“We did rescue her—”
“Yeah, we did do that but not in time. She’s still fucked up and has nightmares. Her PTSD is as bad as Cillian’s. They talk a lot on the phone along with her going to therapy and groups for people with PTSD. She won’t take the medications her doctors give her because she breastfeeds the twins and she doesn’t want them affected by the chemicals the doctor want her to take to numb her fucked up head.” Hardy dragged on his cigarette one more time before dropping it to the wood floor and putting it out with one of his shitkicking boots.
My patience was growing thin with my VP. “What’s your fucking point?”
“I didn’t ask to go to war with Aztecas Infierno or what was left of them after Naomi’s ordeal. In fact, I just wanted all that shit in my rear view ‘cause I was dealing with my old lady who thought she was tainted and I wouldn’t want her anymore after what that sick son of a bitch did to her. That wasn’t the case at all. I wanted her too much—if only to erase all the scars she’d acquired on her heart, body and mind. I wanted her to know that she was even more precious now that she was back in my life than before I lost her.”
Ronan picked up the cigarette butt and threw it in the ashtray before he leant toward me. Our faces were inches from one another. “That, my dear uncle, is love. I knew what I was signin’ up for when I joined the agency and the MC. I understood there was a possibility I could lose someone important in my life but I did it anyway.
“When Naomi came back, I was too busy trying to put myself back together and console her to think about revenge against Fernando Navarro. It didn’t mean she was feelin’ the same way though. She hired Magnolia and Maksymilian Gillespie who then sub-contracted the work out to Mira Decker to murder Fernando. Mira did her job, found Pyro in the process and now they’re married and expectin’ a baby any day now.
“Who the fuck are you to ask him or any other brother to put their lives on the line to start a war over an ol’ lady that nothing fuckin’ ever happened to? She wasn’t beaten, she wasn’t raped and she wasn’t injured. She’s perfectly fine, probably making small talk with my PTSD ol’ lady and Mira, who looks like she’d about to pop any day but still has a month or so to go. Are their lives so fucking meaningless that we, as a club, should put them in harm’s way over some shit that could have happened tonight but didn’t?”
I honestly didn’t have a response so I said nothing at all as Ronan backed away. “Think about it, Prez. In the meantime, I’m gonna say bye to my blood brothers who are leaving tonight for Birch Tree and then I’m gonna head home. If I get even a whiff of you tryin’ to pull this plot off alone, I’ll alert Eve and you will be outta the agency and this club so fast it’ll make your head spin. You see, you may be my family but I also have another one that means more to me than you do. And when you threaten to put their lives on the line over bullshit, I’m not gonna slap your hand, I’m gonna make sure that it doesn’t happen even if I have to take you down. Do you understand me?”
I nodded my head.
“Good. I’ll send your old lady in. Maybe she can talk some sense into you. ‘Cause from where I’m standing, you ain’t been doin’ shit but talkin’ bullshit up until now.”
I looked away as Ronan left the chapel, him closing the door with a resounding thud that echoed through my heart.
I knew I wasn’t the only one who loved their ol’ lady deeply and with all their heart and soul but it did give me pause how I was willing to put so many lives on the line for nothing at all.
Razr had taken care of the problem and I had nothing to fear.
Was my revenge plan merely over because of what Nel done or did it speak to a deeper truth that I still thought somewhere in the back of my mind Talia truly didn’t belong to me?
I still felt so deeply in my heart I could lose her at any time, and that was my issue, not a club problem.
Ronan was right but I’d never give the son of the bitch bragging rights on what he and I both knew all along.
My problems weren’t with the White Knights MC.
They were with the possessiveness I felt for my ol’ lady.
The shock had worn off after that night of my attempted demise by a crazed White Knights MC president but the thought of something happening to any of the people there still haunted me.
A man I had known for less than a day saved my life.
My ol’ man thought it was a great idea to wage war on the club that the FBI was in the process of making obsolete.
I still had two young children under three to deal with though I did have a nanny, which was better than most people could say unless they were wealthy and pampered like me.
It wasn’t even a decision I had to contemplate anymore. I couldn’t wait for Winter’s Regret to get on the road and do the selected dates we had chosen to perform old classics and songs from our new album, No Regrets.
I still loved and adored my husband but we needed time apart. He needed to get his head back in the club, and I needed to do what I did best. All couples needed a break from one another every now and then and we were no different.
There was no doubt in my mind that the night Nel had tried to kill me, it flipped something in Hardy’s brain. He thought he needed to protect me more now than ever when I was fully capable of protecting myself. Not to mention the group did have bodyguards around us except for the night we’d performed at the clubhouse when I’d given them the night off. I figured there were enough guns around that their services wouldn’t be needed, and I was right.
I felt like someone had wedged me between a rock and hard fuckin’ place because what could I possibly say to my husband to make him understand I wasn’t going anywhere? Yes, I had my bouts where I needed to be on my own—I’d always been fiercely independent and a ring on my finger didn’t change that.
