Page 29 of Fearless

“Oh, detention, how terrible.” Mercy rolled his eyes. “Kid needs to get stomped. Whore,” he repeated, making a face like the word tasted bad. “Next time he says something like that, tell him he’s got a little prick. Tell him to go fuck himself.”

Ava grinned, thrilled at the idea of using such forbidden, grownup language in school like that. “Then I’d get detention,” she said with a laugh.

“Sometimes a little detention’s worth it.” He shook his head. “Listen to me. Forget everything I just told you. I suck at giving advice.”

Ava laughed again. “You wanna come to school with me? You could tell Mason those things for me.”

“Wish I could,fillette, but they’d have to arrest me. I’d throw that punk through a window.”

The very idea of it left her smiling until her face hurt.

Neither of them heard Ghost and Maggie approach and were startled at the same time. Maggie laid a hand on Ava’s shoulder, pushed her hair back and toyed with it out of mindless affection and comfort.

Ghost looked at Mercy, and Ava watched Mercy harden beneath her father’s gaze, snapping to attention like a military recruit, attuned to each flicker of his president’s eyelashes.

“PD wants them to come in and give statements. Follow them to the precinct, and then home. Stay with them until I get back to the house tonight.”

Mercy nodded. “Yes, sir.”

And just like that, the Teague women had a security detail.

Seven

Present Day

“Your dad owns all of this?”

“The club does, collectively. The Lean Dogs operate as a fully legitimate business, like UPS or Publix. They have a bank account, assets, stock options, the works.”

“Hmm.”

Ronnie was anything but interested – he was being polite at this point – but walking across the grounds, putting some distance between herself and the shameful moment in the clubhouse, talking about technical things, was helping to clear her head and cool her steaming skin. The party raged behind them, ambient light throwing a vivid impression of the Northern Lights across the surrounding buildings, but ahead was a gentle breeze and a whole maze of family history for her to explain.

Ava hadn’t been sure how guilty she looked when she burst from the clubhouse, but Ronnie’s quiet concern had told her that, more than anything, she looked panicked. He hadn’t asked any questions, just suggested they take a walk, for which she was immensely glad.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked out across the Dartmoor lot. The wind tugged gently at his hair, as if caressing it. “I thought the whole point of all these biker ga…” A darted glance her way. “Clubs,” he corrected, “was that they didn’t mind breaking the law.”

Ava bit back a grin. Without tipping her hand, she said, “That’s great in theory, but a man can’t make a living on rebellion. Each chapter of the club has respectable business dealings. Little mini corporations set up to keep the members in cash.”

“That sounds like a collective.”

“It’s a family.” When her hair brushed across her face, and she inhaled, she could smell Mercy. “A fucked up family, sometimes, I’ll give you that.”

He snorted. “Well, I wasn’t going to say anything…”

“You’re smart like that.”

Set a few hundred feet in front of the bike shop, the building that had long ago been decided as the ugliest on the property, Bonita had insisted on a garden. “With a bench for me to sit on,” she’d decreed. “And a shade tree.” James had agreed immediately. Then he’d realized that the inches-thick asphalt paving the lot would be impossible to tear up in orderly chunks for the planting of Bonita’s garden. Raised beds had been built instead; two-foot walls of masonry stone supported trucked-in black earth and potting soil. A long rectangular garden was accessed via carved stone stairs, and beneath a short canopy of gnarled apple tree limbs, a stepping stone path weaved between perennials in Bonita’s favorite shades: purple salvia; lilac catmint; white Shasta daisies; yellow coreopsis; lush apricot Easy Does It roses, their thorny stems tangling in the shade of heaps of butterfly bush. There was a bench, as Bonita had wanted, and even a thin, trickling stream and burbling waterfall. It was a gorgeous oasis amongst the harsh planes and angles of the industrial complex.

Ava recognized the shy fragrance of the butterfly bushes and the perfume of the roses, herby tang of the catmint.

Ronnie said, “It’s not as great as you thought it’d be, is it?”

Her stomach clenched in a painful way. She folded her arms across her middle. “What isn’t?”

“Being back here.” His tone was gentle, knowing. Like he felt sorry for her.

She chewed at the inside of her cheek, hating the sudden tears that burned her eyes.

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