Page 68 of Raiden

She looks up at me with heavy lidded eyes still hazy with pleasure. “But you hate showers.”

“I don’t hate them half as much with you.”

“That’s… incredibly sweet. Careful, or you might turn into a romantic.”

“There are so many things you don’t know about me.” I’m more than confident enough in my masculinity to admit to it. “I did a lot of research about flowers for my mom, so I’m pretty knowledgeable when it comes to gardens. I can name just about anything you’d find at the greenhouse.”

“And you like getting your nails painted.”

I feel the flush of something that isn’t a blush and feels a fuck of a lot more like happiness. “I like making my niece happy. Nothing’s better than little kid giggles. Building a happy childhood is everything.”

She gives me that look again—half troubled and resistant, and half hopeful. I don’t know if I do a proper job of shooting it back. I never saw a man like me needing anyone past my club brothers, but there I was, primed and ready for a match for my heart without even knowing it.

“I agree.” She strokes my cheek gently, turning my face to her. “Let’s have that shower. I want to believe in a happily ever after for this place, or at least some version of peace before the next threat pops up.”

She doesn’t say she wants it for herself. Just for the club, but that means more than anything. I can’t go underneath her skin and heal the wounds there, but when I’m with her, I realize that all the shit in my head and the noise in my soul go quiet. I’d do pretty much anything to give her that same sense ofnoiselessness, and that’s how I know that I’m beyond the stage of falling into straight trouble.

Chapter 21

Ella

Zale Grand is sitting in the back corner of Hart’s only five-star restaurant. He didn’t buy the place out and it’s full of snotty elites and the few who don’t mind paying forty dollars for an appetizer. They keep shooting us looks back here. Zale’s not wearing his vest, but he does have a faded brown leather jacket stretched over his huge frame and with his usual denim, his long, gray hair flowing over his shoulders, and his huge beard braided and shot through with gold rings, he looks every inch the dangerous biker that he is.

He looks good despite the stress of his job. His features haven’t gone to craggy, his skin is still tanned and taut but not leathery. He had me when he was twenty and Gray a few years later. He’s in his mid-fifties, but looks more like early forties, compliments of working out daily and eating sparingly. His poison has always been whiskey, but even that, he tempers.

He’s alone in here and I wonder where his men are. He never goes anywhere by himself. I looked all around when I entered and was shown to the back corner by a stuffy middle-aged woman, but I saw no one. Bikers stand out even when they’re trying to blend in, plus, I know everyone from his chapter and a lot of the men from others.

Gunner followed me here on his bike. We parked them together and walked in together. I wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t branch off to stand or sit ominously not far, but when I sat down at the table, he sat down in the empty seat beside mine.

He glowers when my dad leans across the table for me to kiss his cheek, but then again, that could also be his regular face. “Hi, dad.”

“Widow.”

I make a pretense at dinner, picking up the menu to glance at it. Zale called this place a steakhouse on the phone, but it’s the highest end kind. No barbeque style here.

I trace the contours of Gunner’s face out of the corner of my eye. He’s still frowning, but he has been since I met him at the clubhouse’s back door to ride over here. I’m not sure what Gray said to him. It was just me and Raiden in the meeting with him after we showered.

The servers here are wearing the usual high-end attire to match the dining experience. Ours is a young man in a crisp white shirt, black pants, and a carefully folded black apron tied around his waist. He manages not to look at us like we’re scum of the earth as he takes our order, but the just barely civil attitude grates. Gunner’s not wearing his cut either, but all three of us are clad in entirely too much leather. I opted for leather pants and a black leather blouse, but I’m wearing my boots, and my hair has seen better days after being squashed under a brain bucket all the way here.

As soon as our server vacates, my dad drops his voice. He picked this corner for a reason, I have no doubt. He likes the wall at his back when he doesn’t have his men, but it’s also an out of the way, out of earshot place to talk.

“I want you to bring up our business,” he tells me in gravelly, conspiratorial tones.

I blink back, a little stunned even though I’m stupid for thinking that this conversation could go any other way. I knew this wasn’t just some daddy daughter dinner. He could have said something so much worse, but his suggestion about bringing product here and having the club sell it has far greater implications. He’s not just talking about simple drug deals.

My eyes shoot to Gunner, but his face is clinically impassive and cold. He’s not going to show whatever it is that he feels, if that’s anything at all.

“Dad…” I try to gather myself enough to articulate all the reasons that won’t work, the club might shift product over the border, but they keep this town clean of hard drugs. He might as well be sitting here declaring war. I’m a mess and trying not to show it. Zale hates nothing more than weakness. “You know Satan’s Angels aren’t in that market. They haven’t been and won’t ever be, personally or otherwise.”

“You’ll convince them.”

Does he seriously think that I have that kind of pull? “They aren’t going to take it kinder from me than they would straight from you. You were with the club long enough to know that it’s never going to happen. You can’t use their refusal as a way to- to end the peace.”

Zale looks at me sharply, displeasure stamped into his face. His lips twist into an ugly sneer. He doesn’t have to ask me where my loyalties lie. I can hear the unspoken accusation as if he’d showed it.

I’ve never felt brave like I do now, imagining Raiden’s gentle, reluctant smile. I truly do want him to have a period of happiness, even if it doesn’t equate to ever after. There isn’t an ever after in real life. There’s only highs and lows, dips and cliffs,lulls between when a rough lifestyle calls for action. Their club has been luckier than most, but life has been coming hard for them lately. I want to give a good man, deserving of happiness, even just the smallest amount of joy.

In the past, I never would have been brave enough to stand up to my dad. Over the past few weeks, I’ve taken off the childish lenses that filtered him out to be a sort of hero. My appetite for blind obedience in the name of love has sorely decreased.

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