Origin

by Ana Jolene

  “We didn’t mean to make a mess.” Lucky shot me an apologetic look before he moved to the sink and started to rinse the dishes. “It’s just been a while since we’ve been able to cook together.” He motioned towards the table. “There’s a plate for you over there.”

  “Thanks. Just let me put some clothes on first.” As I scampered back to my bedroom, I couldn’t help but think of the unusual picture I’d just witnessed. The Winters family reunion seemed to be going well, so much so that Lucky was looking like a completely different person standing there with a spatula in his hand, laughing and smiling with his little sister and her boyfriend. The strange thing about it all was that as much as I wanted to hate Lucky for last night, he’d looked really sweet right now. There was no denying that Lucky had a sweet spot for his sister.

  I was just slipping into my favorite pair of T-bar platform heels when there was a soft knock on the door. “Can I come in?” Lennon stood at the door, holding a cup of coffee in her hands. “Careful, it’s hot,” she said as she offered it to me.

  “Thank you.” I took a sip. “Is there something you need?”

  “Ah, no. Actually, I just wanted to talk to you. I realized that Lucky might not have told you that we were coming. He never mentioned he was living with you. Otherwise we would have stayed at a motel. I hope you don’t think we’re imposing.”

  “Of course not! I’m so glad you’re staying with us.”

  She smiled softly. “We still should’ve checked with you first.”

  I drew an arm over her shoulder. “You’re free to stay here for however long you want. You know what they say, mi casa es tu casa.”

  Lennon giggled. “I think the saying is mi casa es su casa.”

  “Right.” I laughed. “I’m sorry about last night. Things were a bit awkward, but I’m going to make it up to you. Let me just finish putting on this shoe.” As I secured the clasp and rose to my full height, Lennon’s eyes grew big.

  “Wow, you’re so pretty,” she breathed. “You could be a model.”

  The compliment made me blush. “Thank you.” I did a little pose, turning my ankle this way and that to let the light catch the details of the shoes. “These are my favorite pair.” The satin heels had an innocent looking floral print in a mixture of rich, berry shades. Perfect for the mood I was in.

  “I love them. They’re so badass!” Her voice went soft and dreamy. “I’d give anything to be as pretty as you.”

  “Do I need to go downstairs and beat the crap out of your boyfriend? Hasn’t he been telling you how beautiful you are?”

  Lennon laughed. “He tells me, but your kind of pretty is on another level.”

  I may have the bombshell thing going for me, but Lennon was a stunner with her own good looks. She just had to realize it herself. “What size shoes do you wear?”

  “Seven.”

  “I’m a seven and a half, but you can try these on if you want. See if they fit you.” I bent to remove them.

  Lennon’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Really? You’d let me try them on?”

  “Yeah. Just don’t trip and break something.” I grinned. “Otherwise your brother will have a reason to chew my ass out. I annoy him enough as it is.”

  Lennon smiled as I passed the heels to her. “Nah, he likes you. He wouldn’t be living with you otherwise.” Lucky should take up acting then because he sure seemed like he hated my guts.

  I waited as Lennon strapped her feet into the heels, wobbling slightly as she rose from the bed. My arm shot out to steady her. “Wow, I feel so tall in these.”

  “Try walking in them. Let me see you strut that stuff!”

  “Like this?” Lennon added a little sway in her hips.

  “Yes,” I cried, amused. “Now give me more face. That’s it, baby!”

  Lennon’s happiness was a palpable thing as she modeled for me, striking a pose as she imagined she was walking on a catwalk. For fun, I added in some catcalls and whistles until we were both giggling.

  “What’s going on here?”

  I whipped around to find Lucky and Dex standing in the doorway to my bedroom, a furrow appearing on the younger man’s brow. “Oh,” I breathed, embarrassed to be caught in the midst of a full-on Vogue session. “We were just—”

  “Seven is so cool,” Lennon mused in excitement. “She let me try on her heels and taught me how to walk in them. See?” She demonstrated her strut for her brother and boyfriend.

