JOE （exclusive）
This extra bonus scene is set around a week before The Elders go missing in Divine Heart. Joe can be found in the Skins series. His father and Embry’s were brothers.
Riding lessons are the bane of my life. One of them, anyway, even though I teach only one student these days—a student who can only be taught by me.
“Come around. Do the lower jumps again first.”
Liliana Romano-Carter scowls. She wants to gallop and hurtle over the highest jumps we have, but she’s shit out of luck if she thinks that’s happening on my watch. And thankfully she knows it. She obeys, and I let her practise a fast canter as her reward, all under the watchful gaze of her bonus dad— my cousin —who stands by the gate with Harry and Clementina, keeping the distance he knows I need to keep his stubborn daughter safe.
Which brings me to something else I know Liliana’s not going to like, but tough shit. She doesn’t like being told what to do, but I know she loves Chappie more than anything.
“You’re getting too big for him.”
Dinky as she is, she’s still half a foot taller than when Mateo first brought her to me.
Liliana ignores me and slides from his back to land on the ground on his other side, blocking me out.
I take Chappie’s reins and nudge him forward a few steps. She draws the line at going with him, but keeps her gaze on the sky as she unbuckles her helmet.
Stubborn, remember?
I try again. “I know it’s hard, kiddo, but you need to address this before you can’t ride him anymore. Unless you want to quit.”
She doesn’t. Riding is as woven into her DNA as it is mine, Emma’s, or Toby’s. But she doesn’t want to give Chappie up either. He’s her first horse—her first love, and I know how that feels. Losing my soul horse, Manny…fuck, I still can’t think of my old boy without crying.
So I let it go, for now. We have time. But the trouble with time is that it slips away too fast, like sand through our fingers, and as the weeks fly by and Liliana has a summer growth spurt, I can’t stay silent any longer. Negotiating with a kid isn’t working and I have to do something that always annoys me and track down her other dad at the compound of a fucking motorbike club.
The Rebel Kings MC. Honestly, fuck my life. And fuck them if they think I’m waiting at their gates for permission to enter the castle.
I call Mateo when I’m five minutes out. “I’m coming to see you. Let me in.”
“Let you in where?”
“The club.”
He grunts his agreement and hangs up. The gates swing open as I approach in my van and Liliana’s biological dad—my cousin’s husband—waits for me, frowning. I think. With him, it’s hard to tell. Even his smiles are kind of vicious.
He’s not smiling now. Mateo, he has a nose for things he’s not going to like and he’s looking at me like I’m about to tell him Chappie is fucking dead.
I point at the bar. “Buy me a beer.”
He shrugs and leads the way across a yard that’s a different world to when I was last here. It used to be a shithole. Now, it’s more like a fucking village. Without the engine noise and tattooed knobheads floating, it’s almost pleasant.
Talking of knobheads. A door opens in another building and Cam O’Brian strides out. He sends me an up-nod with the respect we’ve nurtured over the past few years, and I send one back, but I’m a petty bastard, it shows on my face, and I don’t give much of a fuck.
He laughs, walking away.
I salute his back with my middle finger, and Mateo shakes his head. “Why do you hate on him so much?”
“I don’t hate him.”
“All right. Why are you such a moody cunt then?”
“He deserves it. Give me one of those bottles.”
Mateo pops the caps on two lager bottles and thunks them on the bar, still waiting for an answer that’s more than shit talk.
I give him one. “He fucked my girlfriend and stole my cousin.”
“What girlfriend? You’ve been married to a dude for the last decade.”
“Didn’t say it was recent.” I claim my beer and grin around it. “Carters hold grudges, in case you didn’t know.”
“Oh, I fucking know it.” Mateo tips beer down his throat. “But haven’t you got anything better to do than worry about where Cam put his dick a thousand years ago?”
There are lots of things more important to me than Cam O’Brian. And honestly, I’ve come to realise what I’m actually bitter about is that he could give Embry what he needed all those years ago better than I could. But still. That smug wanker banged my girlfriend. The fact that I barely remember her name is beside the point.
I drink my beer.
Mateo drinks his, waiting, tapping his fingers on the bar. He’s nervous, I realise. Because I never seek him out, especially not here. Last time I came, I called Cam a cunt, to his face, and he didn’t find it as funny as his way hotter than him little brother did. “Liliana’s too big for Chappie.” I let Mateo off the hook. “She needs a new horse, if she’s going to carry on riding, and you need to decide what that means for Chappie.”
Mateo frowns.
I elaborate. “I don’t have the stable room for a healthy horse that’s not being worked in the riding school or the rehab centre.”
“No one else can ride him?”
“Think about it.” I drain my beer. “Think about your child. She seem the type to let random kids ride her horse?”
Mateo concedes that. “Harry can’t use him?”
“Nah, Chappie’s too jerky when he moves. He’d have people over.”
“Fuck.” Mateo exhales and his frown deepens. “I can pay you to keep him.”
“It’s not that. I’d keep him for free if I could, but I don’t have the room when my phone’s ringing off the hook eighty times a day with rescue nags.”
