On his way out he collected Devon and Damon to go with him. They silently got into his cage and he drove them to a big mall and bought everything he needed from two stores.
The prospects stayed silent throughout the entire shopping trip, even when they loaded his new shit on the back of the bakkie. They helped him manhandle his new bed upstairs and it was only after they had it set up that one of them spoke up.
“Buying a new bed and shit is not going to change what you did. It is what it is, Wolf.”
Wolf had no idea which one of the little fuckers it was that vomited his opinion all over his room and he didn’t care to find out either. All he knew was that he wanted to fucking throttle the little fucker.
Mostly because he was right.
“Just get the fuck out you little bastards. If I need advice I’ll ask for it. I didn’t ask.”
Taking his new shit down to the laundry room he stuffed it in one of the washing machines then sat down to wait for it to finish. Once the cycle was done he threw everything in the dryer, went into the kitchen and got himself a bottle of water and headache tablets then went back to wait for the dryer to finish.
Alone in the laundry room he had time to think about what he had done as opposed to what he should have done.
He went back upstairs and made his bed then stood in the middle of his room that smelt clean and fresh. Not a hint of the slut remained.
He had no idea what to do next.
No, that’s a lie. He knew exactly what he had to do.
He had to get her back. She was his fucking old lady.
He wanted her here with him, at his side, in his club as his old lady.
For real this time.
Grabbing his keys and wallet he rushed downstairs only to come to a sudden stop.
DC stood with her hands on her hips with a pissed off look on her face waiting for him.
And she wasn’t alone. Chris and Genna stood right behind her, their hands on their hips as well.
“You fucked up, Wolf. So freaking badly you don’t even understand.”
Frowning he shook his head. “I didn’t fuck the bitch, DC. I passed out and when I woke up she was there. I kicked her out of my room immediately.”
The women snorted.
“Everyone knows what happened. She tried to snag you while you were drunk. Stupid little airhead thought to get in there as your rebound piece. Now she’s in deep shit with Aunt Beryl. She crossed a line she knew not to.” Chris said with a disgusted look on her face.
“But that’s not what we are talking about.” DC said. “Have you called the hospital for an update yet?”
“No, I was on my way there see her. Why?”
“They’re gone. Left sometime during the night.” Genna snapped at him. “Dive left me a long message on my phone, which I only got this morning, to say goodbye. After you fucked and chucked her Leo wanted to go home, and her president arranged it. They took Reid with them.”
Tears suddenly filled Genna’s eyes. “I was just getting to know him. He was the only man who really saw me and your bullshit took him from me. Not going to forgive you for this, Wolf. Not for a long damned time.”
Fuck. A hollow feeling settled in his chest.
He had lost her.
She was gone and it was his fault.
He never asked her what she wanted he just assumed she wouldn’t stay with him. Why had he been so sure she wouldn’t stay, because right now it didn’t feel like that at all.
They were good together. Damned good.
Fuck this. Fuck the stupid decision he had made when confronted by his president.
He should have been the one to talk to her in the first place. Not Hawk.
What a fucking pussy he’d been.
He had hidden behind his president and his obligations to his club. He should have manned up and talked to her about their options.
Lifting his head he breathed in deep and let it out, hard.
“I’m fucking getting her back. As soon as I can get it arranged I’m going over there and bringing her home.”
Ignoring the women he turned and marched his ass to his president’s office.
He had a trip to the States to arrange.
Winifred
Looking at her reflection in the glass wall of her office Winifred Harrison Maingarde swept her hands over the tight skirt of her pale grey suit, settling it over her narrow hips after ensuring her white silk blouse was still immaculate. Her blonde hair, the grey recently retouched by Claude, her hairdresser, was in its customary chignon. She looked cool, elegant and in control. Fury raged through her but it didn’t show. Nothing she felt ever showed on her face. Emotions made you weak, vulnerable and easy prey. And that’s why she succeeded where others failed.
Like her nephew James. The glass jar with its disgusting contents had arrived this morning, underlining his failed and heavy-handed handling of the assignment.
His actions had exposed one of the Harrison Syndicate’s most lucrative income streams. It had to be abandoned until such time as she could rebuild. And rebuild she would but without Freddie’s useless son. She had sent the little wimp back to London with his tail between his legs. James’s actions had the filthy bikers on alert across the country and the Syndicate would be hard pressed to operate without notice.
If only Dominick would agree to take over as her second in command things would be so much easier. His continued insistence on autonomy was the stumbling block.
She had started grooming him from the moment she married his grandfather and got rid of his pesky holier-than-though parents. He was as ruthless as she was. As focused on the profit margins and end results. Dominick was feared but at the same time his people were intensely loyal. They could not be bought or blackmailed. Many had tried. She had tried without any success.
She needed him and his people if she was to rebuild. There had to be a way to sway him to her way of thinking. She just had to find it.
And find it she would.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Leo
Sitting at the bar in the clubhouse I sipped on my Jack and coke and ignored the party going on around me.
It was Friday night, party night, but I didn’t give a damn. I only came because Maniac ordered me to be here. I had no idea why but here I am, doing as my president ordered.
