Chapter 4

Ellie

I pulled into the driveway behind Axel and waited as his electric gate opened. I was a little shocked to see that he had a gate. I hadn’t pictured Axel as the kind of man who would go to such lengths to keep his property so private and protected.

Then again, I had no idea what the personal lives of the MC members were like. I knew Johnny hopped from place to place but spent most of his time at his old family home with his sister. Things were a bit different now that he was with Dani, the petite but badass cop who had helped him defeat Tanner. Or, in more accurate terms, had saved Johnny from being murdered by Tanner.

Things like that were probably the reason Axel had such high hedges. Self-preservation.

On the inside of the gate was a high line of hedges that hid the entire property from view to those passing by on the street. Once I drove through the gate, I was stunned. His home was a rancher with a wraparound deck that looked to have been remodeled within the last few summers. The stain looked fresh and warm against the bright white siding. Axel clearly cared for his home. It was immaculate. The grass was healthy and trimmed, and fresh soil peaked out at the edges of the driveway.

It was definitely not what I had been expecting. I figured he’d live in an older home, possibly with an old porch full of recycling boxes and maybe a few mismatching lawn chairs. The sprawling and clean-cut property was the polar opposite of what my mind had conjured up.

Axel pulled into the garage, and I parked in the driveway behind him. I got out of my car as he slipped out of his and ducked under the now slowly closing garage door.

“The shop’s ‘round back,” he said with a lazy wave of his hand.

I followed him down the side of the garage. It was a wide, paved area that led off the driveway to yet another gate. Axel popped open a latch at the bottom of the metal gate with his foot and pushed it open. It swung inward, and we stepped onto a loose gravel area that took up a significant portion of the backyard.

Then I saw the shop.

It was nearly the same size as the MC’s.

I turned back to Axel as he closed the gate to the backyard. “This is a bit more impressive than I was expecting,” I told him as he walked around me, his boots crunching over the loose rocks.

He didn’t look back at me as he answered. “I get that a lot.” He unlocked a side door and disappeared into the shop. Seconds later, he was pushing open the two big bay doors and revealing the belly of a working shop.

It was a mechanic’s wet dream.

“Holy shit,” I said, stepping under one of the doors and peering around at all the equipment. “This is awesome. Why would you even bother making the drive to the shop when you have this in your backyard?”

Axel shrugged and slipped his hands into the pockets of his jeans. The tension at the front of his pants drew my gaze down. As soon as I did it, I felt my cheeks burn. I looked hastily back up at him, but he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were sweeping into the corners of the shop as if he was seeing things he hadn’t paid attention to lately.

“This place is just for me,” he said finally. “I don’t have to share anything here. Or answer to anyone.”

“Fair,” I said. “Not that you answer to anyone anyway.”

“Besides Johnny,” Axel said, finally looking over at me. Then he grinned.

His face changed so much when he smiled like that. It made my knees feel like rubber. His stern, sharp expression was instantly gone as the smile pressed dimples into his cheeks and crow’s-feet to the corners of his eyes. He was so handsome when he smiled, when he was happy.

The smile lasted seconds, as I knew it would.

“I don’t think you necessarily answer to Johnny, either,” I said, performing a slow lap of the shop. I was choosing the best place to start cleaning. In my experience, getting everything out and then putting it all back in seemed to work best.

Axel was watching me.

I stopped my circuit and spun to face him, planting my left fist on my hip. I pointed dramatically at the pileup of clutter in the far corner of the shop. “I suggest we start there.” I gave him my best smile, inviting him to try to have a good time with me. There was a time when he and I could laugh for hours while we worked on a motor together. Those times felt fewer and farther between now.

A lot had happened, but as I saw it, there was nothing stopping us from enjoying each other’s company as we worked.

“You want a pair of gloves?” Axel offered.

“What do you take me for? A damsel?” I teased.

He rewarded me with a laugh, and I basked in the sound of it as it echoed off the walls. I took my hair tie from my wrist and used it to sweep my hair up into a ponytail. Then, we set to work.

Cleaning Axel’s shop was tedious work. He was quite particular about where everything went. I couldn’t blame him. If the space was mine, I would have been the same way. I was more than happy to help him get it exactly how he wanted it.

Besides, it would benefit me in the long run too. I was going to be working with him, just the two of us, in this space with hardly any interruptions. It would be almost how it had been before the shop became crazy busy and things with the MC had become more intense.

More real.

I was eager for a more relaxed workspace. It was somewhere I could come and not worry about what was going to happen. I could learn a lot here too. When it was primarily me and Axel working on cars in the shop, I had been able to learn a lot from him. He even learned some things from me. Growing up with a father who was a mechanic had molded me into the engine, speed, machine-loving girl that I was.

And I had found my home with the MC.

I just ached for them to let me be a part of them. Officially. Not just an employee. But neither Axel nor Johnny would hear a word of it.

“You’re smart not to let the others around your place,” I said as I sorted the wrenches in one of his toolbox drawers.

