Chapter 8

Gigi

“They know each other?” I ask as Kid shuffles me into a dark-tinted SUV in the parking lot.

“It’s club business, Gigi,” Jaxon mutters before closing the door in his face.

When he opens the front passenger door and takes a seat, I’ve had enough of the unanswered questions. Enough of the dismissals I’ve been getting my whole life. They may think they protect us from danger, but they leave us open to manipulations and betrayal.

“I don’t give a shit if it’s club business, Snatch.” He turns his head toward me, mirth on his face. His son Lawson, my childhood friend’s fiancé, looks so much like him it’s almost startling. Using his club name, the one we were never allowed to use as kids gets his attention. “How does he know my dad?”

“He was going to work for Cerberus,” Kid answers as he snaps on his seatbelt.

“Was?” I shake my head. “It’s not an option for him now?”

Why does the thought of Jameson, or Hound, whoever the hell he is, being back in New Mexico make me want to go back to my childhood home?

I find Kid’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “What do you think, Gigi?”

“I think I’m a grown ass woman who can make her own decisions. Who I have sex with is none of his damn business. It’s only another way for him to try to control me.”

“It isn’t about who you sleep with that concerns your father. Hound sleeping with you was a betrayal your dad probably won’t be able to get past,” Jaxon chimes in. “Where are we heading?”

I give Kid the address without a second thought. I have no job since I was fired last night. Staying in Dallas isn’t an option now, and Farmington is closer to Vegas where I plan to head in a couple of months after my birthday. I’d be a fool to refuse a free plane ticket and a nice place to sleep for a while, but it doesn’t mean I can’t play the only card I have.

“Make sure you tell my dad that if he holds what Hound and I did against him, if he doesn’t allow him to work for Cerberus because of me, I won’t return to New Mexico.”

“You’re going home,” Jaxon assures me.

I shake my head. “I may get on a plane and step foot on the property, but I’ll be gone in days. If he wants me to stay for any period of time, Hound will be there, too.”

Jaxon huffs, and I feel like a little girl all over again. It doesn’t matter that I’m a grown woman; to these men, I’ll always be a child.

“He’ll never allow a relationship between you and one of his men,” Kid says from the driver’s seat.

“You’re too young for him,” Jaxon adds.

“I’m what? Three years older than Khloe when you first brought her to the clubhouse.” I watch the pink coat Kid’s cheeks.

I laugh when Kid chokes a little. “Yeah,” he agrees.

“The age difference is too much,” Jaxon amends.

“There’s a fourteen year age difference between Uncle Dom and Aunt Mak.”

Jaxon once again narrows his eyes at me. “You deserve more than being the fuck buddy of a biker.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “Didn’t Aunt Misty get pregnant with Griffin when she was Shadow’s fuck buddy?”

Jaxon doesn’t have a leg to stand on or a rebuttal. Kid laughs from the front as I sit back further on the bench seat in the back and cross my arms over my chest.

“That’s what I thought,” I mutter. “If Hound doesn’t go back, neither do I.”

I try to ignore the tension in the SUV by looking out the window, but a red Dr. Pepper sign painted on the side of an old brick building reminds me of the blood staining Jameson’s face. So I opt to stare at my hands instead. If I concentrate hard enough, I can still feel the flex of his muscles under them from last night and this morning.

Is his lie of omission a betrayal?

Is this exact situation what he wanted to talk to me about before I persuaded him to fuck me instead?

Was my father the reason he seemed nervous?

“And you definitely deserve better than this,” Jaxon mutters as we pull up outside of the shitty apartment complex I’ve called home for the last two months.

I don’t justify my living arrangements with a comment. Honestly, there’s nothing I can say that can make this place look any better.

“I don’t have much,” I tell them as I open the door. “Give me twenty minutes.”

Kid and Jaxon both push open their doors.

“We have a plane to catch in two hours,” Kid says coming around to the front of the SUV. “We’ll help, so it only takes five.”

“You didn’t bring the Cerberus jet?”

