❖
Lucie
Being in Flame’s arms was both heaven and hell.
It was where I always should have been, and yet, things were still up in the air. Nothing was resolved, and it wouldn’t be until I dealt with Wolfe.
If there was any dealing to be done, that is.
I didn’t need Flame’s reassurance that all was changed where the Prez was concerned. Wolfe had always been closed off. Always been difficult to read. He was also the most violent and the quickest to anger.
Dealing with him was like handling fire, and Flame knew how much I loved that.
As he guided me down the hall to the Prez’s office, it was hard not to remember all the times I’d been shepherded in here by a brother to be bestowed a token reprimand by my daddy.
I’d had a lot of issues as a kid.
A lot.
More than most social workers had dared deal with. But hell, it had been a cry for help. My mom had run out on me when I was a kid, my dad was barely interested, and I lived in a fucking MC… it was a wonder I hadn’t pulled worse shit when I was a kid.
“Remember that time you set fire to Mrs. Pearson’s car?”
Flame’s tone was reminiscent, nostalgic even, whereas for me, it was a shitty memory. From a shittier time.
These guys hadn’t always been mine.
They’d all had girlfriends, and I’d had to endure each of them, from the sluts to the preppy bitches who were trying things out on the rough side of the tracks. There was a five-year age gap between them and me, and even as I’d wondered why the fuck they’d let me hang around them, they’d always just taken me along for the ride. I was like their mascot, and I’d hated it. But I’d loved it too, because I got to be with them all the time.
Of course, that had presented the problem of being around their many lays.
Mrs. Pearson had given me an ‘F’ on a paper that deserved an ‘A-‘ minimum. She did that because one of her daughters had been fucked over by Wolfe, and she’d made it her goal in life to make me miserable. As if I hadn’t been miserable enough, having watched Wolfe and that pain-in-the-ass daughter of hers together.
So I’d made my first cocktail to commiserate.
Molotov-style.
And shit if I hadn’t loved the way the bitch’s car had gone up in flames.
I should have gone to juvie for that prank, except Ryan had helped me. He’d cut the cameras to the school parking lot and had created a diversion—we’d set off the fire alarm. Yup, two crimes in one day.
“Thought your dad was gonna take a belt to you for that one,” he admitted.
“He probably should have.” Was it weird that I’d wanted him to? Hell, if he had, it would have proved he cared, instead of just tolerating me all the damn time.
“Can you imagine what Amaryllis will do when she’s your age?” He whistled. “Glad you brought her here just for the show.”
I elbowed him in the side. “Amaryllis is normal.”
That made him snort. “So normal she didn’t run from the big, bad biker… Nope, she got into a catfight with him.”
I shot him a look. “I taught her to fight for what she believes in.”
“She’s, what…? Five, Lucie, you don’t teach girls that shit at five.”
“How the hell would you know? I don’t see you with any sisters.”
He shrugged. “I watch TV. I know at five you teach them how to eat and shit.”
Snickering, I patted his arm. “Good thing I have the parenting stuff handled. Don’t worry, she doesn’t go potty in her pants anymore.”
That had him shuddering. “Thank fuck for that.”
Having successfully turned my frown upside down, I didn’t knock on the door into Wolfe’s office. He wasn’t my daddy. He was my man. I’d claimed him, so he was mine, and I didn’t knock on my man’s goddamn door like I was a servant.
When I headed in, dumping my purse on a sideboard by the door, he was seated behind the desk that had been my father’s, in the same chair too. Other shit had changed though. The room no longer smelled of weed and JD, and there was a brand-new laptop that was purring as he rocked back in the desk chair to look me over.
It was hard as fuck keeping my libido under control at the sight of him. When he rocked back, he raised his hands and cupped his head to support his neck, as he looked me up and down like I was a whore he’d just bought for the night.
The comparison didn’t sit well with me, and I knew, right then and there, that was why he’d done it.
The motherfucker.
Ignoring Axe and Dagger, who were seated on two chairs in the corner, their legs splayed out in front of them with two beer bottles on the table between them, and Flame who’d wandered in behind me, I strode toward the desk and slammed my hands down on the surface.
“What?” I demanded.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I beg your pardon.”
I almost snorted at the polite inquiry, which was so un-one-percenter like it was disrespectful.
Exactly how he intended it.
Begging my pardon? What was this? Great Expectations?
I’d let him know what my expectations were soon enough, and no mistake.
“You can beg me for a lot of things, sugar, but my pardon ain’t something you’re about to get. Forgiveness has to be earned, and you’re a long way from earning shit.”
Behind me, Dagger snickered, and I shot him a look. “You’re all included in that. The only one who stood up for me is dead now—”
“If we’re all so fucking useless, why do you want us back?” Wolfe snarled, leaning forward as the vein in his temple began to throb.
I skimmed my gaze over Axe and Dagger, then caught Wolfe’s eye once more. Having stopped lolling back in his chair to surge into my face, I found he was now getting to his feet. When he mirrored my position, I didn’t flinch. I wasn’t scared. It took a hell of a lot to scare me—and the only thing that did?
The Grim Reaper.
He took away people I loved and didn’t give them a say in the matter.
He was the only evil I couldn’t fight, but Wolfe? I could fight him, and I’d get wet over it.
“How many times do I have to tell you? You’re mine. You’re not fucking Kim’s. You’re not whichever sluts’ you’ve been fucking since I’ve been gone. You’re mine. I claimed you when I was a little girl, reinforced that when I made you fuck me at seventeen, and now I’m here, with your daughter, telling you, that you. Are. Mine.”
He gritted his teeth so hard I could hear the grinding noise.
“You didn’t make me fuck you—”
“Didn’t I? Sneaking into your bed, waking you up with a BJ, and then climbing on your cock wasn’t enough of a giveaway that I was in charge?” I sneered, slamming my hands on my hips as I stared him down.
“I let you—”
“Hell yeah, you let me. You let me cum all over that big dick of yours.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Never thought to wonder if we’d made a baby those nights though, did you?” My lips curved in a sneer. “None of you did.”
“You came to us unprotected on purpose?” Wolfe asked, his brow furrowed, and it was then that I saw his rage and it burned me.