by Levine, Nina
You’re used to this.
This is what he does.
He makes plans and then he changes them just as fast.
You’ve got this.
Deep fucking breath.
“Lily,” he demanded, “did you listen to anything I just said?”
I stared at him as he sat on the end of our bed lacing his boots. And I took that deep breath and nodded. “Yes, I heard you.”
He took that in, narrowing his eyes a little as he did so. Like he was trying to gauge my feeling about this new development. “My guess is I’ll be home by Thursday. Friday at the latest.”
I couldn’t with him. I just couldn’t. Not today. The kids had given me hell this morning and I’d been late getting them to school. Linc had given me grief over my request for him to cough up his late child support payment. My mother had left me a weird message on my phone that I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out. The general gist was that she was cranky with me. I’d deal with her later. And on top of all that, the washing machine had died this morning, and when I’d mentioned it to King, he’d shrugged his fucking shoulders and told me it’d have to wait until he got home from Brisbane. At that point, I didn’t even know he was going to Brisbane.
I continued staring at him, because really, there was nothing else to do than that. I mean, I had no clue what would come out of his mouth next. “I should hope you’ll be home by Friday since we have a wedding to attend on Saturday.”
Before I knew what was happening, he’d stood and taken hold of me as he walked me backwards to the wall. “Do we have a problem?” he growled, his hand around my neck.
I attempted to pry his hand from my body but failed. “Let me go, King. This is not the time for you to be manhandling me.”
Dark, stormy eyes locked onto mine as he refused to let me go. “I’m going to be away from you for days, Lily, and the last fucking thing I need to be worrying about is whether you’re in a fucking mood with me. Tell me if you have a problem with this.”
I placed my hands to his chest and pushed him away. He hadn’t seen that coming, so I was successful in escaping his grip. “Yes, I have a fucking problem with this! You forced me to change the wedding date. You told me you’d help me with the plans. You said it would all work out okay. And now you won’t even be here this week while I probably have a fucking meltdown over all the shit I have to take care of!” My body flowed with the same stormy energy King’s did as I let all my frustrations out. “I don’t have a problem with you going. You know I never do. But fuck me, I would have preferred it to not be this week.” As he came for me, I stabbed my finger in the air and added, “And now I sound like a whiny bitch! You should have just left and I would have called Brynn to get all that off my chest. Why do you always have to force me to tell you stuff I don’t want to?”
He crashed into me, his strong arms lifting me and throwing me on the bed, his hands ripping my clothes off, his lips devouring mine. When he came up for air, he rasped, “Because I need to fucking know what you’re thinking. I don’t give a fuck what you sound like; all I care about is that we get that shit out and we deal with it. You don’t want to fail at another marriage? You fucking give it to me straight. That’s how we don’t fail.”
My breaths came hard and fast as I took all that in. Fuck, he was right. Why did he always have to be right? I wrapped my legs around his naked body and took hold of his face. “God I love you, but fuck you annoy me sometimes!”
As I pulled his mouth back to mine, he thrust inside me. Our bodies moved together, fast and furious as we each chased our release. Anger and love and hope met head-on, our own special kind of alchemy. By the time we came, King had worked my frustrations out of me and all that was left was the deep love I felt for him.
After, as he zipped his jeans, he said, “I’ll do my best to be home on Thursday.”
I slipped my T-shirt over my head and nodded. “I know you will.”
We watched each other silently as we finished dressing. Then, pulling me to him, he ran his hand over my hair, smoothing it. Kissing my forehead, he exhaled and said, “Fuck, I love you.”
I put my arms around him and snuggled against his chest. It wasn’t often King gave me this side of him, so when he did, I cherished it even more. “I love you, too.”
* * *
Monday was a write-off and Tuesday wasn’t much better. King made it safely to Brisbane, thank God. I always worried about him when he went on a ride, so I didn’t sleep much Monday night. Having to work all day Tuesday, on very little sleep, with assholes filling my day, left me with the headache from hell by that afternoon. King had organised for Kick, who had stayed in Sydney, to take Zara to her maths tutoring after school, and he’d been called back to the clubhouse while driving her home afterwards, so I drove over to collect her from there.
With said headache.
And a million jobs on my to-do list for the night that was only causing the headache to intensify to unbearable levels.
So it was in that state that I came across Jenny from the Block, otherwise known as Marley, otherwise known as the bitch who hated me. I referred to her as Jenny from the Block in my head because she looked like Jennifer Lopez. I needed to stop thinking of her like that, because while she was beautiful like Jennifer, her soul was ugly as hell.
I stumbled across her in the kitchen when I ducked in there to grab a drink. She and June, another old lady, were discussing the fact King had ordered their men to go to Brisbane with him. They didn’t hear me come in and carried on unaware I was listening.
“I’m so fucking over this bullshit,” Marley said. “King speaks and our men just have to come running.”
“Lizard is this close to wanting to leave the club,” June said.
“Yeah, I keep telling Marx to stand up to King—” Marley started, but I cut her off.
“You know, if you have such a fucking problem with King and this club, you should just fucking leave,” I said, glaring at both of them. “Jesus, do you two even understand what the club is all about?”
