Happiness fills me entirely. Everything is as it should be.
Chapter Six
Gunner
This is Daisy’s eighteenth birthday. The whole family has gathered in Zane’s house in the Spanish Pyrenees to celebrate with his daughter.
I wish we could see each other more often. Once a year is not enough for me. I grew up with Axel and Zane. They are my brothers.
It was different many years ago. We lived in our small town, the whole family, but one night the Bratva supported by the Broken Crusaders came and detonated three bombs in Chaviva.
Luckily, Dimitri and Rey were in the bedroom with the blast resistant walls. Rey woke up on that night.
The Bratva and Crusaders slaughtered our soldiers and we had to escape.
We’d always thought we were well prepared for such an attack. But we weren’t. Fortunately, Dimitri’d planned the escape route in detail before the attack, just in case, and he also had a fake passport for each of us. He is a decent man. Carrie doesn’t like him but I do. I like him even better for what he did later during the attack. He left the battlefield as the last person with three bullets in his chest, almost bleeding to death. Then he handed an account number to each family and told us to scatter. There is enough money on my account to have a comfortable life with my wife and kids. We have a small house and a grocery shop near Axel’s place. I could pay for Carrie’s university and will be able to pay for my kids’ education.
Axel is running another garage, but he isn’t washing any money.
Rey didn’t like Dimitri in the beginning when she woke up. It took him a while to make Rey like him. They are very happy now.
Carrie jumps on my lap and tips a bottle of beer up to her lips. My son, Gunner Junior, winces in disgust at the sight of us. He’s sixteen and he’s very handsome, a bit shorter than me and nicely built.
My heart aches at the memory of the day he was born. He was eight weeks premature. Carrie was too small to carry him longer and she almost died, giving birth to him.
“Hey you, handsome boy,” Carrie whispers into my ear and purrs. She’s a little drunk, but I like her like this. “You need the company of a redhead, don’t you?”
Gunner Junior shakes his head, pity pervading his glance and threads his fingers through his auburn hair, then rises to his feet to join other kids in the basement.
“Are you having fun, Carrie?” I ask.
“I always like it here.” She melds into me, rubbing her soft body against mine as my cock grows hard. “You know, I think Mike has a middle life crisis.”
“If you’re saying so then it must be truth.” I kiss the top of her head.
“I’m watching him.” She sips her beer. “I hope Zane and Brianna haven’t noticed anything otherwise there will be broken noses and blood on the floor.”
I nod at her even though I have no fucking idea what she’s talking about.
“Mike really is lonely.” Carrie strokes my chin with her fingertips.
“He is, Carrie.”
Mike is keeping an eye on the Bratva and the Broken Crusaders even though he’s a target on their hitman’s list. He must be lonely. We all have families and Mike doesn’t. His marriage failed and now he’s focussed on keeping us safe. Our enemies will never stop looking for us. They want revenge. They want all of us dead.
Carrie sighs. “Well, he should find himself someone who’s his age or two-three years younger. Not...” She lifts herself a bit and gazes into my eyes. “You’re not allowed to have a middle life crisis.” Seriousness flickers in her gaze.
“I’m not allowed to have this... this... Whatever this means I’m not going to have it.”
Carrie plants a wet kiss on my cheek. She seems to be contented so I must have said something right.
“Gunner Junior is interested in Sol,” Carrie says.
My lips curl into a smile. Sive’s daughter is beautiful. “He has a good taste for women.”
“Nikko and Shay are interested in her too.”
“They will sort it out among them.”
“I hope no blood is shed.” Carrie chuckles and empties her bottle.
“Boys sometimes need to fight.”
“I know but they’re our kids.”
“They’re growing up.”
“I know,” Carrie groans. “And I hate it. Where are my little boys?” She puts her palm on the back of my neck and brings my lips down to hers.
I inhale her breath scented with beer and strawberries as my mouth touches hers. My brothers whistle and guffaw at us.
“Gunner, there are kids here,” Axel says. “You, prince charming.”
“You, prince charming,” I say. “Should I remind you of Sive and you? You regularly occupied the office in the garage and everyone had to listen to you.”
Axel lowers his head as his hand rises in a threatening gesture.
“Sometimes they didn’t even bother to close the door,” Zane says and the whole room erupts into laughter.
“Zane and Brianna loved ‘Jilly Jet’,” Jax says. “I was scared to touch anything in our meeting room.”
Another wave of laughter wafts through the air.
I kiss my wife’s sinfully plump lips and lose myself in that divine sensation of her mouth united with mine then raise my head as my eyes sweep over all the people. Mike is talking to Daisy. His eyes are burning. I saw such fire in his glance. It was when we killed together. But obviously he doesn’t want to kill Daisy.
If Daisy wasn’t Zane’s daughter I’d tell that Mike wants to fuck her. But Daisy is Zane’s daughter and Mike knows about it.
“I told you,” Carrie whispers into my ear. “I can sense trouble.”
“We will see, Carrie.”
Boulder and Amanda sit in front of us and we chat.
“More beer, Carrie?” I run my palm up and down her back.
