by Violet Blaze
“Listen, Agent Shelley, the Wolves have never been friends with Mile Wide. You should know that.”
“Right. There was a shooting between your two clubs about ten years ago. Three innocent bystanders were shot and killed.”
“Their bullets, not ours,” I say, vaguely recalling a dark patch in the club's history. I was young, still a hang-around, not in on the secrets of club business. What Agent Shelley's referring to is the time Clayton sent his boys up here to deal under Bill's nose, how he got them all killed.
“But you knew Mile Wide might be trying to establish a foothold in Trinidad? Isn't that against club protocol, Mr. McBride?”
“You seem to know a lot about motorcycle clubs, Miss Shelley.”
“Special Agent Shelley, please,” she says as I let a slow, easy smile simmer across my face. Fuck. We need to get rid of this woman and quick. And her partner? The man doesn't talk, sits there stoic and silent. I don't like him either.
“Special Agent Shelley,” I say, with just a breath of sarcasm, “if you're looking to the Alpha Wolves for the answers to your questions, you're looking in the wrong place. That's all I can tell you.”
The woman sits back, her shaved head and careful makeup giving her an edgier look than I'd expect from an FBI agent. Freaks me the hell out. Edgy. Means she thinks outside the box a little. I blink back at her and watch as she changes the subject with a seamless segue.
“Now, Sully,” the woman says, and I detect a hint of flirtation in her voice, “you were telling us about your tennis game. I don't mean to brag, but I play some mean tennis.”
Lyric and I exchange a look, a wordless word.
Fuck.
Pretty sure that's what's going through both our minds.
Dinner is … well, it's bloody awful.
The dining room is a stuffy, wood paneled room that I'd normally like, but which is covered in pictures of Jesus and lace doilies. Lyric's mother's style, apparently. It's also her style it seems to sit me as far away from her daughter as possible. There's a moment there where I almost mention our engagement, but manage to bite back the words. The only person that would hurt is Lyric.
Conversation is normal, if not a little stilted, while the agents are there. When they leave, looks like it's gloves off. I didn't manage to pull their attention before we sat down, probably a tactic that Agent Shelley planned in advance. Calculating little twat.
“So, what exactly did you tell the agents about your attack, Sully?” Lyric snaps the second the front door is closed and locked behind them. We're sitting around the dinner table eating treacle tarts. It's goddamn stifling in here, exactly as Lyric promised it would be.
“I told them I was attacked by Mile Wide. Isn't that what you wanted?” her brother snaps at her, slamming his fork down on the table. Lyric's sister, that blonde, Kailey, sits silently next to her mother, making a face like a startled Barbie. I cannot wait to get the fuck out of here.
“I …” Lyric pauses and sucks in a deep breath. “You know exactly what you were supposed to do, Sully.”
“That is enough, Lyric,” her mother snaps as she tosses her cloth napkin onto her plate. “Let your father and brother handle this.” Several glances swing my way, all of them hostile as hell.
“Whatever you need to talk about, you talk about in front of him,” Lyric snaps as I try my best not to smile. I imagine that'd only make things worse.
“I'm not going to discuss family business in front of this … in front …”
“In front of your outlaw gangster lover,” Sully mumbles, and I clench my fists tight under the table. First chance I get alone with this motherfucker, and I'm going to beat his arse.
“This is—I'm sorry—but your relationship is inappropriate,” Lyric's mother snips as Kailey makes a strange noise in the back of her throat. “I think you both understand that'd be best to end this before things get out of control. You can't just fall into … a fling like this and expect things to work out.”
“It wasn't like we were screwing ab initio,” Lyric says, and I can't help but grin. “We like each other.”
“Why is he even here?” Philip asks, giving me a scathing glance as he curls his lip in distaste. “I'm sorry, but I wasn't aware he was invited.”
“He's here,” Lyric starts, looking over at me. Still, I don't talk. Why bother? This is her club, her chapel, her chance to talk. “Because he's the only thing keeping the rest of us alive and safe.”
Sully snorts.
