“It’s okay, Granddad,” she soothed, and it amazed me that she did that.
Nothing about this messed up shit was okay.
Nothing.
She should be going.
Fuck, she should be soaring all the way to RISD. Instead, she was going to be stuck here…
I blew out a breath because the rage welling inside me was something I’d never be able to control.
In another world, another life, I’d have gone to therapy for what I’d seen and done that day.
A little girl, tied to a fucking chair, like she was a hardened criminal. Before I’d hurled myself through the window, I’d seen her. Seen what Aaron had done to her—he’d treated her like he was punishing an MC brother, not their daughter.
As I’d surveilled the bedroom, I’d seen what he’d done to her. Her eyes blindfolded and blood poured down her nose and face, and her ankles and wrists were fastened to the chair with rope, bleeding from where they’d chafed.
The only relief I’d felt coming across that scene? Her PJs were on and hadn’t been disturbed. If he’d messed around with her in that way, I wouldn’t have been able to just blow out his brains. I’d have made him eat his sick fucking cock.
Instead, he’d had a quick end, one that was too fast. One I’d forever regret, especially because I knew how Ama still suffered for that bastard’s actions.
“Ain’t okay,” Martin growled. “Ain’t okay, at all.”
She rolled her eyes at me, like he was wrong, but I shook my head at her and sighed because sometimes, despite her maturity level, she was so blind.
Reaching up, I pinched the bridge of my nose and flopped back onto the sofa. She stared at me with a furrowed brow, but to Martin, inquired, “Are you going to do something about Keys’ sister?”
“The second I saw them together, knew I was going to get this shit,” he groused.
“You shouldn’t have allowed her old man to treat her that way, Granddad. Shame on you!” she growled at him, and I had to hide my laughter again at the eighteen-year-old telling off the hardened Prez who’d served fifteen-to-twenty for armed robbery.
Lucifer had more than lived up to his road name during his years.
“Since when was my MC a—”
“A what? You rule over that place like a kingdom, Granddaddy. You’re the king, and if those plebs do stuff you don’t approve of, you’re supposed to behead them!”
“Okay, this analogy has gotten off track,” I interrupted. “Are you going to do something, Martin?”
She growled at me, but I let her. Ama needed to blow off some steam, and I was more than willing to be in the blast.
“Yeah. I’ll do something. But you know this shit ain’t so easy to sort out, Ink. I mean, fuck. She’s his old lady. That’s sacred territory.”
He wasn’t fucking wrong. It totally was.
And that was the most messed up aspect of this situation.
I reached up and rubbed my eyes, suddenly tired. It had been a long ass day already, and this moral debate wasn’t making the day disappear any faster.
A hand rubbed my shoulder, and I felt the whisper of Ama’s body against my knees. Opening my eyes again, I saw she’d rounded the coffee table and was standing in front of me. Her heart was in her eyes, and my own felt like it was stuttering in my own fucking chest.
“Being an old man is sacred territory too,” I rasped, aware that Martin was waiting on a reply from me. “He’s beating on her, Martin. We can’t let that shit slide. This ain’t the nineteen hundreds.”
To be fair to Martin, I was surprised he was even willing to talk to me about this shit. Sure, I was on the Rebels’ council, but I wasn’t on his.
He grunted at my reply. “I’ll see what I can do.” Another grunt. “Ama? Take me off speaker. I want to talk with you.”
Her cheeks flushed as she looked at me, but she reached for her phone and did as he asked. Whatever Martin said had her cheeks turning an even brighter shade of red than before, but it had her plunking herself on my lap without asking—and that wasn’t something I was going to complain about.
16
Saint
“Kenzie?”
Keys’ sister refused to look at me. Fuck, she didn’t do anything other than stare at her knees, and if she wasn’t staring there, she was looking at the door like it was the gate to hell.
Maybe to her, it was.
Maybe to her, what was out there was hell.
