“It isn’t Lily, although Lily is here too. It’s her friend.”
“A friend of hers is no friend of ours,” Amara muttered in Ukrainian, prompting me to kick her under the table.
“That’s not fair.”
“Nothing about this is fair,” she complained, scowling at me as she reached down and rubbed her shin.
“Tiffany is a therapist. She’s come here to try to talk with you.”
I winced when, out of nowhere, and in a burst of energy that I hadn’t known she was capable of, Tatána leaped off the bed and pulled an honest-to-goodness tantrum.
As she screamed and wailed, her fists banging against the walls like she was an oversized toddler, I winced when her shrieks hurt my ears.
“Apparently, being honest wasn’t the right approach,” Giulia muttered, viewing the spectacle with wide eyes.
Unaffected, Mav snorted as he picked up his spoon and sampled more purple soup. “Ya think?”
Four
Nyx
Blood was on the horizon.
I could almost scent it, and it made the long ride down to Ohio more than worth it.
Especially with my Old Lady at my back, her arms wrapped around my waist, her body curved into mine like she was born to be there.
Only fitting because she was, and she kept on proving it to me. To the rest of my brothers too.
We’d been riding for hours, and she hadn’t bitched once.
Not fucking once.
This was her first long run, but she was taking it like a trooper. I knew her ass had to be killing her, and when we arrived at the bunkhouse, I knew she’d need muscle rub. I had it packed in my saddlebags, because I was well aware how that initial ride felt after nine hours on the back of a hog, and I also remembered the shitty digs where we’d be spending the next few nights.
As I rummaged through the possibilities of more comfortable accommodations, some that included us going to a hotel, I discounted that thought, because we would be returning to our room covered in blood, and that wasn’t something a receptionist needed to see, was it?
Just imagining the screams was enough to make me smirk at the road ahead.
But I’d have to figure out something, because no way in fuck was I sharing one of the grody-ass beds in that damn bunkhouse this chapter had for visitors’ use.
Because this was my fight, my war, I led the way at twelve o’clock instead of Link, our Road Captain. Rex was at ten past, and Link at ten to. Behind, we had Steel and one of Giulia’s brothers, who was riding in a cage in case she couldn’t manage the return journey riding bitch.
Not that I had told her that.
I appreciated my dick staying where it was, thanks.
As fate would have it, though, dawn started to illuminate the road ahead, a few glimmers of light making it easy to spot the sign for our turn off, and since the highway was dead, I sped up, my brothers around me doing the same. The wind whipped at our bodies, and I laughed when Giulia let out a whoop that was audible even over the roar of the engines.
Exhilaration flooded me, knowing that she loved this as much as me. I never thought I’d find someone who got me like she did. Who’d love the same shit as me.
And though it killed me, though the reasons behind it made me want to castrate Lancaster’s corpse, that she wanted to shed blood too?
We were truly soulmates.
If I’d ever doubted it, her energy at that moment affirmed it entirely.
She let out another loud holler, one filled with a joy so pure, you wouldn’t know our reason for driving nine hours straight.
Her effervescence had us speeding up, revving the engines harder as we fed her enthusiasm.
As always, my brothers had my back in this, and my grin grew only wider as we eventually had to slow for the turn off.
When we made it to the clubhouse twenty minutes later, the sudden silence as we killed our engines was enough to make my ears ring.
I pressed my hand to her thigh, rubbed it slightly, and asked, “You doing okay?”
“Hell fucking yeah,” she replied, and she even bounced on the seat, making the hog creak a little.
My lips twitched, and I directed, “Come on then, skippy. Move that sexy ass of yours.”
She did as she was told, climbing off the bike with only a little moan as she cocked her leg high over the seat. When she was off the hog, I raised my arms over my head, yawned, stretched, and then climbed off too.
When I was standing beside my machine, I kicked the stand down, then turned to face her.
One second she was there, the next, she was in my arms, her legs around my hips and her hands linking at the back of my neck.
