I downed my shot of vodka, smiled and twisted my lips. “No one ever told you they had . . . history? I’m not calling Mags a whore because I’m one to talk—I have a baby by my old man’s nephew and a child with him though legally, they are both his kids,” I said, pointing to Hardy. “But it’s blatantly obvious that Kink fucked Mags. Not now—I mean, not since she’s been with Max. They had a thing in the past though while Miranda was alive. I’d bet money on it. I see the way he looks at her sometimes when he doesn’t think Max is watching but the problem is that Max is always watching. Didn’t you find it kind of strange they left Northern Nevada and took up roots here after all that shit went down about a year ago?”
“Great.” Layla poured another shot and downed it just as fast before she poured yet another, and downed that one too. “So, it’s not just the ghost of his dead ol’ lady I’m competing with but the fact that he’s also in love with his brother’s wife?”
“Doesn’t matter how he feels about her,” Hardy interrupted. “Max would never let Mags go and she feels the same about him. Imagine her position—in love with two brothers but you can’t have both so you choose one and you stick by your choice. Love ain’t always black and white. It’s shades of gray from the darkest to the lightest.”
“Plus what ever it is he feels for Mags ain’t got shit to do with you. I think he cares about you in his own way but you’re still so young. You’re only in your mid-twenties. Are you ready to take on his boys who are bound to be resentful regardless what woman comes in their father’s life because she won’t be their mother? Can you handle that? Not everyone is Gisela, Trista or my old man for that matter. Kids mean baggage and sometimes as hard as you try, they can still tear two people apart.”
“Yeah, I know all about that, Tal, but it doesn’t change how I feel about him. You think my dream career was to be a Madame at one of the Saint’s brothels? I feel bad every time I have to fuck someone else because it’s not him and ‘cause he won’t move down here, it’s hard seein’ him when I see him. How much time do we spend together. A few days—maybe five or six a month? As long as Cillian stays in Birch Tree, he’s not gonna move down here and uproot his family. They’ve been best friends since they were kids—ain’t no piece of pussy can compete with a brotherly bond like that.”
“You ever thought about moving up north to be closer to him?” Hardy finished off his beer and set the bottle on the bar. “I mean, you are a lot more footloose and fancy free than he is. You only have to worry about yourself. He can’t just leave his position in the Birch Tree charter—there’s no room for him down here. I already have a damn fine Road Captain, and I’m not lookin’ for another.”
“Maybe . . . it’s a thought.” Layla sighed out loud. “But how do I even know he wants me to be there? All the times we’ve spent together not once has he asked me to move up north? Don’t you think he should have mentioned somethin’ by now?”
“Or maybe,” I grabbed her hand closest to mine and held it in my own, “it’s time for you to put your big girl panties on, and make the decision for the both of you. His wife died last summer. He may not be ready for you to shack up with him but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t want you around. Plus, it’d make other Saint Slappers a lot less tempting if you were a permanent fixture and you wouldn’t have to feel guilty about fucking men for money.”
“But what would I do up there?”
“I don’t know. You could pole dance—they’ve got some great clubs that pay top dollar in Carson City. Or you could use your head and go back to school, study so that you’re not constantly always thinkin’ about what Kink is doing. Nurture a real relationship between the two of you that doesn’t involve you with your legs spread every time you see him. Get to know his kids, and give him time to grieve because he still needs it. He’ll fall in love with you eventually in his own way, and I won’t lie—it’ll be different than what he felt for Miranda or what he feels for Mags but the point is, you’ll get what you want.”
“I don’t know what I want—that’s the problem.”
“Yes, you do.” I let go of her hand. “You want what every woman wants. Someone to love you for you and not because of what you look like or how great your figure happens to be. Someone who will want the real you—warts and all—and will be able to deal. A marriage, perhaps even a couple of your own little mini Kinks. He’s still young enough to give you babies, you know. And you’re plenty young enough to have them. You’ve been in the life long enough to know how it works. But you’re gonna have to fight if you wanna be his old lady. He’s not gonna make it easy for you, darlin’.”
