Smoke rose as the steaks were turned over on the grill. Hunter manned it, his young nephew hovering around his feet, looking at the food with avid interest.

“Adair, you’ll burn yourself if you stand too close,” Hunter scolded him, but his face was soft as he looked down at his nephew. He roughed up Adair’s curls before pushing him off in the direction of the other kids. Adair grumbled but ran off to the group setting up a game of kickball on the grass.

“When you going to announce the deal?” Hunter asked, turning over a browning steak.

“Tomorrow,” I answered, unsurprised that he’d figured it out. All the other brothers probably guessed it, too. I took a drag of my beer as I set down a plate of raw steaks to be grilled, while Hunter put the cooked ones on a separate plate. Kay, our club mother, appeared a moment later, and with a motherly pat on his shoulder and then mine, having to reach on her tiptoes to do both, she took the cooked food over to the table to be devoured by the other members. “Let them have this day, and I can tell them in Church tomorrow. Nothing’s going to change between then and now.”

Hunter nodded, quietly turning over the steak on the grill, and I could sense there were words waiting on his tongue.

“Spit it out, Hunter,” I said, setting my beer down on the side of the grill. Hunter did the same and put down the tongs, turning to me. His green eyes met mine at an almost similar level, considering he was one of the closest to me in height in the club, though he was still a few inches off.

“You’re not up to something again, are you?” Hunter asked. I could see the tense look in his eyes and his shoulders bunch as he asked the question.

I had gone behind Hunter’s back for the sake of the club last year, and although it had been the right choice, I had hurt Hunter in doing so. We had sorted out our differences, but although the punches got the load of it off our shoulders, I wasn’t naïve enough to think that our shared trust would snap back to the way it was after what I’d done to him.

“I’ll do what’s necessary for the club, Hunter. Even if I have to get my hands dirty,” I said, and when I saw the flash of anger in his eyes and his mouth jump to speak, I interrupted. “But no,” I said, stopping him, “I’m not up to anything.”

Hunter’s anger dissipated, and his shoulder’s slumped, but his annoyance radiated from the click of his tongue and the jibe afterward. “You’re so fucking stubborn when it comes to your rule, Wolf.”

“Club before all,” I iterated. “It’s a president’s rule. One Roscoe passed down to me, and one I will carry on.”

“Problem is, you’re more of a crafty bastard than Roscoe,” Hunter grumbled, picking up the tongs again to viciously stab a stake and flip it. His green eyes cut across through the black hair falling in front of his face. “You know, you might find something beyond the club. Something that comes first.”

I noticed his eyes switch across the yard toward the open door of the compound.

My eyes found Anna, who was wearing a new pair of denim skinny jeans hugging that tasty ass of hers as she joined a short redhead, who I realized was Mallory, taking out the baked goods that the girls—Anna excluded, since she couldn’t bake for shit—had quickly whipped up in the kitchen.

I looked to Hunter, who frowned at Mallory.

“You’re not jealous that everyone is going to eat your wife’s cookies?” I said, knowing the bastard had refused to let Mallory bake at the compound anymore after the one time she baked brownies for Hunter’s bachelor party to remind him what he was coming home to after the strip clubs and everyone started turning up at his house in the hopes Mallory would bake for them again.

“It’s fine.” Hunter sighed. “She’s been baking at home so much I don’t know what to do with her. That and her applying to go back and finish college and cleaning anything she can get her hands on is making her so tired. Give her another ten minutes, and she’ll want to go nap on the couch.”

Baking and tired, huh? Smugly, I took another sip of my drink before I reached over and clapped Hunter on the back. “Good luck, brother.” I laughed, leaving him confused as I went to go swipe myself some cookies.

I sat down with a burger and a separate plate full of cookies that I had to fight tooth and nail with Jax and Pretty for, the fat fuckers, before I looked down at the table full of brothers. Some of them had gone to join in with the kids’ game of soccer, and the rest were laughing and joking with each other.

What I was looking at now was the reason why I made that deal with Charon. It was these moments that I would happily sell my soul to protect. Because beyond the money and the guns and the pussy, there was a family bond in the club. It was what mattered the most, and that was the main reason why we were all here.

Not that I would let myself be led by the nose by that arrogant bastard. He may have been the head of the Grim Repeaters, but alliance or not, I meant what I said. I wouldn’t let myself be manipulated by the likes of them. Not my club. Not my brothers.

