by Levine, Nina
Bronze’s lips flattened as he stared at King with resentment. “Maybe it’s time for me to pay for my sins.”
“You don’t want to pay for those sins, Bronze. You’d fucking die at the hands of all the motherfuckers you’ve helped lock up if you went to jail now.”
“Maybe I’d rather die than have Hailee’s safety compromised.”
They stared at each other in silence for a long few moments before I finally stepped in. “Her safety isn’t compromised.”
Bronze’s head whipped around so he faced me. Snarling, he said, “It mightn’t be yet, but I’ve seen the shit your club gets involved with, and I don’t want her anywhere near that.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but King’s venomous voice sliced through the air. “You talk a good fucking game, Bronze, but I think we both know that you are so far entrenched in the activities of this club that you could spend an eternity trying to climb your way out and you’d not come close to escaping. I’ve heard enough of this bullshit. Get me more info on what the feds know.” With that, he stalked out of the office, leaving Bronze staring after him.
“Hailee’s happy with me, Bronze. Think about that before you try to take it all away from her,” I snapped before exiting the office also. If I didn’t leave then, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop myself from trying to knock him the fuck out.
I found King in the bar with a drink in front of him. Eyeing me as I approached, he said, “I’d suggest you stay clear of me today. I’m in a foul fucking mood, and I’m more than fucking ready to get into it with someone.”
I ignored him and indicated for Kree to bring me a drink. “You need to go home and get some sleep, King. And while you’re there, you need to talk to Jen. She’s losing her shit, and I’m concerned for the baby.”
His eyes darkened. Throwing some of his drink back, he said, “If I go home before I get my mind straight, you’ll be fucking worrying about more than that baby. No fucking way am I setting foot in that house this week.”
Fuck.
“I’m telling you, she’s not coping.” This was the last fucking conversation I wanted to be having, but I’d found Jen on the bathroom floor that morning holding a knife. The way she’d been staring at that knife led me to believe she intended to harm herself. And as much as I hated what she’d done to King, and agreed with his anger towards her, I knew he’d never forgive himself if that baby died because of something he could have helped stop. I’d managed to talk her down this time and was increasing my visits to her, but what she really needed was him.
He slammed his hand down on the top of the bar and roared, “And I’m fucking telling you that she should have fucking thought of that before she betrayed me.” He drained his glass and slammed it down, too. “Fuck!” With his eyes boring into mine, he said, “I want to wrap my hands around her fucking throat and strangle her last breath out of her, Devil. You still think I should go see her?”
I shoved my fingers through my hair, unsure of what to suggest. Nitro’s voice sounded from behind us. “Devil and I will go with you.”
King swivelled to face him. “What, to save Jen’s life?” He spat. “You really think the two of you could stop me from doing something I’ve spent the last six nights dreaming of doing? No fucking way, Nitro.”
Nitro stepped closer. “I know you, King, and I know how much you love that woman. You might scream at her, and spew your hate at her, but you’ll never hurt her physically.”
King forced out an angry breath. Without looking at her, he barked, “Kree! I need another fucking rum.”
She dropped what she was doing and quickly made him a drink. He emptied the glass in one go before saying, “Devil, this thing with Hailee, is it serious?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it is.”
“Fuck,” he muttered. “Was really fucking hoping you’d say no.”
Nitro’s phone rang, distracting him, and he moved away from us to take the call.
King watched him for a moment. “I’ll never make the same mistake I made with Nitro by not listening to what you have to say, but I’m asking if you could tone it down with Hailee while we wade through this shit with the feds. I’ve got enough dirt on Bronze to use in an effort to convince him not to walk away from the club, but I’m not getting the vibe from him that he gives a fuck about the consequences of that.”
I wasn’t either. The last thing I wanted to do was what he’d asked. However, my loyalty to him and the club caused me to rethink that. “You think Bronze can keep us out of the shit with the feds?” He’d looked after us for years, burying evidence and keeping us safe from prosecution, but he didn’t work for the federal police so I wasn’t sure how far his reach extended.
King nodded, though. “Bronze has people everywhere, Devil. He’s good for this. He walks, we’re fucked.”
Nitro came back to us while I thought about what King had said. “That was Hyde.” He met King’s gaze. “I asked him to keep an eye on Ghost’s sister. They just turned up at her house and she’s gone.”
“Gone, as in skipped town?” King asked.
“Yeah, as in her house is empty and we don’t know where she is.” His voice hardened. “As in it looks like Ghost is trying to keep her safe.”
There was only one reason why Ghost would want to keep her safe.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” King’s temper flared again. “Find her! And while you’re at it, let’s, for the love of fuck, find out what the hell Wesley Marx’s game is!”
Hailee
I sat in my car outside my mother’s home late Friday afternoon dreading the thought of going inside. She’d called last night demanding I join her for dinner. The fact I was still recovering from being sick wasn’t enough to get out of it. I could have said no, but that would only have lead to her bitching about my refusal for months. It was far easier to suck it up and go.
My phone sounded with a text.
Leona: You there yet, babe?
