I shrugged. “You did nothing wrong, did you?”
Her bottom lip trembled. “N-No. I ain’t even heard from Ramon for three years. That’s the last time he called Aaron too.”
“Well then, nothing to fear.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “Even if you left, you know what would happen if you squealed to anyone about what happened today, don’t you?”
She quivered. “I know.”
“I’m an equal opportunity man, Jodie-May. That means I don’t give a fuck who I kill to protect my brothers—pussy or cock, traitors are all fair game to me.”
That elicited a terrified moan.
Before she could piss herself again, I rumbled, “Go on. Get cleaned up.”
She staggered to her feet, content to get the fuck out of there, and I was about to turn around and head out of the room when I heard a chuckle.
Twisting around, I saw my woman sitting in—I had to stifle an amused sigh—Wolfe’s seat at the table.
I shook my head, and instantly regretted it when my headache blossomed behind my eyes. “You’re looking for an ass-whooping.”
“I can deal with that,” she purred, but her eyes were flashing with laughter as she said that.
“I’ll just bet.” Snorting, I headed over to her and mumbled, “Glad you’re back, babe.” I took my own seat, which was next to Wolfe’s, then hauled her out of hers and into my own.
“You stink of blood and sweat,” she grumbled as she settled on my lap.
“Be thankful I don’t stink of worse,” was all I said, as I settled my aching motherfucking head back against the rest. She cuddled into me, her face turning into my throat. “Second Rodeo got me back in a cage, I saw Axe hauling Ramon down here. Only knew you were back when Wolfe appeared.”
“It’s okay,” she murmured, accepting my half-assed apology for what it was. “It wasn’t like I was in danger.”
Because she wasn’t wrong, not technically, at any rate, I sighed and reached up to rub my hand through her hair. It felt good to touch her like this, good because the second I’d awoken to find her gone, the terror that filled me had been more than enough to break me.
It hadn’t been like last time. Back then, I’d known she was gone, had known she was pretty safe considering Ryan had been with her. This afternoon, all I’d known was that some bastards had taken her. Didn’t know who, didn’t know where or why.
My phone had been blown up with calls, and the second I’d seen some of the texts, some of my questions had been answered. Getting back to the clubhouse had been an exercise in torture because Rodeo had driven fast. But even though I’d wanted to head to the coordinates Wolfe had been sent, there was no way I could make it that far.
Shit, I hadn’t even been able to beat on Ramon before Flame had shown up. I’d just sat there, watching him, making sure he couldn’t do anything—not that there was much freedom of movement when you were on your belly, your elbows taped together with duct tape, and your bound ankles tied to your waist.
Knowing she was here, safe, had me feeling a shit ton better than just twenty minutes before.
“I was scared for you,” she whispered, her voice choked.
“Fuck, baby, I was petrified for you. If anything had happened to you—” I was a pussy for choking up, but I’d lost her once. There was no losing her again. I pressed a kiss to her temple. “You’re my old lady. You know that, right?”
She tensed. “Yeah. I know.”
I knew why she was tense. “We’re gonna make that official real soon. Fuck this shit. You wear our mark, we need to wear yours.”
Lucie pulled back to stare up at me. “Do you think Wolfe will be down with that?”
I shot her a toothy grin. “You just leave him to me.”
❖
Flame
Two days later
The burn of the tattoo gun was one I appreciated. I wasn’t a masochist, but there was always something fucking sensational about getting inked, and when Ink was behind the gun? You knew you were about to get good shit.
The rules of induction into the MC were that you wore your cut at all times unless you were in a cage, because that was just disrespecting your cut. When you became a prospect, your name would slowly morph into a road name, one that your brothers usually picked. You got the Hell’s Rebels’ insignia tattooed on your body somewhere—it was a hog-riding skeleton who flipped the world the bird—and finally, you picked a sigil that matched your road name and had that inked on you as well.
I wore my insignia on my throat, and I wore my sigil all the way up my left arm and along my abdomen—a wall of flames.
