Spring Romance: NINE Happily Ever Afters

by Tessa Bailey

  “I don’t know. It’s more than I thought it would be.” He tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “You kind of snuck up on me.”

  I smiled. “You snuck up on me too.”

  The next kiss wasn’t soft or sweet. Dash crushed his lips to mine, his hands leaving my face to band around my back, pulling me tight into his firm body. He needed this, like he’d needed me last night. He’d gotten lost in my body, seeking comfort.

  I looped my arms around his neck, angling my mouth so I could get a deeper taste. I’d gotten lost in him too. He made everything an adventure. Even watching him fold my laundry or do the dishes was exciting. How was I ever going to let him go? I knew right there, in that moment, I wouldn’t be able to walk away from Dash.

  He’d ruined me. He’d changed the game.

  We were seconds away from ripping at each other’s clothes when a throat cleared from the doorway, forcing us apart. With swollen lips, we both turned to see Emmett.

  “Dash.” He nodded down the hallway. “Better come and see this.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Dash

  Bryce and I followed Emmett through the clubhouse party room and to the basement. This wasn’t a place I wanted Bryce, but there was no keeping her away.

  As we descended the steps, I took a look around. It was cleaner than upstairs. That, or the dust was less noticeable on the concrete floors and walls.

  Dad had built this clubhouse alongside the original members. They’d made the basement into a bunker of sorts. It was a concrete labyrinth of rooms, all varying in size, but each with a drain in the center. Rivers of blood had been washed down those drains. The bleach smell still lingered in the air, even though it had been over a year since we’d cleaned up the main room from our last underground fight.

  The smaller rooms had seen far worse than boxing.

  It was strange being in the clubhouse, especially when it was so quiet. The nights I’d stayed here in my twenties, I’d learned to sleep with a party raging beyond my door—if I hadn’t been in the middle of the party myself.

  There were good memories here. As a kid, we’d come here for family barbeques with Dad’s brothers, men who’d been like uncles until they’d become brothers of my own. Nick and I would light off fireworks in the parking lot on Independence Day. We’d each had our first beer in this clubhouse and many more after.

  I’d always wanted to be a Gypsy. Other kids in school would talk about college. Fancy jobs. I’d just wanted to be in Dad’s club. Nick had been the same until Mom died. But even after he’d shunned the Gypsies and moved away after high school, my feelings hadn’t changed.

  I had been a Gypsy long before earning my cut.

  Yesterday, I’d told Dad that I wished he hadn’t started the club. I was angry. Hurt. A part of me did want to reject this place. It would be easy to put Mom’s death on the club and walk away for good. Burn it down and, with it, the havoc it had wreaked on my life.

  Except then I’d have to forget the good memories too.

  There had been good memories.

  One thing was certain, I was glad Bryce moved to Clifton Forge after we’d disbanded. I wouldn’t have had a shot with her had I been leading the club. She was too good to get mixed up with a criminal. Hell, it was a stretch for me to chase after her now.

  But I couldn’t look into the future and not see her face.

  She dared me, called me out on my bullshit. She shared her heart, her loyalty, her honesty—all things I’d had with the club, with my brothers. She filled that hole and then some.

  “In here.” Emmett ducked into one of the smaller rooms where he’d set up a surveillance station a few years back. Security and hacking had become Emmett’s specialty. He called it a hobby. I called it a gift.

  Dad was leaning over a monitor, staring at a frozen image on the screen.

  “What’d you find?” I asked, taking Dad’s place.

  Emmett sat in the chair, clicking to rewind the video. “I guess we should have kept the sensors on after that raccoon incident. Look at this.”

  He pressed play on the video and rolled out of the way to make room for Bryce. She came right up beside me, my hand immediately finding hers. Together, we watched footage from one of the cameras hidden above each window in the clubhouse as a man approached the building.

  The color on the screen was a mix of green and white and black from the night vision setting. The man’s face was covered in a black ski mask, his shirt and pants a matching shade.