Me: Ugh. Yes. Send luck.
Leona: Luck!
Me: Tell me something good. I need that to get me through the night.
Leona: Jerry fucked me the minute I walked in from work. I’m fairly sure I’m pregnant now.
Me: Why?
Leona: He never has sex without planning it. This is a whole new thing for us.
Me: So you think his sperm are partying with your eggs because of his spontaneity?
Leona: LOL Yes!
Me: Okay that was good. Every time my mum pisses me off tonight, I’ll think of your baby.
Leona: Love you, Hails.
Me: Love you. Now go have sex again just to be sure.
A tap on the car window caused me to jump as I shoved my phone back in my bag. Looking up, I found Aaron bent over looking at me.
Opening the door, I muttered, “Fuck, Aaron, way to give a girl a heart attack.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You paid your rego?”
I rolled my eyes as I got out of the car. He was asking from a cop perspective. All his rules and regulations pissed me off. Sometimes, I’d just like him to be laid-back about stuff. “Yes, I paid it yesterday if you must know.”
He stepped back to let me out. “Christ, did you have a bad day?”
I slammed the door and then glared at him. “Yeah. It turns out my brother doesn’t like my boyfriend, so my mum refused to invite him to dinner, which means I have to sit through this fucking night by myself.”
“I’m here, Hailee. You’re not on your own.”
I stared at him. “God, you have no idea.”
He blew out a frustrated breath. This was our same old argument. Without fail, we always had it when we visited Mum. “Tell me, what do I have no idea about this time?”
I straightened my shoulders, ready to lay it all out, when Mum called out from her veranda, “Aaron, come inside, it’s hot out here.”
My brows shot up and I jabbed a finger in her direction. “That for one. No worries about Hailee being fucking hot!”
I s
talked away from him, up to where Mum stood waiting. Her mouth spread out into a thin smile for me as I approached, before her gaze darted to Aaron and her smile grew.
“Hi, Mum,” I greeted her as Aaron’s boots sounded on the step behind me.
“Hailee,” she murmured, running her eyes down my body as a scowl appeared on her face. I guessed she didn’t like the short shorts I’d worn that night. Or maybe it was the skimpy white T-shirt I’d paired them with. The one that clung to my boobs in the way I knew she hated.
She quickly transferred her attention to my brother. Her gushing over him sickened me, so I left them and entered the house.
My gaze fell on the family portrait that had always hung in the entryway. The portrait of the three of us with Dad and Gran. The fucking portrait that had disappeared and been replaced with a framed family photo that didn’t include Gran.
Turning back to Mum, I demanded, “Where’s the family portrait?”
She looked at me with distaste. “I beg your pardon? Since when do you come into my home and speak to me in that manner?”
I ignored her question. “I can’t believe the way you’ve acted since Dad died. You were just itching to cut Gran out, weren’t you?”
“Hailee,” Aaron said in a deep voice full of warning.
My phone buzzed with a text, and because I was waiting to hear from Devil, I quickly flicked it over in my hand so I could read the message.
Leona: Sperm. Babies. Happy times. You’ve got this, girl.
Fucking fuckity fuck.
What the fuck was I doing? I never won an argument with my mother. Fucking never. So why bother trying now?
Just take a deep breath, Hailee, and get through this night. You won’t have to see her again for another three months if you’re lucky.
With another glare at Aaron, I turned and made the long trek down the hallway to the dining room where I knew Mum would be serving dinner.
This house was way too big for her. She kept it because it had been in her family for years. I figured she had plans to leave it to Aaron when she passed away. Good luck to him, because all I could think was the amount of cleaning it needed. That wasn’t something I ever wanted in my life.
Mum served dinner ten minutes later. At least I could always count on her not to fuck around and keep us waiting. She was a stickler for being on time, and when she said dinner was at six, you arrived at six and you were eating by quarter past. This was good for me because it meant I had half a shot at being out of there by seven thirty.
She’d cooked a roast lamb and vegetables, and my guess was she had apple pie and cream for dessert. So damn predictable. My life had run on predictability while I grew up. It was one reason why I left the country and travelled as soon as I could.
“Hailee.” Aaron’s voice broke into my thoughts. I glanced up to find him staring at me as if he was waiting for an answer to a question.
“Huh?”
My mother tsked. “I asked you how your work was going?”
She didn’t really want to know. Usually I’d give her the standard reply that all was well so she could move straight onto Aaron who she actually was interested in, but I’d had some exciting news that day, and I decided to share it with them. “I received a phone call today from a woman who wants to invest in my charity work.”
Mum stared at me blankly while Aaron smiled and said, “That’s fantastic. Who is she?”
“She’s the CEO of a superannuation company here in Australia. Her aunt’s friend has been receiving massages from me, and she heard about it that way. She wants to meet with me next week to talk about investing the kind of money that would mean I could run it full time.” And leave Rachel and her awfulness behind.
“Really?” Mum asked in the condescending manner she often used on me.
“Really, what?” I actually had no clue what she meant, other than perhaps she was questioning the truth in what I’d said.