“Do you think the cartel would've put you in the hospital?” she asks and then a little more quietly. “Or take care of the men that broke into Kailey's house last week?”
“I knew it!” her sister squeals, falling silent as both her parents turn their gazes her way. “I knew it.”
“Sully and Brent set this all in motion, brought this attention up here. And now they have to pay for it. You have to tell the FBI the truth, Sully. It's the only way to keep us all safe. The Wolves aren't going to babysit you forever.”
“Your brother has nothing more to say to the FBI,” Philip snaps, pointing his finger at her like she's a petulant child. That's about the edge of my patience.
“Listen, Mr. Mayor,” I say, leaning forward with a creak of my chair. “But your daughter is the linchpin here, the one keeping the grenade that's stuffed up your arse from exploding. The Saldaña Cartel is moving their business to your city and with the help of your son, they've got a foothold with Mile Wide. Now that the little prat's betrayed them, he's made an enemy of a group that cuts off the heads of police chiefs for fun. They won't hesitate to get rid of your entire family.”
I stand up for emphasis, towering over the table like a monster in that neat and orderly little room.
“Now, I can wait around and watch to see if either Mile Wide or the Saldañas get rid of you. That man from the hospital, he's still in town.” It's a bluff; I don't know for shit whether or not Clint Woodrow is in town, but why not use him to my advantage? “Or, I can make sure that doesn't happen.” I lean over and curl my hands around the edge of the table. “If you agree to speak with the FBI, give them the story that Lyric advised you on—what's essentially the bloody truth—then I'll put a security detail on your house until this shit is taken care of. Take your pick.”
“Oh,” Lyric says suddenly, before any of her family gets a chance to speak up. She gets up and moves over to stand next to me. Before I even realize what she's doing, she's reaching inside my cut and unzipping the inner pocket. She pulls out the ring I gave her and slams it onto my empty dinner plate. “And Royal and I are getting married.”
Big smile.
“Guess you'd better start getting used to calling this outlaw son.”
“I cannot believe I just did that,” Lyric says, sitting on the edge of my bed with the dogs at her feet and absolutely zero blood left in her face. She's white as a fucking ghost. “I can't believe I said that—to my mother.” Those big, green eyes flick up to my face. “Did she pass out? I walked out of there so quick I couldn't see. She passed out, didn't she?”
“She threw her treacle tart at my face, yeah, but she didn't faint.”
Lyric threads her fingers through her hair, but I notice her gaze drops to my bare chest and sticks there. I lean in the doorway to the bathroom and brush my teeth as I watch her.
“This is … at least they'll keep it to themselves,” she whispers, sliding off the edge of the bed to put her arms around Lake's neck. The wolf pushes her body against Lyric's and then flops onto her side, tail wagging furiously. Not all that bloody dignified for a wild beast, is she? “And it's not like I have any fucking friends to tell.”
I turn around and spit into the sink, rinsing my mouth with a handful of water before I head back into the bedroom and pause in front of Lyric with my arms crossed over my chest. Alloy licks my ankles in a plea for attention.
“You want friends?” I ask with a grin, enjoying the pretty picture Lyric makes on my floor, her skin creamy and luscious ag
ainst the royal blue of the sheets as she leans against the bed. “The club's got built-in friends. You've got that shopping trip with the girls tomorrow?”
A sigh as Lyric lays on her side, the shirt she borrowed from me sliding up her body and revealing that crazy sexy thong/skirt combo. Sex with this woman six, seven, eight times a day sounds about right. Anything less would be criminal.
“You're right, you know that? I have zero girlfriends. The closest thing I ever had was Toni Gladstone and she moved.” A long pause as Lyric sits up, dark hair sliding across her face. “Did you have sex with Toni?”
“Toni?” I ask. “Who the fuck is that?”
“Never mind,” Lyric says, waving her hand. “I don't want to know.”
I kneel in front of her, noticing the way her eyes admire the bunching of my stomach muscles.
“If you didn't want to know, you wouldn't have asked.”
Lyric scoots away from me and crawls onto the bed, the dogs jumping up after her and rubbing their bodies along hers.
