by A. J. Downey
“We decided to bring her out and have a fucking chat, Dragon’s orders,” he said.
“You got a fucking hellcat there,” Trig observed, “Dragon pretty much matched up everything that came out of her mouth with what you told us about her and she gave every one of us a fucking what-for over you getting shot. Put it together rather neatly for us. Dragon’s out there with Archer, Rush, and Nox, living up to his name. He’s fucking livid, man. They went OFP in a big fucking way and that’s what compromised you. We’re sorry, Dude. We thought we could trust them to believe in the brotherhood, to follow the plan, but they just had revenge on the brain and fuck everybody else.” Trig looked heartily sorry.
“They’ll be lucky if their patches aren’t pulled,” Dray added.
“Don’t do that,” her voice was gentle from the doorway. She looked like some tiny, fragile, china doll; hair dripping, making darker patches on the gray tee shirt of mine she had on. I know these guys all had women that they were mad for but it didn’t make me feel any better. The tee she had on didn’t cover near enough for my tastes, barely skimming the tops of her thighs beyond where would be considered indecent. Reaver stood behind her, a hand gently on her shoulder, and I didn’t like that either. She gripped the knife he’d given her in one of her hands, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
“Why not?” Trigger asked, eyeing her speculatively.
“I just don’t think it needs to go that far,” she said evasively. But I could see her fear.
“Come here,” I patted the side of the bed that was vacant and she hesitated. Reaver took his hand off her shoulder, belatedly realizing that it was what was stopping her, which made him really frown. He came around and, with his right arm drawn against his ribs, he used his left to pull back the blankets for her. She got into bed and swallowed hard.
“Relax, Dani, these guys aren’t here for a show,” I said softly. I pulled her into my side where she belonged and pressed her head into my uninjured shoulder. She was careful where she put her arms so she wouldn’t hurt me but I didn’t care. I just wanted her close to me. My smart and clever and ridiculously brave girl.
“You’re cool, Sweetheart. You can take what Trig - hell what any of us - asks you at face value,” Reaver said, and helped himself to sit on the foot of the bed.
“They hate me,” she said bravely, “At least Archer does. Nox and Rush, I think they follow him. If you take their patches, they’ll blame me. Come after me… I don’t know what they did to Ace and Deuce but it was bad for Skid to get that drunk that early in the day.” She swallowed hard. “Please, don’t make me a target. I don’t know who the one Ace and Deuce ran off the road was to them, but he had to have been important to them.”
Trig sat back in his chair and Dray looked thoughtful. “You got all that from where?” he asked. I kissed the top of her head and couldn’t suppress the proud smile on my face.
“Smart girl,” I said. She shook her head.
“If I were half so smart, I would have left a long time ago,” she murmured.
“Nah, you just needed the stars to align and give you the right motivation and a place to run to,” I said. She closed her eyes and sighed.
“Come on, let’s leave these two alone,” Doc called from the door. Trig, Reave, and Dray left, my VP and SAA taking their chairs and shutting the door behind them. Dani and I were alone.
“You okay?” I asked her, and she trembled against me.
“You know, I don’t know. I want to say I’m not, but with you holding me like this… I am. It’s so confusing. I just, who are you?” she asked.
“You comfortable?” I asked softly and she nodded against my chest. “Okay, then close your eyes, I’ll tell you a bedtime story.” She huffed a broken laugh that held bitterness at its edges.
“Fairy tales aren’t real, Thirteen. If you lose a shoe at midnight you aren’t a princess, you’re drunk.” I laughed and pain seized up my chest and ribs, like the entire cavity had filled with shards of broken glass. Doc had told me that with the shot to my center chest plate and with how close Gordy was, that I’d been damned lucky the blow hadn’t stopped my heart. I closed my eyes and breathed Dani in. She smelled fresh and clean, with that subtle hint of fruit and musk that was whatever soap she used.
“You smell like you,” I murmured.
