Wolf (Black Angels MC Book 2)
Page 14
I sat down with a burger and a separate plate full of cookies that I had to fight tooth and nail with Jax and Pretty for, the fat fuckers, before I looked down at the table full of brothers. Some of them had gone to join in with the kids’ game of soccer, and the rest were laughing and joking with each other.
What I was looking at now was the reason why I made that deal with Charon. It was these moments that I would happily sell my soul to protect. Because beyond the money and the guns and the pussy, there was a family bond in the club. It was what mattered the most, and that was the main reason why we were all here.
Not that I would let myself be led by the nose by that arrogant bastard. He may have been the head of the Grim Repeaters, but alliance or not, I meant what I said. I wouldn’t let myself be manipulated by the likes of them. Not my club. Not my brothers.
“Wolf?” Anna’s sharp voice drew me out of my thoughts as I looked up to see her standing with a plate in one hand and the other propped on her hip. “Move,” she said, gesturing to the space on the bench on the other side of me.
My eyes cut to the other end of the long bench, and I saw a gap she could easily have fit in next to Moon and Jasper. She ignored my long stare in that direction before I changed my view back to her and the nice eye-level view of her cleavage. “Move up,” she said, shooing me with her hand.
I looked at the waving appendage, noticing the way she stood with her plate of food held securely in one hand, and smirked. My own hand flew out, circling her smaller one, and before she could even think to try and pull it back, I pulled.
She half shrieked in surprise as her soft ass landed on my lap. “Wolf!” she snapped as she tried to push off me, grinding her hips into my lap, making a currently inappropriate member revive at her touch.
“Sit still,” I growled, and hearing the graveled tone of my voice, she stiffened like a rod.
Fuck, I wasn’t sure if that made it any better.
Even so, my arm wrapped around her waist, keeping her pinned down on top of me. I tensed when she opened her mouth, expecting a fight, but to my surprise, a large, heavy huff came from her lips as she dropped her plate down next to mine on the table and ignored me, picking up a chip and eating it without looking at me.
The minx.
I shifted so she fit better on my lap, her small frame tucked into my chest and underneath my chin, where the strawberry smell of her hair permeated my nose, and reached for one of my cookies. I looked up to see the brothers sending glimpses down my way and smirking at Anna, who pinned them each with a glare, daring them to say anything. They didn’t, of course.
This woman.
I shook my head and felt her shift on my lap. I was about to snap at her for moving, but when I realized she was taking the weight off one of her cheeks, specifically the one I’d bitten and spanked, my mouth clamped closed in a deep, satisfied smirk.
I knew Anna was aware, but she pointedly continued to ignore me, her gaze avidly watching the kids beat the adults, who were going easy on them.
I didn’t think she realized it, but a small smile had taken over her lips, and despite Anna’s cold, bitchy exterior, I knew children were a soft spot for her. Hell, she had fallen head over heels for Mallory’s charming little boy the second he had come into our world; and I knew she often gave advice to Ripper’s little girls on how to deal with boys when she could—advice girls that age should not have.
I had learned Anna had come from a big family, back when she lived in England, and had left them all behind three years ago when she had moved over to the US. I didn’t know why she didn’t go back and visit them, and she had never offered the information, and just like her tattoo, I never asked.
“What?” Anna’s voice cut into my thoughts. She was looking down at me, frowning at the weird smile that had taken over my face.
“Nothing.” I smirked, only seeming to irk her. She opened her mouth, ready to snap at me, but before she could, I lifted her ass up off my lap, forcing her to stand. “It’ll get dark soon. Go get the small flamethrower from my room, and we’ll get a bonfire started for later.”
“You put the flamethrower in your freaking bedroom?” Anna flattened her gaze on me.
“I know you made a spare key to the armory, and I didn’t want you getting your hands on it.”
Anna’s expression told me that one, she didn’t give a shit about me finding out she made a sneak spare key, and two, that she had thought about using the weapon at least once. Maybe more than once. Definitely more than once. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a little black book in her purse with all the plans she had designed to piss me off.