I grabbed her ass, propped her up, then gave her the kiss she was asking for.
Sinking into her mouth was like going home. It didn’t matter that we were nine hours from the place we lay our heads and called our clubhouse, she was it.
Home.
I never thought it’d happen for me. Never thought it was something I wanted or even merited, but now that I had her?
She was just that perfect amount of fucked up for it to make sense that she was mine.
When she tangled her tongue with mine, thrusting hers back and forth like she was having sex with my mouth, I patted her ass and managed to pull back.
“Note to self, long runs make Giulia horny.”
She clenched her thighs around me. “Fuck, yeah,” she rasped, making me laugh.
“Come on, you two,” Rex said around a yawn. “You’re the only ones stoked to be here.”
I snorted and turned around with her in my arms, not letting her down, because though she’d clearly enjoyed the journey, I knew she had to be exhausted.
“Where are we sleeping?”
“Sorted it out with Butch. You’re staying in his Road Captain’s room.”
Giulia tensed. “I’m not sure what’s worse. That his name is Butch or that I have to worry about how clean the place is.”
I chuckled. “Butch is cool.” Sort of.
“Yeah? Should have picked himself a better road name.”
“Since when do we pick our own road names?” Rex retorted, arching a brow at her.
Her mouth worked at that, then I realized she got the picture because she muttered, “Wait, none of you had any say in it?”
“Nope.”
Link shook his head.
Steel shrugged. “No.”
She eyed me, but I hitched a shoulder too. When the cage with her brother in it rolled up along the driveway, she muttered, “I wonder what he’ll get called.”
“Dick?” Link suggested helpfully.
Hawk wasn’t the most popular person around the clubhouse. His attitude stank, but he was a good brother. Whatever anyone asked of him, he did it and did it well, his face was just sourer than a toothless hag sucking on a lemon.
“Lemon,” I tossed out, making my brothers laugh, because they knew where I was coming from.
“He isn’t always a dick,” Giulia defended, making us snort.
“Had a personality transplant, did he?” Steel rumbled.
“No, Mom died,” she pointed out softly, sadly, and as one, we all grimaced.
Before we could get into more shit, the door to the clubhouse opened and Butch ambled out, yawning as he tugged on his cut.
He strode over to Rex, and the two slapped each other on the back after they shook each other’s hand.
Butch made the rounds, leaving me and Giulia until last. When he shook my hand, he eyed Giulia’s tattoo on her throat, squinting at it before he shook his head.
“Never thought I’d see the day you’d take on snatch permanently.”
With her wrapped in my arms, I felt the instant her body began to vibrate with anger.
She was many things, but slow to rile wasn’t one of them. Before she could bite him, or worse, headbutt him, making me grateful I still had a hold on her, I retorted, “Miracles happen. Giulia meet Butch. Butch, this is Giulia.”
>
He dipped his chin, his lack of interest in her evident.
Stupid dick.
“What’s the story behind your road name?”
My brothers tensed up—I literally felt all our dicks crawl inside our bodies at her tone.
I wasn’t sure why I put up with her crap, but mostly, she amused me, and I got her logic.
At this moment, she was pissed at being labeled as ‘snatch,’ and I didn’t blame her. The trouble was, in our world? That’s what she was. Even though she was my Old Lady, to some of the old fucks like Butch, she was pussy, and brothers always came before pussy.
My brow puckered as I wondered if that was true for me, but when I uneasily recognized that it wasn’t, that if it came down to taking a bullet for Giulia or for my Prez?
It’d kill me, and the guilt, in the aftermath, would destroy me, but I’d save Giulia every fucking time.
Wanting to make amends, but unsure how to make up for not defending her, I didn’t soften things up or smooth them over like I should.
“He pulled a Coyote Ugly on a woman,” a voice called from the door. I turned to it, and saw Peggy, Butch’s Old Lady, standing there in a practically invisible negligee, revealing a body I didn’t need to look at because I’d seen it way too many times to count. Not because I’d fucked her, but because Peggy was an exhibitionist who liked to screw at parties. “The chick’s sister came after him. Massive dyke. Beat the shit out of him. Hence, Butch.”