“They went through my car. My stuff was waiting in the bathroom for me.” I could hear the frown in her voice and I fought not to laugh again, instead concentrating on telling her what she wanted to know.
“My name really is Chris, my last name is Welker, and I was born here in the state,” I started. “Family life was good but not great, went to high school, didn’t graduate, went to trade school, got my GED and picked up welding. Moved to Tennessee for work, started working as a deck hand on a river boat. One month on, one month off.” I sighed, “One of the crew was a Sacred Heart man and introduced me to the life when I was twenty. I took to it like a fish to water.”
“Joined up with the chapter out of Memphis, my bike was my dad’s and I restored it when I was seventeen and found it rusting in our barn. Got tired of the boat, had made plenty of money, got tired of the bullshit and petty back stabbing going on in my club, and so I went nomad. When D. put out the call that the mother chapter needed some help, I figured it was time to come home. Was here all of a couple of weeks before your boys blew up Trig and Rev’s business. D. took me aside since I hadn’t been around much, asked me if I’d be willing to infiltrate The Suicide Kings. I’d done it before for the Tennessee chapter and said sure, that’d I’d give it my best shot. Never thought it would be so easy and never in my wildest dreams thought that it would find me you.” I lay staring at the ceiling as the room started to grow light with the coming dawn through the high window. I thought she’d fallen asleep, but then she spoke.
“So other than the whole, belonging to a rival club thing, you never lied?” she asked softly.
“Not to you, not ever,” I promised. She nodded against my shoulder.
“Chris?” she asked gently when enough time had gone by. The sound of my name, tremulous and softly spoken from her lips, both aroused me and put me into a perfect state of peace.
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you something?” I smiled.
“You can ask me anything, Dani.”
“How do you feel about me?” she asked, and I could hear her swallow. This was important and not the time for me to question anything, or buck up and try to seem cool, or to overthink shit, either. She needed the truth and so I gave it to her.
“I think you’re amazing. I think you’re smart and kind and incredibly brave. I think you’re beautiful, I’m finding that you’re funny, and I think it’s a combination of all of those things that first attracted me to you, but it’s the fact that you are so damned willing to try and to trust no matter how many times those assholes gave you a reason never to do any of those things again… I think it’s that, that makes me love you.” I said, and kissed her hair. She sniffed and trembled slightly at my side.
“You really think those things?” she asked, and I could hear the waver in her voice.
“Yeah Dani, I do.”
She was just so damaged and yet, even when I found her at her worst, so sick and knocking at Death’s front door, she fought not to be. To choose her own way. Dani had a will under there as strong as iron and yeah, I think I could safely say I was in love with her.
She could have just gone. She could have made her escape and put the Suicide Kings and the Sacred Hearts and their stupid war firmly in her rearview, but she didn’t. She’d stayed and followed me into the lion’s den, stood by, waited for an opportunity and seized it. Saving my life, saving her own life, and standing up to every damned one of them in the process. That was sexy as hell.
“Why didn’t you just leave, Baby? Why did you put yourself in danger for me? Why did you follow us? You could have been caught! If Flyer and Pipes had seen you when you passed us,” she gasped, a
sharp exclamation of sound.
“You saw me?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said grimly, leaving off that it had scared the shit out of me.
“Just… why?” I asked.
“Because you saved me, and you were gentle and kind even when it could have gotten you in trouble. Because you treated me like I was worth something. And because of all those things, I just… I needed to save you back. I owed you at least that much, and because I’m in love with you too,” she murmured. I sighed out, content.
“Promise you’ll stay with me, that we’ll figure this out. It’s gonna take time, so to start with, just promise you’ll be here when I wake up,” I murmured.
“I can do that, I promise,” she murmured softly in return.
“Okay, good.”
We both drifted in each other’s arms, I needed to heal and so did she. Me physically, her emotionally; I think we both had a better shot of doing it together and as much as I didn’t want to be anything like that asshole, Pig-Pen, I couldn’t deny to myself or my brothers that Dani Broussard was mine. My woman, with all the weight and responsibility that carried.