She looked a little too pleased as she practically skipped off to get it before I could tell her where it was.
I watched her leave, my eyes not leaving her before she disappeared through the door. A moment later, Kay came out, long, strawberry-blonde hair silvered with age, sweeping in the faint breeze as her eyes scanned the yard and looking disappointed before coming over to the bench where most of us were sitting. “What’s up, Kay?” I asked, noting the traces of worry on her face.
“Any of you seen Bell?”
“Bell?” I repeated, looking over the yard myself despite already knowing she wasn’t out here. I hadn’t seen the little princess since this morning after she’d said her good morning to me from behind the screen of her cell.
“She probably got out of here the second lockdown was lifted,” Hunter said, taking up one of the empty spaces on the bench. “We all know she doesn’t like being here anymore.”
“That’s a bit harsh,” Mallory interrupted, coming up behind Hunter’s back and wrapping her pale arms around his shoulders. “Girl probably just wants to go have fun without twenty overprotective uncles scaring away all the boys.”
“Bell’s still practically a baby. Ain’t no boy touching her if he’s got his wits about him,” Jasper snapped from the other end, earning surprise glances from the rest of the table. The older man had curled blond hair that framed a face that had, by God’s luck, avoided gaining any scars or marks whatsoever. The fucker didn’t even look as old as he should, and his clear blue eyes, not as pale as Anna’s, that were usually relaxed, formed a hardened scowl. “Told Roscoe I’d protect his little girl. Ain’t going to stop doing that just because boys have started looking her way.”
“Christ, Jasper.” Hunter laughed. “The girl will be a virgin until she’s forty if you have any say.”
I couldn’t disagree with Hunter. Jasper was pretty levelheaded and calm despite being one of the old timers who had run with Roscoe. When it came to butting heads and picking fights, Roscoe had been like an army on steroids. Which left Jasper to keep his cool, so aside from Lamb, who seemed to be universally capable of pissing everyone off, the only other thing that fired him up was his duty to protect Bell, Roscoe’s only daughter. It probably had to do with the massive amounts of honor he earned as Roscoe’s right-hand man. Even though Roscoe had passed, it didn’t change Jasper’s principles.
“Back in my day—” I heard all of a sudden from the end of the table, and everybody simultaneously groaned as Polo, Jasper’s polar opposite, stepped into the conversation.
Hunter’s eyes widened in panic, looking to everybody and anybody for some kind of escape before the old man could get any more words out. His eyes landed on Mint, pleading to Mint’s paler ones. “What do you think about it, Mint?” Hunter blurted, cutting Polo off before he could get any further.
But despite Hunter’s imploring gaze, all Mint said was, “She’s a grown girl. She can do what she likes.”
“Too right!” Polo chipped back in. Everybody spun to glare at Mint, our one opportunity to be saved from Polo’s speech gone to waste. “A grown girl needs to make sure she finds a good man to claim her. A proper woman back in my day...” I was about to drown him out until suddenly, he yelled. “You!” His long, pointed finger flew out in Mallory’s direction, making the young, curvy redhead flinch. “Where is your cut?”
“Your ‘Property of’ cut!” Polo snapped with exasperation.
“We haven’t done those kind of cuts for years, old man,” Hunter returned.
“Bullshit!” Polo rose from the bench, his scowl bearing down on all the brothers sitting on the bench, looking at us all like dimple-faced brats. “A woman should wear her man’s patch on her back with honor! A true old lady brags who her man is. She shows it off like a symbol of pride! It’s club law.”
I could hear the chime of a bell before I even looked to Mallory, whose brown eyes were growing wide, enchanted by Polo’s speech. Her head whipped down to Hunter the second Polo finished, and seeing the expression on her face, he let out a slow groan. “I’ll order you one.” He sighed, looking annoyed, but he couldn’t fool us brothers. We could see the sly, possessive grin behind the reluctant eye roll. Lucky bastard.