I’d liked to have said that being in a one-percenter MC meant there were no rules, but fuck, this wasn’t chaos. We were a brotherhood, well established, and one that was geared to making a nice and tidy profit on our ventures. But those rules, aside from any dictates that came from the council, covered almost all of them.
Except one.
If you took an old lady, that meant something. It was more than being married, more than even becoming a father. That old lady took your sigil when she became yours, and through that link, if you were ever killed or tossed in jail, the MC would protect her.
She took your sigil. You took her name on your body.
A simple exchange.
As I lay here, Lucifer was being etched across my chest. I should have gotten this years ago. Whether she was here or not, she’d been mine since she was seventeen, and I’d done her a disservice by not wearing her name on my body. I wore it on my fucking heart, so why not on my chest too?
We were onto the ‘R’ now, and my skin was stinging slightly but I liked the burn. Loved the way it sent endorphins winging around my system like I was on coke. Fuck, it was a cheaper and safer high than blow too.
Lucie’s hand was tucked firmly in mine as she laughed with the others. Axe and Wolfe wore her name now too, and Dagger was up after me.
The MC didn’t like the fact that we were sharing her, but when we reminded them of the rule that they had to do what the council said, and we were the fucking council, that had them shutting up over the past couple of days. We were doing nothing wrong, nothing that went against the aforementioned bylaws of the club, so they could go fuck themselves or say hello to my brass knuckles.
“…can I go after Dagger?”
I hadn’t been focused on the conversation going down between my brothers and woman. Sometimes, I just treated them like white noise and found that more comfortable.
Even though I’d die and kill for them all, they talked too much. Amaryllis and I gelled well on that score—she liked to sit in silence and read. Me? I just liked the silence. Liked studying the world around me. It was far more interesting than the shit on TV or in a book.
“What ink are you getting, babe?” I rasped, tuning in now since I was curious.
“An amaryllis.”
Ink snorted. “You think I know what that looks like?”
She flipped him the bird. “Google the fucking thing. Not hard, dumbass.”
Ink dipped his chin, but I saw his grin and smirked at him—my woman had attitude and wasn’t afraid to dose out her shit. That was the joys of having a princess who’d been raised in the club… not that I wanted Amaryllis to be that way. I already had my eyes on those little pricks who were sniffing around her. If she changed, became mouthier like her mom? That was like catnip to bikers.
Grumbling to myself, I glowered up at the ceiling as Ink finished up his work on me. When I was wrapped up, I shrugged into my tee and then into my cut. As Ink took a quick piss break and grabbed some coffee, I sank back into the sofa, crossed my legs at the ankle, and chilled. When Amaryllis sank beside me, I cut her a look. She shot me a nod, curled into my side, and pulled out the e-reader I’d gotten her yesterday. It was already surgically attached to her, and it was easier than lugging around books.
Lifting my arm, I curved it around her shoulders and let her snuggle more.
Snuggle.
Fuck.
&nb
sp; Six weeks ago, the word wouldn’t have crossed my mind. Now? It was a regular thing.
Being a dad kind of turned you into a pussy, but I wouldn’t swap it. I liked that she came to me, liked that she appreciated my silence and extended it to herself.
As she read, I monitored the situation.
I was uneasy. Had been since Lucifer—not ours, but the Knights’ Prez—had let Lucie go. It was messed up to kidnap someone and then release them so easily. And why? Because the original threat had been extinguished? I wasn’t sure if I trusted the fucker, but except for the fact I’d heard news his temporary clubhouse had burned down to the ground last night and the bikers that had run it had disappeared, I assumed he’d left the area. Permanently or temporarily was something we’d only find out with time.
Locke, the cunt, had been the Knights’ in, and if I saw him around, I’d knife him in the belly without even fucking looking.
I hated traitors.
“Daddy Flame? Why’d you get tense?”