Marley returned my glare and came towards me. “Of course we fucking do. We’ve been around for a lot fucking longer than you have, remember?”
“Well it doesn’t sound like it, Marley. It sounds like you need a lesson in how shit works around here and to learn some respect for the club and for King.”
“Are you fucking serious right now, bitch?”
I stepped right into her personal space and crowded her. “Yes, I fucking am.”
Fuck, right now, after the day I’d had, I wanted nothing more than to knock this bitch down. And I would if she kept pushing me. And I didn’t even care if King took issue with that.
She pushed my shoulder and hit me with a nasty smile. A smile that told me she didn’t think I had it in me to take her on. “Yeah, I doubt it, Lily. You’re a fucking basic bitch. I have no idea what King sees in you. I mean, it’s not like you’ve got the balls to be the kind of old lady he needs. I’m pretty sure he’s got a couple of sluts on the side who fuck him the way he really needs—”
My brain exploded with both pain and anger. How dare she say that shit about my man? I lunged at her, shoving her back so hard she slammed into the counter in the middle of the room. Every inch of me blazed with fury as I closed the distance between us again and went after her some more. Slapping her face, I yelled, “Don’t you ever fucking say shit like that about King again!”
Her face contorted with her own fury and she screamed back, “I’ll say whatever the fuck I want to say!” Grabbing at my hair, she yanked it hard before punching me.
Soon, we were punching, slapping, and screaming at each other. Kitchen equipment flew everywhere as we made a mess in there. June tried to get in on it, too, but I punched her so hard she collapsed onto the floor and didn’t come back up.
“Fucking hell,” Kick yelled when he came to see what the noise was all about. Pulling Marley off me, he roared, “Stop!”
She thrashed in his hold,
but was no match for him. “Put me down!”
“I’m not fucking putting you down until you calm down,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. “What the hell happened?”
I arched a brow as I pushed my hair out of my eyes. “I was just taking care of business.”
It was his turn to arch a brow. “This is your way of taking care of business?”
I took the few steps to where he stood with Marley. Looking her dead in the eyes, I said, “No, this is.” Gripping her face hard, I snarled, “If you ever talk shit about King again, I will make you fucking regret it. I will do everything I can to ensure you never fucking step foot in this clubhouse again. And if you think I don’t have the balls or the power to do that, fucking try me, bitch.”
She glared at me for another long minute before jerking out of Kick’s hold and striding out of the kitchen.
June scurried after her as Kick whistled low and said, “Remind me never to cross you, Lily.”
“I don’t think that’ll be an issue, Kick. You’re not a bitch like those two.”
He chuckled and then lifted his chin towards the door. “Zara’s in the bar waiting for you, but if I were you, I’d go clean up your face first.”
I reached for my bag. “Thank you for getting her to her tutoring this afternoon. I owe you.”
Grinning, he said, “I’ll take some of your famous roast chicken the next time you cook it.”
I laughed and then grimaced as pain shot through my face where Marley had hit me. “God, this is going to hurt like a bitch, isn’t it?”
“Hate to break it to you, but yeah.”
“It was totally worth it,” I said before exiting the room and making my way to the bathroom to clean up my face.
On the way, I ran into Cherie whose eyes widened as she took in my face. “Shit, what happened to you?”
“Your friends, Marley and June, got into it with me.”
As I tried to walk past her, she placed her hand on my arm and said, “Marley and June aren’t my friends, Lily.”
I stopped. “Well, whatever they are to you, they are far from that to me. And to be quite honest, I’m not interested in talking about it.”
“Fair enough. But I hope you won. Those girls could do with someone putting them in their place.”
That surprised me. “Well, I hope I did. It was my intention.”
She smiled, and it felt like the most genuine smile I’d received from any other women here other than the ones I was friends with. “Don’t let those two bring you down. There’s a lot of us here who are on your side.”
“I didn’t get that vibe from you the other day.”
Her smile disappeared. “Yeah, about that, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have voiced any of my worries about Wolf.”
Going completely against what King had said to me about this being none of my concern—because basic human kindness was my concern—I said, “You should feel free to share your struggles, Cherie. I’m always here if you need someone to talk to.”
She glanced down for a moment before meeting my gaze again, tears in her eyes. Biting her lip in what seemed to be an effort not to cry, she said softly, “Thank you. I don’t have many friends, and I feel like everything is out of control at the moment with my family. With Wolf. And I’m really worried….”
When she dissolved into tears, I put my arms around her and hugged her. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
Pulling away, she wiped her tears. “His father committed suicide three weeks ago and he’s going under. He needs help, someone to talk to, but he refuses to get it. Says he’s fine and doesn’t need to share his shit with anyone. He fights with me over everything and he’s started not coming home some nights.” She madly wiped her face again. “I just don’t know what to do.”
My heart broke for her and her family. I didn’t know how to help her right now, but I would find a way. For this week, I knew Wolf was in Brisbane with King, so I said, “Do you and the kids want to come over for dinner tomorrow night? I’ve got the day off and I’m going to cook a roast.” Cherie worked full-time, so I knew she’d probably appreciate a night off cooking. “Maybe after dinner, we can talk some more.”
