Ace of Hearts

by Chantal Fernando

  “You can’t punch every woman I’ve slept with,” he says, reminding me I’m the one who’s gotten physical and not the other way around.

  “Yeah, because I’d need a team of people to help me, or I’d be tracking down your women for the rest of my life,” I mutter, pursing my lips.

  “You’re my only woman, Erin, and I love you. But it’s a little cute when you get all jealous,” he replies, chuckling under his breath. “I love your attitude.”

  And I just simply love him.

  32

  You got poisoned?” Clover asks again, her eyes wide in shock. “By a fellow MC member? Who the fuck does that?”

  “A hippie with dreads, apparently,” I say as I sit on my bed cross-legged, an open textbook in front of me. “And now I have to play catch-up, and it’s fucking hell.”

  “What did they do to him?” she asks me, sounding curious.

  “I don’t know. He was just gone when I got back, and no one seems to want to talk about him anymore. It’s like he’s just been erased from life.”

  “Probably because he’s dead,” Clover says casually, looking at me with concern in her eyes. “Is there anything I can get for you? Or any way I can help you? What a shitty thing to have happen to you in your first semester.”

  “I’m okay, but thank you. And thank you for teaching me how to throw a punch—that came in handy, too.”

  “Do I even want to ask?” she murmurs, her phone ringing for the third time. She ignores the call. “My dad keeps calling me.”

  “Why aren’t you picking up?” I ask her, curious. She never talks about her family, or life back home. She’s an enigma. So mysterious.

  “I came here to try to do things on my own, away from everyone. I told them that, but they still try to call me every day,” she explains. “That’s not giving me a break and letting me work out my life on my own.”

  With my mother, I can relate.

  “They probably just miss you,” I say, but then imagine if my mom or two dads were calling me every single day. Yeah, that would annoy me, too. “Maybe tell them to just call once a week. Set some boundaries.”

  “Yeah, I might try that,” she decides, studying me for a second. “Thanks for the advice, Erin.”

  “Sure.”

  “Now come on, you get to work, and I’ll make some coffee.”

  She puts the kettle on, and I open another textbook.

  I must push through.

  Ace comes back to see me the next weekend when I’m all caught up on my workload.

  “So, I’ve been thinking,” he murmurs, as we lie next to each other on the motel sheets. “Maybe I should buy us a house here? That way we can stay there whenever I’m down, and you can live there instead of living on campus, or whatever is convenient for you. Either way, the option will be there, and you’ll never have to worry about not having a place to crash. You could even have parties there with your friends.”

  I blink slowly. “You want to buy us a house?”

  He nods, like it’s a casual everyday thing. “Yeah, I’ve seen a few nice ones close to campus that are available, so you could just walk there. What do you think?”

  “I think we should wait until I’m earning money, so I can contribute to this,” I say, rolling over onto my stomach and lifting my head up to look at him. “It’s unfair, otherwise.”

  “I have plenty of money, Erin,” he assures me. “You don’t have to worry about contributing to anything. And I want to do this, it’s not just for you, it’s for me, too. We won’t have to stay in these crappy motels anymore every time I visit.”

  “So . . . we’re buying a house then?”

  He grins, and butterflies appear in my stomach. “Yeah, princess. We’re buying a house.”

  We start house hunting and find a beautiful house just a five-minute walk from campus. I tell Ace it’s too expensive, but he doesn’t want to hear it. I find myself wondering how he’d be able to afford all this, but then, just like a lot of things with the club, I don’t really want to know.

  “Why do we need four bedrooms?” I ask him when we’re driving back to the motel.

  “You need to look at it as an investment. We can always sell the house down the line.”

  “Does my dad know you’re buying us a house?” I ask him.

  “Yeah, I told him. He loved the idea,” he says. “I have another surprise for you, but that’s going to have to wait until the house is officially ours.”

  I clap my hands. “Oooh. I love surprises. What is it? Can I have a clue?”