“The previous deputy mayor, the woman who tried to make that bullshit agreement with the Wolves, the one so preposterous there was no way in hell you'd ever sign it.”
“Ah,” I say, a faint memory flickering at the edges of my brain as I stand up. “No, I didn't shag her. It was Mug, I think.”
“Mug?!” Lyric says, sitting up suddenly and leaning forward to stare at me. “No. No, she clearly said it was you.”
“Happens all the time,” I say and she raises her eyebrows at me as I lean onto the end of the bed. “Mug's not exactly … known for his looks. You know where he got his nickname, right?”
“Enlighten me.”
“Ugliest damn mug you ever did see, yeah? I clearly remember seeing him take Toni up to a dorm room, and I would not lie about that shite.”
Lyric breathes out a sigh of relief and scoots up into the pillows, making me smile.
“So,” I ask casually as I flick the lights off and try not to worry about tomorrow, about the club's vote on the cartel. It's time to decide what action we're going to take. If Sully doesn't get back to me before then, we'll assume he's a casualty of war and move forward. “Are you nervous about that shopping trip? I hear the first time hurts a little.”
Lyric chuckles as I climb into bed beside her and pull her tiny body against mine in a perfect spoon. Oh yes. Best way to shag, this is. Because of our height differences, this is the ideal position. I feel myself getting hard, my cock pressing tight against the inside of my sweats. Lyric feels it, too, wiggling her ass against me and making me groan.
“I can handle Janae,” she says, “but I'd rather not just handle her. I want this to work, Royal. Me and you. Even if being mayor is as far as I get, I can make that be okay. I can be a lawyer and we … this is what I want.” I sigh as I pull our bodies tighter together, kissing down the side of her neck.
“Most romantic shit I've ever heard,” I growl against her ear, making her shiver. We both pause when her mobile buzzes. “Fuck. It might be that twatwaffle; you better answer it.” With a sigh, I reluctantly let Lyric go, watching her curvy body scoot to the side of the bed so she can grab the phone.
After a long minute, she looks over her shoulder at me, her face aglow in the light from the screen.
“Sully says he'll do it. Hopefully, this time he's actually telling the truth. I swear to God, if I have to do spend one more day worrying about this …” A pause, a small smile. “Oh, and he says he caught my mom polishing my father's shotgun. You'd best prepare yourself for the Rentzes, Mr. McBride.”
The next morning, I am sexed up and dressed up, ready to deal with Kailey and my father at the office. It isn't going to be a pleasant experience, that's for sure, but since when has it ever been? I pack up my laptop and check my hair in the mirror. I think I'm finally getting the hang of this flat ironing thing. Right now, I look shiny and professional and prepared.
Royal gives me a passionate kiss on the porch, his hands gripping the ass of my red pencil skirt before I manage to pull away from him, sweating and blushing and moving down the steps with a wave toward Sketch on his bike.
When I finally get to the office, my father meets me at the front door.
Not a good sign.
“Upstairs, please,” he grinds out through clenched teeth. I raise my brows at him as he takes in my outfit and shoes—an amazing pair of suede boots that I dug out from the back of my closet before I moved in (sort of) with Royal—and follow him inside. Kailey watches us pass and shakes her head at me, like she's disappointed. Well, screw her. She's in love with Mr. On-Again, Off-Again, some yoga instructor from Arcata, and she's so scared of our parents that she won't admit that to herself.
I realize as I start up the staircase that I'm still wearing Royal's ring. If I take it off now, it'd feel like I'm giving in. If I don't … if I don't, then I'm committing to this. Didn't I say I wanted to take things slow? Wasn't that me? Didn't I say I needed time?
As I near the top of the stairs and catch sight of my father's staff, I realize … that I don't give a shit. So I keep the ring on my finger and stride forward and guess what? The world doesn't end. In fact, nobody even notices. Maybe this thing that I thought was such a big deal … isn't.
I love Royal.
I take another breath and step into the office, closing the door behind me.