Considering I’d known Kenzie pretty well before she’d run off—nothing dirty, just as friends—this side of her wasn’t something I was used to seeing.
One word summed her up—mouthy.
That was pretty much it. She had a big mouth, wasn’t afraid to run it, and usually didn’t give a fuck about who she pissed off in the run up.
This?
It was like night and day had decided to fuck and had created some other weird ass entity.
I wasn’t even sure where the fuck Kenzie was inside the body that wasn’t like the one I’d known. Everything about her, from her conversation to her demeanor, her physical appearance and her spirit, had changed.
And that made me want to strangle her old man.
This wasn’t a woman you could easily browbeat, and yet, this motherfucker Hex had.
Agitation had me jumping to my feet, something that was only exacerbated when Kenzie didn’t only ignore my attempt at conversation, but flinched when I began to pace.
I caught Keys’ eye and knew he’d seen everything I just had. The rage flickering in him was so close to turning into a blaze that I knew, point blank, shit was going down. And hell, if he jangled his fucking keys anymore, he’d be writing an angry ad jingle for Harley.
The confines of the bedroom only made things worse. We were trapped in here while Ama tried to work her diplomatic wiles on her grandfather, and though it had been a smart move on Keys’ part, we both knew it wasn’t going to work.
Sometimes, in this world, violence could only be solved with more violence.
Not something the philosophers like to think was true, but it was true, nonetheless.
A fucker like Hex, who thought nothing of beating on his old lady, his pregnant old lady, would understand nothing unless the language was translated via fists. That was how some of these knuckleheads ran.
Just as I started to get worked up, the bedroom walls feeling like they were starting to move in on me, a knock sounded at the door.
Kenzie released a terrified gasp and huddled in on herself. Her shoulders seemed to crumple and if she could, I had a feeling she’d have rolled into a ball to make herself as small as possible.
I hurt for her. Hurt. My God, what the fuck had Hex done to her? She’d barely been gone any time at all, and yet, he’d destroyed her.
My throat worked as I started to call out, “Who is it?” But before the question even finished, the door was pushed open. I braced myself, waiting on Kenzie’s fuckwit of an old man, but it wasn’t.
It was Lucifer himself.
Clearing my throat, I asked, “Prez?”
He narrowed his eyes at me, then Keys, then when he looked at Kenzie, he sighed, and for the first time, his gaze softened.
He closed the door behind him and stepped into the room, heading over to Kenzie’s side where he took a seat. She didn’t flinch, but neither did she move a muscle. Didn’t twist her head to the side to look at him, didn’t even make a whisper of sound.
I truly thought she was frozen in terror.
“We have to do something, man,” Keys rasped, breaking the weird silence we’d all fallen into as Lucifer studied Kenzie.
The Prez cut Keys a look. “It’s all in hand.”
“It is?” I demanded. “How?”
He reached up, scratching his stubbled jaw. “Hex is going on the run to Colorado tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m going to visit my granddaughter.”
Eyes flaring wide in surprise, I questioned, “We’re taking Kenzie?”
Lucifer sno
rted. “What do you think, boy? Course we are.”
“What about when Hex finds out she’s gone?” Keys asked quietly.
“He’ll think she’s run off.”
“Back home,” he retorted.
“Maybe.” Lucifer shrugged. “If she lives on the compound for a while, she’ll be safe. If he comes around your territory…” He grunted. “I’ll have to figure out a way to sanction shit.” Under his breath, he muttered, “Goddamn meddling granddaughters.”
Kenzie licked her lips, and for the first time, whispered, “He didn’t make me get a tattoo.”
Lucifer’s head tilted to the side. “Excuse me?”
Her cheek caved in as she gnawed on it. “I was pregnant, and the doctors said you weren’t supposed to get a tattoo when you’re pregnant.”
Eyes flaring wide, Lucifer slapped his knee. “Well, looks like we have ourselves a loophole.”
