BRANDON
Lacy was chattering away at the kitchen table in their new house. Something about buying a new dishwasher or something. I wasn’t listening anymore. My mind was on Hannah and wondering how the hell to get us both out of the fucking mess we were in.
I had to remind myself more than once that barging into the complex and just taking her out of there would only result in more bloodshed and wouldn’t get us the happy ending she deserved.
Shark lit another cigarette and blew the cloud of smoke into my face. “You even here, man?”
Lacy stopped talking and focused on me. “Yeah, Brandon. What’s the deal? You’ve been in lala land the last few times I’ve seen you. What gives?”
“It’s that chick again.” Shark shook his head. “He’s got the hots for a Soldier chick.”
“She’s not a Soldier,” I ground out, slamming my hand down on the table.
“Okay. Okay.” He shook his head. “He’s got it bad for her. I’ve never seen him like this. This guy used to stick his dick in any pussy that could tolerate his hard ass; now he won’t even talk to the whores at the clubhouse.”
“Really?” Lacy looked at me with that knowing look. The one chicks got when they thought they had you pegged for keeper material.
“I don't want to talk about this. I thought you were making us dinner.” I waved my hand at the empty table.
“Yeah, it’s in the oven.” She waved at hand in the air. “If this girl’s with the Soldiers, I can’t imagine Nathan is good with this.”
“Good with it? He hates it. Fucking told Brandon here that he is to stay away from her. You know what this blockhead does?” Shark scratched his smooth head while he continued to shake it. “This asshole goes and fucks her in the bathroom at the diner.”
“I didn’t say I fucked her,” I interjected.
“You didn’t have to. I saw that look on your face when you came out, and then I saw her as she got in her car a bit later. That girl was well fucked, and it sure as hell wasn't Hunter.”
“So what are you going to do, Brandon?” Lacy stopped laughing. “Is she worth getting kicked out of the club?”
“Out is the goal, but no, getting booted isn’t going to help.” I rubbed the back of my neck. All of this plotting and planning was starting to wear me down.
Lacy gave Shark a worried glance then stood from the table. “Maybe I can talk to her, or Nathan. I’ve known him since we were kids. He dated my older sister for a little while, maybe—”
“No.” Shark gave her a pointed look. “You stay the fuck away from Nathan and all of this. I’ve already told you, I don’t want you at the clubhouse anymore. Not until this is all over with.”
“You’re being an overprotective ass,” she shot back at him, but I could see she didn’t hold much heat behind the words. Her eyes were getting that glassy look Hannah started to get when I started giving orders.
“That might be so, but it’s your ass I’m protecting. You listen to me on this, Lacy.” He stepped around the table and pulled her to look at him. “Don't you dare do anything dangerous or stupid. You stay out of this, got it?”
“Yeah.” She nodded, but I knew that look, too.
So did Shark. “If you step so much as one toenail in the clubhouse, I swear you won’t sit for a week.”
“I’m pregnant,” she huffed. Neither of them seemed to mind I was in the room. Then again, we’d been family for so damn long, it wouldn’t surprise me if he carried through with his threat right there.
“Your ass can still take a beating.” He made his point with a pinch to her well rounded backside.
She only shook her head and let out a loud sigh. “Whatever.” With an exaggerated eye roll she turned and went back to her cooking. As tough as Lacy always presented herself, softened like warm butter when it came to Shark.
“She goads me too easily.” Shark laughed as he watched her walk away. “I think the idea of us getting out of the club scares her, but she won’t talk straight about it. Always curves this way or that.”
“She’s never known anything but the club, Shark,” I pointed out. Her mother had been an old lady to a member, and her sister was married to one. They moved out of state, transferred to a smaller charter up north.
“I know.” He ran his hand over his head again.
“This domestication of yours.” I waved my hand in the air. “It works for you? You like it?”
He studied me for a long minute, like he was searching for something. “Remember when we were kids and we’d see the other kids with their dads? We’d play that game, trying to make up a dad for us?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “It was a stupid game for stupid kids,” I added. That time was a world away from where we were. Neither of us knew our dads and it took a long while before I wised up that I never would.
“Nah. It was two kids trying to fill up this hole our asshole dads left when they walked out.” I didn’t say anything to that. He wasn’t wrong. “I don’t want my kid to ever sit on a porch step trying to remember what I looked like, or try to replace me with some imaginary father.”
The image of Hannah swollen with my baby inside her belly hit me, nearly knocking the breath out of me. Her dark pixie hair pinned back away from her face, wearing one of those summer dresses she likes, and her hands rubbing her belly. My baby. My girl.
“You don’t have to leave the club, Shark. You can have Lacy and the baby with the club’s support.”
“Fuck that. “ He snorted. “I’m not gonna risk my ass for no cartel bitch. That deal is going to get us killed. Look at Aaron. We still haven’t found him, and tell me you don’t think those fucking Soldiers put a bullet in his head the minute he wanted to phone back to us.”
He had a point. We both knew, hell, we all knew, that was exactly what happened. Nathan didn’t agree, but that wasn’t a shock. It was just one more thing he seemed to turn a blind eye to when it came to the Soldiers.
“You’re right. I know it, man. Okay. Then we keep moving towards getting our out.” I finished off my beer.
“So how many more runs do you think we need before we can start laying the groundwork for our out?”
“I think at least two more big ones. You know, there’s a chance Nathan won’t let us out that easy.”
“Because of Hannah, you mean.” He plopped back down at the table with me. “You know if you take her, help her get out of Carter’s clutches, he’s going to come after you. And if he comes after the club, Nathan will join him.”
“I know all of that.” I nodded. “You think I should leave her be? Let her be old lady to that asshole? Would you leave Lacy there?”
“Lacy is different. She knows the life. This girl, Brandon, she got looped in there. Martin was telling me about her. She was a friend of one of Hunter’s girls. Her mom had died a bit ago and she was trying to get on her feet. She knew that friend from high school or something. Anyway, somehow she ends up at the club, free room and board, but she doesn’t know Carter. He doesn’t play that way. Not with a hot chick like her.”
“I know all of this already,” I growled.
“Then you know that Carter and Hunter killed that girl, her friend. Those assholes don’t just let the girls go if they don’t want them to go.” His eyes bored into me with frustration.
“I know what you're telling me, what you're trying to warn me from, but I'm telling you I’m not leaving that girl back there. You’re right. She has no fucking business in this life. She has no idea what those guys or any other club can do to her, not really.” I shoved away from the table and started to pace the kitchen. “I know getting her free of them will put a mark on me, and her, and my mom.”
“Your mom?” Shark glared up at me.
“Carter told her that if she doesn’t back off he’d go after my mom and me.”
“That fucking pussy. Did you say something to Nathan?”
“Fuck no. I don’t trust him right now. Something’s going on with him and this cartel thing. I get that it’s bringing in a lot of cash to the club, but there’s something more. Something he’s not telling us. Besides, he told me to stay away from Hannah, remember?”
“Man, you really know how to get tangled up in shit.”
I pulled out my phone after it buzzed and grinned at the screen. Hannah.
He’s letting me out tomorrow afternoon for “coffee” with my friend.
“I know, but you’d do the same for Lacy,” I countered again while I typed my reply.
I’ll stash my bike in the garage at the diner. Meet me there.
Shark stared off into the kitchen where Lacy was mixing together pasta and her homemade sauce. “I’d do pretty much anything for that woman.” He shrugged and left me sitting with my phone in my hand while he went to her, wrapped his arms around her middle. and kissed her neck.
Don’t be late, I texted. I was counting down the minutes until I’d have that girl in my arms again.