Right now I had her, right now I could hold her and as soon as I was able, I was going to make sure that she was mine by blowing a hole in every single one of those fuckers. Whether it be by my hand, or one of my brothers’, it didn’t matter. Every last one of them was going to die, starting with every one of them that I had ever seen touch her. Together Dani and I made a whole, and where she hadn’t been strong enough to punch or kick or knock a motherfucker out for laying a hand on her, I had no such problem doing so. And I was going to make damned sure that when I did it to them, that I was operating as her hands and from her heart to theirs. You reap what you sow, and they were about to reap three years and more of pain all at once.
Chapter 16
Dani…
“Kiss me before you go?” Thirteen asked. I smiled and went to his bedside. Leaning down, I placed my lips gently against his. His hand cupped the side of my face, his thumb gently edging my cheekbone, and peace settled into my heart. I straightened reluctantly and smiled a bit wanly.
The Sacred Hearts wanted to speak to me again and had sent Reaver and Blue to fetch me. I was dressed in my own clothes, which had been brought in from my car along with just about everything else in it, which made me feel marginally better. I was comfortable in jeans and a long-sleeved black top that fit me like a second skin. It was simple in the front, a scooped neckline and plain, but the back plunged low and I loved the feel of the sweep of my waist-long hair against my skin.
I couldn’t wear a bra with this particular top but that was alright. While I wasn’t ungifted in the bust, I wasn’t small-breasted, either. Just one of those women genetically lucky enough that wearing a bra wasn’t mandatory all of the time. I walked with Reaver and Blue out to the common room. Blue kept giving me these sidelong looks to check and see if I was okay, and I suppressed a smile.
“I’m fine, thank you,” I murmured and Reaver raised an eyebrow.
“You talking to yourself?” he asked.
“No, Blue asked,” I said quietly. Reaver looked at me as if I was crazy.
“They sent you,” I stopped at his look and amended what I was saying, “No, you volunteered to come get me because you want me to like you. You work very hard at being liked and it bothers you when you aren’t trying to be scary and someone is scared of you. It makes you feel bad. Blue came because he didn’t like what was happening to me, he genuinely feels bad about it and wants me to feel safe. Am I right?” I asked quietly. I’d stopped in the archway and Reaver was looking at me in a new light. Blue was smiling.
“Smart and perceptive,” Blue said and I looked at him. He smiled a secret little smile, and went to the table and pulled out a chair for me.
“Living with them, you have to be perceptive,” I took the seat, acutely aware that I was further down the table and on its opposite side this time, and closer to Archer, Rush and Nox. I bit my lips together and tried very hard not to look at them, focusing instead on their Sergeant-at-Arms. He was huge. Tall, blonde, and broad of shoulder, with silvery blue eyes, and as Nordic as they came.
“How’s that?” he asked.
I told them about Pig’s moods and about how it was commonplace to be roughed up or slapped around for simple mistakes, “They started calling me Coon a few months into my being…” I struggled for the right words and came up empty, settling with, “…being with them. They thought it was cute, on account of just about always having two black eyes.” Stormy looks were exchanged.
“We found this in the door of your car, and this in your purse. We can’t figure it.” Dragon said after a long pause in the conversation. Reaver set down my bottle of perfume and the Crown Royal bag.
“It’s, um, it’s how I kept myself valuable to Pig when he started to get bored with me. My grandfather was a Frenchman and a custom jewelry maker. When the people who bought their drugs from the Suicide Kings on the street started bringing them jewelry, most of it stolen, Sparks got pissed. I told Pig I could melt it down, refashion it into things more valuable that they could pawn without a trace or sell online to turn their profit.” The table was quiet and I felt the need to fill the silence.