  Dex watched on with wide eyes, his tongue practically hanging out of his mouth at his girlfriend’s sexy pose. “Holy, holy shit.”

  “Mind out of the gutter, asshole,” Lucky barked.

  Dex grinned sheepishly. “Sorry.”

  “Come on, Lennon. Take off the heels. If you want, I can find a pair of your own.”

  Lennon hopped in excitement at her brother’s promise. “Really?”

  “Yes,” Lucky said, grinning that smile that he only saved for his sister. “Now come on.” Over his sister’s head, his light eyes met mine, flashing with amusement. When Dex and Lennon headed downstairs, he lingered behind. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “For what?”

  “For being nice to her. She hasn’t had a lot to be happy about. So thank you.” He leaned in and placed a soft, chaste kiss on my cheek, pulling back before I could even catch the scent of him.

  As I stood there in surprise, Lucky smiled at me one last time before heading down the stairs to join his sister.

  Lucky

  As the week went by, I watched Seven take Lennon under her wing. I’d never seen my sister so happy to have a new friend. When Lennon told me she wanted to come visit, the last thing I suspected was that she and Seven would get along. In many ways, my little sister was like me. She was stubborn and wary of new people. Though she was friendly and outgoing, there were only a few people she trusted. But it seemed that once again Seven had the power to win her over. As Lennon waved goodbye and jumped into Dex’s car for a little girls-only excursion, that left me alone to think about Seven.

  The fiend had so many reasons to be angry with me after that stunt I pulled at Neptune’s the last time we were there. But instead of holding the fact that I forgot to mention that my sister and her boyfriend were coming over against me, she had accepted them as family, allowing them into her home.

  Seven had a big heart. Big enough that she didn’t care that I’d been a dick to her. In addition to that, she’d taken upon herself to cook a feast for my brothers and me after we had come back from Ward Three the other night. That was enough to have me falling half in love with her already.

  But this? Her spending some quality girl time with Lennon, giving her something I couldn’t give her? That made me appreciate her on a whole other level.

  “So,” Dex drawled as he stretched out on the deck with a beer in his hand. “What’s the plan for today now that the girls are gone?”

  I shot Hastie a look and he suppressed a smile. Putting my beer down, I stood and loomed over him. Confusion flashed over Dex’s expression for a brief moment. “We’re going to talk about what exactly you’re doing with my baby sister.”

  At twenty-eight years old, I had a good reason to be suspicious about the man my sixteen-year-old sister was calling her boyfriend. I didn’t care that he was eight years older than I was. I’d break his bones if he ever hurt Lennon.

  That message seemed to translate through my eyes because Dex straightened immediately. “Fuck,” he muttered. “I knew this was going to happen.”

  “Knew that I would break your fingers if you tried to touch her or knew that we’d be on your ass for trying to seduce her?”

  “There’s a difference?” Even through his fear, Dex smiled. I had to flatten my lips to keep from grinning myself. If the guy knew how protective I was of Lennon and still wanted to be with her, it meant that his feelings for her ran deep.

  “Careful,” Hastie warned. “Lucky’s been jonesin’ for a fight. Don’t give him a reason.”

&n
bsp; Dex met my gaze head on. “If you want to throw down, then let’s throw down. But it’s not going to stop me from seeing your sister.”

  I arched a brow. Well, well, well. Was I seeing a backbone? Maybe I didn’t have to kick his ass. My eyes roamed over Dex, examining the thick shoulders and the scar he had in his left eyebrow. It was from an older wound he’d gotten when in college. “No,” I said, stepping away. “I’m not going to fight you. Without you, Lennon wouldn’t be sober right now. You’ve been good for her. I won’t take that away from her.”

  “Thanks, man. I really do love her, you know.”

  “I know.” Things were going well for once. I wasn’t going to fuck it up now. Lennon was recovering well, Glory MC had found Tansy, and since discovering the Phantoms’ headquarters, we currently had the upper hand. Why mess shit up now?

