by V. Theia
Unable to be his friend when he was a means to an end.
She already felt like a fraud for taking his charity.
“I should get back to work if there is nothing else.”
“Wait.” The simple act of one word stopped her retreat. Relaxed in his seat, watching her, Marianna was a sea of concealed nerves shooting through her arms and legs.
It was not personal to Tag.
She didn’t want to flee from him because he was a nightmare boss to work for. The opposite, in fact. She loved being at the gym.
She just didn’t want to be around people.
Growing into quite the antisocial bitch, wasn’t she?
“There’s a winter cookout coming up at my club, come along, have fun, meet some people.”
Oh. Marianna rolled her lips inward, linking her fingers together until her knuckles turned white.
“Look at you,” he chuckled, “scared I’m asking you out.” Was he? “Will you ever relax around me, Marianna?”
“I am relaxed, Sir.”
“Hardly. You’re tense as fuck, like you expect me to pounce.” His smile was full wattage. She was grateful he stayed seated. When he was at his full height and width in front of her, the very experience swept air from her lungs.
Not fearful, not altogether anyway.
But it put her into an anxious state she’d rather not go through with only crackers and coffee in her belly.
“You know you’re safe here, yeah? No one will do a thing to you or they’d answer to me. You know that right?”
She did. Knowing he would fix any wrongdoings put emotion in her throat.
That was Tag’s kindness.
She wanted to trust him so much, but trust brought pain and regrets. Marianna was not foolish to fall for the same blunder twice.
“It’s a very pleasant environment to work in.” she answered, coolly.
She watched him frowning, both dark blond brows folding inward, and he let go of a sigh so blustery it almost blew her over. Though the desk separated them, she had the urge to back her feet up and get out of the way of his blizzard of disappointment.
“Think about the invite, yeah? My boys’ old ladies will be there.” Now it was her turn to curl down her brows. “Their wives.” He amended with a transforming smile.
“Your friends call their wives an old lady?”
Now he chuckled. “It doesn’t mean old for their age. It’s a term of affection we say for our women.”
A staggered thump started in her chest. “You-you say it too?”
Not married, but it was hard to say if he had a girlfriend.
Something tight swirled inside her belly and Marianna laid her palm right there to quieten whatever disturbance was happening. She hoped the crackers weren’t off.
“Not yet, but one day I will.” He winked, amused. “Their wives will show you a good time, when was the last time you had fun?”
“Thank you for the invite,” she responded without answering a question she had no answer for, and started for the door. “I should get back to work.”
Marianna couldn’t afford to establish friendships.
She wasn’t in a position to be a friend to anyone.
Especially to a charming prince.
The moment she’d heard of Tag’s accident, she’d rushed to his bedside and stayed there for a full week. Keeping him company, reading to him. Worried out of her mind when he lost his sight.
Anything else other than a working relationship was out of the question.
Alone suited some people.
Marianna was some people.
If she had the choice of a friend in this entire world, it would be Tag.
But it was not meant to be.
THREE
“He hadn’t struck out that hard since little league.” - Luke Drake
From the way Tag observed Marianna all but hurl herself through the open doorway in her haste to get out of the office, he cut his eyes down to the floor to see if the soles of her shoes left skid marks.
Damn. He rarely struck out with a woman.
Not fucking ever.
If he were tallying up his score with women, he didn’t get dumped. He didn’t get friend-zoned or whatever the kids called it these days.
He was trying to be nice.
She seemed so lonely. He couldn’t stop himself from trying to help the woman out of her shell. But as often as he tried, she doubled down and rejected whatever he offered.
He gave her free classes at the gym. Only to find she paid for a women’s only kickboxing down the street. He told her to help herself to any of the food in the staff kitchen and she brought her own lunch. He’d asked her to the club more than once, knowing the women would scoop her under their social wings.
At each turn, she politely told him to fuck off.
He bet she was saying it in Russian in her head.
A hero complex.
That’s what his boys ribbed him about all the time.
He wasn’t blind… now.
His better vision meant he knew she had a body right out of Hollywood.
Slim hourglass hips, long coltish limbs. Inky hair straight down her back when she let it loose, most often she tied it up in one of those pony things women liked. Her face was flawless. No freckles or scars, nude lips and sharp cheekbones that made him think she didn’t eat nearly enough to satisfy his worry she was taking care of herself.
It was her eyes that were most expressive, even when she didn’t utter a word. Gray and bottomless. Like they were holding the world together with a threadbare band aid.
He shook his head. He didn’t need to be thinking of her looks.
She was hot, and men noticed. He didn’t have to be one of them.
He wanted to help her, not mount her.
Rising to his feet, he reached for his leather jacket. Pocketing his keys next. He had somewhere else to be right now or he would have tackled the little Russian about more than a simple party.
Marianna would keep.
He knew for now she wasn’t going anywhere.
Hero complex or not, he needed to help her.
Against all the warnings from his boys, he was involved in her life.
He’d carried her out of a den of fucking iniquity. What kind of monster would he be to turn his back on her after that?
The Russian mobsters had used her up, it was only a stroke of luck his MC stepped in and shut down Grigori’s porn empire.
