by April Lust
“Fine, if you’re going to run me off, and you don’t want me around because I can’t handle putting our child in danger, maybe I’ll go have an abortion and forget about the whole thing,” she shouted in my face.
She turned then to walk out the door, but I grabbed her arm and spun her around. Furious, I grabbed her by both of her shoulders.
“If you do something that stupid, understand this: I will throw you to my men. I will let them treat you like one of those disposable club girls. And when they’re through with you, I will execute Ryan so he can’t save you. I will take away your entire life if you take that child from me,” I threatened her.
She shrugged my hands off. “Let go of me, you pig. I don’t care about Ryan. I told you that already. And as for your men, you’re full of shit. That baby is the only reason you’re keeping me hanging around. Without that baby, I’ll hit the fucking road, and you’ll never find me.”
My headache was threatening to turn into a full-blown migraine. I closed my eyes while I listened to her. The dim light in my office was even too much to bear.
“All we are is a business transaction, Ryan, and this baby is our business. If you don’t care about protecting your investment, there is no reason for me to honor our contract,” she added.
“Go,” I said finally.
“What? No. You don’t get to kick me out of your office,” she argued.
“I can have you removed,” I said flatly – no humor, no anger. I was tired. I couldn’t think to say anything else other than to tell her to leave.
“Are you kidding me?”
I took a slow deep breath, trying to calm myself. I was trying not to show her how worried I was by all of it, but I was pretty upset that she’d been put in a dangerous spot. I didn’t regret sending her because of the way she reacted. I regretted sending her because it was a stupid move.
The truth was, I had feelings for her. They had been growing for a while. They grew stronger every time I had paid her a visit. I didn’t know what to do about them.
“Go home, Nora. Don’t hang around here if you can’t take it,” I said, the anger and rage leaving my voice.
I didn’t know what else to say. I wasn’t angry anymore. I didn’t want to fight. Everything she’d said was right, but I didn’t know how to backtrack and apologize. And having her stand there and remind me of that only made me feel worse.
She huffed and turned to leave again. She didn’t say anything on her way out of my office. She slammed the door so hard it bounced back open. The noise outside my office stopped as the members hanging out at the bar watched her leave in silence. No one spoke to her, and she didn’t speak to any of them. I heard the door to the clubhouse slam as she left.
I closed my office door after she was finally gone, and I went to sit down behind my desk. I needed to talk to Ozzy at some point about how he handled the situation. I also needed to apologize to Nora, but that was going to take time. I had to find the words and figure out how I was going to do it.
But first, I needed something for my headache. I opened the drawer of my desk and pulled out a bottle of ibuprofen and a mickey of Jack that I kept at my desk in case I needed a quick drink. I definitely needed a quick drink. I popped two ibuprofen in my mouth and washed them down with the room-temperature whiskey. I took another drink from the bottle after I’d swallowed the medicine.
I put my feet on the desk and leaned back in my chair. That motherfucker hadn’t been able to provide us with any information, and after roughing him up, we’d probably lost our connection with the Montreal supplier. On top of that, he’d threatened Nora.
Maybe I’ll kill him anyway, I thought. He’d certainly earned it. It would have been immensely satisfying to go ahead and take him out, get him out of the way. By putting a gun to Nora’s head, he’d gone from being a nuisance to being a real threat. That would have justified it to the guys when I ordered them to shoot him in his hotel room.
I smiled while I thought about telling the guys watching the hotel to kill Ryan. I imagined them walking up to his door and dropping him right there when he answered it, right in front of other guests and their visitors. No one would have said shit to the authorities because they knew who we were, and they knew they would have wound up exactly like the poor sap they had watched my guys shoot.
Chapter Twenty-One
Nora
“I’m sorry,” Mark said when he appeared at my apartment door a few days after the Ryan incident. Those were his first two words when I opened the door.
“Wow,” I blurted out, not knowing anything else to say.
Wow, because I hadn’t expected to see him. We hadn’t talked since he told me to leave his office. He hadn’t come by or anything. I had been under the impression that we were over. We’d both said some pretty heinous shit to each other, and I sure as hell didn’t know how we were supposed to come back from that.
Wow, also because I hadn’t expected an apology from him, and certainly not the first thing out of his mouth. I wasn’t going to complain, but it was very different to hear that sort of thing from Mark. Mark was the kind of guy who was never wrong, and if he was, he figured out ways to correct it without admitting it.
“Can I come in?” he asked. It was a complete change from his normal visits when he’d storm into my apartment like he lived there. He was humbling himself before me. I took it as part of his apology.