Giulia hummed. “Because he wasn’t butch enough to take that woman on?”
Peggy beamed at her. “Exactly.”
“You’re not supposed to call lesbians dykes.”
Peggy shrugged. “Political correctness left the building the second you passed through the gate.”
Giulia’s grunt was irritated, but it was quiet enough for only me to hear it.
“You got legs, sugar? Or you going to let our resident King of Darkness walk you around like a baby?”
Under her breath, and for my ears only, she muttered, “Please tell me you didn’t fuck her, because I may have to scoop out her eyeballs—”
“I didn’t,” I reassured her quickly, and guilt speared me some more because, fuck, how shitty must it be for her to come face-to-face with pussies I’d fucked before her?
I knew, for a fact, that I’d want to kill any of her other lovers if I came face-to-face with them.
“My ass hurts,” Giulia reasoned, and I hid my smile in her throat by making a show of kissing it.
“Pounded it hard last night, did he?” Peggy commiserated, and her passive aggressiveness had my shoulders bunching. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to make friends with my woman or if she was trying to be a bitch.
From Giulia’s tension?
I picked up on the fact that she didn’t think this was an overture of friendship.
While Butch was the Prez of this chapter, the way it worked in the Satan’s Sinners MCs was that the original chapter’s council ranked higher than the other presidents.
As Enforcer, second only to Storm, the VP, after Rex, I was higher ranked than her Old goddamn Man.
I’d never pushed shit, though, never wanted to come across as a dick, but I would now.
For Giulia.
“Rex says you’ve turfed out your Road Captain for us?”
Butch grunted. “Yeah. And he ain’t happy about it.”
I scowled at him. “Well, it’s your fucking job to make sure he doesn’t bitch. If I hear any crap from him, you know what will happen—”
“Hey, calm down, Nyx. Jesus. It’s his room. Of course, he ain’t happy about being kicked out!” Butch retorted, but his eyes were wide because he wasn’t used to catching shit from me.
I scowled harder at him. “Then you need to think about sorting out your shit pile of a clubhouse, because fuck only knows when we’ll have business down these parts now that routes are getting narrower.”
His jaw hardened. “You telling me how to run my fucking club?”
“That’s what I’m fucking telling you.”
“Jesus, I thought an Old Lady would have calmed you the fuck down. Sugar, you ain’t sucking that dick of his enough—”
He didn’t get the chance to say another fucking word before my hand was around his throat. I had enough strength to hold him in place, but not to keep Giulia hooked around me at the same time. Not when Butch started struggling.
Unsurprisingly, Peggy didn’t even squawk at the sight of her Old Man being choked, but Giulia? God love her, she hopped down and snarled, “Butch, you don’t have to worry about my Old Man’s cock. It’s in good hands, but just because you’re happy with your bitch of an Old Lady showing off her goods to the rest of the fucking nation, doesn’t mean we’re the same.”
Rex snorted at that, and when I cast him a look, I saw he had his arms folded across his chest, taking in the show like it was a fucking theater dinner.
That was Rex’s trouble.
I entertained him. And Giulia? Together we were better than the Marx brothers for him.
My thumb dug deep into Butch’s throat, getting to the soft tissue. My attack had shocked him, or he’d have defended himself more. As it stood, he wasn’t focused on offense, just concerned with scrabbling at my wrist, trying to get free.
I let loose when Rex whistled at me under his breath. I wasn’t his fucking dog, but at the same time, I knew I could be pretty rabid in certain circumstances.
Butch pretty much folded over, grabbing at his throat as he choked and coughed, sputtering as we stared at him.
“The fact that your men haven’t come out here to defend you tells me a lot about how you’re running this place,” Rex commented casually, and Butch, not a complete and utter prick, recognized the tone.