Mum put down her cutlery and trained her disbelieving gaze on me. “I keep waiting for the day you come home and tell me some good news. And it never happens.”
Her words were like a punch to my gut. In one way, they hurt more than the physical punches I’d received at the hands of Mickey years ago. “What kind of news would you like to hear, Mum?” I was proud of myself for maintaining my cool even when my heart screamed at me to tell her how much she’d hurt me.
“Well, for one, I wish you would give up this silly idea to run a massage charity. I mean, really. Why can’t you just go back to university and finish the business degree you started? And two, you’re thirty, Hailee. Don’t you think it’s time you started to look for a good catholic man to settle down with?”
My eyes almost bugged out of my head.
Aaron cut in, though, before I could reply to her bullshit. “Jesus, Mum, when are you going to just let her be? She’s happy. Isn’t that all that matters?” His words came out harshly, and I was taken aback. I’d never once heard him talk to our mother that way. I was also secretly fucking impressed with him. He’d stood up for me often, but mostly he just preferred to keep the peace. This, for him, was going above and beyond.
Mum stared at him like she’d just been slapped. “I will not tolerate that kind of language in my house, Aaron.”
I shoved my chair back. I’d heard enough. “Oh for fuck's sake, Mum, you need to move into the twenty-first century. I’m not searching for a good catholic man just so I can improve my social standing by turning my spinster status around. I know you’re embarrassed that I’m thirty and not married, but I’m not. I’m actually quite happy being single. Although, I guess you know now from Aaron that I’m dating a biker. The good news, though, is that he’s catholic.”
She blanched.
“No, I hadn’t told her that,” Aaron murmured.
I shrugged. “Oh well, she had to find out sooner or later.”
Mum’s hand moved to her throat while she processed everything I’d said. “Tricia said you’d changed, but I didn’t want to believe it.”
“Oh God, not this again. When did she say that?” My ex-best friend refused to cut ties with my family, and it pissed me off.
“She came for morning tea this morning, and we discussed your desire—”
I held up my hand to stop her. “I’m not interested in what you two discussed. If you can’t see that she treated your daughter badly, then that makes me really sad. Most mothers would want the kind of friend who cheered their daughter on in everything she did in life. They wouldn’t want one like Tricia, who was jealous of my new success and new friends.” I picked up my bag. “Thank you for dinner, but I’m not hungry anymore.”
I didn’t wait for her response.
I fled my family home as fast as I could with no intention of going back anytime soon.
* * *
By the time I arrived on Devil’s doorstep half an hour later, tears streamed down my cheeks, and I was fairly certain it looked like an artist had painted messy black lines down those cheeks.
I’d cried all the way from Mum’s house to his. Long shuddering sobs. The worst thing was I had no tissues on me or in the car, so the only thing I’d been able to use was the white T-shirt I wore.
Devil’s concerned gaze travelled down my face to my shirt and back up to my eyes. “Fuck, darlin’, what happened?” He reached out and pulled me inside to his lounge room where he positioned me on his lap. His strong arms around me were exactly what I needed, but instead of soothing me, it only made me cry harder.
I buried my face in his neck and clung to him. He didn’t push me to speak but simply comforted me and waited until I was ready.
I cried for a long time. Decades’ worth of tears fell, and when I finally lifted my head to find his eyes, I felt like a weight had lifted. The heaviness that was my mother would never be lifted completely, but these tears had been a long time coming, and it felt good to shed them.
“Thank you,” I whispered, barely able to see him through my wet lashes.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
He shifted me onto the couch so he could stand and leave to go in search of the tissues. When he returned, he held the box out to me before sitting and pulling me back onto his lap.
“I take it dinner with your mother didn’t go well.”
I cleaned my face enough so I could see, and tried to remove some mascara from my cheeks. “Let’s just say that I don’t think she’s going to invite me back anytime soon. And let’s also say that I don’t give a flying fuck.”
“What happened?”
I proceeded to tell him everything that had gone down that night. Even the fact that I thought he’d never be welcome in my mother’s home because he was a biker. More tears gushed while I told him, and I wondered if they would ever stop. My relationship with Mum had always been hard, but after that dinner, I was finally facing just how bad it was.
“I really don’t want to see her again,” I whispered to Devil after I finished telling him everything. “Not ever.”
His arm tightened around me. “You might see things differently tomorrow.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I think I’m done.”
He nodded, accepting what I said without trying to make me change my mind. I loved that he simply listened without offering advice.
We sat in silence for a long time. He held me while I thought about everything that had happened again.
When I sighed and rested my head against his chest, he said, “Fuck anyone who doesn’t think you should pursue your dreams, Hailee. I’m fucking happy for you, darlin’.”
I slid my hand up his shirt to his throat and then to his face. Placing my palm flat to his cheek, I lifted my head and smiled at him. “Thank you. You have no idea what that means to me.”
He brushed a kiss across my lips and murmured, “Fuck, you’re beautiful. Even when your face is puffy as shit and your makeup is all over the place.”