“I know it was wrong but it was mine, you know? I didn’t want to die. They left me alone for the most part, to create new things, and they couldn’t hurt me too badly anymore. At least when Sparks was alive… If they broke my arm or my fingers, I couldn’t work, and Sparks would be pissed. I was stupid for thinking they might stop beating on me altogether. That if I was more valuable to their bottom line, that maybe…” I turned my face so I wouldn’t have to see some of the more pitying looks.
“This something you like to do, Darlin’?” Dragon asked from the head of the table. I sniffed and nodded weakly.
“I miss my grand-père. I had to leave all my tools in my apartment and my workshop downstairs there. I thought I could take this stuff when I ran, that I could pay Thirteen back somehow and if he didn’t… if we… I thought I could use it to start over somewhere.” The men exchanged some looks and a silent decision was made.
“How heavy and how much of this shit is there?” Dray asked. I told him about everything that I had for my grandfather’s trade and what it required.
“Do you want me to do for you what I did for them?” I asked finally. Dragon started laughing and so did some of the other guys.
“Darlin’ all our business is legit, we don’t have any need for you to flip stolen jewelry. None at all. I think we’re all thinkin’ the same thing, though. If we go out with you and get these tools and supplies and bring it back here to store it where those fuckers can’t sell it or do whatever, would that earn us some trust and maybe a smile or two out of you?” I stared at him open-mouthed.
“You’d do that for me?”
Archer cleared his throat, “No. We would... consider it our apology,” he said, and I dared to look at him. Rush and Nox were nodding their agreement and I found myself nodding as well.
“Okay, um, yes.” I nodded.
“Rev and Data should be back any time now. We’ll wait for them and go to it. Might as well spend some time with R.T. and get something to eat while we wait,” Dragon said. I nodded. I couldn’t really remember the last time I ate but with everything happening the way it’d been and my stomach all in knots, I wasn’t exactly hungry.
“I’ll throw a couple or ten frozen lasagnas in the oven,” the tall, slender tattooed man who had followed Doc’s barking orders the night before got up and went through a doorway behind the bar.
I got up and stood patiently as the guys started milling and talking before Trigger noticed me just standing there.
“You okay?” he called down the table.
“Um, don’t I need an escort or something?” I asked.
“Honey, you’re not a prisoner here,” Dragon said.
“Do you know your way back?” Trigger asked. I nodded.
“Well go on, then.”
Dragon smiled and as I turned I heard Trigger sigh and utter, “This would be so much easier if Sunshine were here.” There were murmurs and grunts of agreement and I frowned and decided to test the waters a bit.
“Who is that?” I asked, turning back around. Trigger straightened and I held my ground, heart hammering as he came towards me. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned on the home screen, and there was a picture of a beautiful, petite woman with auburn hair as long as my own, her eyes a peculiar golden color, smiling at the camera. I blushed furiously and handed the phone back, and Trigger grinned. She’d been nude and from the perspective, I gathered she’d been on top of him.
“Sorry, we like to be watched,” he said. I felt myself turn a shade or two green and nodded, leaving the men and hurrying back to Thirteen.
“You okay?” he asked as I shut the door behind myself. I turned and nodded.
“I think so,” I said softly. He frowned and held out his hand. I sat on the floor beside his bed and held his hand.
“Talk to me,” he urged gently and I did, easily. I told him about the exchange from the beginning and he smiled that his brothers were going to help me get my stuff. And then I told him about Trigger and Sunshine. His smile collapsed.
“Oh, hey, Sunshine and him are into that sort of thing, but you and me? No way. Never. It’s just you and me behind closed doors. I don’t share and I wouldn’t do that to you.” I nodded and kissed the back of his hand, laying my head on the mattress beside where our fingers were entwined.
“You going with them when they go to get your jeweler’s things?” he asked softly.
“I think I have to, they might miss something important if I don’t.” I swallowed hard.
“You’ll be okay. They’ll protect you, Baby. They know what you mean to me.”