I hadn’t been a pampered rich girl all my life. In fact, my life growing up was terribly middle class—towards the lower end of the spectrum—though there was always food to eat and both parents in the home. My dad was in fact a crazy guinea, territorial and a little too protective over my mother. My mother always felt like a failure because she’d defied her parents by marrying my father and having him drag her down into his hell.
She’d grown up in an upper middle-class French Creole family who provided the very best for their daughter. Hence the reason why her sister and her cousin—who my grandparents had adopted when her parents had died in an accident—had married so well while my mother had been a “fool in love.”
The love between my parents met an untimely death quite early in their marriage and the rest was the detritus and decay of a relationship neither wanted to admit had died when they allowed it to commit suicide. I never wanted that kind of life for myself and thought I had a pretty good hand at picking out men who would treat me right but unfortunately, I emulated all my mother’s specific traits when it came to men.
The good ones always fell by the wayside because I was too busy chasing after the alphahole bad boys who treated me like shit, and acted possessive yet declared they loved me. The pattern was repeated over and over again until I found Hardy and thought I’d finally broke the cycle.
In a way I had, and I would allow myself to have that bit of credit.
In another way, I hadn’t, and that’s what me and my old man would have to work on if he wanted to make it for the long haul. I refused to have my daughter repeat my same mistakes. It wouldn’t happen because I couldn’t allow it to happen. My destiny belonged to me and my decisions would always be my own. It was only a choice of whether I would take the easy road or the hard one.
No one ever said love was easy. It wasn’t all roses and John Legend love songs. Most of the time it was heartbreaking compromise and the sounds of the Purple Rain soundtrack. I was all right with that but both of us would have to compromise—I was done doing it all by myself.
I’d been down that road with Jaden and Seth and it was definitely never again. I’d rather be on my own than to live thr
ough that shit again.
I had less than four days at home before we left on our limited cross-country tour. We’d been very selective about choosing cities and due to that, decided that we’d allow our guys and equipment to travel by bus but we were given a private jet from Introspect Records at our disposal.
There were a total of ten select cities, each with only one night we’d be performing in that city with a few days between shows. The whole tour would last a month due to our schedule, and I was okay with that. Beatriz and Kassandra would both be on duty during the time I was gone and would be paid double the amount of their usual wages. Neither had an issue with the arrangement and were only quite happy to accommodate me.
The ten cities included the Los Angeles Staples Center, the Seattle Key Arena, the Chicago United Center, New York City’s Madison Square Garden, the Boston Garden, the Washington, D.C. Verizon Center, the Miami American Airlines Arena, the Nashville Bridgestone Arena and the Dallas American Airlines Center.
Technically, we would also have a sold out show at the brand new T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas as well but since it began our tour before we left for L.A. and everyone would still be here on what was now our home turf, we didn’t think much about it being any different than performing at Vogue Hotel and Casino’s coliseum except that it would be to a bigger crowd.
I knew how much all of us—as a band—had worked our asses off for this opportunity. Hailey, more than most, because she had to learn the songs, her parts and she also had a hell of a voice so her background vocals blended perfectly with mine and made great tunes even more amazing.
Of course, before I could go off to live my rock star life, I needed to make sure that Hardy and I were on the same page when it came to everything—our love, our children, our careers, and how we planned to spend the rest of our lives. I was in this for the long haul, and as far as I was concerned, there were no second chances, and there was no way I could do this without him.
If we were going to be together then we would both truly have to want it. Not because we simply loved each other and couldn’t think of a future without one another but because we truly believed in the life we’d built and knew that it could last—we could last despite whatever life threw at us. Love was a beautiful sentiment but reality had a way of crashing in and testing the whole foundation of a relationship that had to be based on more than just love and lust.
We had to be together because we not only felt affectionately for each other, craved one another sexually and felt a deep sense of loss when we weren’t near but also because the strong foundation of our relationship. That included trust, respect, devotion and above all commitment. If we didn’t have that then we’d collapse like a house of cards, regardless how much we “loved” one another.
It was sad for me to admit that I would have killed for a drink before approaching Hardy but I decided that couldn’t help matters. I needed to be dead sober to say what I thought he should know.
Even though one could get lost in the estate we called our home, I found him in Kaelan’s suite, roughhousing with our son. Kassandra watched on clandestinely while knitting a royal blue blanket for Kaelan. It was a hobby she fell back on after she’d finished her schoolwork and had to look after the children. She’d already finished pink sweater for Eden, a magenta blanket for my little girl and now it was her turn to make some items for Kaelan.
Her hands worked fast with the thick aluminum needles although she acknowledged my presence with a smile when I walked in. She continued to knit but did not disrupt Hardy and Kaelan.
My little boy laughed and cooed as Hardy tossed him in the air and caught him with precision. Despite any issues we might have had, I could never deny that he was a good father to both our children. One would never know Kaelan wasn’t his own son biologically because he treated him no different than he treated Eden. They were his two, beautiful children and he loved them with all his heart.
