by Nina Levine
“Why are you guys still here?” I yelled as I approached them.
They both glanced at me, their faces not revealing any surprise at my behaviour.
The one I recognised as the guy King had called Mace once when I was at the clubhouse, said, “King wants your family watched.”
“I don’t care what King wants. I want you to leave. I don’t need his protection.”
He pulled a face. “Sorry, babe, no can do.”
I looked at the other guy who watched me with care. “Let me guess—you only take your orders from King, too?”
“Yeah. And I agree with him. There’s no harm to you if you just go about your shit while we go about ours. Keeps everyone happy.”
He was right.
I knew that.
But I had this overwhelming need to remove King from my life after he’d removed himself from mine. If he didn’t want anything to do with me anymore, I would slam that door closed and hammer bolts in it. The hurt he’d inflicted wasn’t something I wanted to experience again. After years of keeping my heart to myself, only sharing little pieces of it here and there, I’d been ready to crack it wide open again. Not anymore.
“Give me your phone,” I said to Mace, holding my hand out.
He shook his head. “No.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I speak with King, so one of you needs to get him on the phone.”
Mace’s gaze hardened. He appeared to wrestle with his thoughts, until finally he muttered, “Fuck, Lily, you don’t make shit easy for a man.”
I lifted my brows, waiting for the phone.
Stand your ground.
Do not let these guys steamroll you.
He pulled out his phone and made the call, passing it to me before King answered.
Nervous energy engulfed me as I held the phone to my ear waiting for King. My tummy went crazy with nerves, annoying me. I didn’t want to feel anything. Didn’t want to be this affected by King.
But I was.
Damn.
“Mace,” King barked, “is everything okay?”
My hand shook as it gripped the phone hard. “It’s not Mace, King. It’s me.”
Silence.
“Lily.”
Oh God.
No.
The gravel in his voice hit me first.
Then, the hint of softness.
Totally unexpected.
And confusing.
King didn’t do soft, so it made no sense.
But it couldn’t be denied—King had just toned himself down a level for me.
4
King
Christ, I’d needed to hear her voice. Three days without it, and I was questioning my own fucking sanity. What kind of man thinks about a woman non-fucking-stop when he’s only known her for three weeks? I’d made a mistake telling her we were done. We were a long fucking way from done.
I didn’t give a fuck that she was about to let loose on me.
I’d take Lily however she came right now.
“You need to tell your men to leave. I don’t need them here anymore.”
I leaned back in my seat and stretched out my legs, ignoring the noise in the clubhouse bar around me. “You do need them. I’m not removing them.”
“Don’t you take that tone with me.”
“What tone?”
“The arrogant one you like to use when you’re being overbearingly assuming about something. Don’t assume to know what I need or what’s happening with the investigation. The police have told me—”
“The police know jack, Lily. And I’m not assuming. I know this shit for a fact.”
“God,” she huffed out before turning silent.
“How are you?” I asked, needing that information more than anything else.
She was quick to give me a tongue lashing over that. “No, King… just no. You don’t get to ask me that anymore.”
Before I got a word in, she continued, “Look, you made your choice the other day, and you didn’t choose me. So please tell Mace and his friend to go home. Every time I see them, it makes me think of you, and I have other things I need to concentrate on at the moment.” She paused before adding a little less harshly, “Please.”
I stood. “Put Mace back on.”
“You’ll tell him to go?”
“Lily,” I growled, “put him on.”
She grumbled something I couldn’t make out, and then after some rustling, Mace came back on the line, “Yeah?”
“Stay put, brother. We’re not pulling out yet.” No fucking way were we pulling out. I’d go over there and make that clear to her myself.
“Done.”
I ended the call and headed into my office to grab my shit.
Zane met me in the hallway. “I have some good news for you for once.”
“You found Brant?”
“No, still nothing there. This is about Don and Kree. She’s safe now. We got Don to drop the parenting order.”
I scrubbed my hand over my face, still not happy with the outcome he’d worked. We were moving closer to me putting that bullet in Don’s head. “That’s a temporary fix.”
“No, it’s permanent.”
“How do you know that?”
His nostrils flared. “Fuck, King, you’re not gonna be happy until he’s dead, are you?”
“You’ve got that right. She’s your cousin for fuck’s sake. Do you really wanna leave her out there vulnerable as fuck while that cunt is still breathing?”
“No, but we’ve always known that you and I handle shit differently. Murder isn’t an option in my toolbox.”
“It should be. When it’s family, it fucking should be.” If it wasn’t Zane I was dealing with here, I’d go around him and take care of this myself, but I had history with him and respected him enough not to.
“Don’s gotten himself in some shit, owes money he can’t afford to repay, so my guys have taken care of that in return for him staying away from Kree.”
“You’re fucking kidding me, right? A man like Don doesn’t just walk away from his woman and kids. He’s the kind to show up with a fucking 9mm and end all their lives so no one else can have her.”
