Chapter Ten
Melissa
December 29, 2024, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
The end of the year was closing in, and I had a lot to do before it descended. I was working late, transcribing notes and readying my books to open them up to new patients for the upcoming year, when I heard a soft knock at the door.
I looked up from my desk just as the door opened. I was surprised and confused when Dante and Danika walked through it. Loaded down with bags, he held Danika in his arms, his expression anxious and fearful.
“Melissa, I need your help,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, but frantic, nonetheless. He never used my first name. Despite telling him he could, he always addressed me as Doc, or Dr. Jefferson.
I frowned as he walked closer, setting Danika on the floor and dropping the numerous bags he carried.
“Dante?” I muttered, my eyes darting to Danika, who walked over to the water table. “What’s wrong?”
“I need you to take Danika for me.”
“What? Why?” Confused by his request, I tuned into his body language, looking for answers.
“Danny is in trouble. I need to go to New York City, and I can’t take Danika with me.” The pleading in his voice was unmistakable despite him not asking a question.
“Dante, I’m her therapist. I can’t just take your daughter. There are laws!”
“Look, I know this is unheard of, but it’s an emergency,” he said firmly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I am calling on doctor-patient confidentiality. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I blinked at him. Confidentiality was the core of my practice. It wasn’t something patients needed to ask for, and I had assured both he and Danny numerous times that everything they shared was confidential. It concerned me that whatever was going on might be something I didn’t want to know. Hesitantly, I responded, “Yes. I understand.”
“Danny and I, we’re not what we led you to believe. Yes, we own our own companies, but it’s more than that. Melissa, I’m an intern with the Soulless Sinners Motorcycle Club, and Danny is a patched brother in the Golden Skulls. Danny works for the Biker Federation.”
My eyes widened and my heart began to pound.
No. No. No.
I didn’t work with bikers. I stayed away from them in every aspect of my life, including my professional one. Had Zach known and held that information back? I had been explicit with him that I would not take on patients who were connected to any MC.
I felt the blood drain from my face as I slowly shook my head. Taking several steps back, I tried to distance myself from Dante.
“No.”
“Danny didn’t want me to say anything because of who he really is.”
My eyes snapped to his, narrowing. “Who is he?”
“Sypher.”
“Oh God!” I paced the room frantically. I knew who Sypher was. My brother may have cut me out of his life, but I wasn’t stupid. Sypher wasn’t just a biker. Fuck, he wasn’t just a hacker. Everyone knew his name. Had he looked into me? Did Danny investigate me? Did he know my secrets?
“Look, Missy, I know this is a lot to take in, and I’m sorry to dump this all on you at the last minute, but I don’t have a choice. Danny’s been in an accident, and I need to get to him. I don’t have a lot of time. I need you to keep Danika for me. No one can know where she is. If there was anyone else, I would ask them, but Danika trusts you and so do I.”
“I can’t!” I shouted. “You don’t understand!”
I refused to allow myself to get involved with bikers. It wasn’t safe. I looked at Danika. She would never be safe in the biker world.
Rushing over to me, Dante grabbed my hands and pleaded with me. “Please, Melissa. If you never want to see me or Danika again after this, I’ll understand, but please, I really need you to do this one thing for me.”
I looked at Dante, really looked at him. I wasn’t entirely sure what he was mixed up in, but I had heard of the Soulless Sinners and the Golden Skulls. My brother was a member of an outlaw club, but his club was tame compared to those two. I couldn’t think about Danny and Dante and the stupid choices they made. Danika was my priority. She was the one who needed to be protected. Kept safe. So, against my better judgment, I reluctantly nodded.
Dante hugged me tightly and whispered, “Thank you.”
Taking a step back, I took a deep breath as Danika walked over to me, raising her hands up in the air. Picking her up, I held her close as she laid her head on my shoulder.
“How will I contact you?” I asked, trying to hide my fear at the situation I found myself in—a situation I had spent ten years trying to avoid at all costs. I held the little girl I had become close to. Dani had worked her way into my heart in a way I had been careful not to allow with other patients.
Maybe that was why I had agreed to this ridiculous plan.
Shaking his head, Dante muttered, “You can’t contact me. I can’t risk Danika.”
“So you are just going to leave her with me and trust that I can protect her?”
“Yes.”
“What the hell is going on, Dante? And don’t you dare say you can’t tell me, because this ask goes way beyond a doctor-patient relationship. If Danika is in danger, then I need to know.”
“That’s just it. I’m not really sure. All I know is Danny was in a building when it exploded. He’s alive, but not in a hospital where he belongs. All the clubs are looking for him and the table issued a kill order.”
“The table won’t issue a kill order unless he’s a threat or they believe he’s been compromised.”
His brows furrowed, and I knew I fucked up.
“How the hell do you know that?”
