Chapter 9 #2
Slade is a flight risk, hence why I have Jez and Liam shadowing her. But now I need to add protecting her as well. I pull out my phone to tell them they’re to clear her bedroom before she enters and to be even more glued to her ass than they are already.
“Any updates on Slade’s past?” Army asks Digits.
He pushes up his glasses and rubs his eyes while his other arm is still wrapped around Pix. “I’m finding shit-all. It’s like she’s a ghost.”
“So there’s no bounty out on her?” Ash asks.
Pix sheaths her knife. “Why would you ask, Ash?”
He fills them in on his conversation with Slade. By the end, I don’t need to guess which way Pix will vote. As violent and unhinged as she can be, she has a soft spot for those who have been wronged. And when she’s decided you’re her people, she loves hard and fiercely.
Digits shakes his head, his loose curls bouncing on his forehead. “One of my early search parameters included searching for any bounties out on Slade; there’s nothing coming up.”
“Not every criminal uses the Broker to set up bounty contracts,” Army reminds us.
“True. But there’s been no chatter—nothing about Slade Kowal has come up.”
“What about Slade’s phone?” I ask. “Or who she’s married to?”
“There’s still no activity on her phone, and still no marriage certificate. She could’ve used a different name.”
The memory of the wedding band on her finger flashes in my head, followed by burning anger.
If she’s married, then where the hell is her husband? Why isn’t he protecting her?
Or is he who she’s running from?
Protectiveness thrums through me, along with something that feels suspiciously like…possessiveness.
Fuck.
I push the thought and feeling away.
“There’s nothing coming up about Slade,” Digits stresses.
“No bank account activity since she ran away from Tyla in Houston. No social media. It’s like she hasn’t existed in the past six years, which means she likely has criminal ties or at least connected with someone who has skills to help her stay off the radar. ”
“I want the Council to vote on whether she stays,” Ash says grimly. “If something big is gunning for her, there will be risk to the MC.”
“In,” Pix says instantly. “No question, I’m all-in.”
“Ash’s warning can’t be taken lightly,” I caution. “The Havoc Guardians very well could be under threat with whatever Slade is running from.”
Pix snorts, and her long blonde hair swishes against her cheek with the movement. She may be a beautiful woman, but inside there’s a bloodthirsty little demon. Her eyes blaze with fire. “We’re a criminal motorcycle club, big guy. We’re always under threat.”
“So black and white,” I mutter.
Her eyes darken. “Do you think Zeus didn’t think I was a threat when he took me in and adopted me?
I was eleven, well on my way to being an addict to escape the abuse and neglect, and I hated everyone and everything.
I wanted the world to burn.” Her eyes glisten as she steps up to me.
“I could’ve been a Trojan Horse threat, but Zeus didn’t just take me in; he made me a key part of our family and involved me in ways I could’ve used to topple the MC.
He trusted me, loved me—the same way you four guys did—and that was fucking everything.
“I remember Slade from when she was a kid, Bane.” Pix points at the door without looking away from me.
“And who she is now isn’t right. She may have thought she was coming here to say goodbye—and maybe in her mind, she truly was—but I see her arrival as her homecoming.
She came back to the family, to our family, and we protect family.
We protect our own. You, of all people, know that. ”
And just like that, the last of my resistance is gone. Pix made me realize I’ve been looking at this all wrong—I’ve been viewing Slade as an outsider, not part of the family that I’ve sworn to defend and protect.
“I’m in.” Digits’ voice is hoarse as he stares at Pix. We all remember those early days, trying to help Pix trust that we wouldn’t hurt her when all she had known was pain wrapped in neglect.
“Me, too,” Army says.
They all look at me.
Thoughts rampage through my mind.
Thoughts of the light that used to radiate from Slade’s green eyes, and her smile that was vibrant and full of life—both are now hollow and lifeless.
Thoughts of her responding to me, and how I had made her start to feel something this morning.
And thoughts of me being a violent, lethal man, who knows how to kill a man numerous ways and who has an unblemished track record for keeping this club safe.
“I’m…all-in.”
I’m all-in. As in protecting the MC and Slade, no matter what I needed to do. And to banish that emotionless cloak she uses to deal with whatever she was forced to survive.
In a nutshell, I’ve just done a one-eighty and am now racing headlong into the unknown to save this woman who doesn’t want to be saved.
But it was official. Slade stays, and she has her MC family at her back.
We just needed to figure out how not to take the MC down in the process.