  Lennon and Seven returned at one in the morning. My sister didn’t even bother to come see me, she went straight up to her bedroom with Dex and called it a night. Whatever they did must’ve tired her out. “What did you guys do today?” I asked Seven when I went to her bedroom. “You wore her out.”

  Seven grinned. “She said she was tired, but she also had the best day of her life. She told me so.”

  I leaned against the door, unsure whether to go in or remain out here. “I really appreciate you babysitting her.”

  “I’m not babysitting her. I like hanging out with her. She reminds me of you.” She took a bite out of the sandwich she’d made—a late, middle of the night snack—and offered me the other half. “Though she’s a lot less irritating,” she tacked on.

  Taking the other half of the sandwich, I moved to sit beside her on the edge of the bed, watching as she got up and changed. It should’ve made me a pervert, but Seven didn’t seem to mind that I was staring. As inches of skin were revealed to my gaze, I drank it in, my mouth going dry as Seven’s curves were quickly covered again. It took a couple of tries to swallow the food in my mouth. “Hey, I’m sorry for being a dick.”

  Seven froze, glancing over her shoulder at me. “You’re what?”

  “I’m sorry for what I did to you at Neptune’s. And for everything I said later that evening. I also feel shitty for not telling you that they were coming to visit. It slipped my mind and then—”

  “It’s fine, Lucky.” She sat down beside me and crossed her legs, taking a sip of her orange juice. “I’m not mad anymore.”

  “But you were,” I said with a smile. “You were furious.”

  “I was, but a lot of the things you said were true.”

  I couldn’t hide my surprise. “Like what?”

  “Like I already knew who I wanted.”

  Heat rushed over me in a wave as her eyes met mine. It would be so easy to reach out and touch her, to bring her into my lap and take her mouth. “What about Trey?”

  “Trey is out the picture.” When I arched a brow in question, she said, “I ended things with him before we went to Neptune’s.”

  “How’d he take it?”

  “He was hurt. Probably mad. I think your little stunt brought out the possessive beast in him, too.”

  I grinned shamelessly. “Good.”

  Her head snapped up, eyes narrowing to small slits before a reluctant smile spread over her lush lips. “All things considered, it wasn’t the worst breakup I’ve ever had. At least he didn’t threaten to hurt himself if I left him.”

  “You’ve had exes do that to you before?”

  “Haven’t you?”

  “I had this one chick who slashed my tires on my bike once. That was after she tried to behead me with the old CDs in her truck.”

  Seven laughed. “Classic.”

  I groaned. “Don’t tell me you’ve done that.” If she was one of those crazy chicks, I was out.

  “That and about a million other things that would probably get me arrested if it weren’t for the flares.”

  “Like what?” Suddenly, I had to know.

  “I caught a guy cheating on me once with some bimbo bitch.” She smiled like the devil. “Dragged her off his dick by her hair and dunked her head in the toilet.” I roared with laughter. “Bitches don’t mess with what’s mine now,” she said smugly.

  Christ, no wonder other women were scared of her. Seven would eat them alive. “And the guy?”

  “Nearly lost two inches of his cock after I grabbed a knife from the kitchen.”

  More howling laughter from me. Any more of this and I’d die from laughing too much. “You women are merciless,” I sputtered, wiping tears from my eyes.

  Seven shrugged and leaned back on the bed. “Hey, it wouldn’t happen if men weren’t such cheating assholes.”

  The smile I sported morphed into a frown. “I hope I wasn’t the cause of your breakup with Trey.”

  “That’s a little cocky of you, isn’t it?”

  I wasn’t being cocky. Just sorry. “I could tell he really liked you.”

  “Trey deserves better.”

  “No, you deserve better.” Seven was always giving, never taking anything in return. She deserved someone who could give her the fucking world. She seemed surprised by my words. “It’s true,” I whispered. I just wished I could be more honest about my feelings about her.

  NINETEEN

  Giovanni’s

  Seven

  Toni was showing off her spectacular hickey on her left boob when Trey walked into our shared office. “Um.” He froze in place. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “Oh!” Toni hastily shoved her double Ds back into her shirt, smiling apologetically as I fell into hysterics. “Sorry, sugar. I just had to show it off. You know how it is.”