  “No.”

  I pout. “Ahh, come on. Give me a hint.”

  “No.”

  “Fine,” I reply, glancing over at him as he drives. An idea comes to me. “Has anyone ever given you head while you’re driving?” I ask him, as the thought pops into my mind.

  “That wouldn’t be very responsible,” he replies, lip twitching.

  “So that’s a yes, then?” I gather, rolling my eyes. “Is there anything you haven’t done?”

  “Yeah, been in love,” he murmurs. “Until you. So you might not have been my first for all the sexual shit, but you’re my first for that, and that means more than all the other stuff.”

  “You’re too charming for your own good, sometimes,” I mutter, crossing my arms over my chest. “How am I ever going to stay mad at you?”

  “You won’t.”

  “I love you, Ace.”

  “Thank you, Erin.”

  I slap his arm. “Speaking of being responsible, I’m ready to sit for my learner’s permit test.”

  I’m not going to let any fear stop me from getting what I want. I may or may not ever get my driver’s license, but I know for sure that I’m going to be riding, and not just on the back of someone’s bike.

  I’m going to get my motorcycle license, and I’m going to go about it the right way.

  Black Beauty will be on the road in no time.

  My winter break arrives, and I’m back at the clubhouse the next day. Veronica comes into the kitchen, where I’m drinking a coffee and contemplating life, and it’s the first time I’ve seen her since she was accused of trying to kill me. I feel badly because I kind of also thought it was her. If I hadn’t seen Dreads with my own eyes, I would have assumed it was her or Paulina.

  “Hey,” I say, offering her a small smile. “Can I make you a coffee?”

  I can see she’s about to decline but then changes her mind. “Yeah, sure. I’d love one.”

  I get up and make her one while she sits down. She must truly love my dad if she’s still here. He locked her in a room and told her he would deal with her when he got back. I have no idea what he would have done to her, but pretty sure we never would have seen her again, either. Placing the coffee in front of her, I say, “I just want to apologize for everything that happened. I know Dreads framed you, and it kind of looked bad. But I feel so shitty that you were accused of something you didn’t do.”

  “But I did do it,” she whispers, turning to me with an evil glint in her eyes. “At least the first time I did.”

  She wraps her hands around my neck and starts to squeeze, trying to strangle me. I struggle to breathe, dots appearing in my vision, before it disappears completely.

  I suddenly wake up, alone in the darkness, panting.

  It was a dream.

  Holy fucking shit.

  I pull the sheets up to my neck, as if that can save me.

  I’m alone in the dorm because Clover has gone home for a few nights.

  Shit.

  Maybe dreams have hidden meanings.

  Or is it my guilt at what happened to her hitting me when I’m most vulnerable?

  I’m back at the clubhouse the next weekend, and as soon as I walk through the doors, I can tell that something isn’t right.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask Dad, who is sitting in the kitchen with a bottle of whiskey.

  No glass.

  I give him a quick hug while still standing and then sit down
next to him. “What is it?” I ask when he doesn’t reply.

  “Well, you know how we put the cameras in the clubhouse? We didn’t tell everyone about those. Only a few members knew about it, really. Me, Ace, Knuckles, and Rogue. We were going through all the recordings and found Veronica and Mac having a conversation about you.”

  “What were they saying?” I ask, a bad feeling in my stomach.

  “You’re right, it was her who tried to poison you the first time.”

  “Oh,” I whisper, a shiver going up my spine. My dream was right. How freaky is that? Maybe I’m a psychic now. “Can I see the footage? I want to hear and see it for myself.”

  “Erin—”

  “I’m involved in this, so I should get to see the footage,” I tell him, voice hard.

  He hesitates, but then stands up, and nods toward the door. I follow him to a room I’ve never been inside. The room has a huge, solid wooden table, and plenty of animal skulls on the walls. He leads me through yet another door, where there’s a long desk against the brick wall of the room, with all the camera surveillance, big screens, and two office chairs. I sit down on one as he fiddles with the mouse and pauses at a certain part on one of the videos. When he presses PLAY, I hold my breath.

