Page 69 of Raiden

“I wish this could have been just a happy dinner between a dad and a daughter,” I whisper, quiet but not uncertain. “I wish you could be my dad first. I thought you cared about me after you offered to give me justice for what happened with that prof, but I can see now that was just part of an act all leading up to something greater. You never do something without expecting something in return. Honestly, I feel like I’m just an object to you. Something you can use any way you want to increase your power.”

Zale’s cold green eyes settle on my face with unnerving intensity. For a second, I’m glad that it’s not just me here alone with him. Whatever gratitude Gunner feels for my father, I know he’s here on my side of the table tonight—he’s here for his club, not the man who brought him into it. “You think you’re not just a pawn to them,” Zale mutters in that carefully neutral tone, but he’s not good at hiding his emotions like Gunner. I can see the anger simmering just below the surface. “You’re wrong. With me, you get what you get. With them…”

“I’m so tired.” Interrupting. That’s another thing I’d never dare do to Zale in the past. “I don’t know who’s acting. I don’twantto know. I just want to go back to Nevada and now I can’t even do that without being legally bound to someone else.” Truth and lies. I don’t know what’s being reported back to Zalefrom inside or outside the club, so I’ve decided feeding him a mix of both is the best way to go.

“You can get an uncontested divorce. I’ll find someone who will push it through.”

“But I’d have to rely on you. Do what you say. It’s always do what you say. Have you ever once asked me what I wanted?”

The concept is utterly foreign to this man who is so used to having men bow down and cater to him. I can literally see his mind whirring, slowed down only by the rage he’s trying not to let loose. How could I ever have mistaken this for love? I guess if you want something badly enough, you’ll do anything to see it, especially when you don’t want to even think that it might never exist at all.

“I should have known you just wanted something from me when you showed up so late in life.” I curl my hand tightly around the fancy cloth napkin at the edge of the plate setting in front of me. “Mom was right to push you away. You were both young when you had me, but she rose to being a parent. She loved me. She knew that your one and only love wasn’t even your club. It’s power.”

Zale’s control slips, but he manages not to bang his fist down on the table and make all the dishes rattle and jump. “You will obey me.”

“How? Even if I wanted to, do you think that I have so much power in a forced marriage that my husband would just agree to go against the one hard rule the club has? I can’t just persuade Raiden to do whatever I want, and Gray? What power would I have over him? I think you’re vastly overestimating the allure you think I have.”

“The only thing I’ve done is underestimate.”

“Me.”

“My son.”

Of course. Of course, it would be Gray. But from the tightness contracting Zale’s whole face, I know.

“You sent those dealers from Seattle,” I hiss under my breath. “The club suspected all along, but I didn’t want to believe it. Fire is quite predictable.”

A flicker of alarm sparks in Zale’s eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You do. Dad. I’m not stupid, but I am tired. I’m not going to be able to convince anyone to move product. If that was your whole plan, that I’d be your dealer and liaison up here, I have other things I want to do with my life. I wanted to teach. I wanted to help share knowledge, not ruin people’s lives. I won’t be a part of this.”

I can’t see under the table, but I’d bet anything that Zale’s hands are clenched into fists on his lap. “You think for a second that those fuckers weren’t planning on betraying me and taking the power for themselves, you take a good look at how they’ve already twisted you around and convinced you that I’m the bad guy.”

“I didn’t say that. No one’s convinced me of anything. I want you to be my dad, not someone who turns me into a drug lord.” To me, that seems like a reasonable ask. “I don’t want to sell people things that are going to tear their families apart and ruin lives. I don’t want to destroy the community I’m living in. I thought that you sent me here because you cared about me, and you wanted me to thrive and that was your plan. Honestly, Iwas so stupid and blind. I thought you were truly wronged, and I wanted to help you fix things. You didn’t kill my brother the night you could have so I thought you wouldn’t because deep down, you loved him. You wanted vengeance, but you didn’t want to kill him. I know now that you put an innocent man in jail for half a decade over an assumption. The club voted to take you down because they saw what road you were travelling. I came for peace because I thought you genuinely wanted that. I shouldn’t have trusted that you’d uphold a peace pact, but I didn’t want to believe that my own father could be so dishonorable.”

I’ve made Zale so angry with my little impromptu burst of bravery that he can’t even speak. He sits there giving me a death glare, grinding his teeth while he tries to work out whatever it is that he can put out there to try and convince me back into the bullshit fold.

“I’m not in love with my husband, but I won’t betray him and his club.” I might as well finish if he’s not going to verbally beat me down or give me his fake, manipulative style of care. “I won’t just run away. I’ll see this through to whatever end and I’ll make my life accordingly. I’m not a tool. I’m a person. A human being. Your own damn daughter.” I push back from the table, trying wildly to suppress the sudden urge to cry. My burst of bravery is only going to last so long before my chest caves in like a blast site.

I won’t sit here and beg Zale not to hurt good men or destroy the lives of their families and the people of this city. He never has listened to me, and he won’t start now—especially not when I’m pulling away from him.

I stand up abruptly, my knee banging the table, the cutlery and glasses jumping. Gunner is up in an instant, hovering at my side. It feels a lot like he’s waiting for me totake the lead on this. I have a feeling that if I stabbed a fork near my dad’s hand, Gunner would attempt to cut it off with a butterknife. Zale might have been the one to find him, to hammer out the family made of rough, ragged, stitched together, lost, half-broken men that is Satan’s Angels MC. He carried on where his father left off, creating something special that by some miracle, works. It might have been Zale that found Gunner and allowed him entry, giving him the family he never had, but my dad is on the opposite side of the table now. He’s no longer an Angel. I have only to say the word and Gunner would attack him like a dog.

But I won’t do it. Gunner doesn’t deserve to be used like a weapon.

“The club works because each man is connected to the other. They thrive as a unit. You were the one who wanted more than that and lost sight of the important things. I’m not twisted up and I know I’m not wrong. I just didn’t know the whole story before I came here because you didn’t tell me.”

“I gave you the truth.”

I stare sadly back at my dad, knowing that I need to go because I’m attracting all sorts of unwanted stares from the people at tables around us. This isn’t the kind of place for any sort of altercation.

“You gave me your truth, but it’s notthetruth. You need to stop. Go back home. Learn how to be happy. Stop seeing ghosts and demons where they don’t exist. You need to let the past go and try to make the best of what you have now, which is a whole fucking lot. You could be so much more, Dad.”

His huge hand flexes on the table, silver rings flashing in the dimmed lighting. I’ve never seen Zale Grand so angry. Helooks like he’d take pleasure in wrapping that hand around my throat and choking the words and the life right out of me.

“Goodnight,” I tell him simply, disappointment, anger, fear, and a gut-wrenching sadness jarring together inside of me to cut off my breath.

I cut a path straight through the restaurant, Gunner at my back. He follows me silently out into the cool fall night. It’s going to be a frigid ride home on our bikes, but I could use the chilling fresh air to ground me.Raiden, Gray, Lark, and Penny are at Raiden’s dad’s house. He wanted to call off the dinner, but I wouldn’t let him. I think wistfully for a second about going there, the longing in me pulling me apart, but riding straight there from here doesn’t seem safe. Zale knows everyone and everything about this city. He could show up there anytime he wants without having to rely on me to lead him straight there, but I still won’t go there and bring potential trouble right to that doorstep.

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