“Wolf?” Anna’s sharp voice drew me out of my thoughts as I looked up to see her standing with a plate in one hand and the other propped on her hip. “Move,” she said, gesturing to the space on the bench on the other side of me.

My eyes cut to the other end of the long bench, and I saw a gap she could easily have fit in next to Moon and Jasper. She ignored my long stare in that direction before I changed my view back to her and the nice eye-level view of her cleavage. “Move up,” she said, shooing me with her hand.

I looked at the waving appendage, noticing the way she stood with her plate of food held securely in one hand, and smirked. My own hand flew out, circling her smaller one, and before she could even think to try and pull it back, I pulled.

She half shrieked in surprise as her soft ass landed on my lap. “Wolf!” she snapped as she tried to push off me, grinding her hips into my lap, making a currently inappropriate member revive at her touch.

“Sit still,” I growled, and hearing the graveled tone of my voice, she stiffened like a rod.

Fuck, I wasn’t sure if that made it any better.

Even so, my arm wrapped around her waist, keeping her pinned down on top of me. I tensed when she opened her mouth, expecting a fight, but to my surprise, a large, heavy huff came from her lips as she dropped her plate down next to mine on the table and ignored me, picking up a chip and eating it without looking at me.

The minx.

I shifted so she fit better on my lap, her small frame tucked into my chest and underneath my chin, where the strawberry smell of her hair permeated my nose, and reached for one of my cookies. I looked up to see the brothers sending glimpses down my way and smirking at Anna, who pinned them each with a glare, daring them to say anything. They didn’t, of course.

This woman.

I shook my head and felt her shift on my lap. I was about to snap at her for moving, but when I realized she was taking the weight off one of her cheeks, specifically the one I’d bitten and spanked, my mouth clamped closed in a deep, satisfied smirk.

I knew Anna was aware, but she pointedly continued to ignore me, her gaze avidly watching the kids beat the adults, who were going easy on them.

I didn’t think she realized it, but a small smile had taken over her lips, and despite Anna’s cold, bitchy exterior, I knew children were a soft spot for her. Hell, she had fallen head over heels for Mallory’s charming little boy the second he had come into our world; and I knew she often gave advice to Ripper’s little girls on how to deal with boys when she could—advice girls that age should not have.

I had learned Anna had come from a big family, back when she lived in England, and had left them all behind three years ago when she had moved over to the US. I didn’t know why she didn’t go back and visit them, and she had never offered the information, and just like her tattoo, I never asked.

“What?” Anna’s voice cut into my thoughts. She was looking down at me, frowning at the weird smile that had taken over my face.

“Nothing.” I smirked, only seeming to irk her. She opened her mouth, ready to snap at me, but before she could, I lifted her ass up off my lap, forcing her to stand. “It’ll get dark soon. Go get the small flamethrower from my room, and we’ll get a bonfire started for later.”

“You put the flamethrower in your freaking bedroom?” Anna flattened her gaze on me.

“I know you made a spare key to the armory, and I didn’t want you getting your hands on it.”

Anna’s expression told me that one, she didn’t give a shit about me finding out she made a sneak spare key, and two, that she had thought about using the weapon at least once. Maybe more than once. Definitely more than once. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a little black book in her purse with all the plans she had designed to piss me off.

She looked a little too pleased as she practically skipped off to get it before I could tell her where it was.

I watched her leave, my eyes not leaving her before she disappeared through the door. A moment later, Kay came out, long, strawberry-blonde hair silvered with age, sweeping in the faint breeze as her eyes scanned the yard and looking disappointed before coming over to the bench where most of us were sitting. “What’s up, Kay?” I asked, noting the traces of worry on her face.

“Any of you seen Bell?”

“Bell?” I repeated, looking over the yard myself despite already knowing she wasn’t out here. I hadn’t seen the little princess since this morning after she’d said her good morning to me from behind the screen of her cell.

“She probably got out of here the second lockdown was lifted,” Hunter said, taking up one of the empty spaces on the bench. “We all know she doesn’t like being here anymore.”

“That’s a bit harsh,” Mallory interrupted, coming up behind Hunter’s back and wrapping her pale arms around his shoulders. “Girl probably just wants to go have fun without twenty overprotective uncles scaring away all the boys.”

