Page 15 of Lily's Eagle

My voice actually cracks as I say it. Don’t know why.

He sighs and turns to me. “I don’t want you to be gone, Lily. You do know that don’t you?”

I nod and have to look down at my glass, at the swirling golden liquid in there, because I can’t stand to see the regret in my father’s usually very dark and hard eyes.

“I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye,” he continues. “But you’re my daughter. And I never understood all this talk of you leaving. Why do you want to get away so bad?”

“I’ll come back to visit, OK?” I snap. “What is this? Haven’t you ever needed to just go? And don’t say you didn’t, because I know you did. This is hard enough for me to do without you laying on thick too. I thought you’d understand.”

Why is he making this so hard?

He’s Cross, for Christ's sake. The most feared MC president in the country.

He chuckles and leans back in his seat. “I guess I just don’t want to lose my little girl. But you’re not little anymore, are you? And you are my daughter, through and through. Go, if you need to, I won’t stop you. But at least sleep on it and go in the morning.”

“No. I have to do this now, or… or I’ll just change my mind again,” I say even though it’s already past midnight and a lot has happened today. I could use the sleep, but I know I won’t be able to.

I’ve already said goodbye to Eagle the best I could, and if I wait until the morning, I’ll just have to do it all over again. I have to leave before he knows I’ve gone.

“Fine,” Cross says curtly, leaning forward in his arm chair and grabbing the armrests so hard his knuckles turn white. “And yes, you can have a car and money. Although it is, what do you call it, blood money?”

“Don’t start,” I say and stand up, finishing my drink.

“I just thought you might, so I wanted to beat you to it,” he says and grins, then gets up too.

“Not tonight,” I say and I’m getting a really strong urge to tell him what happened with the chief.

But if I do, it’ll just become this big thing, and he’s not gonna let me leave until it’s cleared up or whatever, and, as they say, what you don’t know won’t hurt you. I’ll be long gone come the morning, I won’t be anyone’s problem anymore.

He walks over to a large, cast iron safe in the corner of the room and takes out a wad of cash.

“This is just some spending money,” he says as he hands it to me. “The rest will be in your account. Just don’t flash money around up there. That’d be asking for trouble.”

I take it from him. It’s mostly hundreds and heavy. “I know how to watch my back. You taught me well. Thank you, dad.”

I stand on my toes to kiss his check and he sighs. When I face him again he looks as shocked—and soft, for that matter—as I’ve ever seen him. But the hard look in his eyes is back in the next second so maybe I just imagined it all.

“I will be keeping an eye on you,” he says sternly. “That’s non-negotiable.”

“No, Cross,” I snap. “I want to go out into the world to live my own life. I don’t want my daddy shadowing me.”

He shakes his head. “I have too many enemies who would use you to get to me.”

Don’t I know it. Not long after I came to live here, I was kidnapped by some of those enemies. I still have nightmares about it.

He’s kept me away from all that since. Except for the chief. But I’ve been running head first into that problem. Time to fix it for good.

“I’m going alone,” I say. “Which car can I take?”

“I’ll find something for you. Meet me out front when you’re ready,” he says sternly. “And say goodbye to Hunter and Roxie before you leave.”

I was already halfway to the door and I turn to him sharply, a strand of my long hair hitting me right in the eye. I ignore the pain and the tears that start accumulating there.

“They’re asleep,” I say. “I’ll call them from the road.”

“Do it in person tonight,” he says.

Saying goodbye to Eagle was hard, telling Cross my plans and getting him to let me go wasn’t easy either, but waking up my little brother in the middle of the night to tell him he might not see me again for a good long while… that’s another level of hard altogether.

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