“Doesn’t take away from the fact she’s carrying his kid,” Keys grated out. “He ain’t going to let the kid just leave.”
Kenzie’s face crumpled, and though I wanted to call Keys out on talking like that when she was here, the truth was, Kenzie was in this up to her eyeballs and needed to be here to hear the shit that was going to have to go down to get her out of this mess.
I sounded like a bastard, I knew. But she should never have run off. Sure, I got the fact that some kids hated the life. They didn’t want the MC to tarnish their adulthood because not everyone had a good experience within the club as kids. But to run to another MC? One where your brother and father couldn’t protect you? That was the height of idiocy, and it surprised me because I’d never have considered Kenzie as being stupid.
“Maybe he will, maybe he won’t.” Lucifer rubbed his chin. “Ain’t like Hex is paternal. He’s a bastard, sure. Might take an interest just to be petty. But for the moment, getting her out of here is all I got. And what I got is more than you’d usually be getting…”
It went unsaid that he was only helping because Ama had twisted his arm. To be honest, I was astonished she’d managed that much. Although, maybe I shouldn’t be. Considering she had a way about her, some wiles that couldn’t be ignored and that usually had Keys and I doing whatever she wanted—within reason, of course—it figured that she’d be the one to save Kenzie.
Even though I knew, point blank, Kenzie had been a bitch to her back in the day.
Kenzie was a bitch, period, but it seemed like that had changed.
At least, for the moment.
She was too scared to be a bitch. Too terrified.
Fuck, that bastard Hex needed to be made to pay.
“What about Hex?” I rasped. “He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with shit like this. He’s just going to do it again.”
Lucifer cut me a look. “Don’t start preaching at me.”
“I ain’t preaching,” I growled back, hackles rising, and only common sense stopped me from surging forward and headfirst into a fight.
This was Lucifer.
Sure, he was older than me, a hell of a lot older than me, but he’d done shit that was legend in our world.
The bastard had left prison and, from inside that world, had somehow made the contacts and allegiances that had helped him rise to Prez once he was out.
Everyone knew what that meant.
He’d killed on the inside.
Without getting caught.
And one murder would get you some good vibes from your brothers. Some fist bumps and ‘well dones’ on the outside. But the rise to Prez? Only Lucifer himself knew how many souls he’d had to take to get to where he was today.
So, old or not, I was still only twenty-fucking-four with a relatively blank slate. Well, in comparison to the Prez. I wasn’t exactly sunshine and roses. If anything, my soul was painted a concrete gray, but that would only be absorbed by the sheer pitch of Lucifer’s black.
“If he carries on, if he makes a nuisance of himself, then he’ll be dealt with.”
I nodded, but persevered—I had to. Sometimes a rabid dog just needed to be put down. “You know he’ll do it again, don’t you?”
The Prez’s mouth tightened. “I do. That’s how those fuckers work. Once ain’t enough.” He got to his feet with a lithe grace that belied his age, then headed for the door. “Be ready to roll out at seven-thirty. My guys will head out at six so there’ll be enough distance between us for safety.”
Without another look back at any of us, and without another word, he left, leaving us staring after him.
“Kenzie? You know you need to go back to him tonight, don’t you?” I rasped, and fuck, I felt like the evilest piece of shit in the world when she turned terror-stricken eyes my way.
“I’ll go with her. He can’t say shit when I’m her brother,” Keys rasped. “Where you living?”
“On the compound,” Kenzie whispered miserably. “We got our own apartment. It’s small, but there’s a separate living room. You can sleep on the sofa.”
“Will it piss him off?”
“Most things do,” Kenzie replied. “But if we’re lucky, he won’t even come back. Sometimes, at these parties, he doesn’t.”
I nodded, knowing exactly what the fucker was doing while his pregnant old lady clung to the bed in terror, waiting for him to come back home.
Jesus.
Scraping a hand over my head, I murmured, “Don’t pack anything until right before we’re due to set off. You don’t want to clue him in to the fact you’re…” Was it stupid that I didn’t want to jinx it by saying it aloud?