  He walked up to the building, taking a utility tool from his pocket. And then he jimmied open the glass window.

  “Fuck. We should have boarded up the basement windows.” They were so small, not even eighteen inches wide, that we hadn’t bothered. Plus the drop from the window was at least ten feet. Our concrete bunker was not small. And up until this winter, we’d had sensors on all the windows.

  The man was probably close to my size, but he managed to shimmy his way into the basement. He turned on his stomach, his legs going inside first, and that’s when we saw it.

  A patch on his back.

  “Fucking lying bastards.” My booming voice echoed off the walls.

  I dropped Bryce’s hand, pacing the room as I rubbed my jaw. Now I understood why Dad was against the wall, fuming in a silent rage.

  “What am I missing?” Bryce asked.

  “That’s an Arrowhead Warrior patch,” Emmett answered, tapping the screen. He’d frozen it before the man had dropped inside.

  “Oh.” Her eyes widened. “When was this taken?”

  “The night before Amina was murdered,” Dad answered. “He must have come here, broken in while I was with her in the motel, stolen my knife, and then waited until I left to kill her.”

  “Any idea who he is? How he’d know you’d be with Amina?” I asked Dad, getting a headshake in return. “Emmett, can we print that out?”

  He nodded, ripping a sheet from the printer below his desk. “Already did.”

  “When we leave today, turn all the sensors back on,” I ordered Emmett. “And ask Leo to come over and board up the basement windows.”

  “Will do.”

  “You need to call Tucker,” I told Dad.

  “Yeah. Let’s talk in the chapel. Bryce looks like she needs to sit.”

  My attention immediately shifted. Her face had lost all its color, and I rushed to her side. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She waved me off, her face souring. “It smells funny down here.”

  “Come on.” I gripped her elbow, leading her upstairs. It didn’t smell great in the party room either, but once we reached the chapel, the rotten beer smell was gone.

  The chapel was the heart of the clubhouse, located directly in the center. You got in through two double doors off the party room. It was one long, open room with a table running its length. The table had been built to accommodate about twenty members, but there had been years when it was standing room only. The officers and senior members would sit. I’d spent plenty of years against the wall, listening as decisions were made.

  The black high-backed chairs were all pushed into the table. The room had been left in pristine condition except for the dust. The walls were lined with pictures, mostly of members standing together in front of a row of bikes. The Gypsy patch had been made into a flag that hung on the wall behind the head chair at the table.

  The president’s chair.

  Dad had given up his seat, passing it to me. He went for it, but then realized his mistake. Had it not been for Bryce, I would have sat there to put him in his place. He didn’t deserve that seat.

  But instead, I pulled out one of the middle chairs for Bryce, sitting at her side.

  “What’s the raccoon incident?” Bryce leaned over to ask.

  “This winter, Emmett and I got an alert from the motion sensors. They went off at three in the morning on the coldest night we’d had in months. We hurried down, nearly froze our dicks off, and found three raccoons in the ki
tchen. They’d crawled in through this old vent hood.”

  “They were making a goddamn mess, shitting everywhere,” Emmett grumbled. “It was cold as hell so it took us forever to get them out. I don’t know why they’d leave their dens in the first place. Maybe to find something warmer.”

  “After that, we closed off the vent hood and decided to leave the sensors off,” I told her. “The place was empty. There wasn’t anything in here to steal.”

  “Or so you thought,” she murmured.

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “So we thought.”

  Dad pulled out the chair next to Emmett. He wasn’t in the president’s seat but a shift came over the room as he sat down. Like a meeting coming to order. When he sat, no one else dared to talk until he gave them permission.

  Even though I’d sat in the head chair for years, I’d never had that kind of commanding presence. I’d worried about it for a while, wondered if I’d be revered like Dad. Maybe it would have come, in time. But we’d already begun to shut things down when I’d been voted in as president. My job hadn’t been to lead the Gypsies into the future. I was the president who’d made sure we’d covered all our asses so we could live a normal life.