“Of course you can come in,” I told him, and I stepped aside to let him through the door. I looked around outside to make sure it was only him, and then I closed the door and locked it.
When I turned from the door, I saw him standing in the entry way looking calm and reserved. All the usual toughness and the hard exterior were gone. He didn’t look defeated, not exactly, but he had the look of someone who had come to a realization that he’d screwed up somehow, and he was ready to face the music.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he said.
I stopped where I was. We stood in the entryway to my apartment, and he was apologizing. He wasn’t even waiting to get fully inside. He was going for it right there and wasting no time.
“I shouldn’t have put you and our child in danger, and I’m sorry.”
Tears welled up in my eyes immediately. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Come into the living room,” I told him, wiping back my tears with my other hand.
“Are you crying?” he asked.
I chuckled. “I don’t know. It could just be hormones,” I told him. The truth was, I really didn’t know if I was genuinely crying because his apology touched me or if I was overreacting because my hormones were all jacked up. If I’d been forced to bet on it, I would have said the former.
We sat down on the couch, but we didn’t sit together. He still sat at the other end, as he always did. That was fine, I thought. At least he was there.
“I’ve dressed Ozzy down for barging in the way he did,” he told me.
I wasn’t completely clear on what he meant by ‘dressed down,’ but it sounded like a harsh punishment. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to distract him from what he was telling me or sound stupid by asking questions. I simply sat and listened, following along with what he was telling me.
“I’m sorry for not being clear and giving him the full picture before sending him with you,” he continued.
I took his hands in mine and held them.
“I should have trusted you more.”
I squeezed his hands. I wanted to scoot closer, but something in the way he was sitting told me he needed the space in order to open up to me the way he was. I had to be patient with him, so I sat and let him talk.
“I hope you know I would never deliberately put you and our child in danger.”
“I know,” I said. I did know.
He looked at me like he was surprised I’d said anything at all. He opened his mouth like he was going to respond, but the words didn’t come out. He furrowed his brow. He looked like I’d thrown him off.
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��I’m sorry,” I said. “I said some pretty stupid things in your office, shit I never should have said. I had no business talking to you like I did.” I lowered my tear-soaked face. I pulled one of my hands back from his and wiped my face.
“I need you,” he said to me.
“Do you mean that?” I asked. “Do you mean that you need me for me and not just for the kid?” We still didn’t know the gender of our child. We were still a few weeks out from learning it.
“I need you in so many ways,” he told me. “I need you in ways I can’t even explain right now because I don’t think I completely understand them myself.”
I thought my heart was going to melt into tears and pour out of my eyes. I laughed at myself for bawling the way I was. I wiped my eyes and finally slid across the couch to him, embracing him. His strong arms wrapped around me and held me to him. I felt safe in his arms, unlike the way I had felt in the hotel room. I felt protected. I knew he was being truthful when he apologized to me.
“But you came here today because you need me for something else,” I finally said. “Didn’t you?”
He pulled back from our embrace and looked me in the eye. A small grin played at the corners of his mouth. “I can’t get anything over on you, can I?”
I shook my head. “No. What do you need, Mark?”
“I need you at my side for the MC,” he said.
“Yeah, we talked about that. I remember.”
“We’re getting ready for this ride. The guys aren’t really down for it right now. We’re riding south to confront the group that has been causing so much trouble for us.”
“You were talking about this before,” I commented. “You still haven’t done it?”
“No. The guys need to see you at my side. That’s what it will take to rally them.”
It sounded ridiculous to me, but he was serious. I could see it in his eyes. He was dead serious. He truly believed that the only way the guys would agree to make the ride with him was to see a woman at his side.
“That was one of the reasons I decided to take you from Ryan,” he said. “It’s the only thing these guys really respect. It brings the possibility of continuing the MC’s legacy. It shows them that I am a leader,” he explained.
“So am I riding out with you?” I asked him.
“Yes, and no,” he said. “You’re going to ride down in the car with Alice.”
“So you’re going to put me in danger again?” I asked in disbelief. He had just told me he wouldn’t deliberately make a move like that again, and yet, there he was, telling me he wanted to put me in the middle of his confrontation with another MC.
“No. You’re staying back,” he said quickly.
“Am I staying back or am I going?” I asked. “Sounds like they’re two different things.”
“You’re going down with Alice, and the two of you are staying back a little so you don’t get caught up in anything,” he explained. “I hate to put you back in that situation, but the guys need to see you there for morale. You and Alice will keep your distance, though. You are not to come anywhere near the confrontation.”