“Your brother,” he begins as he glares daggers at me. “Has informed me this morning that he wants to speak with the FBI. Again. I hope you know what this could mean for us, for our family, our careers.” A pause, a harsh laugh that tears from his throat like gravel. “Although you don't seem to give a shit about that considering,” a rude wave at my left hand, “that. With that man for a husband, you can kiss your future good-bye.”
“Royal is my future,” I tell him and watch as he shakes his head at me. “I'm not going to spend every single second of my life giving a crap what everyone else thinks, what everyone else wants. Newsflash: I've been that girl my entire life and guess what? It didn't make me happy.”
“So you need a man to make you happy? That's not the daughter that I raised, Lyric.”
No, you raised a personal slave, a yes-woman to follow you around and do what needed to be done. But I don't say that. I close my eyes, count to ten, open them again.
“Dad, I don't need a man to make me happy. I don't need anyone but me and my own strength, don't need to do anything but trust my own judgment. And you know what all those things are saying to me? They're saying I love Royal, and I want to be with him, and you know what? Maybe I can't be a part of congress or run for president someday, but you know what I can do? I can use this degree I earned, the degree that's rotting in my back pocket like old fruit. I can take it and I can be something and I can love the person I want to love without trying to justify it or hide it or pretend it isn't real.”
Deep breath. Long breath. I stare at my dad and hope he'll give me something, anything, some inkling of approval. But he doesn't, and in that moment, I realize that maybe he never will. He never will and that is okay.
I don't need his approval or anybody else's.
“When Sully speaks with the FBI, he'll give them the truth.”
“Except for the fact that it was your fiancé that beat him with a hammer.” My dad's calmed down now, his blue eyes seeming gray in the wane light of his office, like gravel, like fog, like gravestones. I shiver.
“It's the price Sully had to pay for his greed. I don't agree with it, but I also know what happened to Sully was a blessing compared to what could've happened to him, what actually happened to Brent. This doesn't have to change the world, Dad. Sometimes, it feels like every little decision we make will, but that's not true. Sometimes, life is just life and it simply is, nothing more.”
“Email the editor at the Times-Standard and see if that proof for our article about the Wolves is ready. I'd like to read it before it goes to print.”
I stare back at him and all I really want to do is flip
him off. I make myself nod instead, turn and leave the office.
Either he'll come to accept Royal and me or … he'll fire me and never speak to me again.
I feel a sense of peace realizing I can't do anything else at this point to change that. My dad has to make that decision on his own.
Hope he makes the right one.
I can do this, I tell myself as I comb my fingers through my hair and run my hands down the front of the Wolf Cycle Service and Repair tank top I'm wearing. And before you ask, yes, the club has those. Sells 'em in the café, too. Nobody ever said Royal McBride wasn't a brilliant business man. Hopefully his sense of fashion works in my favor here also. He was the one that picked out the black cotton tank, the jeans, encouraged me to wear the riding boots he got me.
Before I let myself get too worked up about this, I climb out. Once again, politics. And this can't get nearly as brutal as that awful dinner, right? I refuse to think about last night or my awkward day at work, the way my dad's eyes burned into me every time he strode by my desk. Couldn't have helped that Sully had mom bring him by the office, so he could spend an hour in private with Philip. When they came out, tempers were flaring. Sully said he'd called Heather Shelley and set up an appointment for tomorrow. Please let that go the way I think it will.
I shrug my purse and the cluster of reusable bags stuffed into it, up my shoulder as I make my way across the glossy surface of the wet pavement toward the front door of Sea Salt, one of a few new local grocers that have popped up to take advantage of Trinidad's population boom.
Inside the wall of windows on the front of the store, I can already spot Janae, standing with Glinda and Fauna next to the bistro tables that are lined in front of the glass. There's a small café inside that serves local seafood for lunch and fresh coffee in the mornings—although admittedly the mochas aren't nearly as good as the ones at the compound.
“Evening,” I say as I move inside and wish Serenity was here, or one of the other ladies that seemed a little less … hostile towards me. Oh well. I guess these three are the mean girls of the compound. Make nice with them and everybody else will follow. “Thanks so much for inviting me.”