  “What are we going to do about the Warriors?” I asked, leaning my elbows on the table. “Tucker lied to us.”

  “Or he didn’t know,” Dad countered. “Yeah, there’s a chance he ordered this. Or he’s as clueless as we are and it’s someone’s personal vendetta. Someone who’s been following me around, saw me with a woman for the first time in decades and used it as their opening to strike.”

  “For what?” Bryce asked.

  Dad scoffed. “Hell. A million things.”

  “A million and a half,” I muttered.

  We’d burned down their clubhouse once. It had likely cost them a fortune to rebuild. The two Warriors who’d tried to kidnap Emmeline had been Dad’s guests in the basement, their last breaths taken inside those concrete walls.

  “What do we do?” Emmett sighed. “Go after them? Start up another war?”

  “We’ll lose,” I said. “There’s no chance at winning.”

  “I don’t want a war. Not this time.” Dad shook his head. “First, I’ll go to Tucker, show him the photo and see what he does. Maybe he’ll give us a name and it can end. But if it comes down to it, if he covers for his men—which I suspect he will—then I’ll take the fall for Amina.”

  “They’ll put you away for life.” Yesterday, I was okay with it—when I was furious and in a rage. Today, now that I’d calmed down, the idea of him in prison didn’t sit as well.

  “I’ll go if that’s what it takes to keep you and Nick free of this.”

  “Except they could be after any of us,” Emmett said. “This might have started with you, but I bet it goes deeper. I’m not looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life. I know we’re up against bad odds, but we have to fight back.”

  “Why not do it legally?” Bryce suggested. “Let’s get the evidence to prove there’s reasonable doubt. We can use the paper to print it, create a circus around town. Get rumors started that Draven is innocent. The chief won’t have any choice but to dig deeper.”

  “You’re talking about following the rules.” Dad barked a laugh. “We’re not great at working with the cops.”

  “You’re also not great at keeping the people in your life alive by breaking the rules, so maybe it’s time to try a different approach.”

  Damn, woman. She wasn’t pulling any punches. I flinched at her words. Emmett did too. Because no one talked to Dad like that, especially in this room.

  But she was fearless. The fire in her eyes, that blaze, made my chest swell. Was it with pride? Or love? Both?

  I think I’d fallen for her the night she’d kicked me off her front porch. Or maybe it was the day she’d shown up at the garage, bursting with attitude and determination.

  “She’s right,” I told Dad. “Not just because it’s legal, but because the Warriors will never expect it. Let’s use the cops to our favor for once.”

  Emmett nodded. “If Tucker did know about this, then he’s waiting and watching for us to retaliate. The cops showing up at his door might be a surprise.”

  “We need to find evidence, solid evidence, and fast,” I said. “The state’s attorney will set a trial date soon, and once that starts, it’s going to be even harder to get people to consider another suspect. We need them to delay.”

  “What do we do?” Dad asked.

  I looked to Bryce. “You need to write a story. Marcus is a good cop, but he’s not going to believe me if I walk in there with new evidence. Not when his mind’s made up that Dad is guilty. We need to plant the seed that Dad’s knife was stolen. Show the picture of someone breaking into the clubhouse. Marcus won’t be able to ignore it if you print it.”

  “I’ll start on it today. We can feature it on Sunday. But . . .” She locked eyes with Dad across the table. “It would mean more if I could print the reason you and Amina were in the motel. It makes you more human if people know you were there to discuss your daughter.”

  Dad blew out a deep breath but shook his head. “Not until I meet her. I owe her that much. She shouldn’t learn I’m her father from a newspaper. Like you said, she thinks I killed her mother.”

  “I might be able to help with that.” Bryce raised her hand, like she was volunteering to go into battle. “We’re going to get lucky on timing. When I went to visit Genevieve last weekend, she said she was coming up Sunday to see Amina’s grave. I’ll call her and double-check she’s coming. And I guess . . . tell her when she gets here. Hope she doesn’t pick up a newspaper that morning. I don’t know. But maybe I can smooth it over.”