If there was one thing I recognised in another mother, it was pure gratitude, and that was exactly what I saw in Cherie’s eyes then. “I would like that. A lot. Thank you.”
I pulled her in for another hug before letting her go and nodding. “So would I. Come any time you want tomorrow. I’ll be home from about four.”
On the drive home, Zara looked at me and asked, “Why are you smiling like a crazy woman?”
I smiled even harder. “No particular reason. I’m just happy.”
She rolled her eyes. “You are the weirdest mother I know.”
I didn’t know why it meant so much to me that I’d made a friend in Cherie, but it did. Women needed to stick together as far as I was concerned. Those catty bitches could fuck off; I wasn’t giving them another second of my time. But the women who stuck by me? I would do anything for them.
* * *
As I was going to bed that night, King called. It was after midnight, so I hadn’t expected a call. Not after he’d sent me a text earlier.
“Hey, you,” I said around a yawn, snuggling under the covers. It had rained all day again and the winter chill meant it had been freezing as well, so I had multiple blankets on me tonight. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.” His deep rumble touched me everywhere. “Is everything okay with you?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Heard you got yourself into a fight today. What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on, so you don’t need to worry. I was just sorting out some stuff that needed sorting.”
He turned silent for a beat. “Have you spoken with your mother yet?”
“No.”
“You need to.”
“I will.”
“Lily,” his tone became more commanding, “call her tomorrow.”
“God, you’re so freaking bossy, even all the way from Brisbane,” I muttered. “Fine, I’ll call her tomorrow.”
“Let me know when you’ve spoken to her.”
Jesus, the man was relentless.
I changed the subject. “I spoke with Cherie again today.”
“Fuck,” he growled, but I cut him off.
“Before you go all hard-core president on me, I’d just like to point something out here. Me sharing what I know with you is like you getting involved in my problems with my mother. In the same way that you’re trying to help me, I’m trying to help you.”
I waited for him to say something, but when he didn’t, I continued, “I don’t want a thing to do with your club business, King, so get that idea out of your head. But what I am going to do in future, whether you like it or not, is tell you stuff I think you might need to know for the sake of your club. And what you need to know today is that Wolf’s father committed suicide three weeks ago and he’s struggling. That’s all I’m going to say on the matter. And you can come home and tell me to keep shit to myself or whatever you want, but you need to know, before we get married, that if I have information I believe is important to one of your club members’ wellbeing, I’m going to pass it on. That’s just basic care for a fellow human.”
Silence again, and then—“You finished?”
“Yes.”
“Go to sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
We ended the call and I wondered if he’d listened to what I’d said. Like, really listened. I hoped so, but if nothing else, he hadn’t argued with me over any of it.
Who knew what thoughts ran through King’s mind? I certainly didn’t. What I did know, though, was that he surprised me more often than not, so maybe he had taken in what I said and maybe he would act on it.
Chapter Nine
King
Late Wednesday afternoon, Havoc turned up at the Brisbane clubhouse with the information I’d been hunting for weeks.
“Found you
r guy, King,” he said as he entered Scott Cole’s office where Cole and I had been going over our plan for the night.
“Where?” I asked, feeling more fucking hopeful than I had all day. I’d come this fucking close to Kent earlier, but someone had tipped him off.
“I dropped him off at the warehouse about half an hour ago. He’s restrained and waiting for you. A word of caution though: he’s Salvatore Bianchi’s cousin.”
Fuck, that was why we’d failed to locate him. Bianchi was a kingpin with a network of allies that stretched to every fucking corner of the country. If he wanted to hide someone, you’d never find them.
“How did you find him?” Cole asked.
Havoc unscrewed the lid of the whisky bottle on the desk. “When you’ve been on the road for as long as I have, you meet a lot of fuckin’ people. And if you give them enough liquor, soon enough they start talking.” He poured a drink and threw some down his throat before looking at me and saying, “You’re lucky he’s still alive. The motherfucker gave me enough hell that I wanted to take my own fuckin’ knife to him.”
Scott eyed me. “You want any help on this?”
I poured myself a whisky and drank it in one gulp. “I’ll take Hyde.” But first, I had someone to see. Glancing at Havoc, I said, “Good fucking work, brother.”
He nodded and I left the office to find Wolf.
Locating him in the clubhouse bar, I took the seat across from him. His exhaustion had set in harder than when I’d seen him this morning. Grief was strangling him in much the same way regret had its claws in me. That it had taken Lily to make me open my fucking eyes weighed heavy on my mind. I’d sworn I wouldn’t make this kind of mistake again after I’d let Nitro down, and here I was, repeating fucking history.
Wolf lifted his chin in greeting and murmured, “King,” as I sat.
“You’ve got a flight to catch in two hours. Nash will take you to the airport.”
His brows pulled together. “What’s going on?”
“Kick will be waiting for you in Sydney when you arrive. He’ll drive you down to Wollongong where Cherie and the kids are with her parents.” I slowed my words as I said with determination, “I want you to take some time off and spend it with your family. I also want you to find someone to talk to about your father. The club will pay for whatever you need.”