Page 29 of Devil to Pay: Cutter

I leave Aja to get ready because before we go I have some business of my own to take care of. Checking the time on my phone, I head out into the common room. Vlad should be in his office right now. He and I need to talk.

His office is off the war room. Only his lieutenants are allowed inside without invitation. I walk around the oval table where we make decisions for the club to his door, which he keeps closed when he’s working on the most private of our business. The door is open today. I knock on the door frame before entering. He lifts his head from whatever papers he’s going over.

“Cut, what can I do for you?”

“I need you to lay off Aja.” No sense beating around the bush.

His whole posture goes rigid and his face grows hard. “I see she tattled.”

“We talked.”

“Figure out what you want to do with her, then she can be on her way. Nic is starting to get attached. You know how she is. Friendly as fuck. She doesn’t need someone like Aja in her life.”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about. You don’t know shit about why she did what she did, and I’m glad Nic is getting attached because I’m keeping her.”

He jerks his head like I hit him. “The fuck you mean, you’re keeping her?”

“Vlad,brother—you’ve got Nic. I think you know what I mean.”

“She stole from you and you’re making her your old lady?”

“Yeah, she stole from me and I’m making her my old lady.”

“What the hell is wrong with you? We got too much going on. Shipments, shit with the Death Bringers, new babies. The last thing we need is a woman we can’t trust hanging around.”

“You don’t know shit. She can be trusted.”

“Then fill me in.”

“No—fuck that. That’s her story to tell in her own time. When you claimed Nic we didn’t care what her story was, same with Greer, same with Rae, and those women brought shit to the club, dragging us into shit we had every reason to stay clear from.”

“It’s not the same.”

“It’s exactly the same. Don’t make an enemy of me, Vlad.”

He shoots up from his chair. “That a threat?”

“Nah, I don’t need threats. I’ve claimed Aja. I just want her to have the same rights afforded all the other old ladies.”

Tight lipped and glaring, he looks me right in the eye. “Fine. Spread it around, but warning, any shit happens because of her, you’llbothbe held accountable. Not playing with this.”

I turn around to leave, not bothering to respond. No one said dick about Nic and her shit happened when we were taking over the Horde, so the worst possible time. But now his woman pops out a brat and suddenly he’s going to question the intensions of the woman I choose to take on as my old lady?

Not happening. Not fucking happening.

Aja’s sitting at the bar eating a granola bar when I walk out of the war room. She smiles when she sees me until it registers where I’m coming from and that gorgeous grin breaks, becoming tentative, forced.

“I needed something to hold me off until lunch,” she says, as if I give a shit about her eating anything when we both know she’s worried about why I went to visit Vlad.

I hold my hand out to her. “Come on.”

She takes my hand, letting me pull her up from the stool. But rather than let her go, I spin her into my arms and kiss the shit out of her in front of every brother who’s up now and whatever pussies are left. I’m making a statement. It won’t be the last. It’s just the first. All my brothers will know she’s mine by the end of the day.

What an amazing woman. She sighs when I end the kiss with the smile back on her face for real this time. “You are so good at that,” she says.

“Seeing as you’re mine, it’s good you think that.” I get us moving outside holding her hand while we walk. “We need to drive to Middlesboro and get the food.”

I like everything about Aja, about how being with her makes me feel, way too much. God, before her, I didn’t know I was capable of feeling anything more than the pleasure of riding or getting off, or anger when things didn’t go my way.

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