Page 14 of Kneeling to Candy

Ziggy chuckles, pushing his wavy blond hair out of his eyes. “Not at all. You made Candy Cam my new favorite show. I was ready to bet money she was going to go inside this time.”

Me, too.

With a tired sigh, I return to my actual work, checking in on all our MC brothers assigned to intel cases. It’s one of the easier parts of my job, making sure all team members are safe and accounted for. I’m able to complete the task quickly before focusing on my other obsession—finding the men who hurt Candy.

Luca Amato—aka Lucky Luca—can’t be far. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is hunting his ass after he and his mob boss—Lorenzo Bianchi—attempted to abduct the Prez’s wife, along with her mother and sister. I already put out my local feelers. It’s a matter of time before he’s caught.

The other two will be harder to find, yet not impossible. My focus is on trying to find the thug Candy called Cú Sidhe. If he was the ringleader of the assaults on Candy, the other is likely circling in his orbit, if not attached to his hip.

Deep dives into the dark web are not my forte. That’s Chase’s specialty. I would ask him to help me, but he has enough on his plate helping Atlas track the man who murdered his parents. Ziggy helps where he can, though most of this investigation is a solo project for me, on top of my regular work and MC duties.

Candy deserves justice, and I pledged to deliver it to her.

Unfortunately, there’s not much to go on other than the names, meaning I have my work cut out for me.

Mistaking my heavy sigh as dejection—which, I guess, I’m kind of glum—Ziggy says, “Give her time, bro. She’s been through some shit. Trust isn’t easy for her.”

Frowning, I glance across my desk to see if Chase is paying attention to us. This isn’t the time or place to have a heart-to-heart. Not that Chase would judge me for my feelings toward Candy—he’s not a jerk. I’m an extremely private person who prefers to keep the intimate parts of myself to myself.

Chase has taken a private call on his cell, too engrossed in his conversation to listen to us.

“I know,” I murmur, typing away on my keyboard. “It’s...” I don’t see Ziggy looking at me, but I can feel it.

“What?” he probes.

It’s just that I don’t want her to reject me like all the others.

Unwilling to share my fear, even with my best friend, I shake my head and continue to work. “Never mind.”

Few understand rejection to the slicing level as me. I was what you’d call an unplanned pregnancy in a child-free relationship. My parents screwed around and found out what happens when you don’t wrap it up.

Out of moral obligation, my parents decided against terminating the pregnancy. And what I assume was fear of being persecuted by their friends and acquaintances was motivation to keep me.

Though as soon as my umbilical cord was cut, my parents handed me over to the care of a nanny while they went about their lives like mine never existed.

Like most neglected children, I spent my childhood years craving my parents’ attention, only to be rebuffed as soon as I came into their perimeter. Excellent grades, sport victories, and praise from members in the community weren’t enough to sway their attention toward me. Showering them with hand-drawn pictures or homemade gifts was tossed out as soon as I’d hand them over. Their indifference cut as deeply as any harsh word could.

When being good didn’t earn my parents’ affections, I acted out. Little things, like shouting at them to notice me or interrupting their dinner parties when I was supposed to stay out of sight. It got their attention alright. In my adolescent head, bad attention was better than no attention. Yet, it was never lasting.

On my fourteenth birthday, I pleaded with my parents to spend the day with me—just once. I wanted the experience of being in a loving family, if only for a fleeting moment. My mother rolled her hazel eyes—the same hazel eyes she passed down to me—before asking my father to book them dinner in the city for the two of them.

After countless rejections, this was the last painful nail hammered into the coffin, killing all my hopes for any meaningful relationship with my parents. Like a rubber band pulled too taut, I snapped. I grabbed the nearest thing—a fire poker—and went about smashing everything of material value in my sight. My parents screamed for me to stop. But I didn’t stop swinging until my arms grew heavy and the poker slipped from my grasp, collapsing in the debris I left in my wake.

My last act of rebellion got my ass shipped from a penthouse in New York City to a boarding school dormitory in West Virginia. Calling it a school was a stretch—it was more of a commune for parents to send their poorly behaved teens to be rehabilitated into “fine” young men. Beatings and starvation tactics to control the students were common practice, anything to make you comply with their strict rules. I learned early in my stay to keep my mouth shut, biding my time until I could leave the hell my parents imprisoned me in.

By the time I turned eighteen, I was a hardened young man, and silence was my companion. With my parents’ legal obligation to me complete, I was served papers from their attorney, stating I wasn’t welcomed back to my family’s home and to stay a minimum of five hundred feet away from them, or they would press harassment charges.

What a fucking joke. Like I would go back to them after they threw me away.

Instead, I enlisted in the navy. It seemed like a good fit when I was already excellent at taking orders and keeping my opinions to myself—it helped me excel and rise in the ranks. Within a few short years, I completed my training and was a SEAL under Captain Maceo “Atlas” Tabares’s command.

Becoming a SEAL was the best goddamn thing I ever did for myself. It got me an education in information technology and data security, and it’s where I met the men I now call my brothers. When Atlas retired from the navy, the rest of us followed and joined the Mercy Ravens MC, working as mercenaries and protection detail for the club’s security company. My IT background made me a perfect fit for the tech protection division of our club.

I have no complaints about the choices I’ve made for myself since walking away from boarding school. I have a secure job, filling my bank account. The SEAL in me still gets to play hero when we go on mercenary assignments. And my brothers have given me a family of choice, one I don’t take for granted.

Still, I crave more—to mean everything to someone else.

And that someone is a pink-haired bombshell with an exterior as hard as mine.

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