  A smile spread across Trey’s face as he approached. “Sure I do.” Then he turned to me. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” It was the first time I’d seen him since the incident at Neptune’s. As his eyes roamed over my features in an intimate caress, I suddenly felt anxious again. Oh God, why was he still here? What was he going to say?

  Noticing the sudden change in mood, Toni rolled away on her office chair to hide, no doubt to eavesdrop from the safety of her own desk. But Trey took one look at her and Toni’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, fine.” She sulked like a child being told she couldn’t have the last piece of chocolate until tomorrow. “I’ll give you some privacy and wait outside.”

  “Thanks,” Trey said to her retreating back. When he turned back to me, my anxiety spiked. I was all alone with him, with no one to help me if something went wrong.

  “Seven, you kill me, you know that? I come in here mad, but once I set my eyes on you, all that anger disappears.”

  I honestly had no idea what he was talking about. “Trey, look. You’ve been a great friend. But—”

  “A friend?” He took a step towards me. “Is that all I am to you? After everything we’ve been through? Even after that amazing night together?” What else was I supposed to call him though? I had decided that I no longer wanted to lie to myself anymore. But in trying to rectify things, I’d be hurting him instead. “I thought about what you said,” he continued. “And I think you’re wrong.”

  “Wrong?”

  “I knew there would be a risk when getting involved with someone you work with, but I couldn’t help myself with you. That night we spent together proved it. It was like everything felt normal again, like before the flares. Didn’t you feel it too?”

  Admittedly, the only thing I felt after that night was regret. I shouldn’t have strung Trey along like that, giving him a piece of me that had already been claimed by someone else. After everything I had done, I knew I had to go through with this, no matter how awkward it would be between us at work. “I don’t know how to say this, Trey. You’re a good guy, but—”

  His head dropped and he laughed bitterly. “There’s always a but, isn’t there?” I offered him a smile in response. “Come on, Seven. You have to admit we’re good together.”

  In a reality far different from this one, it was possible. But not in this wo
rld. Not when there was someone else walking on this earth whose presence alone gave me heart palpitations. “I think you’ll make a woman really happy one day,” I told him.

  Trey shook his head. “Why can’t she be you?”

  “She can’t be me.” Because my heart already belonged to someone else.

  Sensing he was losing ground, Trey moved in, making me suddenly feel claustrophobic by his immense size. He grabbed a hold of my hand, squeezing it tightly as if he could physically stop me from leaving him.

  Before he could say anything, the sounds of angry shouts alerted me that something was going on downstairs. “What the hell is that?”

  Trey craned his head out the window that overlooked the factory below. His eyes quickly scanned the area. “I don’t know.”

  More shouts sounded then, followed by a crash of metal. I pushed Trey away from me, heading for the ground level.

  Men dressed for war held scary looking firearms in their hands. They surrounded G, giving him no space to move. Who the hell were these guys? And what were they doing here?

  Around them, the machines were damaged, pieces of it torn off and scattered across the floor. Had that been the crashing sounds I heard earlier?

  There was more though. The fabric from that machine was ruined. A week’s work of labor that took many hands and many hours to make was gone in a blink of an eye.

  “Last chance,” said the man who I assumed was the leader. He was the only one out of the bunch who wore slacks and a button-up shirt while the others wore black. Through the collar of his shirt, I could see that he wore a bulletproof vest beneath his clothing. “What’s your answer?”

  What was his answer to what? G spun around, fury a dark mask over his features. “Fuck you!”

  All the leader had to do was nod once before all hell broke loose. I ducked as shots were fired in all directions and screams echoed in my ears.

  “You bastards!” G called out, going for one of the armed men. My eyes widened as G was struck hard.

  “Noo!” I rushed towards him. “G, are you okay?” At first glance, I thought that maybe he’d been knocked unconscious but then he turned his head slightly, the fire in his eyes still burning hot like lava.