They rarely travel commercial.

“We did. But your dad, Uncle Dom, and Shadow will be sticking behind for a few days. They have business to take care of,” Jaxon clarifies.

It turns out I only needed the five minutes on my own to pack my meager belongings. Taking stock of what little I do have is depressing each time I move on from one city to the next.

The trip to the airport is spent in silence just like the entire plane ride back to New Mexico. People stare and move out of our way wherever we go. Mainly because Jaxon looks like the scariest man that’s walked the face of the Earth, but Kid has bulked up in recent years, becoming a force of his own. I feel safe, protected around them, even though I’m not one hundred percent here of my own free will.

***

When I step out of the SUV in front of the Cerberus clubhouse, my first instinct, just like every time I return home, is to run. Judgment, pity, and looks of disappointment mark the faces of the new generation of Cerberus members. I barely know any of them, so any of them thinking they can judge me only pisses me off.

“Boys,” I say and wink at the small group gathered around a motorcycle.

Every one of them nods in acknowledgment but cringe away from the flirtatious greeting.

“Leave them alone,” Jaxon mutters under his breath as he walks by. “You’ve caused enough problems for the club.”

I huff an incredulous laugh. “Didn’t realize I had to get club approval on the guys I decide to fuck.”

“None of these Cerberus members will touch you, Gigi. Leave them be.” Kid has now joined ranks with Jaxon and my dad.

The Cerberus guys have always been off-limits. It was easy for them when I was a teenager. Their standards were too high to mess around with a young girl. After adding in my father being their president and boss, we were untouchable.

“None of the ones here at least,” I challenge as I walk past both of them and around the clubhouse to my parents’ house.

I left my scant belongings in the SUV. They wouldn’t let me carry them even if I offered, so I don’t bother to waste my breath.

My mother, the amazing, beautiful woman that she is, waits for me to approach on the porch.

“I’ve missed you,” she says with pain in her voice. I walk into her open arms. “I’m so glad you’re home, Georgia.”

I let her warmth wrap around me, let it seep into my bones, let it strengthen me because I know I’ll need it when my dad gets home.

“I missed you, too, Mom.”

She sniffles, and unlike the last time I was home and her tears pissed me off, today after the way I’ve lived my life the last couple of months, they almost make me cry along with her. Tears after coming home show weakness. I know I’m leaving again soon, and they would only be used as ammunition against me when it’s time to go again.

“Are you hungry?” she asks not letting go of me.

I shake my head against her chest. “No, I ate at the airport.”

When she releases me, she doesn’t bother to wipe her tears away. She’s the strong one, the one who holds the family together, the one who is often on my side, even when I’m fucking up.

“Ivy, Delilah, and Lawson are home for the next two weeks before they head back to Brown for their senior year.”

“Mom,” I groan and pull completely out of her grasp. “Please don’t start in on the college thing before I even step inside of the house.”

“I’m not,” she vows with her hands held up in surrender. “I just wanted you to know that you have people to hang out with if you wanted.”

“Thank you,” I tell her, but I’m still suspicious of the information she’s given me.

Maybe she thinks I’ll take off within days, like last year. I was home for three days before my dad shut down my idea of sticking close to home and working at Jake’s.

I follow her in the house, loving how it smells exactly like my childhood and hating it at the same time.

“I put fresh sheets on your bed and dusted. The windows are open to air it out some, so make sure you close them before you go to bed.” She turns and smiles at me again. “Are you sure I can’t fix you something to eat?”

“No, thank you.”

Unsure of what to do next, I just stand there swinging my arms at my side, much the same way I did as a kid.

“Maybe a shower will perk you up?” A gentle suggestion, but I know she doesn’t leave any room for an argument.

My parents aren’t harsh. They don’t often yell. They’ve never lain a disciplinary hand on us. I assume because mom was abused by her first husband. They weren’t mean, but Ivy and I were raised in a very strict household. My dad runs his home the same way he runs his club, with military precision and no room for argument.