"It's not funny. And human bite marks and animal ones are different," I informed him. "I will go find a turtleneck, I guess."
"And pack a bag."
"And pack a bag," I agreed. "Can you grab Nugget's stuff?"
Ten minutes later, I was shoving my toothbrush into my weekender bag when Fallon's voice filled my apartment.
"The fuck is taking so long? Billie is saying something about Niro needing to fix some plumbing issue, but I'm starting to think she's bullshitting me."
I said a silent thank you to the universe that I was in the bathroom because I would never have been able to stop the laughing snort that escaped me at that.
"Yeah, no. The pipes are all fixed," Niro insisted convincingly. "What's going on with everyone?"
"Church," Fallon said as I moved into the living room, paranoia making me gather my hair toward the side of my neck where the bite was even though my shirt was covering the mark. "And you need to be there to fill us all in," he added, giving me a hard look, one that said there would be lectures in my future.
I hated lectures.
I had this awful habit of crying when I thought people were disappointed in me.
But as I passed Niro to fall in step behind Fallon, Niro's hand rose to grab mine and give it a reassuring squeeze.
And all the tension slipped away.
It was silly and likely naive of me, but somehow, with Niro back in my life, I was sure everything was going to be okay.
Chapter Fifteen
Niro
To an outsider, the level of activity going on with the Henchmen, their women, and their children would border on extreme paranoia, even overkill.
That said, the club had been through so much shit through the years, their knee-jerk reaction to a new threat was to shut it all down.
The wives and underage kids headed up to Hailstorm where they would be safe behind electric fences manned by armed militia members and dogs, settled comfortably inside the giant maze of shipping container lodgings that could withstand all sorts of attacks should they ever show up at the door.
The patched members and several of the second-generation adults like Andi, Billie, Hope, and Gracie, and others who didn't want to go up to Hailstorm, descended upon the clubhouse instead with a sort of resigned acceptance that this would always be a part of their lives. They trickled in with their weekender-sized bags that held home and work clothes, basic self-care items, and every electronic device they might need to bunker down with if this went on longer than any of us wanted it to.
They would all be settled in the basement in the section that had been changed over many years from a small sleeping area for anyone prospecting into a sprawling barracks-style room with rows of bunk beds, dressers, a small kitchenette, bathroom, and even an area with tables to play cards or board games if the boredom started to get the better of everyone.
To an outsider, it might have felt a bit like a low-level prison. But to all of us who had needed to shack up there many times in the past, it was just like a mini family reunion. You know, one with the threats of possible street war attached.
Maybe it was all overkill.
Maybe none of it was necessary.
But no one was willing to risk it.
"This room is getting too fucking small for everyone," Reign decided when everything had settled down and all the men—and Andi—were gathered in the common area of the clubhouse for church.
"Can I start by wondering how the fuck one of our own could be kidnapped without a fucking one of us knowing?" my father demanded, waving his hand out.
And, really, it was a good question.
But the answer seemed simpler than you would first think.
Namely, that it had been a lot easier to protect the children of the club when they were just that... children. When they grew up and got their own lives, moved to their own places, got their own jobs, it became a hell of a lot harder to keep an eye on everyone every moment of the day.
You could see the looks of concern on the faces of all the men, wondering how they were going to be able to keep their adult children safe in this new world we were living in. One where new enemies were getting smarter, sneakier, harder to track down and protect ourselves against.
"Let's stick to what we can fix now," Reign suggested, looking over toward where Andi was half-hidden behind my shoulder. "We need to know what you know about the cartel, babe," he said, always one to cut right to the chase. It wasn't typically a style Andi responded to, but she knew she really had no choice in this situation.
Andi mumbled through the first minutes, her gaze focused on the ground, giving answers to anyone who asked for clarifications, but not telling the story the way she typically did where she would recount every little detail, would go off on side tangents for a while before she circled back to the original story.
"Just A. And the guy that got shot. Marco. That is all they said," she explained when someone asked if she had gotten any names.
"Okay, I have a question," her father said, making her head shoot up. "Baby girl, why didn't you come to me?" he asked, his voice a shattered sound.
I understood his confusion, his frustration, but watching her eyes go glassy made a protective urge rise up.
"We weren't there," I reminded him, putting an arm around Andi. "We don't know exactly what they said or how she felt. And if she thought silence could save you and her mom, I think we both know Andi would choose that. Even if it was, clearly, eating away at her."
Reeve's gaze slid to me, holding, and I couldn't help but wonder if he was reading into what I said, if he was putting things together. If he was looking at my arm around her and thinking of it as something innocent, or reading more into it than that.
It didn't exactly escape me that pretty much everyone in our world knew my feelings for Andi. Except Andi.
I never talked about it with her parents, of course, but I had wondered more than a few times when I was younger what Reeve thought about the idea of me with his daughter, if he would approve, if he thought I was worthy, if he knew there was no one in the world who could love his little girl like I could.
Now, though?
Shit.
