“I supposed I did forget what with all the chaos and murder attempts,” Adam said. “So, hey...you doing anything later this week? Maybe we could meet up at his club I own.”
“Ugh,” Dakota said with a laugh. “I would never have agreed to that.”
“Good to know,” Adam said.
A silence fell between them, a silence Adam knew he had to fill. There was a weight on his shoulders and his heart, the weight of everything not said to Dakota. She had some idea of what he was and what he had done, but she deserved the truth. After everything that had happened, she was owed that. But the thought of saying it, of speaking it out loud, was too much.
“I want to tell you something, something very few people know,” Adam said, unable to look at her. “It’s not something I like to talk about, but there’s a lot I want to tell you, and this is the first thing.” But then he stopped. The words wouldn’t come.
“You can tell me anything,” Dakota said, taking his hand and looking into his eyes.
“When I was seven, my parents were arrested for making and selling meth,” Adam started, letting the words tumble from his mouth. “I was taken from them and placed in the Kane Home for Young Boys.” Adam heard Dakota gasped and her hand squeezed his. “I lived there for a year and a half. Uncle Bill was still in jail, but he promised when he got out he would get a job and would take custody of me. I lived at the house until his parole was approved.”
“Oh, Adam, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. It really wasn’t that bad of a place. The people were nice, the food was good, and you never had to worry about the heat being turned off in the winter. It’s a good thing you do there. It probably saved my life. I didn’t have to be put into foster care, I didn’t get moved around, and I got to wait in one place for my uncle to get out. I’ll always be grateful for that.”
Dakota looked at him and smiled, nodding, but saying nothing else. Just letting him speak.
“We used to talk about you, about the Kanes. We used to joke about mansions and ponies. How one day we were gonna go and take it over. We were gonna knock out all the windows and turn your mansion into one giant fort. It was strange how mad we were at your family. It was just...we couldn’t blame our own parents. We were too young, you know? We still thought they were the sun and the moon, so we hated the people who saved us instead. No one knows about the Kane Home for Young Boys. No one in the club, not even Joey. Only Uncle Bill knows.”
“You know you don’t have anything to be embarrassed about, right? It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know, but I can’t be viewed as weak.”
“You’re not weak. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. You were a child when it happened. You were allowed to be weak then, and you're allowed to show weakness now.”
Adam nodded, and kept talking. His words were unstoppable. He told her everything. His work moving drugs, his work finding people and turning them over to the men they had angered or betrayed. He told her about watching men being beaten nearly to death, to helping bad people do bad things.
It had hurt him, having to do those things. But for the longest time he thought it was the only way. Scarred Angels was a biker gang; that was what biker gangs did. For years he had nightmares about the cost of what he did, the collateral damages of his actions. It was killing him, destroying his soul. It was Adam who had pushed for Scarred Angels to go legit, who had spent years searching for the avenue that would pull them out of the world of guns and drugs and violence.
At the end of everything, when Adam had said all that he could at that moment, he looked at Dakota, afraid of what her response would be. When he turned to look at her, all he saw were her large brown eyes looking up at him.
She put her hand on his shoulder and said, “It’s okay,” and then she kissed him lightly. “I still love you, and I always will.”
And now here he was, in the house he owned, with a beautiful woman in his bed. Everything that had ever happened to him was all meant for this, all led to this. Everything he had seen and done had brought him inch-by-inch closer to Dakota Kane. She was a woman who was kind and gentle and generous, a woman who could see past what he had done to the man he had become. She had seen all of his flaws and told him she loved him just the same. Everything he had ever done had turned him into a man she could love. And now that he had said it all out loud, he knew he wouldn’t go back and change it for anything. It was his life. It had started out badly, but he had turned it into something good. He had taken every bad thing he had ever done and used it to himself into someone who did good. He was finally who he always wanted to be.
EPILOGUE
The Echo Lane Revitalization Project funded by the Kane Charitable Trust, the banner announced outside of the Kane Mansion. There were no more security guards, no more guns, but there were a lot of people at the house. The doors and windows were thrown open as people mingled on the lawn, sipping champagne under the stars. John Kane, almost fully recovered, accepted the kindness of strangers as partygoers wished him a speedy recovery. In truth, this party made him feel better than anything else. It felt good to have people in his home, to watch his daughter take up her mother’s banner and start a charity to benefit the city.
The party had started at four and as twilight approached, people began to filter and go home, but not everyone. Like any good party, there were people who weren’t quite willing to leave yet. Marley and Joey had taken up spots at the bar, inventing new drinks for the partygoers to enjoy.
