Page 116 of That Girl is Trouble

“Not even close,” Graves spits back. He swings again.

Axe blocks the hit and digs his fist into Graves’s ribs, folding him in two before delivering a second punch and then a third. Graves grunts, and Axe throws him back, as if giving him a moment to catch his breath. They stare at each other, hands on their knees, breathing laboured, blood dripping from Axe’s mouth. After a long minute of heavy, testosterone-laced silence, Graves recovers and throws another punch.

Instead of taking it, Axe dodges the attack and slams his knee into Graves’s groin. “You still fight like shit.”

Graves falls to his knees, his eyes slicing over Axe in anger. “And you still fight dirty. Fuckin’ pussy. What kind of man hits another man in the junk?”

“One who likes his face the way it is,” he retorts as he spits a mouthful of blood onto the floor.

Pushing up, Graves winces as he tugs on the crotch of his jeans. “What is this, man? I tell you I need you to protect her, and this is what you do?”

“Axe has always protected me,” I say, stepping between them.

It’s not all quick thrills and fast rides with him. It’s safety. Not just the knowledge that he’ll be there if I need him to pull me out of a shitty situation. It’s safety from myself, from my own head. All the death, the blood, the memory of Jesse’s dead eyes looking through me, it’s chipped away at me. Carved off piece after piece, chunk after chunk, making me less, making me weak. But maybe Axe is helping me figure out how to live without those pieces. Maybe I don’t need to be broken. Maybe I don’t need to be constantly searching for ways to glue myself back together.

“You try for him again, you’ll have to go through me,” I warn as I hold up my hands, readying to push him back.

Graves tilts his head, his eyes flashing from me to Axe. “This whole time?”

Axe wipes the blood from his lip. “Not the whole time. ’Bout a month, I guess. This time around.”

Graves’s nostrils flare. “I know for a fuckin’ fact you been messing around with some stripper up in Eden Hills. Don’t be tryin’ to tell me that was a one-time thing. We got our intel, and you keep goin’ back. You expect me to be okay with that?”

My stomach lurches into my throat, and I squirm as I give Axe a sidelong glance.

Graves shifts his attention back to me, and I’m not really sure what he sees when our eyes meet, but he freezes, and whatever he was about to say dies on his tongue.

“No,” he says, realization hitting him. “You kiddin’ me, Kat?” It looks like he might say more, but then he peers back at my sister and seems to think better of it.

Axe steps beside me, his hand curling around my waist. “Look, brother. Sorry you had to find out this way. It was a shitty thing, keeping this from you. You didn’t deserve that kind of disrespect. But I’m not apologizing for any of it. Kat isn’t a mistake. She’s”—he clears his throat and lets out a deep breath—“I’m not sorry. And I sure as fuck am not gonna stand here and pretend like this is something dirty.” He lifts the hem of his shirt and cleans the rest of the blood from his chin. “It happened. It’s happening.”

There’s a finality in his voice. The discussion’s over. Right now, he’s not Axel Donovan, Jack’s best friend. He’s the outlaw leader of the Soldiers of Sin, and everyone’s gonna have to get on board. He slaps his hand on Graves’s shoulder and squeezes.

There’s a moment where I think Graves might punch him again, but then he nods, the anger fading from his face. “She your old lady, then?”

“Oh,” I start, shaking my head. “We haven’t really talked about—”

“Yes,” Axe says, and my heart flutters a little. Oh. “Some shit’s come up, and I need you focused, so I’ll give you an hour to wrap your head around this, and then it’s done. Yeah?”

“Yeah, all right.”

“No,” Triss bites. “Not all right.”

Triss is a lot like Axe when she’s mad. Her anger is the palpable kind. But unlike Axe, she’s not a six-foot-something biker with a proclivity for violence, so rather than making me squirm, her temper just pisses me off.

Five deep breaths. It doesn’t need to be like that. We don’t need to fight.

Glancing at Axe, I say, “Can you maybe give us a minute? Might be easier if you’re, uh, not here.”

He snorts and regards my sister, who’s seemingly trying to murder him with her eyes. “Sure, Kitty,” he says, giving my hip a light squeeze before he slaps another palm on his VP’s back and takes his leave.

“I should have figured, right?” Triss starts, her voice cold. “You were sleeping here all the time. I should have known you were screwing around with that—”

“Watch yourself,” I warn.

Graves clears his throat. “Maybe let’s start by circling back to the whole stripper thing.”

My sister steps forward. “What stripper thing?”

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