“Oh, yeah?” Axel was over at one of his counters going through his drawers. We’d been at it for hours already, and now we were down to the nitty-gritty, drawers and tools and all the little things at the end of a big clean.

I nodded, even though I knew his back was to me. “They’d never leave. This place is much nicer than all the hangouts they frequent.”

“Those hedges are to keep them from seeing me. No other reason.”

I burst out laughing and covered my mouth hurriedly. “Was that a joke?” I peered over at Axel. He had stopped sifting through the drawer. He was still, but he turned his face to the side. I saw his profile, and I could tell he was grinning too.

“A small joke,” he said.

I laughed again and closed the top drawer of the toolbox to move to the second. “Seriously, they’d never leave. All that’s missing is a flat-screen TV on that wall there and a mini fridge full of beers. It would be a paradise. Pop up some lawn chairs, throw on a football game, tear open a bag of Doritos.”

Axel arched an eyebrow at me. “Are you trying to make me more sociable?”

“No, never. The thought of you putting lawn chairs and beers in this magnificent place makes me want to hurl. This is no man cave. I can tell it took you a while to get this shop exactly how you wanted it. My dad’s was similar.”

“It’s only just how you like it for a week, maybe two. Then it all goes to shit, and you have to put the place back together. A never-ending cycle.”

“Like a girl’s purse,” I said.

“What?” Axel closed a drawer and turned to face me.

“It’s the same thing. A man’s shop and a girl’s purse. I mean the mess gets out of control quickly.” I was blubbering like a fool. He didn’t care about my purse analogies. Neither did I. I didn’t even carry a purse. What the hell was I saying? “Never mind,” I said, feeling my cheeks growing warm once more. I put my back to him so he couldn’t see me blushing. I needed to change the subject. “What was Sabian’s deal at the end of the meeting this morning? He seemed pissed about something.”

“He was just doing what he always does.” Axel turned to face me and crossed his arms over his chest. He leaned up against the cupboards behind him and gave a lazy one-shoulder shrug. “He was stirring the pot. He caught word of what happened to those Black Hearts boys, and I’d bet money he was just throwing it out there. A crumb to lure out the ones who did it. Sometimes it works. Not with Johnny, though. He’ll see right through that kind of bullshit.”

“Maybe it’s easier to see through you and Johnny than you think, sometimes.”

I hadn’t really meant to say those words. They sort of tumbled out of me like a sigh, like a torrent of words that held a lot more weight than I intended them to. I blinked at Axel, and he stared calmly back at me.

“What I mean is …” I scrambled to find the right words. I didn’t want him to misunderstand me. “Look. It’s not a secret that you and Johnny went off somewhere together last night. When the two of you set your minds to something big, things tend to happen.”

Axel surprised me by cracking another smile. “Big things like Black Hearts getting their skulls cracked?”

“Yes,” I said, matching his smile with my own. Although, I wasn’t sure I should be smiling. There was a nervousness swirling in my gut at the thought of Axel and Johnny taking on Black Hearts members without any backup. It seemed foolish, reckless. It was the kind of thing men in the MC got killed over.

“Was it you and Johnny who beat those guys at their clubhouse?” I asked, facing him square on. I could hold my own here. Axel had never made me fear him before. I trusted him more than I trusted myself.

“There are some things you should keep your nose out of, Ellie. For your own good.”

“I’m not going to accept that answer.” Hold firm, girl. Hold firm. He’ll come clean. He always does.

Axel gave me a quick up and down. He wasn’t checking me out. No. He was looking me over. Assessing me. Deciding whether he should bring me in on his and Johnny’s actions.

“We did,” he said finally.

“So, all Johnny’s talk about lying low?”

“Was just talk. Yeah.”

I bit my bottom lip. “What does this mean?”

“For you? Nothing. You’ll be safe here.”

I wanted to tell him that’s not what I had been asking. I wanted to know what sort of danger he and Johnny had exposed themselves to. What were the stakes with something like this? Was this the kind of thing one of them could be killed over? Was it that big of a deal? A little voice was screaming in the back of my head that it was.

But his words were calming: You’ll be safe here.

“No one comes through that gate except for you, me, or Johnny,” Axel continued. “No one knows I live here. I wouldn’t have asked you to come work with me if I knew it would put you in jeopardy. If you don’t want to be here right now, I understand. I can ask someone else—”

“No,” I said quickly. Then I shook my head, and my ponytail swished across my back. “I want to be here. I need the work.” And the company.

He nodded and gave me another smile that chased away some of the tightness in my gut. “I hoped you would feel that way. Come on, let’s finish with this. You probably have better places to be on a Sunday night.”

I didn’t say anything as I finished the last half hour of cleaning. I had no better place to be on a Sunday evening. I was happy here, with him. I felt like I was among family here. I had always felt like that when I was with the MC. They gave me something I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was a place I knew I belonged, and I didn’t plan on ever letting go of something so good. Not even if things got dangerous.

Really dangerous.