Call it what you will. But the moment he watched her so tiny in that hospital bed, he’d felt responsible for her.
She needed someone in her corner even if she couldn’t admit it.
He suspected she’d rather chew her leg off, bear-claw style, before confessing to emotional weakness.
Tag knew a shit ton of prideful women going right back to his mother.
God rest her drunken soul.
Prowling out of his office, Marianna wasn’t around.
Not a surprise, she kept to herself. He spent a few minutes with a boxing trainer and then walked around back to his motorcycle, slinging a leg over his Harley V-rod. The burgundy and brushed steel beauty was a thing to look at. She was a discounted model now. Fortunately for Tag, he knew the best bodywork man. And whenever she needed a makeover, he got in touch with their Nomad, Red Light.
Cold as fuck for November. He throttled the engine and got to the club not long after, leaving her under the parking covering to keep the bike clear of snow. Tag pulled the collar up around his ears and prowled toward the club entryway.
He had a plan.
He was always a man with a plan.
Not as in depth as Lawless. The club enforcer, with several psycho screws loose, always went to extreme fucking levels with his ideas. Hello, the lunatic was doing jail time for his latest mastermind caper.
“Look alive, the Champ is in the house,” Yelled out Grinder. “Bet I can guess your absence lately. How is your little Russian doll?” Goaded the bearded bastard.
&
nbsp; Tag altered his route and headed over to the Tracker, kicking it back with a beer in one hand and the TV remote in the other. SportsCenter on the flatscreen. Grinder only just got back into town recently after chasing a guy to Arizona for a skipped payment.
Tag retorted. “I don’t know, pal, how’s your little Mexican spitfire feel about your thumb sized dick?”
Either the guy was too tired to bite, or he was so chilled out with the love of his old lady and their son on the way. A smirk kicked up one side of Grinder’s mouth as he raised the bottle to it. “My woman has no complaints, brother.”
“Ah, fuck. You’re no fun to mess with when you’re this sappy.”
The pair fist bumped.
“How was the skipper?”
“Cowering like a stinking piece of shit in a flophouse. His own cousin let me in the front door.”
Tag laughed. “Loyal of him.”
“Might have something to do with me threatening to shoot off his kneecaps and sending Hawk to visit every one of his family if he didn’t.”
Whistling through his teeth, impressed. “That’s stone cold. No one wants to find the VP looming over them when they wake.”
“Fucking A.” Agreed Grinder.
“Say that tonight when I’m in your bedroom.” A sinister voice that sounded like corrosion and death said behind them.
The man himself appeared like a phantom.
Hawk rarely smiled, unless it was for his wife or daughter.
The first time Tag and the boys saw him laughing with her, it was as though they were airlifted to the twilight zone. Hawk was difficult to mess with. He enjoyed being under his wife’s thumb. He loved telling stories to his baby girl. Or sitting his ass down so his dog could crawl up his chest. The VP loved that shit and couldn’t give any fucks if someone ribbed him.
“You need to wear a bell, VP, scaring me like that.” Tag remarked and Hawk’s icy eyes flashed with his ominous humor. Tag thought it was humor, no one could be one hundred percent sure.
A crazy few minutes back forever ago when Tag thought he might want to date Gia. He made the colossal mistake of jokingly mentioning it to her after Hawk staked his claim. All this time later, he was almost sure Hawk had forgiven him and didn’t want to murder Tag.
“Rider wants to see you.” Hawk informed. Then sighed as a big excitable body came through the clubhouse, heading directly for him.
Hawk didn’t do touching unless he was in a murdering frame of mind. So, it was lucky of Juicy, a prospect, and Hawk’s new half-brother, that he didn’t go in for a bro-hug.
“You ready to go?” The other man asked Hawk, looking like a happy peacock now he’d sort of got Hawk into accepting him.
It worked out well that Juicy spent most of the year traveling back and forth from Austin, Texas, spying on Rider’s cunt of an uncle. Because of Juicy’s sly intel, Rider killed several of Rex’s deals for petty reasons.
Their ex-president was a cunt personified and a backstabbing one at that.
Trying for years now to oust Rider by any means necessary.
The club at this point thought the old goat was an irritant, but loved fucking him over.
The ex-prez was all but broke and desperate to latch onto any deal he could.
“Go grab Krusher,” Hawk issued to his half-brother. Not looking happy that he was taking the kid home with him, “he’s in the kitchen flirting with Snake’s old lady.”
“Will do.” Juicy responded.
Tag grinned at the VP. “How’s it going with little bro?” Hawk scowled and played a hand down his long beard. “The kid never shuts his trap, but Sunny and Gia like having him around.” Poor guy was not a people person, as he told it, he’s a Gia person and everyone else can get the fuck away from him. They turned to watch Juicy ushering Krusher down the hall. He walked like a snail with a cane, so Juicy kept doubling back to him. Krusher was a club transfer member who’d also latched onto the VP, even though Hawk professed to hate it. Anyone could see their father and son relationship developing.
“Sometime today, old man.” Hawk snapped his fingers.