“I wasn’t always a therapist, Dante.” I smirked. Maybe Danny hadn’t looked me up, or at least hadn’t told Dante what he learned. Closing my eyes, I said, “Go. I’ll keep her safe until you get back.”
“Keep your cell phone close. I will send you a text every day to let you know I’m still alive. If you don’t hear from me after forty-eight hours, take Danika and find Ellery Thomas. She’s an old lady in the Silver Shadows MC.”
My eyes snapped to his.
The Silver Shadows?
How was my brother’s club involved?
“Her husband, Ryder Thomas, is a patched member. Do you understand me? I will not allow my life to hurt her any more than it already has.”
Taking a deep breath, I steeled my features. I knew I had given enough away already. I couldn’t let the fear of knowing I may have to contact my brother’s club allow Dante to change his mind.
Reaching into his back pocket, he handed me an envelope.
“Take this. Danny thought of everything. It’s Danika’s birth certificate and IDs, stating that you are her mother. There is also a black Amex in your name. It has no limit. Whatever you need, this card will cover it.”
“I’ve got money.”
“Which can be tracked,” he stated. “That card can’t.”
“How?” I asked. My hands trembled as I reached for the envelope.
Dante grinned. “Think whatever you want about Danny, but the man thinks of and plans for every contingency.”
“He knew something like this could happen?”
He nodded. “Yeah, and he still did it anyway.”
I remembered the words Dante uttered over a week ago. ‘He will burn the world down so Danika and I are safe.’
“Dante.” My whispered plea was ignored as I looked up at him.
He hugged me quickly and muttered, “Take care of our daughter. She is the most important person in our lives.”
Dante kissed Danika’s forehead and walked away, and he didn’t look back.
I stood in my office, holding tightly to a little girl who had just lost her entire world. A world she had only been given for a few short weeks before it was ripped away.
This was why I fucking hated bikers!
What they believed was a sacrifice for the greater good only served to tear families apart. As I looked down at Dani, asleep in my arms, I had a decision to make.
Would I follow Dante’s instructions and take his daughter to his friend if something happened to him? Risking her life further by dropping her into yet another outlaw club to be raised by someone who was likely a whore?
Or would I take her and disappear? If Danny and Dante died doing whatever the fuck they had gotten into, no one would know who Danika was. No one would know she was with me.
I had the documentation to prove she was mine.
Could I drop a two-year-old off with a motorcycle club and walk away, never thinking about her again? Or could I walk away from my whole life to protect a little girl that had come to mean the world to me in just a few short weeks?
Sacrifice.
That’s what it came down to.
Would I sacrifice this little girl’s future, or would I sacrifice my own?
It was an easy question to answer. I wasn’t a biker. I may have grown up around the biker world, but I wasn’t a part of it. I understood the true meaning of sacrifice.
You didn’t sacrifice someone else’s happiness and well-being.
You sacrificed your own.
My brother thought he was making a sacrifice by walking away from me. He believed I was better off without him. All he did was abandon his family. He gave up the one person who counted on him to keep them safe.
And he did it for the club.
He didn’t do it for me. He didn’t even ask me what I wanted. If he had, I would have stayed with him. I would have told him I could endure anything if he was by my side.
Was I willing to give up my life for this little girl that I shared no DNA link with? Could I walk away from my practice, from my patients, from everything I worked hard for to ensure she was safe.
Hell yes, I would!
Fuck Danny and fuck Dante. If they didn’t care enough about Danika to walk away from a world where she would always be in danger, then maybe they didn’t care about her at all.
I fucking cared.
I laid Danika on the couch. There was no way I would be able to carry a sleeping child and all the shit Dante brought too.
Fuck, I didn’t even know how to care for a child’s daily needs.
I was a child psychologist. I knew trauma. I didn’t know day-to-day life with a child. Well, I mean, I knew it in theory. I made plans for my patients that included their daily needs, both physical and emotional. Only I wasn’t the one who practiced them.
I looked at Dani, asleep on the couch, and another thought hit me. Looking over at the pile of bags Dante dropped when he walked into my office, there was one very important item missing.
I didn’t have a fucking car seat.
With a heavy sigh, I sat on the floor, leaning my head against the couch. I guess we were spending the night here. In the morning, I would order the best fucking car seat on the market. Right after I canceled all my patients. I sent Mindy a text, letting her know there was a family emergency and I would be taking some time off.
There was no need for her to come into the office. She could rearrange my schedule from home. There was another doctor I could send my younger patients who needed the office setting to. My older preteen and teen-age patients could do their sessions online.
This would be an adjustment, but I was willing to make concessions. I would happily sacrifice everything for a little girl that no one had been there for since the day she was born.
Fuck you both!
I closed my eyes and tried to get a little sleep.
Tomorrow, I would need my strength and energy to do what needed to be done.
For Danika.