“Bell’s still practically a baby. Ain’t no boy touching her if he’s got his wits about him,” Jasper snapped from the other end, earning surprise glances from the rest of the table. The older man had curled blond hair that framed a face that had, by God’s luck, avoided gaining any scars or marks whatsoever. The fucker didn’t even look as old as he should, and his clear blue eyes, not as pale as Anna’s, that were usually relaxed, formed a hardened scowl. “Told Roscoe I’d protect his little girl. Ain’t going to stop doing that just because boys have started looking her way.”

“Christ, Jasper.” Hunter laughed. “The girl will be a virgin until she’s forty if you have any say.”

I couldn’t disagree with Hunter. Jasper was pretty levelheaded and calm despite being one of the old timers who had run with Roscoe. When it came to butting heads and picking fights, Roscoe had been like an army on steroids. Which left Jasper to keep his cool, so aside from Lamb, who seemed to be universally capable of pissing everyone off, the only other thing that fired him up was his duty to protect Bell, Roscoe’s only daughter. It probably had to do with the massive amounts of honor he earned as Roscoe’s right-hand man. Even though Roscoe had passed, it didn’t change Jasper’s principles.

“Back in my day—” I heard all of a sudden from the end of the table, and everybody simultaneously groaned as Polo, Jasper’s polar opposite, stepped into the conversation.

Hunter’s eyes widened in panic, looking to everybody and anybody for some kind of escape before the old man could get any more words out. His eyes landed on Mint, pleading to Mint’s paler ones. “What do you think about it, Mint?” Hunter blurted, cutting Polo off before he could get any further.

But despite Hunter’s imploring gaze, all Mint said was, “She’s a grown girl. She can do what she likes.”

“Too right!” Polo chipped back in. Everybody spun to glare at Mint, our one opportunity to be saved from Polo’s speech gone to waste. “A grown girl needs to make sure she finds a good man to claim her. A proper woman back in my day...” I was about to drown him out until suddenly, he yelled. “You!” His long, pointed finger flew out in Mallory’s direction, making the young, curvy redhead flinch. “Where is your cut?”

“My cut?” Mallory repeated, confusion taking over her face. The girl hadn’t been club for long, so she didn’t know all the intricacies of being an MC brother’s old lady.

“Your ‘Property of’ cut!” Polo snapped with exasperation.

“We haven’t done those kind of cuts for years, old man,” Hunter returned.

“Bullshit!” Polo rose from the bench, his scowl bearing down on all the brothers sitting on the bench, looking at us all like dimple-faced brats. “A woman should wear her man’s patch on her back with honor! A true old lady brags who her man is. She shows it off like a symbol of pride! It’s club law.”

I could hear the chime of a bell before I even looked to Mallory, whose brown eyes were growing wide, enchanted by Polo’s speech. Her head whipped down to Hunter the second Polo finished, and seeing the expression on her face, he let out a slow groan. “I’ll order you one.” He sighed, looking annoyed, but he couldn’t fool us brothers. We could see the sly, possessive grin behind the reluctant eye roll. Lucky bastard.

“I’ve still got mine if you want to look at it?” Kay said, and that was all it took.

Mallory lit up like a Christmas tree. “Really?”

“I haven’t worn it since Roscoe’s funeral, but it should still be around here somewhere,” Kay said as Mallory gave her man a kiss before turning and running up to Kay’s side. Then the two gingers disappeared into the clubhouse.

With the women gone, the boys fell into conversation, but I wasn’t a part of it.

Mallory wasn’t the only one who Polo’s words had reached.

Anna was my old lady. I knew it, and everybody else was thinking it. Yet I couldn’t help but notice that glaring little detail that Anna had never once said she was my old lady. In fact, the only time she had mentioned it was when she was refuting the fact. At first, I had only thought she was fighting it because that resistance to anything I said was a fundamental part of her personality. She would never accept becoming my property without fighting it first.

But what if I was wrong? What if Anna didn’t want to be my old lady at all? There was no denying that she had feelings for me, and I sure as fuck told her more than enough times who she was to me. But what if she didn’t want that?

It was in that moment I realized I had never asked Anna what she wanted. This entire time I had been going off our chemistry and what had existed between us. Both of us had been going with the flow these past few days. Was she just going with the flow? Or did she want more, like I did?

The thought became a virus and was eating its way through every core principle I had about me and Anna until suddenly, whatever the hell we had became a mystery to me. I felt a rush of insecurity inside of me, and it had me up and out of my seat before I knew it.

The brothers gave me surprised looks at my abrupt jump, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t paying attention.

All I knew was that I needed to find Anna.