  “Do it,” I said. “We need the story to shed more light on the relationship between Dad and Amina. To give it some context and show Dad wouldn’t kill her. I think my sister would be a good way to do that.”

  “I feel like I’m about to blindside her, Dash.” Bryce’s worried eyes met mine. “I feel terrible already.”

  “Be gentle,” Dad murmured. “Please.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  “And we’ll keep searching for more.” Emmett knocked his knuckles on the table. “Draven, you call Tucker.”

  He nodded. “I’ll go meet with him. Alone.”

  “Keep us posted.” I pushed away from the chair, helping pull Bryce’s away so she could stand. Then we all walked out of the clubhouse, the plan in place. I escorted Bryce to her car. Her eagerness to get to the newspaper was palpable, but before she left, I wanted to make sure she was all right. “Feeling better?”

  “Not really, but I’ll be fine. It’s just a stomach ache. That smell in the clubhouse was”—she gagged—“potent. I’m going to get to work. Call me later?”

  I nodded. “I need to get caught up on some jobs here. We’ve been leaning pretty heavy on Isaiah and Presley to run the garage while we’ve had this extra shit happening. Time for me to get my hands dirty and finish some cars.”

  “Be sure to wash those hands before dinner.” She winked, standing on her toes for a kiss. It was a short goodbye. Nothing out of the ordinary for most couples. But we weren’t a couple.

  We hadn’t made a commitment. We hadn’t made promises. Except as I stood and watched her leave, I realized that no other woman would kiss me again.

  Bryce was it for me. The one.

  Dad’s shadow crossed mine. “You love her.”

  I didn’t respond. Bryce would be the first to hear the words. I took a step toward the garage. “Need to get to work.”

  “Dash.” Dad’s hand flew out, stopping me. “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t want you to go to prison, not when you didn’t kill Amina. But you and me? We’re done.”

  His shoulders fell. “I understand.”

  “I need some time without you here at the garage. Some space to think. You’re not the man I thought you were.”

  “I’ve never been a hero, son.”

&
nbsp; I met his brown gaze. “But you were to me.”

  The blow hit Dad hard. His face tightened like he’d been sucker punched and was fighting to breathe.

  Leaving him alone on the asphalt, I walked toward the garage, then paused and looked back while Dad was still in earshot. “Nick deserves to know. Either you tell him, or I will.”

  He simply nodded.

  And two hours later, as I was flat on my back underneath the Mustang, the engine of Dad’s motorcycle revved as he left the garage. My phone rang thirty seconds later.

  Pushing out from the car, I dug my phone from my pocket. Nick’s name flashed on the screen. “Hey.”

  “Guess you expected this call.”

  “Was hoping for it. I take it Dad called you?”

  “Yep. Sounds like we have a sister.” The calm tone in Nick’s voice surprised me. I figured, given his past relationship with Dad, he’d be furious.

  “You don’t sound upset.”

  “I’m surprised. It wasn’t easy to hear and maybe I haven’t wrapped my head around it all. But mostly, I’m disappointed. Sad for Mom. Glad she never knew. But no, I’m not angry. Far as I’m concerned, Dad got knocked off his pedestal a long time ago. He’s a flawed man, Dash. Always has been.”

  “I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Nothing to do. Move on.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” I walked over to the open garage door, looking outside. There was a car lined up in front of each bay. Emmett, Isaiah and Leo were all working fast to get them through the queue.

  It was a good business, this garage. Provided us with decent livings. Just like the garage Nick ran in Prescott.

  Move on. That didn’t seem all that bad now that I had Bryce. We each had decent jobs, nice homes, and there were a lot of people who didn’t even have that.

  “I met someone.”

  There was so much to talk about—things to say about Dad and the murder. But none of it mattered. Right now, I just wanted to tell my brother about Bryce. To share her with my family.

  “Is it serious?” he asked.

  “She’s my Emmy.” It was the best way to describe my feelings for Bryce. Nick loved Emmeline with every molecule in his body. “But it hasn’t been long.”