Page 93 of Ordinary Girl

She’s proving harder to convince than I thought she might, although I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I just hadn’t been ready for how embedded in that club she’d become, in such a short space of time: how involved with Joel Madsen. A man I don’t want her anywhere near, which means my endgame has to change. It’s true I came back to avenge Sofia’s death; to bring the Vikings and the Blackhawks down. But getting my daughter back takes priority, and it’s going to happen. This new life she’s living, it’s becoming a threat to the future I want, one where I know Ana is safe. Happy. With me. And for that to happen I now need to take things further. Bringing those clubs down isn’t going to be enough if Ana’s too involved with these men. With one man in particular. I need to make sure all threats to my future are dealt with, and if that means stepping up the plan then so be it. I have the manpower. The weapons. I have lawmen on my payroll just as these clubs do, but my payroll, it’s lethal. The shit that I can do and not pay for, it would terrify them, and I know they don’t scare easily. None of this will be a walkover, but I’m ready for it. It’s happening. Ana needs to have nowhere else to run other than to me. Nowhere else to run…

Thirty-Seven

Joel

“They’ll be safe here.” Skip closes the lid on the final crate of weapons, signaling to Wade to lock them up in the back room of the workshop.

“Wouldn’t they have been safer left in the warehouse?” I’m feeling uncharacteristically jittery about all of this. Something just feels off, and I don’t know what, I can’t put my finger on it, but something isn’t right. And whether it’s all in my head, I don’t know, but I’ve always trusted my gut, a necessity in this life.

“This compound is more secure.” Skip narrows his eyes, and I think he’s partly the reason why this all feels a little off. He wants it over and done with as quickly as possible because he’s leaving. He’s walking away from all this shit, but in reality, we should’ve at least dealt with the Blackhawks sooner. We shouldn’t have waited, and I don’t know if that would’ve made a difference, I’m guessing Emil Renard was probably always going to come back for his daughter once he got wind of what had happened. He was always going to be a problem, no matter what happened to the Hawks. Would he have come back if Sofia hadn’t been killed? No one can answer that except him. “You got reservations, Joel?”

Skip’s voice drags me back from those thoughts. “No.” I’m lying, because I don’t want him to think I can’t do this, I can. I want to avenge Sofia’s death just as much as he does. I want to make the Hawks pay for what they did to Ana; I want to make sure her father never gets a chance to take her away from me, because I’m not sure Skip realizes how dangerous Emil Renard is. Or if he does, how much does he really care? Would he reallythrow this club under the bus just because he wants out? I doubt it. If he cares about Ana as much as he says he does he wouldn’t do that.

“There’ll be people here constantly. Twenty-four-seven,” Skip continues as he heads out of the workshop. I follow him back out into the compound. “All this will be over in a day, Joel. Done.” He stops and turns to face me. “I think it’s time I told everyone else that I’m stepping down. Maybe I shouldn’t have left it so long.”

No. He shouldn’t. “You want to do it now?”

“Round everyone up. Best we all know where we stand before we go into this.”

He turns and walks away, into the clubhouse, and I sit down on the porch steps and pull out my phone.

“Hey.”

I look up, and there she is. My whole reason for living. “Hey.”

She sits down beside me and stares out ahead of her. She seems tense, which only adds to the list of things that are putting me on edge. Is she hiding shit from me? I wouldn’t blame her. Trusting any of us is probably still an ongoing thing, but the idea that she might be seeing Renard fills me with dread, because she might be. I trust her, I do, but he’s still her dad, and that gut feeling that this shit could all go sideways is getting stronger. Which is why there’s a part of me that wants to tell her what’s going on, but I can’t. Can I…?

“I’m scared, Joel.”

She turns her head, our eyes lock, and I feel my heart ache for this woman. And I don’t think I love her, I know I do. This is what love feels like, this constant ache in your gut, the fear that you could lose that person. I fear that every fucking day.

“Don’t be scared,” I whisper, resting a hand against her cheek, and I smile to try and ease her fear, but she doesn’t smileback, and the pain in her eyes is real and brutal and I’m feeling so much shit right now. “Please, Ana, it’s all going to be okay.”

“How can you say that?”

And she has every right to question me, I can’t promise her anything, not really, no matter how much I want to.

“Just trust me, baby. Please. Trust me.”

She rests her hand over mine, and she smiles, and it’s weak, but there’s a glimmer of hope in that small smile. A chance that she might just trust me now.

“I wish my mama was still here.” Her voice is so quiet I can barely hear her, her eyes down as she speaks, almost as if she’s talking to herself, and she might be. She could be thinking aloud, it doesn’t matter, of course she wishes things were different. She never wanted this life, I chose it. It was my choice. It was never hers.

“Come on.” I take her hand and we get up.

“Where areyouoff to?” Wade asks as he makes his way up the steps onto the porch. “I thought there was a meeting?”

“Give me ten minutes.”

“You want me to tell Skip to wait?”

“Jesus, Wade, it’s going to take more than ten minutes for everyone to get here. Skip isn’t going to start without me, okay?”

Wade holds his hands up and backs away, into the clubhouse. Ana frowns.

“Shouldn’t you be in there, too? If that meeting’s important…”

“You’reimportant. And I need to get out of here for a few minutes.”

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