  “I know it was you who tried to poison Erin,” Mac says to Veronica, in that casual way of his. He opens his palm to reveal a little vial, which must contain the poison she used or something, because I can see the shock on her face.

  “Where did you get that?” she replies, rushing her words. “So what if you have the bottle? That doesn’t mean that I used it.”

  “It fell out of your bag when I was moving it, and Paulina was there when I found it. So that’s two against one.”

  “All three of them are out of the clubhouse and our lives forever, so you’re safe now,” Dad admits, anger in his tone.

  The video continues.

  “What do you want, Mac?” Veronica asks him. “You haven’t told Gage yet, so there must be a reason.”

  “You owe me,” is all he says. “And when I call in the marker, you will do whatever I ask.”

  She stays silent for a few seconds, then nods. “Fine.”

  Mac smiles, evilly, then leaves, vial in his hand. Dad stops the footage, then looks to me.

  “Why did Veronica do it?” I ask in a small voice. I remember that day I left the house. How she saw me leaving. She wasn’t helping me. She was probably grateful I was leaving. “I don’t know why she hated me so much. I didn’t even do anything to her, and she still had you, she just had to share you a little.”

  “I don’t know. I think everyone felt shitty about the will situation, but also she felt she was forgotten, and everything was now about you, which she didn’t like,” he admits.

  “Where is she now?” I dare to ask.

  “She’s packing her shit as we speak,” he says, taking a drink straight from the bottle. “She’s never going to step foot in this place again.” He pauses, and then mutters under his breath, “Or any other place.”

  “What are you going to do to her?” I whisper, eyes going wide.

  He stands and flashes me a small smile. “Don’t worry about that. I’m just glad you’re okay, Erin, and all the fucking traitors to the MC are gone. All I want is for you to be safe and to be able to call this place your home, without any fucking jealousy.”

  He kisses the top of my head, grabs the bottle, and walks out of the room just as Ace enters.

  “Why didn’t you tell me what happened before I got here?” I growl at him.

  He takes the spot Dad was occupying. “It only just happened today, and Prez said he wanted to talk to you first.”

  “I can’t believe this shit. I get it that she didn’t like me showing up out of nowhere, but why did she have to go to this extreme?”

  “I guess she thought she was the woman in power and control, as she was the president’s girlfriend, but he never made her his old lady. And with you here, I don’t think she knew what she was meant to be doing, or what her place was.”

  “So she tried to kill me?” I whisper-yell. “She’s fucking crazy. Now Dad can find a nice woman, someone who isn’t such a psychopath.”

  Ace chuckles. “Don’t worry about your dad; it’s not hard for him to find a woman.”

  “Yeah, but we want quality, not quantity,” I remind him. “I’m going to set him up with someone,” I declare. “I should open an online-dating profile for him.”

  “He will kill you. Besides, you can’t, because as you can see, it’s hard for us to find people we can trust. Only a certain type of woman will cut it for an MC president.”

  “Well, I’m on the lookout,” I tell him. Something occurs to me. “Are you still going to be VP one day?”

  He nods slowly, shifting on his seat, clearly uncomfortable with my questioning. “The day your dad steps down, Rogue will become president, and yeah, I’ll be the VP. But it’s not about you, Erin. Apparently it was always going to be that way, even before you walked through those doors.”

  I move to sit on his lap, and rest my head on his shoulder.

  As his arms come up around me, he murmurs, “Right where you belong.”

  I smile, but then my mind wanders back to the information I just found out.

  Veronica tried to kill me.

  As if right on cue, my dad returns, but he’s not alone.

  “What do you say to my daughter?” he grits out between clenched teeth.