“Get your ass to the fuckin’ clubhouse. If I don’t see you sittin’ at the bar in the next twenty minutes I’m sendin’ Lure after you. You get me?”
Of course I got him. That’s why my ass was sitting at the bar.
We got back home almost four months ago. The club was waiting when the plane landed and they escorted Reid’s body to the funeral home and me to Mama and Daddy’s house.
I stayed with them for three weeks before I could talk Mama into letting me go home.
Every day is a fight to survive the shit in my head. I still showered about four times a day but I no longer scrubbed my skin until it bled. I saw a therapist once a week and go to physical therapy twice a week. My hand was getting better. The fingers were slowly but surely responding to the work I was putting in to get them back to normal. The therapist and doctors tried to warn me that I might never get all the mobility back but they have no idea how determined and stubborn I was.
Nothing that fucker did to me was going to ruin who I was. I might have scars on my body and in my head but with time they will fade. I will make damn sure of that.
I got out of bed for Reid’s memorial service and attended in a damned wheelchair. Afterwards I gave each one of my family the dog tags I’d had made up for them. Tags that had Reid’s name and the dates of his birth and death engraved on them. And on the back I had the Marine Corps motto engraved.
Semper Fidelis. Always Faithfull.
The service was held at the clubhouse and it was packed with bikers, veterans and serving Marines. He would have laughed like hell if he could have seen it. It was one hell of a party and I stayed for most of it. Reid would have l
oved to see his two families partying together.
Mama is still having a hard time with losing him. A couple of months ago Daddy gave us the news that the bitch responsible for his death had been taken care of and it helped. With our support she’s slowly accepting the fact that he was gone. I think knowing that Lori was his had something to do with it. I sometimes catch her staring at Lori with a faraway look in her eyes and a little smile on her lips.
Our little baby girl looked a lot like her daddy when he was that age.
At first Sherri blamed herself for his death for some stupid reason she had concocted in her head. She tried to kick Ren out and acted like she had done something wrong by loving him. My big brother didn’t allow her to take that on. According to Sherri he fucked that idea right out of her head. He didn’t give her a chance to take a breath before he slipped his ring on her finger, slapped his patch on her back and his ink on her ass.
And why on her ass you ask? Apparently because my brother liked seeing it there when he took her from behind.
Too much information? Yeah, I said the same but Sherri just grinned happily and winked.
Going back to work had been hard for me. I found it hard to concentrate and if it wasn’t for Jamie, my assistant, I would have crashed and burned by now. I couldn’t do it anymore. I don’t know why, I just couldn’t. The only thing about my job I liked doing was working with the architect on the design of the new bar/restaurant we were about to build. We came up with an idea for the interior that was more upmarket than any of our other venues and thankfully Maniac and the club agreed with us. The club was moving more and more to the legitimate side of the fence and it was changing the men in subtle ways.
They would always be badasses and they would always be outlaws, but they would be able to make their money without constantly looking over their shoulders. Or getting shot at.
Okay, maybe that’s too much like believing they were harmless. They weren’t. Not at all.
I told Maniac I envisioned a bar/restaurant in every town and city where the club had a chapter. Each chapter would run the establishment but the mother chapter would keep an eye on it so it was kept to the standards we set. He shook his head and rolled his eyes at me.
Ass.
Sighing I took another sip of my drink turned back to the bar and set my glass down. Resting my elbows on the bar I played with the glass between my hands. Drawing a finger through the condensation on the side I watched the drops run down the sides.
Bored, that’s what I was. Bored to death.
My fingers were swollen and ached because I had overdone it with the exercises today. Carefully wrapping my hand around my cold glass I let the coolness soak into my sore hand.
The club girl working the bar looked at my hand then met my eyes and silently filled a glass with ice and put it down in front of me. She didn’t say anything, just did something nice for me without expecting a thing.
“Thanks.”
She smiled, shrugged and went back to serving the brothers. I clasped my hand around the glass and sighed with the relief it brought from the constant ache.
Maniac’s voice had me turning in my seat.
“Listen up motherfuckers!” He shouted.
Silence slowly fell over the partying crowd.
“I know it Friday and our usual party night but I have an announcement to make.”
A buzz went around the room only to fade as he stood frowning at them with his arms crossed over his chest. Once again silence descended.
“Four months ago this club suffered through a lot of fuckin’ shit. We said a final farewell to a man who was a son and a brother even though he never wore our patch. And our princess returned to us after endurin’ somethin’ few would have survived.” He suddenly looked right at me and smirked. “Hell, I’m sure she’s gonna give me hell for callin’ her our princess, but what the hell, I’m the president and I can pretty much say whatever the fuck I want.”
Laughter and ‘hell yeah’s’ rang through the room and I just shook my head and grinned.
The laughter calmed when he held up a hand.
“Now, to the announcement. It’s actually more than one so you motherfuckers wait until I’m done before you start yellin’ and shit. You got me?”
He didn’t wait for an acknowledgement just forged ahead.