“I’ve still got mine if you want to look at it?” Kay said, and that was all it took.
Mallory lit up like a Christmas tree. “Really?”
“I haven’t worn it since Roscoe’s funeral, but it should still be around here somewhere,” Kay said as Mallory gave her man a kiss before turning and running up to Kay’s side. Then the two gingers disappeared into the clubhouse.
With the women gone, the boys fell into conversation, but I wasn’t a part of it.
Mallory wasn’t the only one who Polo’s words had reached.
Anna was my old lady. I knew it, and everybody else was thinking it. Yet I couldn’t help but notice that glaring little detail that Anna had never once said she was my old lady. In fact, the only time she had mentioned it was when she was refuting the fact. At first, I had only thought she was fighting it because that resistance to anything I said was a fundamental part of her personality. She would never accept becoming my property without fighting it first.
But what if I was wrong? What if Anna didn’t want to be my old lady at all? There was no denying that she had feelings for me, and I sure as fuck told her more than enough times who she was to me. But what if she didn’t want that?
It was in that moment I realized I had never asked Anna what she wanted. This entire time I had been going off our chemistry and what had existed between us. Both of us had been going with the flow these past few days. Was she just going with the flow? Or did she want more, like I did?
The thought became a virus and was eating its way through every core principle I had about me and Anna until suddenly, whatever the hell we had became a mystery to me. I felt a rush of insecurity inside of me, and it had me up and out of my seat before I knew it.
The brothers gave me surprised looks at my abrupt jump, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t paying attention.
All I knew was that I needed to find Anna.
Chapter Fourteen
Anna
When Wolf eventually found me, I was sitting on the roof of the compound. Dusk was setting in and the breeze was faint as it tickled my skin. There was noise coming up from the garden as the boys got started on the bonfire for the night party.
Wolf came over with a marching stride, looking full of emotion I felt too distant to recognize, never mind connect with. I didn’t bother to look in his direction. I only listened to the heavy pound of his feet, waiting until it began to slow and then stopped a few feet from me.
I knew why he had stopped and why whatever was on his face shut down in an instant.
My hand reached out, my fingers smoothing over the surface of the wooden box, feeling the rough inscription carved into the lid. I’d found the box tucked in a compartment in the bottom of his wardrobe where he had stored the small flamethrower. Nothing would have ever prepared me for what was inside, however.
“Have you opened it?” Wolf said, his voice quiet, cautious.
I nodded.
He returned the nod, his jaw shifting as he looked everywhere but the box. He stood, seeming uncomfortable and out of place for the first time since I’d met him. Understandably so.
I glanced back to the box, the Russian letters on the lid. I lifted it from where it sat next to me on the concrete and placed it on my lap. “Who were they?” I whispered.
Wolf’s eyes finally dropped to the box, his controlled mask cracking as bits of emotion started to peak through. He looked pained. But it was nothing compared to the sadness that filled his whiskey eyes.
He took a deep, shuddering breath, unwinding the coiled fists at his sides as the tension seemed to sweep out of him. He moved forward, taking one slow step at a time before he dropped down next to me, leaning his back against the wall.
“They were members of the Raff, a small-time gang I used to work for back in Russia. Cocky kids dealt a bad hand in life.” I could hear the affection in Wolf’s voice as he talked about them, probably for the first time in a long time. “There were a few of them over the years, maybe twelve or thirteen,” he recalled, his eyes going distant, a fond smile forming on his lips. “You had the triplets first—Ivan, Aleksei, and Zach. They were always up to no good, but because they were triplets, they were all very small for their age and were able to fit into the tiniest of gaps. Then Vaughn, Oral, Luka, and Lada came over the next few years. The girls were trained in seduction, often left at a few of the prostitution places we owned. The boys trained to be nothing more than muscle, like myself. A few more came after that, all of them having no other place to go than the gang, forced into it to earn money for themselves after their parents abandoned them like sacrifices on our doorsteps. We weren’t soft on them, not when they needed to grow up in such a harsh world as ours, but we never turned them away. Maybe if we had, they might have been better off.