His phone sounded with a text. Glancing down at it, he said, “I’m keeping an eye on him, King. I’ll keep you updated.” Meeting my gaze again, he said with some force, “Restrain yourself from doing whatever the fuck it is you’re thinking of doing. There’s other shit at play here that I don’t have time to go into. But it’s the kind of shit that, if you put a bullet in Don’s head, you’ll cause worse problems for Kree.”
As he walked away from me, I made a mental note to get Griff to do some of our own digging on this. I wasn’t happy with Zane’s plan. Far fucking from it. And there was no way I’d put Kree back out there with the way things stood.
Half an hour later, I pulled up outside Lily’s mother’s house. Mace sat down the street right where I’d told him to stay. I hadn’t heard from him since our last conversation, and there was no sign of Lily, so I figured he’d managed to handle her. However, as I exited my ute, she came barrelling out of the house, rushing at me like a bull to a red flag. He may have dealt with her, but I’d be the one handling her.
I traced my gaze over her body, because hell, she wore a fucking skimpy black robe that barely covered her ass. I had to fight like fuck not to reach out and undo it. My imagination went wild thinking about what it hid.
“I thought you were going to call Mace home!”
I found her eyes. They screamed the wild storm raging through her. She was a beautiful hurricane I couldn’t walk away from. Lily was passion and calm all rolled into one. I needed the calm to centre me, but it was the fire I craved in a woman. Beauty never spoke to me long enough to keep my attention. Fire did, though, and she blazed with it.
I was here to re-claim her.
She could fight me all she liked; I would win in the end.
And I fucking loved a good battle.
“I never said that.
”
Her eyes bulged with fury. “Why are you being so difficult about this? I don’t freaking understand you!”
“You don’t need to. You just need to turn that ass of yours around and go back inside and let me do my thing.”
Eyes still wide, she threw out, “Your thing? What does that even mean?”
“It means that it’s shit I’m not worrying you with. Go inside. This isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“Just so you know, when you tell a woman you’ve got stuff on your mind that you don’t want to worry her with, it makes her worry. I’m not going anywhere until you spit it out.”
“Lily,” I growled, “this isn’t shit I’m sharing with you. We can stand here and argue all night, but I won’t change my mind.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and shifted her weight to one leg like she was settling in for the long haul. “Fine by me. I’ve got all night.”
My gaze dropped as I caught a flash of skin when her robe fell to the side, revealing the inside of her thigh. At the same time, a red Falcon pulled into the driveway and Linc jumped out and stalked our way.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he roared.
Lily dropped her arms and grabbed hold of him trying to stop him coming close to me. “Linc,” she warned, “don’t get into this. Holly’s watching.”
He ignored her, his eyes firmly locked to mine. Shrugging out of her hold, he moved into my personal space and spat, “You need to fuck off and leave us alone to get through this. We don’t fucking need your help.”
My jaw clenched as I worked hard to keep myself in check. Lily’s daughter stood next to her father’s car watching us, and her other kids and mother were in the house. As much as I wanted to knock the motherfucker out, I didn’t want to do that while her family were close. Squaring my shoulders, I said, “I’m not here to help you. I’m here for Lily.”
“Yeah well, she’s good. I’m back now.”
It fucking pissed me off that he’d worked the shooting of her sister to his advantage, but I couldn’t fault her for allowing him to help her through it. “Step the fuck away from me, asshole. I’m not here to get into a fucking fight with you.”
He didn’t. Instead, he shoved his face closer to mine and said, “Did you hear what I said? That I’m back with Lily now. Because if you didn’t, you need to pay attention to that.”
At the same time Lily reached for him again and said, “Linc, don’t,” I swung my head to face her and demanded, “That true?”
Motherfucker.
I’d missed his point the first time.
Now he had me fucking worked up.
Anger burned in my veins at the thought of him forcing his way back into her life.
Her eyes met mine, challenging me. “That has nothing to do with you.”
Linc finally took that step back from me. Sliding his arm over Lily’s shoulder, he pulled her close and hit me with a satisfied smile. “It’s true. Now get off my property.”
Every inch of my body tensed as my patience stretched to breaking point. It wasn’t his fucking property, but Lily hadn’t corrected him. She also allowed his hands on her. And she didn’t challenge anything he said. The only fucking challenge she threw down was to me.
Seeing another man’s hands on her drove me fucking wild. I wanted to rip those hands off her. Wanted to crush the motherfucker and ensure he never had the chance to put them anywhere near her again. Fuck, I wanted to claim her then and fucking there, and lay the fucking law down. That her body would know only my hands in the future.
I’d been mistaken when I thought I could shut my feelings down. Lily had worked her way into my black heart, clawing at it piece by fucking piece. Hell would fucking freeze over before I’d give up on her. I’d also been mistaken worrying that her connection to me would put her in danger. My thinking had been fucked up for too fucking long with the shit the club had going on. After taking care of Romano’s men, my mind blazed bright with clarity, and I was thinking straight again. And what all that thinking told me was that motherfuckers could come at us, but they would never defeat us. And they sure as fuck wouldn’t get their hands on my woman.