I thought about it for a minute. I wasn’t exactly comfortable with the idea of going back into the fray and getting that close to the action. I believed Mark, though, when he told me he didn’t want me close to the confrontation.
“I guess, if Alice’s going to be with me,” I conceded. With Alice at my side, I figured I would be safe. She knew more about stuff like this than I did anyway. She’d been around the MC longer than I had. I trusted her.
“I can’t do this without you,” he added. “If I let you go now, the club will fall apart, and I will lose everything. I need you by my side to keep everyone united under me.”
I stroked his cheek and leaned in to kiss him. Our lips touched tenderly, sweetly. I felt him pressing himself into the kiss, and I could tell that there was more to his request than simply having me present at the confrontation with the other MC. There was a need for me he wouldn’t admit, something deeper and more personal than club morale.
“And here, take this,” he said after we broke apart. I looked down to see him holding a handgun out to me.
“I’ve never used one of these,” I protested, not even reaching for the gun.
“And hopefully you won’t have to use this one. But, for your protection, I’ll feel better if you’ve got something on you in case things go wrong,” he insisted.
I cocked my head to the side, still reluctant to take the gun from him. I had never even held a gun before. I certainly didn’t want to be responsible for one with a child in my belly. What the hell was he thinking?
“Nora, take it,” he said finally, grabbing my hand and pressing the gun against my palm.
I wrapped my fingers around the grip. The weapon was heavy with power and potential in my hand. I felt the damage the tool in my hand could inflict. I didn’t want to hold it. I didn’t want that kind of power in my hand.
“What do I do with this?” I asked him. “I can’t carry it around like this all day, can I? That doesn’t sound like the safest plan.”
“Stand up,” he said, and we both did. He took the gun from me and slid it into the waist of my jeans.
I was reminded of all those cop shows on TV where the detectives and bad guys all carried their guns on their hips like a bunch of badasses.
“You know how to use a gun, right?” he asked.
“In theory.” It came out more like a question. “Just point and squeeze the trigger, right?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it. There’s a little more to it, but you’ve got the idea,” he told me. “Besides, you’ve got Alice with you, and this is not her first rodeo.”
I wanted to hand him the gun back and tell him I was comfortable letting Alice handle my protection instead of trying to protect myself with a weapon I’d never used. But I figured it wouldn’t hurt to let him think I was okay with the gun, so I kept it.
I couldn’t think of anything else to say or do at that moment, so I grabbed him and hugged him. I missed the closeness of having him near me. His arms wrapped around me and pulled me against him. He squeezed me, hugging me tight. I still felt there were other things that weren’t being said between us.
Big, important things.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mark
“Today, we are riding out to ambush the Demons. These are city boys, so they think they’re harder, rougher, and deadlier than a club from a little border town, but we’re going to show them why we’re the Shadow Reapers,” I said to the guys standing outside the clubhouse, getting ready for the ride.
Nora stood by my side while I addressed the members of the MC who were gathered in front of me. She looked like a queen ready to lead her people into whatever battle her king had in mind.
Simply having her at my side drew more attention from the guys. Many of them had been there when she stormed out of my office. That moment had hurt my credibility as president. It damaged MC morale and made the guys less willing to ride out today, but having her next to me, I saw that their faith in me and willingness to ride had been restored, at least a little.
“We have faced threats before,” I told them. “We have faced off with the Asphalt Demons before. It was our last confrontation with these guys that left Alan behind bars. Apparently, they haven’t had enough of Shadow Reapers and they want more. Why else would they be fucking stupid enough to move in on our territory and in our markets?” That got a little response out of them as they cheered me on.
Still, I didn’t feel like we were quite ready. They weren’t fully rallied behind me yet. They still weren’t excited about the ride. We weren’t united. There was one thing I hadn’t done. I hadn’t brought Nora into the mix yet.
“Have I introduced you to Nora?” I asked them, putting an arm around her shoulders. I wasn’t exactly sure what to call her. She wasn’t my old lady. She wasn’t a club girl. Calling her my partner or girlfriend would have given them the wrong imp
ression. One sounded to business-like. The other sounded too juvenile.
They applauded as I stepped her forward, presenting us as a couple to the MC. I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. Her face beamed with pride at the MC’s warm reception. She was finally getting to witness the MC’s reaction to our union. She finally saw what I had been trying to explain to her this whole time.
“I have an announcement to make,” I told them, and I saw everyone’s reaction to that statement. They all watched with bated breath. A hush fell over the MC.
Even Nora reacted to the statement, shooting me a look that asked me what the hell I thought I was doing. I nodded to her, signaling that it was okay. I had it all under control and knew what I was doing.