“No, one bottle is enough for me.” Carrie yawns.
My glance travels to one of the windows and I see that the sky has turned black. Axel adds more twigs into the fireplace and the fire digests them greedily. A misty yellow aura layers the room as the scent of resins mixes with that of the food on the table.
Brianna burns a few candles and moves closer to us.
“Do you need anything?” she asks. “More beer or more juice?”
“No, thank you, we’re fine,” Carrie says.
“The room is ready for you,” Brianna says. “If you needed more towels just let me know.”
“Thank you,” I say as a yawn escapes my mouth.
Brianna chuckles. “We are getting old.”
“We are,” I say.
My glance travels to Rey who raises her shot glass. Dimitri runs the back of his hand up and down her cheek.
“We should drink for Kolya,” Rey says.
She barely ever speaks and her voice sounds alien to me, like an eerie song.
“Da,” Dimitri says and the boys murmur their approval.
“For our dear friend, Kolya,” Rey says and brings her glass up to her lips.
I feel my throat tighten and a sense of loss wafts through me. Kolya shot himself dead. The letter he left for us said that he was tired and wanted to see his daughter.
“And now for Natka,” Rey says.
Boulder’s eyes darken and he drops his head. Dimitri hooks the back of Rey’s neck.
“Amanda,” Rey says. “Do you know who Natka was, who she was for you?”
Amanda shakes her head.
Amanda and Rey seem to like each other, but Boulder and Dimitri treat each other with a cold politeness.
“I will tell you who Natka was,” Rey says. “She was a beautiful and smart girl, Kolya’s daughter, our little treasure. She was dying of leukaemia and she was only eighteen. She fell in love with your husband, Amanda. Boulder is a good man, my dearest Amanda. My husband asked him for a massive favour and Boulder didn’t refuse. He gave our Natka a wonderful gift, making the final four months of her life happy.”
I see pai
n and disbelief sharpening Amanda’s face as Boulder’s body shakes.
“Boulder never told you who that woman between you two was,” Rey says. “Never told you who destroyed your marriage?”
“He said he’d strayed,” Amanda says in a hoarse voice. “That’s all.”
“No,” Boulder says, raising his head. “I said I’d strayed and asked you to forgive me. I said that I wouldn’t do that again. Remember? I said I loved only you. Only you, Amanda. Always.”
“You should have told me the truth,” Amanda says with reproach, tears rolling down her eyes. “Fuck me. So much time lost, you old idiot.”
“I thought you’d be more hurt,” Boulder says.
“I’m proud of you,” Amanda says and raises her bottle of beer. “Fuck. I’m proud of you even though it hurts. For Natka.”
So we drink for that young woman I never met. Then we drink for Dash and Mac. For Wendy even though I didn’t like her. For Ziggy even though I always tried to stay away from him. And for Dashenka even though Dimitri’s face darkens like he wants to kill Rey.
“This house,” Rey says, “will always be the place where we share love. Forgiveness. Where we’re all one family.”
“Aye,” the boys say with one voice.
Carrie and I stay for another hour then we go upstairs to our room in the attic. My wife is clinging to my arm, her feet shuffling so I grasp her waist and lift her up. Her thighs wrap around my waist.
“My hero,” she says.
“I’m just trying to do my job properly.”
“Your job?”
“Being your husband is a very important job.”
“It’s pleasure not a job.” Her lips press against mine.
I grip her waist and throw her over my shoulder, smacking her ass. “Now, it’s pleasure.”
Carrie bursts into laughter. “You’re in a naughty mood tonight.”
“In a very naughty mood, sweetheart.”
We tumble into our room and I throw her onto the bed, crawling on top of her.
“Brianna is older than me but she still has the tits of an eighteen year old.” Carrie purses her lips into a horseshoe.
“Your tits are beautiful.” I ease my weight onto my elbows.
A female’s moans drift to my ears. They are coming from the room next door, growing in strength, laced with a delicate raspiness, almost like somebody is taming a wild animal.
Carrie giggles. “Who is it?”
“Sive.”
“My. God. What is Axel doing to her?”
“I will show you. You will be moaning louder than Sive.” I bow my head at her which makes her squeal quietly and she pulls me down to her.
Two years later, my son Shay dies, losing control over his bike on the motorway. My wife sinks into depression. Nikko and Gunner Junior help me wrench her out of it, but the true medicine for her appears when Sol gives birth to Shay’s son.
I hope Dash looks after Shay. He was a good kid and he was my son.
I sometimes cry when I’m thinking of Shay.
Dash, brother, look after my boy.
***
Thank you very much for reading my book. I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave a review (a few words will be enough). Thank you.
Check out my other books
By
Daniela Jackson:
Lily: A Bad Boy Romance
Sive: Shadow Wolves MC Book 1
Planned Books:
Valda: An Ex-Con Bad Boy Romance
Samael: A Dark Romance Standalone
Athena: MC Romance Standalone
Mike: Devil’s Tears MC Standalone (Daisy and Mike).
Brianna (Shadow Wolves MC Book 2) Page 19