She sent a look my way, the first time she’d dared stare right at me, and murmured, “I won’t.”
Twenty minutes later, when Keys and Kenzie left, they didn’t take the bad feeling I had in my gut away with them.
I felt like crashing, but I knew the bed wouldn’t have been allotted for me since I was too low in the ranks. It called to me, though, and I forced myself to leave the room and head back to where the party was.
The last thing I wanted was to be in the middle of a fucking rave. I didn’t want to see clubwhores sucking and fucking, didn’t want to see the drugs being snorted up bitches’ and brothers’ noses, didn’t even appreciate the lap dances some chicks were giving a few of the guys.
Nope, I just wanted to fucking sleep.
And those had to be the most pussy-whipped thoughts I’d ever had, because if I wanted to see anyone sucking, fucking, stripping, or even goddamn snorting, it was Ama.
Jesus.
I was fucked.
But hopefully, in the best possible way.
❖
Ama
What was it with family?
They always butted in at the wrong time, making things harder, making a delicate situation a thousand times more fragile.
I wanted to both strangle my grandfather while also kissing him on the cheek. The two discordant reactions were thanks to the mortification I’d initially felt at his blurted-out remark, but also, because when I looked in Ink’s eyes, I saw my granddaddy wasn’t wrong.
He did want me.
He wanted to claim me.
And either prospect wasn’t something I’d ever planned on actually happening. It had been relegated to the land of dreams.
Of course, I’d wanted him. But I didn’t want to be kidnapped and I’d wanted to go to RISD too. Shit happened and sometimes, life didn’t work out the way you planned. I’d thought I’d spend most of my years pining over the man who’d gotten away. Able to watch him while I worked in the tattoo parlor, wishing that we had more than the relationship we had.
It didn’t seem possible that one of the doors to my dreams was opening, and yet, here I was, sitting on his lap. And not because I was having a nightmare.
But because I wanted to.
And because he wanted me there.
With the call between my grandfather and I disconnected, I turned to face Ink. Of the three men I loved, his was the most lived in face. It was craggy and rough. At the corners
of his eyes, there were lines that came from too much sun and exposure to the wind while riding. And on his temple and between his brows, there were frown lines gathering. But beyond that? He was rugged and raw, so handsome that I could have stared at him for days and still have found something new to draw.
Though I was nervous, I was also happy, and it prompted me to lift my hand, raise it to his cheek, and cup him, feeling his flesh against mine and testing the stubble against my palm.
It felt so fucking good.
So damn right.
And I shuddered in response. I actually shuddered. It was better than when I touched my clit on a night, better than when I slipped my fingers between my legs in the bath and got myself off.
Just knowing that I could do this? That he wanted it too? It was like fireworks in my veins.
“I’ve wanted you for a long time,” he rasped, his voice low and husky, hoarse with unspoken emotions that even his eyes, ever eloquent with their smoky, ever changing hazel hue couldn’t keep hidden. They flashed between gray and green, smoky brown and light flashes of amber. It was a trick of the light, I knew that, but still, it made me want to paint them.
“How long?” I answered, my gaze twitching back to my fingers that were stroking the lean line of his jaw before they dipped down and began to explore his throat.
“Longer than I should have. But not long enough that you’d think I’m a pervert.”
Because he said it wryly, dryly even, I snorted out a laugh. “You’re not a pervert,” I told him.
“You sure? I’m eighteen years older than you. I feel like a fucking pervert some days when I’m fantasizing about fucking your ass—”
My fingers moved to cover his mouth, to stop his words. I gulped. His words were like kerosene on the flames of my desire.
“You want that from me?”
I hadn’t been sure if I’d been what he wanted. I’d seen his past girlfriends, had hated them on sight. I’d even watched him with the few clubwhores he interacted with. They weren’t like me. They were all skinny and big-breasted. They wore barely any clothes too.
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