Mateo nods, accepting it, but he looks upset, and I don’t like it. Despite my own giant attitude problem with the entire world, I respect Mateo more than he’ll probably ever know. And I love Chappie. He’s a sweet horse with a kind heart. Contemplating his future out loud is as fucking awful as thinking about it has been. But I don’t have a choice. These rules prop our doors open for the nags no one else gives a fuck about, and I can’t keep any more healthy horses.
“I’ll help you re-home him,” I offer when Mateo doesn’t speak. “I’d never let him go to anywhere that wasn’t amazing. And I’ll help you find a bigger horse too.”
Mateo mutters something Spanish. It’s beyond me, so I let him stew, casting my gaze around the biker bar, returning the glare some dusty old cunt fires my way. I recognise him—Doherty something, and he can eat shit if he thinks I give a fuck that he’s likely calling me a pikey in his fat old head.
Hope he dies.
The longer he scowls at me, the happier I am to help him along, but the bar door opens before I get there and another familiar face appears. One who’s already come up in conversation.
Saint Malone.
I don’t mind this one, even though he was there when my cousin got out of prison, lurking around Cam O’Brian like an annoyingly hot grim reaper. At least, that’s how I saw it back then. These days I’m old and wise enough to know he isn’t a lurker as much as he’s quiet, and I’m tired enough most days to appreciate that.
“What’s wrong?”
That’s for Mateo. Who explains it all while Saint listens, his fingers tapping restlessly too. “No room?”
That’s for me . I shake my head, guilt gnawing at me like it has done for weeks now. Months. I don’t want Chappie to go. But logistics are logistics. I can’t magic a new stable block out of thin air.
Saint notices the old cunt’s glower and where it’s aimed. He steps between us, giving me his back for a moment. When he moves, the old man has gone.
I can live with that.
I don’t need defending, but then I don’t need the hassle of a fight right now either. Harry would kill me more than he did when I spent all our money on a malnourished gelding last week.
Saint gives us his attention again. “What are you doing with the space by the foaling stables?”
How does he know about that? “Collecting crap we don’t need.”
“You don’t use it for anything else?”
“Nope.”
Saint starts to say something else, but coughs instead. He walks away without finishing his sentence and I assume that’s it.
Then he’s back with a blueprint that he slides along the bar. “We’ll build a new block for you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Here.”
He jabs a finger on the paper I realise is a full design plan for my fucking farm, and it’s a lot to take in from a man I’ve exchanged six words with in all the years we’ve moved in the same circles.
I open my mouth.
Shut it again and study the plans. “Who drew these?”
“Cam, and the architect we work with.”
“Why?”
Saint pulls out a phone and taps at it before flashing me a message.
we knew this was coming
Mateo reads the message too. “You never fucking told me.”
Saint almost smiles and types some more, but it’s not for us this time. He sends the message and waits, and barely a second passes before he gets a reply. “Nash said we can start next week.”
“Eh?”
“Next week.” Saint shows me the message. “Embry can run the site, he’s there enough anyway.”
He says it like this is real life. That shit like this doesn’t cost a bomb of money that I’ll never have. “Thanks, lad. But if I could afford to drop a hundred grand on a new block, I’d have done it already.”
“You’re not paying.”
“Who is, then? You?”
Saint points at Mateo. “And him.”
Mateo nods his agreement. Like this isn’t fucking madness.
I shake my head at him. “That’s a hell of a lot of money to spend on a horse that’ll be just as happy belonging to someone else. I know it’s tough for Liliana, but she’ll get over it.”
Mateo opens his mouth to speak, but Saint cuts him off.
“Chappie’s a Rebel King. He stays with us.”
He rolls up the plans and leaves again, and it’s hard to keep my jaw hinged as the door shuts behind him.
I spin my bemusement back to Mateo. “He’s fucking crazy.”
Mateo takes a deep swallow of his beer, measuring his response. “That’s the thing,” he says eventually. “Saint’s not crazy. If he says this is the way, I’m here for it. What say you?”
What say me ? Fucking hell. It’s my turn to drum my fingers. I’m not too proud to take handouts. The farm runs on charity—that’s the point. But these bikers…
“No dodgy money. It’s legit or you can fuck all the way off, and don’t think I won’t know. I can’t count my own fingers, but Harry can, and we’ve got too much at stake to fuck about.”
“I know that.” Mateo offers me his hand. “But I’d fucking die before I fucked you over, Joe. You have to know that.”
I do know it. Because he loves Embry as much as he loves his kid—and because this rough London boy carries my name—my grandpa’s name, and I know that means everything to him. Our heritage, our legacy, even if Embry never met the man who built it.
My palm slides into Mateo’s and we shake on it. Chappie’s staying, and the relief that rolls through me makes me want another beer. But the call to go home to Harry and our baby girl is stronger than anything else has ever been.
I leave Mateo to give Liliana the good news. On my way out, I see Saint again, and he’s with Cam. They’re walking together, not touching or speaking, but the way they look at each other reminds me of Rhys and Jevon. Of Poppa Nat and his fella. True love, man. Looking at Cam’s smug mug will irk me till the day I die, but I still love to see it.
And I get to go home and tell Harry I didn’t punch anyone.
What a time to be alive.