“Hold yer fucking horses, boy. I don’t move like I used to, like to take my time, don’t I? Don’t wanna miss any pretty faces.” Tag cackled at Krusher’s reply. He only hoped he had half the game Krusher did with the ladies when he got to his age. Which was around two hundred, far as Tag could tell.
“He was chatting the head off Winter,” tattled Juicy and earned an elbow from Krusher.
“We were talking romance books.”
“You into the sex books, Krusher?” Tag asked with a smirk.
The old man grinned with his whole weathered face. “I like to bone up on all the new techniques. Not like it was in my day. Now women wanna get on top and do all this fancy shit.”
“You’ll break a fucking hip.” Groused Hawk, and he tossed a set of keys to Juicy. “Get him strapped into my truck, I’ll be a minute.”
“I don’t need a baby seat.” Argued Krusher.
“It’s that or I duct tape you in. My Gia would be pissed if your old ass flew through the windshield.”
“Such a good girl. If I were only thirty years younger.”
“You’ll still be too old for her, now get in the truck, you dinosaur, before we get snowed in.”
For not being a people person, Hawk had a lot of them around who hung off his every word, Tag would guess Hawk had no conscious realization about it.
They watched Juicy herd Krusher outside after bundling him up in a sheepskin coat.
“Looks like you got a houseful, VP.” Tag tried to hold in his grin.
“Don’t start. Mad-Dog is at my house too.” Gia’s dad and Hawk had a rocky start. “I can only hope Snake finds out the kid is fucking around with his baby brother and buries him in the mountains.”
Tag whistled. Snake was protective over the brothers he’d raised like his own sons. If Juicy was making a play for Bale, there might be a funeral soon. RIP Juicy’s horny soul.
The pair parted and Tag headed out back to Rider’s office. Before he got close, he was tackled around the legs by a blonde daredevil. Harper’s giggles erupted and Tag hunkered down to the baby girl. “Hey, there, Princess, whatcha doing?”
“Playing bikes.”
Rider’s girl wore pretty dresses but loved being around the garage, sticking her little nose into every part of the shop. She loved being on anyone’s bike. A daredevil who loved candy and laughing. Every person in the club would take a bullet for her.
Not so long ago, the club didn’t have one kid… not that anyone was claiming, anyway. Parties got wild back then, and groupies notoriously came in hope to bag and tag a patched brother. Tag fucked no one without a condom. The last thing he wanted was to get trapped with a random hook-up.
Now though, most of his hitched club brothers had kids or ones on the way.
The dynamic might have shifted, but a brotherhood was a brotherhood.
They could murder and then come home to read their kid a bedtime story.
Some would say having a family made the Renegade Souls the most dangerous men in the country to fuck with. What Tag knew as gospel, his brothers would fight the devil himself to protect their families.
It kinda stunk he didn’t know how that felt.
Harper, holding a toy scale Harley bike under her arm, lifted both up for him to carry her. He grinned and hoisted her little body, then popped his head around the office door.
“This belong to you?”
“Daddy!” She yelled like she hadn’t seen Rider in months. She scrambled down Tag’s body. He watched the pair and felt a pang in his chest again. For a guy who always thought he wouldn’t have kids because of how he was raised by two irresponsible drunks, he got hit with a longing every time he was around his brother’s kids.
He’d probably be a fucked-up dad.
“You wanna go get some ice cream from the kitchen, doodlebug?”
“Yay!” She was almost at the door when Ride
r whistled and got her little feet skidding to a stop. “What’s the rules?”
In her cute baby voice, Harper held up five fingers. “Don’t tell mama I had ice cream. No touching the stove and… and… what’s the ‘nother one, Daddy?”
Rider smirked, proud as could be. “No jumping off the fridge.”
“Oh, yeah. That one. Can I go now, daddy?”
“Sure, baby.”
“Love you! Love you, Tag!”
“She really jumped off the fridge?”
“Fuckin’ hell, she about gave Zara a stroke. She nearly had me carting out everything taller than two feet, so Harper couldn’t do it again.”
Tag laughed as he parked his ass in the plastic chair in front of Rider’s desk.
The prez rarely stood on ceremony, so he got to the point.
“I’ve had another call from New York, that makes four this month. Cristian Bianchi has a hard on for you, brother. How do you feel about selling your ass?”
FOUR
“Selling a champ to the highest bidder.” – Tag
“How much is he offering?”
Not for the first time, someone saw dollar signs in Tag’s fighting career.
Until last year, when a grueling cage fight disfigured him and almost lost him the only thing he was good at, moneybags from every underground corner offered him sponsorship deals.
Infamous Cristian Bianchi, known mafia boss of New York, was the biggest name to come forward yet.
“Two point five.”
Tag whistled. He wasn’t mad at the number. At all.
He wasn’t hurting for cash either.
Tag put most of his fighting profits and his cut from the club earnings into investments. If he tallied it up, he had enough for three lifetimes of excessive spending. He was a pretty easy-going guy. Long as he had good jeans to wear and a rumbling ride underneath his ass, he was golden as far as money was concerned.
Thanks to Texas and his old lady, who flipped houses, Tag now owned several properties he rented out.
“Might be a good time to think about a manager,” Rider said. “They’d handle all this money shit for you.”