I turned my gaze to Linc. “I’d like a word with Lily. Alone.”
“Not fucking likely,” he said, squeezing her tighter against his body.
She wiggled out of his hold. “Give us a minute, Linc. I’ll be inside soon.”
He stared at her long and hard before muttering, “Fucking hell,” and doing as she’d asked.
I tracked his movements until he was inside. Then, pinning my gaze to Lily’s, I said, “We’re not done.”
She frowned. “Yes, we are. That was your choice the other day, King.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what I said the other day. I’m telling you now—this thing between us is far from over.”
Her frown disappeared, leaving an expression that told me how annoyed with me she was. “You don’t get that right anymore. You don’t get to tell me anything. And fuck you. My sister is lying in a coma that I’m not sure she’ll wake up from, and I’ve got a lot on my mind, and you wanna come around and discuss this? No. I’m not okay with that. Not when you made it perfectly clear where you stood the other day. Go home. I’m done with this conversation.”
Not giving me a chance to respond, she walked inside, leaving me staring after her.
I was a selfish bastard. I’d pushed her away to protect her, and here I fucking was demanding her back. It completely went against my reasons for removing her from my life. Dragging her back into it would only put her at risk again. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t not have her. I had no idea where this need came from. I sure as fuck didn’t want to feel this way. And yet I did. Hell, I wanted Lily in ways I’d never wanted a woman.
Once she was safely back in the house, I walked to where Mace was parked. Tapping my hand on the top of his car, I leant down to talk to him through the window. “Go home, brother.”
“We’re done here?”
I shook my head. “No. But I’ll do tonight’s shift.”
“I’m good, King. And besides, haven’t we removed the threat to her now?”
“Go. Get some sleep and be back here at six tomorrow morning. We’re keeping eyes on her until Romano is dealt with.” Fuck knew who else he had on his payroll.
“Okay, so long as you’re sure.”
I nodded and pulled out a smoke. “I’m sure.”
I lit the cigarette as he pulled away from the kerb. Dragging nicotine deep into my lungs, I thought about what I was doing. Not much of it made sense to me, but that was the fucking story of my life. The last thing I wanted was a woman by my side. And fuck knew where we’d end up. But even though I was in the middle of a fucking war that needed my full attention, and although I had a million reasons not to pursue her, Lily had become my new addiction.
5
Lily
I pulled the curtain to the side to glance down the street. He was gone. The fact that disappointed me also annoyed me. I wanted King just as much as I didn’t want him now. His arrival last night and his announcement that we weren’t done had thrown me. Completely freaking screwed me up. I’d hardly slept, especially since I knew he was outside. I’d watched from my window after I left him standing on the footpath, waiting for him to leave. But he hadn’t. He’d stayed all night. I knew this because I’d bloody checked almost every half hour until I finally fell asleep around three.
God.
I was going to lose my mind over this man.
I was sure of it.
That was the reason why I’d let him think Linc and I were getting back together. I’d hated letting him believe that, especially when I’d seen his reaction. His response had surprised me. When Linc had thrown it out, I’d thought King wouldn’t even blink. I mean, the man told me in no uncertain terms we were over. A small part of me had been happy to see how affected he was by the thought of me back with my ex. But I didn’t like playing games with men, so
mostly I’d felt like a bitch for misleading him.
I had to guard my heart, though, so I’d chosen not to correct his thinking.
He’d move on soon. He’d find another woman to sleep with, and I’d be long forgotten.
“Mum,” Zara said, knocking softly on my door. “Breakfast is ready.” She peaked her head in. “Are you okay to come out and eat or do you want me to bring it in here for you?”
I smiled at my beautiful girl and moved to her. Wrapping my arms around her, I pressed a kiss to her head. She was coping with Brynn being in a coma differently to her sister. Zara was me, through and through. Right down to her boy-crazy bones. It was why I worried so much about her having sex with her boyfriend. I knew her next move before she did most days.
“I’m okay, baby. How are you?” It was a lie; I wasn’t okay. I was exhausted from too little sleep over the last few days. I was anxious over Brynn. I was worried about how my kids were doing. I was concerned about this situation with Linc. And I was twisted up over my feelings for King. Somehow, I’d managed to go from being hardly aware of living this time yesterday to hyper-aware of everything today.
She looked at me sadly. “Do you think it means something bad that Auntie Brynn still hasn’t woken up?”
My heart crawled into my throat. Getting my kids through this was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do as a mother. Because as much as I wanted to reassure her, I wrestled with the same thoughts and fears. Lying had never been part of my parenting style, but I was going to have to consider it now. And I was going to have to reach deep inside myself to give her an answer that didn’t alarm her further.
I ran my hand gently down her long hair, smoothing it. “Auntie Brynn is in a critical condition, sweetheart. I’m not sure the doctors are ready for her to wake up yet. Yesterday, they told us she needs to rest in order to grow strong enough to breathe on her own. The machines are helping her do that.” I actually couldn’t quite recall what the doctor had said, but I was sure it was something close to this.