I blinked and turned to look at my daughter. “My chest hurts, baby,” I rasped, my voice deeper from the rage I felt at Locke’s betrayal. Fucker had been with us for close to eight years, and all of that had been a lie.
“Can I kiss it better?”
A snort sounded in front of me. “Yeah, Flame, will a kiss make it better?” Axe replied, but aside from the snort, he looked deadly serious. Bastard.
I cleared my throat. “I don’t know if that works on ink, baby.”
“I think it does,” Axe assured me, folding his arms across his chest, apparently there for the show.
Amaryllis nodded her head. “I think so too, Daddy.”
I winced, then mumbled, “If you think so.”
She scooted onto her knees then pressed a kiss to the center of my chest. Because I wasn’t exactly known for my affectionate side, I had no idea what to do, so I kind of fucked up. Instead of just letting her go back to reading, I grabbed her around the belly, leaped onto my feet and tossed her in the air and caught her.
Axe gaped at me, but I was frozen with tension.
Had I just treated my little girl, the one who wore dresses every day by choice, who had pigtails in her hair, wore sandals and carried a book, like a boy?
I mean, I’d done this shit with Lucie, but she was different. She was—
A squeal of laughter escaped Amaryllis. “Again, Daddy, again!”
Oh, thank fuck. I’d expected her to burst into tears. Axe did too, if his sigh of relief was anything to go by.
Three more times I tossed her in the air, each time had her giggling, until I hefted her onto my forearm and kept her there.
She was pink and bubbling with joy, and I had to grin at the sight.
“Want some ice cream, kid?” I asked, peering down at her.
“It’s dinner soon,” Lucie grumbled, but she was smiling at us both. Fuck, was that a tear I saw in her eyes?
Jesus. We’d only been playing.
“There’s always time for ice cream,” I countered. Sending my brothers a look, I got nods of agreement. “One for all of us?”
I received a chorus of ‘yeahs’ and then cocked a brow at Lucie.
She huffed. “Mint chocolate.”
“Like I’d forgotten.” I huffed back at her. “Dulce de leche for you, bro?” I aimed at Ink who grinned at me in agreement.
“What the fuck is happening?” Lucie mumbled. “This an ice cream party?”
“It’s what happens when you tame a bunch of men and give them a daughter,” Wolfe retorted, but I could hear his amusement as I headed out onto Main Street and made my way to the ice cream place. I didn’t trust that Fro-Yo shit, so even though that was nearer, I walked around the block with Amaryllis cuddled into me.
Sure, I got a few looks. People around these parts knew who I was, not just by rep but by looks—the flames on my arms and belly were a giveaway. Some of them were startled, some of them were scared, but I didn’t care what the big, bad biker looked like with the little girl with frilly ankle socks on his arm—I was a daddy now. That meant sacrifices to lace and frills had to be made.
11
Axe
Three months later
“How’d it go?”
Lucie yawned and wiped a hand over her brow. “I’m tired.”
“Yeah, but how did the class go?” She pouted and I laughed, but lifted my arms and beckoned her toward me. She came, as she always did, and huddled into me. For a woman who wasn’t affectionate, she was with the guys and me. I wasn’t about to complain about that either. Not when her hands squeezed my ass through my jeans.
“It went well,” she mumbled. “Just been a long time since I worked on the forge.”
This morning was the first time we’d gotten the forge working properly. She’d been setting shit up over the past ten days as stuff had started to arrive from all over the world—we’d imported shit in to get things here faster—and today was her first lesson.
Watching her get ready in all the protective shit was bizarrely hot. Knowing she knew what to do was even hotter. I’d watched some of the class before a call had taken me away from the factory we’d set up on a patch of land that neighbored the clubhouse. Lucie’s money had bought that, and we were going to build a house on there as well so that we could be close to the clubhouse, but Amaryllis wouldn’t be so exposed to club life.