“An hour ago I asked Lucy to marry me and she said yes. I’ve claimed her as my ol’ lady. She will be takin’ my kutte on Wednesday night, here, in front of the club.” Whistling and stamping of feet and a few rebel yells rang out.
“I’m not finished you fuckers. Shut the fuck up.” Maniac shouted.
“That was only a small part of the first announcement.”
He looked right at me and looked a little uncomfortable.
What? What the hell was going on here?
“I don’t like sharin’ my fuckin’ business with y’all but, I promised, so listen up.” His eyes were on me and I became ever so slightly uncomfortable.
“Tonight wasn’t the first time I asked Lucy to marry me. I asked her shortly after Leo and the boys came home. She said no. According to her, and I have to admit she was right, I had played God with the life of one of my people and until I fixed it she wanted no part of me. To say I was fuckin’ pissed off is puttin’ it mildly. But, if I wanted my patch on her back I had to do somethin’ I wasn’t gonna like. I had to apologise.”
I was confused. What was he talking about? Why would he apologise, the bastard never did. And when he explained it became clear why.
“While our princess was in South Africa she was claimed by Wolf, one of the enforcers of the Iron Dogz. She accepted his claim and his kutte and became his ol’ lady. What started out as a ploy to keep her safe became real. But as the presidents of our clubs Hawk and I had to make a tough choice. Neither one of us wanted to lose a very valuable member of our clubs.” He gave a small shrug. “So we decided to end the claimin’.”
Dive’s angry shout was the loudest. “What the fuck!”
I seethed as I sat there with two glasses clasped in my hands. I was so fucking tempted to throw them at his damned guilty face. But I didn’t, I breathed deep and clenched my teeth against the rage and my aching heart. If Lucy hadn’t forced him to apologise I would have never found out about this shit. I wondered if Wolf knew.
“We did what we thought was best but we made a big fuckin’ mistake. Our princess hasn’t been the same since we got her back. And according to Hawk his enforcer is out of control. He has been doin’ shit that is either goin’ to get him dead or inside for fuckin’ life.”
He held his hand out towards me and everyone in front of me moved out of the way leaving the way open to him.
“Leo, darlin’, will you please come over here?”
He asked too damned nicely to throw him a middle finger. Bastard.
Setting my glasses on the bar I hopped off the chair and stalked over, coming to a stop right in front of him.
“I so badly want to kick you in the nuts.” I whispered through clenched teeth.
“Please don’t, baby girl, I’m gonna need them later.” The bastard joked as he pulled me towards him, slung an arm around my shoulders and settled me against his side.
“As I said, I have two announcements to make. The second involves our girl here.” He cleared his throat before continuing. Almost nervously. “Four days ago I organised a surprise for our girl that I’m hopin’ is goin’ to put the smile back on her face.”
He turned me in his arm until I faced him and he looked so damned sorry I dropped my head on his chest and hugged him. He was like my second dad and I knew in my heart he had done what he had thought was best for me. Only thing is, he fucked up but he now owned it and apologised. So, I had to try and get over him running roughshod over my life and heart.
“Grave, brother, can you bring in the surprise!” He called out and that’s when I realised I had seen my Mama with Lucy earlier but not my dad.
Turning in Maniac’s ar
m I looked towards the big front doors and gasped.
My Daddy was standing in the open doors, smiling widely, with Wolf right next to him.
A Wolf that looked at least twice the size he had been the last time I had seen him. While I’d been gone he had turned into a freaking mountain of a man. He was easily as big as Beast now.
My eyes never left him as they walked towards us. I looked into his eyes and my world that had been upside down and wrong slid right back into place.
His eyes said everything I needed to hear without a single word passing his lips. I didn’t wait another second. I ran. Right at him and jumped into his arms. My arms and legs were clasped tight around him and my tear streaked face was shoved into his neck.
I don’t know when I had started crying but I didn’t give a shit who saw it.
He was here. That was all that mattered right now.
“Kitten, never going to fucking let you go again. Not fucking ever.”
I could only sniff, and whisper in his ear. “You came for me. You came.”
Maniac’s voice drew me from my safe place in his neck.
“Brothers, I’d like you to meet, Wolf, our Leo’s ol’ man. Let’s make him feel welcome in our home. Now, let’s get a fuckin’ drink and celebrate.”
Around us people went back to what they had been doing but their eyes stayed on us. I didn’t care, not one little bit. And that was so unlike me. I hated them looking at me, usually.
There was one thing I wanted to know before we took one more step.
“What the hell did you do? Did you swallow a gazillion steroids to get this big so quick?”
Wolf threw his head back and laughed like I had never seen him laugh before.
And damn if that didn’t draw the eyes of the women to him, old ladies and sluts alike. I grinned as I stroked a hand over the side of his face. He was mine, all mine.
“Nothing to do but work out and beat fuckers up when you left, baby.” He shrugged. “I might have overdone it a bit in the gym but, what the hell, it helps when I’m beating fuckers up. Most of them run when they see me coming these days.”
Vengeance Of A Black Knight (Iron Dogz MC, #4) Page 30
