Page 176 of Making Choices

The survival of the club is fundamental.

Our battle for Cherub’s heart transcends it all.

I see the same understanding dawn in Venom at the same time as it becomes apparent to me. We’ll do whatever it takes to protect the Shamrocks because they are the key to saving Cherub from Brutus’ machinations. My sometimes-best friend meets my eyes for the first time since I admitted that I love his Lily in the same way he does.

I spy anger.

Venom’s trademark single-mindedness.

Yet the depth of resolve I find in his gaze tightens my chest.

He’s going to give her to me.

Like she’s his and the only way I can have her is with his blessing…

As I move forward to set him straight, Toker pulls me to a stop.

“Don’t make things worse,” he mutters. “You two can measure dicks when the club ain’t crawlin’ with cops.”

I heed his warning.

My blood turns to ice in my veins as I watch Venom turn and hold his wrists together at his back. “Have at it. I’ve got nothin’ better to do today.”

While my duchess throws herself at him with a wail and our club brothers try to decipher his sudden about-face, I pull my hair free of the hair tie securing it to the top of my head and shake the locks down around my shoulders. My gaze is unseeing, fixed a thousand miles from here, as I comb my fingers through the knots and try to think through all the reasons why Venom would welcome arrest without a fight.

Only one motivation comes to mind.

He can’t save her if he remains free.

But I can.

“Mumma,” I murmur to the woman who gave me life. When the cops entered the compound with Brutus, my father tucked her behind him. Hunter has remained as a sentry on her other side while I’ve found myself caught between heaven and hell. “We needa call in the Trinity.”

“I know, mo ionmhas.”

My movements are jerky as I refasten my hair at the top of my head. With an air of calculation, I take in the scene before me. Player by player, I try to gamify the situation to see where the chips will fall. Brutus is done. He’s played his final hand with the Shamrocks. There’s a question mark around his departure from the club—whether he’s got a scheme to extricate himself this afternoon or if he’s really as brazen as he appears right now and plans on shooting it out. With Venom publicly martyring himself, my faction has been solidified. We’re ready to go to war for the soul of the MC and for our future president’s freedom. It becomes clearer by the second that whatever the Maddisons are up to revolves around taking out our faction—an outcome they continue to fail to manufacture. Even Bebe’s miraculously timed arrival today was part of their collusion with Brutus, and that’s the real reason why I doubt the veracity of her claim about the baby.

Is she pregnant?

It certainly seems that way.

Is the baby mine?

Two encounters without protection say that the possibility exists.

It’s slim as hell, but I can’t deny that there’s potential.

Finally, I allow my attention to return to the couple currently holding a whispered conversation in the midst of this drama. Cherub is clutching at Venom with her free hand while she holds her father at bay with her ex-fiancé’s favourite knife. Whatever they’re discussing, it involves me since Venom can’t stop his gaze from drifting in my direction every few seconds.

When our eyes lock, he steps away from my duchess.

“Slash, need you to do somethin’ for me.”

Vexed as I am by his presumptuousness, I still take great pleasure in knocking two cops over as I make my way to him. “What do you need?”

“Feumaidh tu pòsadh, Lily, cho luath’s as urrainn dhut cead fhaighinn.”

His halting demand that I marry his Lily as soon as possible fits neatly with the request I made of my mother. Our minds are synced like usual, even if it appears that Venom’s unilaterally decided my familial connections are the only way out of whatever plan Brutus has for Cherub.

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