walk into the tiny container.
“Holy shit,” Riggs mutters.
“Fucking hell,” Jack growls.
Three men whom I’ve never seen before lay on top of one another on the floor, naked as the day their sorry asses were born into the world. Their bodies are bloodied and beaten with chains wrapped around their ankles binding them together. The first man is lying face first on the floor with the other pressed against his backside, nothing separating them but the cock of the second man. The third is on the back of the second in the same position.
No.
They cry no.
All three of them.
I grab the pipe and walk over to the third man.
“You asked for this,” I tell him. “The way you were dressed, you asked for this,” I snarl as I reach down and spread his cheeks apart and close my eyes.
I’m the man on the roof.
The man who served his country.
Protected YOUR freedom.
Now that man is protecting a different kind of freedom.
The freedom of a woman.
Of her body.
Of her mind.
Of her spirit.
I’m no hero.
I shove the rusted pipe in his ass, listen as he cries out in shame and begs for me to stop.
I am a Satan’s Knight.
And you don’t ever touch what is mine.
The Fucking En
d
Praise Jesus!
-Epilogue-
Gina
Six months later…
I’ve been planning this day, working toward it for months. It wasn’t easy getting to this moment, claiming this type of beautiful again, but with therapy and the help of my loved ones I’m healing and feeling like the Gina I used to be.
The Gina who loved the city and didn’t fear it.
The Gina who wanted to be touched and didn’t flinch every time her boyfriend showed her affection.
The independent, fearless woman, who speaks what she thinks and has no filter is slowly creeping her way back into the land of the living.
Walking down the streets I love, holding Stryker’s hand, I glance at him and the butterflies are instant.
This man.
This amazingly patient man.
The last six months have been just as torturous for him as they have been for me, but he’s been a pillar of strength for me. At first I thought it was guilt driving his devotion, but then he told me he loved me, and more than that, he proved it.
Every single day.
He proved what beautiful was.
It was him.
It was his love.
His patience to heal the broken girl he loved.
Stryker doesn’t like to be called a hero, doesn’t believe he’s ever done a thing in his life to deserve the title, but I know better. I know without him this battle I’m fighting to reclaim the broken pieces of me wouldn’t be possible.
My therapist has made me see I need to be the one in control of my healing process. I can’t push my limits, I have to go at the pace my mind and body sets. As much as I wished to shed my skin and replace my body with a new one I couldn’t. The same way I couldn’t erase the memory of what happened to me. I still have nightmares, still hear their voices and the terrible things they whispered into my ear. I still remember the homeless man who covered me with his coat and the hero that carried me out of the alleyway—Stryker. I still remember the words that became my saving grace. I’ve got you.
He squeezes my hand as we cross the street and I turn my gaze to him, watching as he stares up at the Freedom Tower. A few days after we came home from visiting Claire, Jack and Blackie showed up at my apartment with a housewarming present. Apparently, Stryker was giving up the motel and his brothers had decided that if he was going to call my apartment home then he needed a piece of himself somewhere amongst all the girl crap. It was a nice sentiment I suppose, and it was how I came to learn that the Satan’s Knights were a bunch of ball busters.
The Nomad Series-Collectors Edition Page 30