I cleared my throat as he caught Kaelan. He looked up me with bright crystal blue eyes while Kaelan stared at me and mumbled, “Mommy.”
I reached for our son and gave him a quick hug and smothering kisses before I handed him over to Kassandra. “Mommy and Daddy will be back, all right? We just have to have a grown up talk, okay?”
He clung to Kassandra and waved goodbye as we both left the room together. Hardy walked side by side with me. “This seems serious. Where do you want to talk?”
“Our bedroom,” I replied without missing a step. His strides were longer but that didn’t stop me from keeping up.
All those hours spent in the gym and doing yoga were paying off. I had a lot more energy and although my stomach would never be as flat and flawless as it once was, the muscles beneath it were getting tighter. No one would have never known I’d given birth except for the pattern of stretch marks that roped across my torso. I didn’t care about them though—no one was perfect and I had no intention of getting them removed just to have a perfect bikini body. I preferred tankinis anyway.
Once we reached our bedroom suite, I closed the double doors and locked them just to make sure.
“What’s goin’ on, love?”
“I don’t know. You tell me. I’m busy getting ready to go off on a month long tour but I’m not so sure that’s a good idea since my husband has lost the plot.”
His face turned crimson with rage. “Who the fuck told you that? I’m fine—I’m doing my job and carrying out the orders we were given by Eve—”
“Are you now? So, you never had any homicidal urges to kill any and everyone who happens to be a Decker because Nel tried to murder me?”
He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “Well, I can’t deny that but who wouldn’t if they were in my position?”
I pushed a lock of hair out of my face. “I don’t know, Dex—perhaps someone who is sane and thinking with his brain instead of using his heart or his dick.”
“What?”
“Nel’s plot failed thanks to Razr so why would you go after every Decker alive? Have you forgotten that Marion—Chantal’s best friend and Quinn’s lover—is a Decker? Or what about Mira? Just a result of circumstances beyond her control who happens to be Pyro’s old lady and is pregnant with their child is a Decker? What about Brad and his wife? Jake and his old lady? Are they on that disposable list you have memorized in your head?” I questioned with an intensity I didn’t know I was capable of feeling.
“It’s not what you think,” Hardy responded with a deep resignation emanating through his voice. “I almost lost you. Why can’t you understand that?”
“Because you didn’t lose me but if you continue on this quest for revenge, you will.” I turned cold eyes toward his equally chilly crystal blue eyes. “Not by death but because I will leave you, Dex, I swear to God. Go ahead and kill me yourself—that’s what you threatened if I take the children and leave but I won’t be a pawn in any kind of plan you’ve concocted to get even. Nel’s dead, the investigation into the White Knights MC will prevail, and you’ll be left with nothing.”
“You have to understand, love, I was so scared. You mean everything to me.”
“Then stop all this fucking nonsense and let the people who have nothing to do with this investigation go. The fact that their last name is Decker shouldn’t mean a damn thing to you. If Eve can compromise then so can you.”
I started to walk out of our suite but he grabbed me from behind by the waist and held me close to him. The smell of body wash, leather, cigarettes and his favorite cologne all hit me at once. I didn’t want to leave my husband or fail within my marriage but I wouldn’t turn against my principles. Not when they were all that was holding me together.
There were certain lines that weren’t meant to be crossed and Hardy was bypassing all of them in his sick quest for revenge on a man who was already dead and gone.
He pulled my hair to the side and kissed my neck. “I’m so sorry, so very fucking sorry that I did this to you. I don’t ever want you to leave the room still mad a
t me for what I’ve done wrong. You’re right and . . . sometimes I just can’t let shit go. But, baby, I can’t let you go either. Not ever so if you told me to jump off a cliff if it meant I’d die before you, I’d do it. I swear to God I would. Just don’t leave me. Don’t ever threaten to take my kids from me. You and them—you’re all I have in the world.”
“That’s not true, Dex. You have a whole family in Birch Tree not to mention Ronan and the club here. They will always have your back.”
“What good is the club or family if I don’t have my woman and children to share in the glory or pitfalls of my life? Do you think I would truly be whole without you as my ol’ lady by my side? Or my children in my life?”
The tears gathered in my eyes though I had no wish to cry and fell down my cheeks. I shook my head as I said, “I can’t continue to live like this, babe. You have to make up your mind. Either you’re going to do things the right way or you’re gonna go rogue but if you decide to make that decision then I want no part of it. I don’t want our children anywhere near it. You’ll get us all killed.”
Hardy turned me around harshly and his mouth connected with mine so brutally, I knew I would have a bruise but the moment he buried his tongue deep into my mouth, all thoughts of leaving him disappeared. All I could think about was how would I ever leave the man I loved and had made a commitment to? I didn’t break my word—it was my bond. That’s why it’d been so painful for me to have Jaden and Seth lie directly to my face and then do something entirely different.
Ride To The Edge (Lucifer's Saints MC) (Rough Riders MC Series Book 4) Page 16