“But then came along Sasha.” Wolf shook his head, tone light as a weary smile overtook his face. “It was 1993. I remember it being an especially harsh winter in Penza, my hometown, that year. I was wrapped up in my crappy little apartment with the fire on, which did nothing to warm up the room. I could have afforded a bigger place, but I was working most of the time for the gang and was barely at my apartment, so I never bothered. So anyway, there I was, sitting by the fire, when suddenly I hear a knock on the door.”
A big smile lit up Wolf’s face as he began shaking his head. “It was like the start of some feel-good movie when I opened the door. There was nobody there, and it was fucking freezing outside, so I thought someone was playing a prank on me. I was about to shut the door. Then I felt this sharp little kick against my leg. I looked down, and there was a white-haired, brown-eyed little boy, barely reaching my thigh, standing with his hands propped on his hips, glaring at me. I was stunned for a moment, before he demanded—actually demanded—my six-foot-eight ass to let him join the gang.”
A laugh rumbled out of Wolf’s chest, the pure amusement of it something I hadn’t seen in him before.
“Of course, I didn’t let him. I slammed the door in his face and told him to get lost. But that didn’t stop Sasha. He was like a dog with a bone and began following me around, glued to my side, bouncing off any form of discouragement I threw at him. I was supposed to be an enforcer for this gang, and I couldn’t even threaten off some six-year-old kid.” Wolf shook his head. “He ended up being nicknamed ‘Cub’ because he followed me around like some young wolf’s pup.”
“That’s why you called yourself Wolf...,” I whispered, fitting the pieces together. I also thought to the small paw print tattooed on the back of his neck, the symbolism now making sense as well.
Wolf’s eyes flickered to me with surprise. He had been so caught up in his memory, he seemed to have forgotten I was even there. His hand reached up and rubbed along the back of his neck, dark hair falling over his face.
“He ended up idolizing me. The years passed, and somewhere along the way, he ended up under my wing. He got along with the other kids in the club, and despite being younger tha
n most of them, he was like their big brother. He was arrogant and cocky, and mostly trouble. But he had a heart of gold, that boy. Always ready to defend those he called family.” He paused, his hand tightening over the back of his neck. “So, when Oral got into trouble...”
“He went to save her?”
Wolf nodded, a soft chuckle under his breath. “Sasha had this huge crush on Oral. It was probably because he was easy on the eyes that most girls liked him, but in Oral’s case, she gave him a blackeye any time he tried to flirt with her. Another thing he must have picked up from me.” Wolf smirked, sending a glance my way. “But Oral worked in the local brothel, not as a prostitute, but as a handmaid. But not all customers thought that way. One of the men, some scumbag drug dealer, didn’t take Oral’s no for an answer.” Wolf didn’t delve any further, but from the scowl on his lips, he didn’t need to. “Sasha was so pissed, and so were we. But when we told Sasha we’d handle it, it wasn’t enough for him. When he found out Oral was pregnant—” His hand hit his thigh, his fingers tightened into a white ball, as he bared his teeth at the ground. “—he flipped. He and the other boys, they all went to track the guy down. But they were stupid and rash, and they headed straight to his hideout, too arrogant to realize they were nowhere near strong enough to take down an entire drug hoard. We left as soon as we realized they were missing. They were gone barely an hour, but by the time we arrived... it was too late.”
I held back a sob as Wolf’s head, which had lifted higher and higher as he told his story about the children, dropped when he had finished.
I thought back to the contents of the box. The case files and information sheets were all in Russian, but the dates and the photos attached told me everything.
Several children were massacred. Not killed. Not murdered. Massacred.
“Were you the one who...?” The question was left hanging, but Wolf knew what I was asking.