After years of him watching me turn into more and more of a dick with a violence problem? I was pretty sure I knew the answer to all of those questions.
But that was a problem for another day.
"Alright, back to the facts," Fallon said, and, for a change, I was glad the asshole wasn't one for giving a shit about feelings. "We need a map to the house. And then your best layout of the inside."
With that, Andi was set up with someone to draw up the sketches of the maps while the rest of us talked about possible strategies, which cartels might be trying to move in, what possible the repercussions of starting shit with someone who possibly had ties to the bigger cartels in Mexico or anywhere else in South America. There were some empires you simply didn't fuck with, no matter what had gone down with Andi. It would mean brutal murders for everyone in the club and everyone they'd ever been connected to.
"But no one has shit," Reign concluded after telling us he'd reached out to all the organizations in town. "Whoever they are, they are keeping their shit between themselves for the most part. Andi and Toll likely only got involved because Toll pulled a gun. And Andi had the bad luck of looking like someone who could handle a gunshot wound."
"It's probably a good sign that they let her go with just a threat," Renny, Hope's profiling father, concluded. "They're not trying to start shit. We've run across some cartels over the years in passing. They don't leave witnesses. For fuck's sake, look at that one who gathered up a group of their own prostitutes and beheaded them one by one on video just to prove how ruthless they were."
"So, what?" Fallon asked, straightening. "You're suggesting we don't let them know that touching someone who belongs to us is un-fucking-acceptable?"
"I'm saying they had no way of knowing Andi was ours," Renny insisted. "She's been away for, what,
eight years? Anyone new in town wouldn't know who she is. And, on top of that, she was just some random woman on the street in scrubs that they thought would be useful. If we follow that logic, killing her would be the smartest course of action for them. They didn't do that."
"Maybe only because they eventually found out who she was," I suggested. "And they didn't want that trouble."
But here we were, about to bring it to their door.
I was torn between the urge to put a bullet in the head of anyone who scared Andi, who made her feel like she couldn't turn to us, turn to me, in this situation, and the urge not to escalate this into a full-out war if it didn't need to go there.
That said, I wasn't the one in charge.
And Reign and Fallon seemed to both agree that we needed to show up and make it clear that you didn't threaten one of our people. Because, regardless of the actual kidnapping aspect when they didn't know who she was, they had known about her connection to the club when they'd told her to keep her mouth shut.
"Don't go," a voice said from behind me another hour or so after that.
"Baby, I have to," I told her, voice low as I turned, finding her leaning in the doorway that led from the bedrooms into the common area.
"No, you don't. You can stay. There are more than enough of them to go. You can stay."
Taking a deep breath, I led her back toward my room, moving us both inside, and leaned back against the door.
This was what I had reminded myself of all those years when I told myself it was in her best interest not to be involved with me. That she was softer, that she was sweeter, that she wasn't cut out for the club life. And that my life would always be attached to it.
"I can't." I usually liked a softer approach to hard truths with her, but this was just not somewhere that I could do that. My life as a biker was the metaphorical band-aid that needed to be ripped off.
"Someone needs to stay here to protect everyone."
"It wasn't my place to pick who is staying. You know how the club works, Andi."
"I know," she agreed, chewing her lower lip as she dropped down on the side of the bed. "I guess this just feels different. I mean I always worried about my dad too, but not like this. I think I need to call my mom and apologize for anytime I got on her nerves when Dad was on a run or dealing with some drama with the club."
"Please. You've never gotten on anyone's nerves," I assured her.
"Knock knock," a voice said from behind me, making me move off of the door. "Am I too late? Are you already doing it?" Billie's voice asked even as she opened the door.
"If we were, you'd be interrupting right now," I reminded her.
"If you were, I would seriously wonder if you were doing it right since I didn't hear any love sounds through the door," she said, moving inside.
"What is that?" Andi asked, eyeing the box in her hands dubiously.
"I'm glad you asked. I have some fun things for you two to play with together."
"Oh, God," Andi whimpered, looking over at me with wide eyes, begging for help.
"Did you stop at your aunt's sex store?" I asked, wondering who she could have conned into that on the way back.
"What? No."
"So you're walking around with, ah, sex stuff on you at all times?" Andi asked, brows drawing together.
"No. Well, yes, of course. I mean who doesn't shove a couple different kinds of condoms and lube and a little bullet for some lunch break sexual frustration easement?" she asked, and I could tell from Andi's parted lips that she definitely didn't. "No, all this was in my trunk. We have some flavored love lotion," she said, tossing one onto the bed. "Oh, and this one is flavored and warms up. Great for a massage and for, well, you can imagine," she told her, wiggling her eyebrows.
"Ah, Billie, we really don't need any of this," Andi instead.
"Well, no. No one needs any of this. Especially if they are having open and honest communication about shared fantasies and—"
"Okay, Billie. Time to go," I declared.
"I still have a lot in here," she told me, waving the box around.
