TWO

Mel

Crickets sing outside the walls of the barn, a gentle melody to lull us to sleep while we wait on our ride to turn up. Hay scratches at my back, poking its sharp ends through the thin sweatshirt I wear.

I wasn’t prepared to run. Hell, I wasn’t prepared to take down a man with the gun Johnny left me, either.

Yet needs were a must.

“Quit your fidgetin’,” Hooch grumbles, his eyes still closed as he tries to catch twenty.

I lean into my brother’s side a little more, shifting my hips around so the worst of the hay misses my lower back. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

“Too much on my mind,” he rumbles, the vibration of his words tickling my arm where it rests across his chest.

We haven’t always been this close and cuddly, but being thrown on the back of a bike and left to hide out without any idea if you’d ever see a familiar face again kind of has a snuggly effect on me.

I’ve lost count of the days, unsure what month it even is anymore, yet Hooch tells me it’s a little over a year since I went into hiding. Apparently it’s safe to return now; the man who had a price on my head lost his own when his son, Sawyer, came to visit one last time.

Families. They’ll fuck you up like that.

“Is she okay, you think?” I jerk my chin towards where the girl Hooch brought with him lies on the other side of the barn.

“Don’t know.”

He hasn’t said much about her. Hell, she said more than he did on our rocky truck ride here to escape the feds that were bearing down on me. I don’t usually trust strangers, but this girl has a fire in her eyes that I like. She’s smart, headstrong, and unaware of either of those traits in herself.

Plus, I trust Hooch. He wouldn’t have brought her if it weren’t necessary.

“She seems unsure of herself,” I muse aloud. “Like she doesn’t believe she’s any good for anything.”

“Hit the nail on the head, big sis.” Hooch shifts, pulling his smokes out of his cut.

“Out of coke?” My brother only smokes this often when he’s short of blow. The habit’s one he’s had since he was an easily swayed teenager hanging around men who should have known better than to share drugs with a kid.

“Afraid so.” He offers the pack my way, and I lift my hand.

Yeah, I used to smoke. But I’m not wasting the progress I made being forced cold turkey after I went into hiding.

“We’ve all missed you,” Hooch says before placing a kiss on the top of my head. “Everyone will be happy to see you when we get back home.”

When we get back home. Thanks to my self-defense stunt, I still can’t show my face in Fort Worth until the details are sorted. Placing three bullets in the chest of a Federal agent tends to leave people looking for answers; ones that won’t make sense considering I’m supposed to be six-foot under.

“You never told me how you did it,” I say, pulling out of Hooch’s hold to sit up and allow him room to smoke. “How did you make them believe I was dead?”

“Nothing you need to know, princess.”

“Don’t call me that.” I hate the reminder of my supposed “special” role in the club. I’m nothing special; my birth name doesn’t offer me any unique skills or use over that of the other members.

It’s the main reason my old man and I had a falling out. Daddy never quite saw things the same way I did.

“Precious, you’re royalty to these roughnecks. You gotta play your part, baby.”

My part, which consisted of finding myself a fitting suitor that would ensure strong offspring to head up the table for generations to come. Our family has headed the Fallen Aces, Fort Worth since the start, and for some unknown reason, it’s assumed we always will.

What makes us so special?

“You gotta let that go,” Hooch mumbles around his cigarette. “You take away what those men and women believe in, and they’ll start lookin’ towards people less desirable to fill that role.”

“Is that what you do?” I bite. “Act like a fuckin’ god for them because it’s what they want?”

His eyes bore holes into mine, the anger evident despite the lack of light in the dark barn. “You know I don’t.”

“So don’t tell me to act all high and mighty if you can’t stomach it either.”

He sighs, pushing off the wall to rise and walk over to his gypsy girl. I slump in his spot watching as he approaches her slowly, treating her with caution. He’s not this way with many people, which shows how deeply he must care about her.

I can’t help but feel jaded seeing him so freely choose whoever he wants to be by his side. I thought I had the one, the guy who lit my days up and made me live, but it wasn’t to be.

The mentally unhinged son of a drug lord wasn’t Daddy’s first choice for me. And when the two of us refused to stop sneaking around behind his back, he packed Sawyer off to our northern brothers for safekeeping.

Right before he tried to play matchmaker and force me into a relationship with the man he thought would be more suited for the daughter of the president.

Not that it worked out. Having Sawyer, the only man who made me happy stolen away cemented the anger I felt towards my father, right until the bitter end.

Anger I sometimes recognize when I look at Hooch, knowing he felt the same struggle to be free as me. How can he know what it’s like to be constrained, held back and forced into someone else’s preconceived ideal of what you should be, and then so freely apply that same pressure to me?

Why can’t I be welcome to choose who I want, be who I want, and act how I want?

Is the real me, the girl inside, really that bad?