Layla placed her face in her hands and sighed out loud. “Why do you have to make everything so fucking clear? Every time we talk, you make me learn more about myself then I ever thought I knew. You should have been a shrink if you hadn’t made it as a rock star.”
I smiled wryly. “Listen, thanks for the birthday gift. I suggest you tell your employer here that you’re giving your two weeks notice, pack up your shit and get the hell out of this place. Live in a nice town for a change near a man that can be the love of your life if you let him because I can tell you right now, if you continue to travel down this road . . .” I shook my head. “You’ll always remain just a piece of pussy on the road for him when he stops into Vegas. He’ll never get serious about you and in the end, you’ll hate him for all the years you wasted waiting for him to make a move when he didn’t. He can’t make that leap—not after losing his old lady—but you can.”
Layla smirked. “Hardy, I’m givin’ my two weeks’ notice. I’ve decided small town living can’t be that bad.”
“Duly noted,” he replied.
“Thanks, Talia.” She smiled at me again, this time a spark of happiness in her bright blue eyes.
“No problem, sweetie.”
After she walked off with obvious pep in her step, Hardy stood and grabbed the big sparkly white box. “Now that you’re done dispensing advice, Oprah, can we go home and fuck like animals?”
I grinned before I nodded my head. “Maybe we’ll even get an hour in before Eden wakes for her feeding.”
“Now that’s what I call a plan.”
He tucked the box under his arm as I stood from the barstool. I was pretty inebriated but not too drunk to drive home. He grabbed me by the waist and we both left the clubhouse together.
I couldn’t wait to get home.
As usual, I followed Talia behind her Range Rover while I drove on the back of my Harley Night Rod Special. I actually had a collection of motorcycles including the CVO Road Glide Ultra Model, and a CVO Pro Street Breakout for when I wanted nothing but pure speed, the wind on my back and nothing but asphalt for as long as the eye could see. Although Talia could ride bitch on both the Ultra Glide and the Pro Street Breakout, she only would ride on the former rather than the latter. Instead, if she felt like a bit of fun of her own, we’d take out my CVO and her Street Glide, and ride together.
It was just another reason why I loved her so much. Not only had she learned how to ride a motorcycle but she could handle it beautifully and wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. All of our motorcycles were custom made with the colors picked out to what we wanted them equipped with. Any and all repairs were made at the custom motorcycle shop the club owned where several patched members worked as certified mechanics not just on the brothers’ bikes but anyone who had a motorcycle they wanted to fix up. It kept us looking legit despite all the dirty shit the club did but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides, I wanted to know the son of a bitch who was working on any piece of equipment that could get me paralyzed, killed or worse if anything on the bike failed.
I still hadn’t discussed my decision to leave the agency with Talia but I knew it would eventually have to come up. It was something I dreaded as my Night Rod ate up miles of pavement beneath me and the warm wind on my back soothed my tattered soul.
Unlike some of the guys, I wore a full Bilt Techno helmet with Bluetooth
technology. There was a time I would think anything other than a skullcap half-helmet was for pussies but my whole perspective on life changed once I fell in love and had kids to think about. It got to the point where I’d pretty much made it policy that all the guys wear full helmets because not only was it harder to detect whether we were in an MC or just an adrenaline junkie who loved motorcycles but the last thing I needed was one of my guys getting his head blown off for being recognized.
We lived in dangerous times at the moment and not only was the full helmet law put in place by the club but brothers weren’t allowed to wear their cuts when they rode. Some defied me by wearing their cuts though they covered them with black zip up sweatshirts but with the hot summer heat, most accepted the rule and usually wore white tees paired with jeans and slid their cut on as soon as they were in the safety of the clubhouse or we were having a club function.