Starting with Dakota’s three million dollars in seed money, they had raised an additional ten million that night. All of it was to go to Echo Lane to rebuild parks and playgrounds, to fix the broken lights and the potholes, to revitalize the schools. It would be a long and difficult road, but Dakota Kane was young and eager for a challenge. She had seen Echo Lane and she wasn’t scared of it anymore. It was like any abandoned thing. It would only need to tiniest bit of love to become something beautiful.
Adam Mendel let out a sigh as he loosened his tie and took a sip from his drink looking up at the stars above them. “Why do I have to wear a tuxedo to these things? I think your attendance would go up if you let people come in jeans and sneakers.”
“Yes, but then it wouldn’t be a black tie affair,” she said, taking his hand and leaning on him as they walked towards the gazebo in the back of the lawn. Flowers, lilies, and irises, her late mother’s favorites and Dakota’s favorites surrounded the gazebo.
Adam looked at Dakota and was, as always, mesmerized by her. Her pale skin and dark hair shone in the moonlight. He had seen her dressed up, dressed down, and dressed in nothing at all, but none of them compared to Dakota in the moonlight.
“Dakota,” he said, turning to her. “I can’t wait any longer.”
Dakota turned to him, confused. What was he waiting for? What did he need to do? She worried it was something for the club, something that would take him far away from her.
And then, on the grass with her dress brushing against the freshly bloomed irises, Dakota Kane watched as Adam Mendel dropped to one knee and pulled a small box from his breast pocket. Dakota gasped, and felt herself go lightheaded.
“Dakota Kane,” Adam said. “I love you and I will always love you. Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” Dakota said, breathlessly. Unsure that she had said it out loud, she repeated herself, “Yes, yes, oh my God, yes!”
Adam laughed and stood, scooping Dakota up in his arms and swinging her in a circle, before he put her feet back on earth.
“Can people come to the wedding in jeans and sneakers?” he asked her as he slipped the ring onto her finger.
“I’ll think about it,” Dakota said as she turned her face up, her lips found his and they kissed as fireworks celebrating the end of the benefit exploded all around them.
THE END
Read on for your FREE bonus book – SECRET BABY AT THE ALTAR
SECRET BABY AT THE ALTAR: Blood Brothers MC
By Claire St. Rose
WE GOT AWAY FROM HIM ONCE. THIS TIME, WE WON’T BE SO LUCKY.
Because my baby’s father is back to claim what’s his:
Us.
Five years in prison is enough to change anybody.
And Kane has certainly changed.
He’s darker than he was before.
Bigger.
Scarier.
But the hunger that drove him to take me in the first place… that hasn’t changed one bit.
He took the fall for me when I needed it.
But now that he’s returned, he wants to take back everything he once owned.
That includes me.
And once he finds out about our baby…
He’s going to drag me to the altar so I can never escape again.
The sickest part of it all is…
That I’m helpless to say no.
CHAPTER ONE
It was morning, and it had been a long time coming.
Kane Peters took possession of his meager belongings, the suit from his trial, the penknife that could have served him well on the inside, and her photograph. The image got him through the darker nights.
None so dark as the first.
***
Kane was cornered in the shower. He had told himself that he had nothing to fear; nothing was too much too handle. But forms that surpassed even his great height threatened to rip him wide open for another man’s crimes. Rumor had spread through the showers that a baby rapist had recently arrived. Soap fell off the shoulders of men who had killed in the name of money and honor. But to hurt a child? That broke code and would be dealt with accordingly.
Kane held his ground in the wake of their menacing eyes.
“I’m a Blood Brother,” he stated simply.
“What the fuck is that?” the biggest guy barked.
Glancing at the ink on his arms, Kane thought of the days in which that mark had been enough to keep him from all harm. He was the one that men feared when other gangs tried to challenge him in the space of a fast food counter or on the cusp of a knife fight. He could take them down with a glance and head back to his crew, needing nothing more than Noel at his side and the roar of the bike between his legs. Nothing more than that.
“Look, buddy,” Kane started. “You better—”
He was driven into the tiles, and he couldn’t stop the force of the foot that spread his legs apart until he was splayed on the ground. It was a bitch move, but Kane tried to scream. He couldn’t make a sound, and as he steeled himself for the attack, Kane drifted towards a memory.
***
Angeline.
***
Her face was all pale angles below wild brown curls. When he first met her, by chance as she spent her day off ministering to the lowest corner of Frisco, Kane was nursing a sprained wrist. Normally he’d ice it down and wait it out, but after two days, the pain still raging and forced him to swallow his pride. Gritting his teeth, he fell into the feel of her hand, and she smiled when he winced.