When Rex was like this, he could be more dangerous than me.
Sure, it was in a different way, because Rex shed less blood than me, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t lethal.
Butch’s life, his position here, rested in Rex’s hands.
The brothers owed him their loyalty as a Prez, but they answered to Rex first and foremost.
It was why he had his road name.
Rex was a king among the MC world, thanks to the legacy his daddy had left him. Bear didn’t have the diplomacy his son had, and in Rex’s paws, I knew our MC would grow over time. Bear had known that too.
“They’re all too pissed from last night.”
The voice had me tensing, even as I snapped, “Thought you told me that fucker was in Oklahoma.”
Rex shrugged. “Oklahoma is a lot fucking farther than Ohio. Didn’t want you killing the bastard and regretting it later.”
My mouth tightened as shit shuffled together, making sense to me now. “You found the fucker we’re taking down?”
“Yeah.”
Despite my annoyance with my Prez and with this dick, I was pleased to know Sin was here when none of the others were. Rex ran a tighter hold on his men, even if it didn’t seem like it, and that Sin was awake when the others weren’t? It was a good sign of the difference in discipline among us.
“Sin,” I rumbled out a gruff greeting. Giulia tensed some, and I realized she hadn’t recognized the voice. Now that she had, now she knew, I figured she was back there.
Back to that night that had changed everything.
He dipped his chin. “Nyx.” I could sense the wariness in him, and that was because he was a smart man. He knew he was on my shit list.
His gift to me would be one step toward home.
I rubbed my jaw as Giulia curled into me, and I slung my arm around her shoulders and hauled her closer, knowing where Sin’s presence had taken her.
That hour that had turned everyone’s world upside down.
“Butch, fuck off inside. I’ll be using your office while I’m here,” Rex informed him, and Butch, having stopped being an idiot, scurried away, dragging Peggy with him when she squawked her irritation at him.
“We need to talk,” Rex said calmly
. “Giulia, you need to go to bed—”
“Fuck that,” I snapped. “No one knows who the fuck she is here—”
“She has your brand on her,” Rex retorted with a scowl.
“If they’re all fucking drunk, they won’t care. I need to intro her before I let her loose around these halls.”
Giulia snorted. “I can defend myself.”
“Yeah, you can, but I ain’t putting you at risk,” I countered with a growl. I wasn’t going to slam her confidence, but neither was I going to let her put herself in danger. If she’d been stronger, Lancaster would never have gotten the drop on her. “It can either wait until the morning, or we can talk with her present.”
Link cleared his throat. “Whatever it is, Giulia knows more than she should anyway, Prez.”
I dipped my chin in thanks at him, and when Steel concurred, “She’s solid, Rex. You know that,” I reached over and slapped his shoulder in gratitude.
Rex huffed. “It isn’t that I think she isn’t solid, dumbfucks. It’s that I’ll get shit if I start letting bitches in on club business.”
“Then we talk about it tomorrow—”
Rex rolled his eyes, but Sin spoke up, “It’s okay, Rex. It’s time they knew.”
“Expect salt in your coffee tomorrow for lumping me in as a bitch,” Giulia threatened, but I heard the tension in her voice. She was on edge, even if she wasn’t entirely joking about the coffee shit.
Rex huffed, but he didn’t say another word, just strode toward the clubhouse and walked through the doorway Peggy had been leaning against like a whore from an old-school bordello.
He strode in like he owned the place—oh, wait, he fucking did—then headed down the hall to Butch’s office.
As we followed him, I ignored Sin for the moment, content to have my brothers at my back as I shuffled Giulia forward. She had her thumb tucked into one of my belt loops while my arm was still around her shoulder.
As we walked, she mumbled quietly, “Thank you.”
Didn’t take a mind reader to figure out what she was thanking me for. “Shouldn’t have to thank me. He shouldn’t have said what he did.”
She tapped my butt with her hand slightly, not in a teasing way, but in a soothing one.
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