  “You’re going to regret this,” Veronica replies, tears dripping down her face. “No one will love you like I do! No one else will put up with your shit! And that little bitch is just going to take everything from you, everything that you’ve worked so hard your whole life for. You’re already giving her everything, Gage. You need to be smart about this. I love you; don’t do this.”

  “You knew how I felt about her coming here. How I felt about being a father,” he says to her, tone deathly. “You knew. And you tried to take my daughter from me when I just found her. That’s not love, Veronica. And if you think it is, you have something seriously wrong with you. And if you call my daughter a bitch again, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”

  With my hand to my chest, I look her in the eye. “My father deserves so much better than you, and he will find it. We won’t even remember who you are when you’re gone.”

  I stand up and walk right to her. “You are weak and selfish. I’m so sorry that my dad has had to go through all this just because of your jealousy. I don’t care if I don’t get anything he has; all I want is him in my life. Blood is stronger than anything, Veronica. I actually pity you for being so petty that you tried to come between that. You are no Raven.”

  Knuckles appears, steps up, and grabs her other arm, the icy look in his gaze sending a shiver down my spine. “Let’s go. This is the last time you will see the inside of our clubhouse.”

  She starts to cry harder, but I don’t feel any sympathy for her.

  My gut instinct was right the whole time. I’m never going to doubt it again.

  EPILOGUE

  ONE MONTH LATER

  I don’t have many friends to invite,” I tell Ace, wrinkling my nose. “But my sister, Celina, Clover, Mona, Glen, and Roger will come. Mom and Brock too. And everyone else will be the MC members, which is plenty for a party anyway, as we all know.”

  “It’s your birthday, Erin. You can invite whomever you want. Do you want to ride in on your bike to show off your new skills?”

  Ace and Dad both taught me to ride, and as of last week, I officially passed my riding test.

  I’m the first woman associated with the MC to have her own bike and license. Even Clover was impressed.

  “I think my mother would have a heart attack,” I grumble, otherwise loving that idea.

  “I organized a DJ, and Knuckles is sorting out the caterer for you. We just need to buy the alcohol, and I think we’re good. Your dad is getting the place decorated for you.”

 
; “How exciting is it that I made it to twenty-two?” I ask him, squealing when he lifts me up in his arms and throws me over his shoulder.

  “Babe, you’re going to make it to a hundred. You know why?”

  “Why?” I ask warily.

  “Because the evil live forever,” he says, chuckling at his own joke.

  “Excuse me,” I say, outraged. I slap his delicious behind with my own palms. “You’re the evil one out of us, thank you very much. I’m the sweet, innocent girl you’ve corrupted.”

  “You keep telling yourself that, hellfire,” he says, throwing me down on the couch and covering me with his body. “You’re perfect for me, you know that?”

  “Thank you for throwing me a birthday party,” I tell him, smiling. “It’s the first one I’ll have had since I was a kid.”

  “You’re welcome,” he sings in the tune of the Moana song.

  I burst out laughing. “Not you too.”

  “It’s catchy.”

  We share a smile, and then he kisses me gently, deeply, and I fall in love all over again.

  I step outside to get some fresh air, and the sight before me brings tears to my eyes.

  Both of my fathers, shaking hands. “Thank you for looking after her all these years,” Dad says to Brock.

  Brock smiles sadly. “You don’t need to thank me; I love her like she was my own.”

  “And that makes you a good man,” Dad replies. “She’s lucky to have you.”

  “And you,” Brock replies, ducking his head. “Thank you for welcoming her when she came and dropped the bomb on you. She loves you, and I can tell she feels like this is where she belongs.”

  “I guess she has two homes now,” I hear my father say in reply.

  Is it possible to have two happily-ever-afters?

  Because I don’t think I could be happier.

  When Rogue sings the Sam Smith song I’d asked him for the first time I heard him sing, I can’t help it, I start to cry. These men can be so thoughtful. They remember things, just small things, and then use it against me to make me all emotional.