“Relax,” she said. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”
In her pink scrubs, she danced her fingers up his arm and back again. Stopping at his tender wrist, Kane sighed.
“I get that,” he said. “Think you can help me out… nurse?”
She smiled brightly and cocked her head to the side.
“Leave it to me,” she said. “Here.”
Reaching into a tiny fridge, she produced an ice pack.
“Hold this close,” the nurse said. Kane grudgingly brought the icy gel to his wrist and watched her move around the small exam room. She was a frenzy of quick starts and stops, her head constantly poking through the door to ask if anyone else needed her help. Her pace impressed him, and when she turned her gaze back to his, her eyes brimming with concern, Kane touched her with his good hand. His fingers curled around her neck. She gently closed her eyes, and Kane felt her flesh, warm and wanting. She seemed to forget herself. Closing her eyes, she sighed into him, and when she lifted her lids, there was nothing but two too-wide eyes, bright green.
“Look, mister I have to—”
He kept her close when she tried to pull away. He had to know more.
“You got a name?” he asked.
Again she tried to leave his hold, but before she could move, Kane forgot his injury and brought her pale face closer to his.
“What are you doing?” she whispered. Kane felt her body tense, but her eyes were anything but.
“Relax, honey,” Kane said as he grazed his fingers against her cheek. “Just trying to be friendly.”
The nurse began to protest, but then she paused as she seemed to realize that he wasn’t the type to give up without getting everything he wanted.
“Angeline,” she murmured. “Okay?”
She tried to turn her attention back to his injured wrist when he brought his good hand behind her back. Taking her curls between his fingers, Kane knew that he wanted to know more about her. And there was no way that she would ever be able to turn him down.
“What about you?” she asked.
No way at all.
“Who, me?” he asked, a confident smile crossing his face.
“Can’t I be friendly, too?” she challenged with a smirk.
Just as he had expected.
“I’m Kane.”
“How’d you hurt your hand, Kane?” Angeline asked.
He massaged his wrist as his eyes went dark.
“Price of doing business,” he said. “It happens.”
It might scare her some, but soon he’d get her alone and show her everything he could do, even with a bad hand.
But there was no fear in her eyes. If anything, Angeline was curious.
“And what business is that?” Angeline asked.
He’d show her soon enough, but first things first.
“You got dinner plans?” he asked.
Angeline blushed, but she didn’t fall away from him.
“And what if I say yes?” she teased
Pressing his palm into her, Kane’s eyes narrowed and he laughed.
“Cancel ‘em,” he said. “You just got a better offer.”
She hesitated for all of a second before smiling.
“Looks like,” she said.
***
“Scum!”
He was back in the prison showers, shaking his head, trying to scream through a tattered wash cloth. As he fought, more and more men surrounded him. Out of the corner his eye, Kane saw them working their hands around their cocks. Being a Blood Brother counted for nothing. He had taken beatings before. When he was a kid. The trick was always to focus on something else.
***
“I cancelled my imaginary plans for this?”
So it wasn’t the Ritz. Diner grub was good enough for him, and this was just the first course. Dessert would be more to her liking.
“Hey, at least you don’t have to cook,” he said as he casually pulled a smoke from his pack. Lighting the butt, smoke spilled above her head. She looked good through the haze, and he started to speak when a cracked out waitress drifted towards their table.
“Not in here,” she said, her eyes dazed as she moved past them in her own fog. Kane took another drag before starting to stamp the cigarette out. Angeline folded her arms across her chest.
“You know that’s bad for your health?” she prompted.
“Seriously?” he said in a mocking voice. “No one has ever told me that.”
Here it came. The lecture. He’d let her talk for a few seconds. But no more. He wanted to hear other sounds pouring out of her mouth.
“Well, it is,” she said.
The flame was almost dead when she reached across the table. Taking his hand, she brought the crumpled cigarette to her lips, exhaled like a pro, then snuffed it out against her saucer.
“But some habits are hard to break I guess,” she said.
Her eyes sparkled as she scanned her menu. Leaning back, Kane knew that he liked her, and he
was glad that that some punk had twisted his wrist to the point where it now was.
***
Now his arm was wrenched back again, and his soapy form was about to be ripped in two. As the tip of a strange cock started to work its way inside his ass, Kane forced his mind back to Angeline.
***
His apartment was cluttered, but she didn’t seem to mind. Brushing a pile of dirty clothes aside, she sat on the couch as he cracked open the fridge and pulled out a beer.
“You want one?” he asked.
HANDS OFF MY BRIDE Page 24