Until we actually took down the White Knights MC, no one was safe, and I completely made my guys aware of this. Brad had started to trickle down info here and there about his brother but he hadn’t turned state’s evidence completely. He wanted to cherry pick who was protected and who could be thrown under the bus.
The Domestic Terrorism unit had its patience like any other organization but we were slowly losing ours, and Eve was almost at the end of her rope. She some days felt like making raids on both clubs, arresting everyone and then who ever gave up the most evidence would be able to make a deal with the government. Everyone else would be rounded up and could basically get ready to serve some serious time at prisons she had handpicked herself. Pelican Bay, Folsom, SuperMax, and even Leavenworth were being thrown around.
In fact, the whole plan was to split up the club and send various members to prisons outside the state—especially the ones with the most power in the club while keeping patched members in Nevada State prisons where they were more apt to be taken out by rival prison gangs like the Aztec Kings, the most powerful Mexican gang in the prison system; Guerra Soldados, another powerful gang made up of Hispanics of all origins, and the Guerilla Armed Brothers, one of the few black gangs left with real power in the joint.
All three gangs crossed state lines and could be found in every major prison in the United States. The plan had always been to break the club up and then let most of their members be murdered while incarcerated while the main members suffered in solitary prisons where they could not form any sort of coalition to bring back the club to existence ever. In fact, they would end up dying in prison—either by old age or the death penalty depending upon which state they ended up being incarcerated.
Though California was known to use the death penalty every blue moon, Eve had the power to make sure the members in California prisons would be executed within two years of their incarceration dates. She wanted the message to be sent loud and clear to all one percent clubs in the States—no one was safe and once the government set its target on them, they could look forward to being humiliated and disbanded within a short amount of time with no hope of forming their clubs again.
Every one percent club feared that, everyone but the Hells Angels and the Lucifer’s Saints. The untouchables who seemed to skate by despite nefarious activities—those that were clearly outside the realm of the law. Eve seemed to be okay with two one percent clubs in the States, basically because both were international and had chapters in other countries so she chose her battles carefully and with precision. She didn’t expect to win them all but she knew she could win the vast majority of them and retire as one of the most successful FBI agents in the country.
That was good enough for her but I still wondered about what was good enough for me.
“Babe, where’d you go?”
I recognized Talia’s voice as she came in from a nighttime feeding. Eden had been up when we arrived home. She’d sent an exhausted Beatriz to bed, and fed our daughter while I took a hot shower to wipe off the grunginess of the club and as usual, my mind wandered.
“I’ve just been thinking, that’s all.”
She climbed into bed with a sexy red nightgown on that showed off her big juicy tits, slightly wider hips and slim waist. Though she gained the proper amount of weight with our daughter, she still felt self-conscious about how her body had changed while I thought she was sexier than ever. The slight loose skin around her stomach area though she had a personal trainer and a dietician to get her back into shape along with the stretch marks were battle scars as far as I was concerned. She’d had two healthy children who were mine.
Kaelan may not have been gotten from my seed but he was still my blood from the very fact that his sperm donor was my nephew. He would always be treated like my son, as if he were my natural first born and nothing could ever change that.
“You want to talk about it?” Her soft hands touched the side of my face and I could feel my whole heart burn for her from the inside out.
“Yes and no.” I stared at her with lust in my eyes. “I want to devour your body, forget about yesterday and focus on right now. What’s going on between me and you?”
She kissed my lips gently, rubbing her gorgeous, makeup free face against my skin. “You know, just because I don’t want to hear about the club and what goes on doesn’t mean I don’t want to know about your feelings. I don’t expect you to put up with all my bitchin’ and moanin’ but not want to hear about what is bothering you in return. You can tell me that and not give away a damn thing that is club business, sweetheart.”
“I know, love. It’s just not part of my DNA to say what’s goin’ on in my life, on my mind. I don’t want you to think about that shit. That man shouldn’t even exist to you. When we’re together, it’s about us—this—and what we have built as a unit. It was a hard won fight but I will never regret the day I met you or the first time I stuck my dick in you. It was like getting a free pass into heaven.”