"I'm sure you do. And if we ever have need of it, we will let you know," I told her.
"Oh, good. Please do. You guys know me, I am the resident physical love guru. No topics are off-limits with me."
"I am acutely aware of that now," I agreed, helping her out into the hallway.
"Hope told me that Billie dragged her to some sort of naked yoga cult," Andi told me, wincing.
"That doesn't surprise me in the least," I said, shaking my head. "She means well, but I draw the line at taking advice from a sort-of cousin who is several years younger than me."
"Besides," Andi agreed, taking the lube that had been tossed on the bed and slipping it into the dresser drawer, "you don't need any tips."
I needed to keep my focus on the task we were about to undertake as a club.
But one little comment like that was like a shot of pure need to my cock.
"Oh, yeah?" I asked, moving toward the bed, reaching down to close my hand around her throat, gently pulling her up onto her feet. "You like how I touch you, huh?" I asked, my other hand sliding down, closing over her breast through her shirt.
"Y-yes," she said, taking a deep breath as she wet her lower lip with her tongue.
"Good," I decided, leaning down to press my lips to hers, hard, but only for a moment. "Because I plan on doing a lot more of it."
I'd spent most of my life thinking about what it would be like to be able to touch her, to hear her sighs, her moans, to taste her, to feel her walls clenching around me. And not a single one of the fantasies I had gone over in my head came anywhere close to how it was in reality.
I was sure I would never get enough of it.
But I was also going to test that theory by having her at every possible opportunity in the foreseeable future.
"Nope," I said when her hand slid up my thigh, slipping inward. "No time for that right now," I told her, chuckling at the little whimper she let out. "But if you climb in this bed and get some sleep, I will wake you up in a memorable way when I get back," I told her, watching as her eyes danced.
"Fiiine," she said, sighing exaggeratedly.
"You'll at least try to sleep, right?" I asked, rubbing the pad of my thumb under the circles under her eyes.
"I'm going to be honest here," she said, tsking at herself. "I am probably going to sit up with my stomach in a knot," she told me. "Like it or not," she added.
"I guess I can't be mad you're worrying about me," I conceded. "But you need some sleep."
"I'll sleep when you're here to sleep too."
I'd never really entertained the idea of a world where I had a warm woman in my bed to come back to. But now that I had it, I decided I never wanted to be without it.
It put shit into perspective.
It gave me something to be careful for, no matter what the job was.
That was why Reign had spent so much of his tenure as the president of the MC trying to shore up the club, put in measures to make it so that nothing could get in anymore. Because he had a woman he loved to come home to. Because, eventually, he had kids that needed him too.
I'd never known that, so I had always—like Fallon, like the others of our generation—gone into situations with fearlessness, if not outright idiocy, convinced we were all untouchable. Or, at least, that it would be worth it to go out in a blaze of glory.
That suddenly sounded so fucking stupid.
"You'll be careful, right?" she asked, leaning forward, pressing her forehead into the center of my chest, waiting for my arms to go around her to put hers around me.
"Yes."
"And you'll make sure my dad is too? He's trying to hide it, but he's angry."
"I know," I agreed, giving her a tight squeeze.
"You have to come back," she added. "I could never explain to Nugget why he can't see you anymore."
"Nugget, huh? That's the only reason?" I asked, giving the ends of her hai
r a little tug.
"I might miss you a little bit too," she told me, smiling up at me. "Since you stopped being a giant jerk, that is," she added.
A chuckle moved through me. "I've been a dick for a long time now. It might not be that easy to turn off."
Even as I said it, though, I knew it was bullshit.
The reason I'd needed to become hard and cold was because I couldn't have her in my life anymore, because I thought I couldn't ever have her in my life the way I wanted her.
Now, though?
Here she was, in my arms, telling me she'd be waiting for me, worrying about me, happy to be woken up with my hands and mouth on her when I got back.
It was all I'd ever wanted.
I had never felt so warm before. All that hard and ugly that had been my life for so long seemed like it was gone in a blink, leaving me the person I'd been before she left, stealing all the sun from my life. Now that it was back, she was back, everything felt bright and warm and right. As fucking cheesy as that sounded.
"You've always been a little grumpy," she reminded me. "And I've always loved that about you," she added, making my heart catch in my chest.
Was it the exact declaration I was looking for?
No.
She'd told me she loved me a million times since we were young. She had always been generous with her feelings, with her expression of them, with making you feel appreciated and important in her life.
Still, it had been a long time since I heard her say it.
And it felt good.
And it would just have to be enough to hold me over until I could get the exact declaration from her that I genuinely never thought I could ever hear.
"I've always loved everything about you," I told her, leaning down to seal my lips to hers. Not hard and hungry, but full of all the things I'd been feeling for so long, but unable to express to her.
"Yo, we're heading..." Reeve's voice started then trailed off as he opened the bedroom door.
It had been an eventful day of our loved ones happening upon us while we were in somewhat compromised positions.
Andi and Niro Page 16