That was down the line though. Getting the pre-fab building up in the Texas summer hadn’t been fun, and the heat didn’t make forging guns an ideal chore, but she’d been insistent about getting the ball rolling. Now that I saw how exhausted she was, I figured out why—the minute the brothers knew what to do, she could leave it to them.
No one could say my woman wasn’t smart.
“Why’d you leave the class?”
So she’d noticed that?
Fuck.
“Jodie-May went missing today.”
She tensed in my arms. “You found her?”
“No.”
“She take Aaron?”
“Yeah.”
That had her peering into my face. “Fuck. You think she’s going to tell someone?”
“I doubt it. It’s all hearsay anyway. There are no bodies, no evidence, no motive, and she’s not the most reliable witness, is she?”
“Of course there’s motive.”
I shook my head. “If the feds asked around for any grudges Rodriguez had with us, they would be old. Ancient for his organization. With the shit he’s dealing with, his issues are in the north, not down here.”
She pondered that for a second. “True.”
My lips twitched. “Nice to know you have faith in my reasoning skills.”
Her eyes twinkled. “I have faith in something,” she retorted, bumping her hips into mine.
Laughing, I hefted her into my arms, loving how her knees clung to my hips. On the brink of walking her toward the staircase, I froze when I heard the cat’s claws scrabbling against the floor like the kitten was on the run.
Fuck.
I knew what that meant.
“Momma! Jezebel ruined my dress!”
Lucie cursed under her breath. “That damn cat. What the hell possessed Flame anyway?”
My shoulders shook with laughter. “She loves her,” I managed to get out.
She huffed. “Until she wrecks her dresses.”
Amaryllis was a surprisingly fussy little thing. I hadn’t realized that until I’d found Lucie ironing every single one of our daughter’s dresses. Even her socks received that treatment because Amaryllis felt ‘dirty’ unless everything was starched.
I swear, I didn’t know where she’d come from. Half of Lucie’s clothes had holes in them. Some of them strategically placed, others made by design. But still, Ryan had been like the rest of us—wife beaters, cut, jeans, and boots all the way.
Amaryllis liked patterns, flowers, and girly shit that had Lucie cursing because she struggled with the tasks—turned out Ryan had been the one to French braid
Amaryllis’s hair, not Lucie.
Swear, I’d have paid to see the fucker do that.
Fuck you. You’ll learn too. She’ll bat those big eyes at you until you learn.
My heart almost stopped in my chest as Lucie jumped down from my hold and stalked off to go and threaten a cat who had taken a fancy to digging her claws into Amaryllis’s dresses.
You gonna die on me, big man?
“Seriously hope I’m not going to,” I rasped, unsure of who the fuck I was talking to exactly.
Anyway, wanted to warn you against fucking up. Just because I’m going for a while doesn’t mean I won’t be watching.
“Going? Going where?”
Lucie’s safe. That’s all I ever wanted for her. You keep that up and I won’t be back.
Was I being threatened by a voice in my head?
Christ, this was how schizophrenia started, right?
You’re not schizophrenic, dumbass. I’m dead. You think that protecting that woman was going to stop just because I died? Think again.
My throat clogged with emotion as I whispered, “We let her down.”
Yeah, you did, but I didn’t. She was safe with me, but she wasn’t happy. She was made to be ours, and life got in the way of that. But she’s back where she needs to be and that’s all that matters.
“Miss you, man.”
I miss you, too. More than you fucking know. Was hard being without you guys.
We’d gone to school together, had been raised together, had prospected together, had even been inducted into the MC together.
Losing him had been hard, and the only thing that was worse was losing Lucie at the same time.
I licked my lips as I walked down the empty hall toward the office. I knew Wolfe was working out, Dagger was learning how to fabricate the guns so he was probably back at the Shed, as we were calling the factory, and Flame was, undoubtedly, somewhere near Amaryllis. He was pretty much her shadow, and had been ever since Lucie had told us her biological father had threatened to abduct her.
Didn’t matter that the Satan’s Knights hadn’t been seen for three months around these parts. Flame believed in long term planning.
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