I kissed the side of her jaw and nuzzled her neck. “You will always be my one and only. I won’t ever want anyone as much as I love you. That’s the truth, babe. I can fully admit that as a man, and not regret a word I say because you’re the love of my life, and without you and our children, nothing else matters.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know but somethin’ went on earlier before I got to the clubhouse. I know because I heard Ronan and Naomi talking about it as I was entering and they were leaving. I don’t want to depend on second hand news, Dex. I want to hear it from you.”
I sat up in bed and looked down into those gorgeous pale green eyes that told me she already knew what I was about to say. “What are you askin’ me, love?”
“Are you thinking of leaving the agency and becoming an informant?”
I merely nodded my head.
She sat up as well and crossed her legs in a classic yoga position. “Listen, you know I want you to be happy, and live your life the way you truly want to because I’d be lying if I said I wanted you to live only for me—to make my every wish and fantasy come true. I know that’s how you feel but you have to know that I also feel that same way about you too. I wanna see you live your best life—one where you’re happy to wake up in the morning and you don’t look like you have the whole fucking world on your shoulders.”
My arm reached out and I grasped her neck softly, massaging the velvety skin. “Why do I feel like there is a ‘but’ coming in this conversation?”
Talia glanced away, not able to meet my eyes as hers turned glassy with unshed tears. “You know that once you leave, we’ll no longer have the protection we do now. If I could shout it from the rooftops that you’re my old man and the only fucking man I have ever loved so fucking deeply and completely that you make me forget I ever felt anything for losers like Jaden and Seth then I would. However, we both know that if our secret were to ever come out, you’d not only destroy my career but your own too. And what will we tell our children about why we were so selfish, and only thought of our own happiness when we had theirs to consider as well?”
“
Babe—”
“It’s not about us, Dex. We lost that right the moment we decided to bring children into our fucked up yet exhilarating mess we absolutely adore and call life. I want you to put down the badge if it makes you that unhappy, truly, I do but understand . . . if doing that leaves us emotionally destitute and destroys any chance of happiness in our children’s lives, could you live with yourself? I know I couldn’t and I wouldn’t. I love you so fucking much but I’d have to walk away and this time, it truly would be me on my own with just the kids. No more relationships, no more men . . . just Kaelan, Eden and me. And you know damn well that Eve can make that happen.”
The blood began to boil in my veins as my heart beat so hard, it throbbed with anger, shock and fear. I would never lay a hand on the woman I loved but she’d pushed me so close to doing just that, I had to get out of bed and distance myself from her.
“You’re not fuckin’ sayin’ what I think you’re sayin’, are you? Because unless my hearin’ has gone wonky, you threatened to walk away from me and take our children with you.”
“It wasn’t a threat, Dex. I. Would. Do. It.”
“I wouldn’t let you—”
“The only way you’d be able to stop me is if you killed me and we both know you wouldn’t—couldn’t—do that to the mother of your children. I know you’re a murderer and a misogynist but you’ve never treated me that way and it’s just not in you to do that to the woman you love.”
Talia wiped tears from her eyes as I finally turned to face her though I knew my face was beet red and all I could hear was the flow of blood in my ears. “So if you’re serious about leaving the agency, think long and hard about what you’ll be losing because it just won’t be your goddamn badge.”
“I can’t . . . I won’t do this with you tonight, Tal.”
She got out of bed and looked at me like she’d seen the devil himself shine in my eyes. “Good because you won’t have to. I’m going to sleep in one of the guest rooms. I just can’t believe that you could be so fucking selfish to only think about yourself and not once consider me in a decision like this. I’m not just some pretty little side piece for you to show off, Dex, I’m your wife before I’m your old lady and don’t you ever forget that!”
Ride To The Edge (Lucifer's Saints MC) (Rough Riders MC Series Book 4) Page 11