Chapter 3
Gabriella
“Whoops. That was a close one,” Dante chuckled, not sounding at all sorry or concerned.
I shot him a nasty glance, my heart hammering against my ribs. My palms were sweating—hell, every part of me was sweating—and I felt the familiar tingle of a mild panic attack creeping beneath my skin.
If someone had told me this time last week that I’d have been in a car with Dante, racing to my clubhouse at a speed that made me wish I believed in a God just so I had someone to pray to, I’d have laughed in their face.
But here I was, frantically gripping my seat and praying anyway, just in case there was a God who fancied a new member of his congregation.
“You cannot be serious,” Dante laughed, casting his eyes in my direction. “You’re a fucking Rider. You should be used to this.”
“Oi, oi, oi!” I hissed. “Less of the character analysis and more concentration! Eyes on the road, Vin Diesel.”
“I’ve been driving since before—”
“Spare me the lecture,” I interrupted, swallowing heavily. “You drive bikes, Dante. Just you concentrate on driving this beast, and let me concentrate on my prayers. It starts with ‘Our Father who art in heaven’, right?”
“Please,” Dante scoffed. “I’m not going to crash. I’m a much safer driver than Vienna, and you got in his car plenty of times.”
“We weren’t exactly driving most of the time, thank you very much,” I muttered through clenched teeth.
Dante took a corner at a speed that defied belief, and as the tyres screeched across the road, I brought my fist to my mouth to swallow down the bile that raced up my throat with equal speed.
“Yeah, I heard all about the ‘mobile shagging wagon’—his words, not mine.”
“Just… fucking hell, Dante!” I screamed. Literally screamed as he rounded another corner like a maniac. I swear, the left two wheels came off the floor. “You’re ten times the size of me! You can’t take corners like that, you’ll tip us over!”
“Like what… like this?” he said, screeching around another turning. I squeezed my eyes shut and gripped the seat even tighter.
“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,” I whispered under my breath.
“I can hear that.”
“Concentrate on the driving!” I screamed, seeing a car in front of us narrowly avoid being hit head-on.
“You’re such a drama queen,” Dante announced, rolling his eyes.
I ignored him.
Insulting him would do no good for my newfound religion.
“Our Father who art in heaven… Father, be thy name.”
“Hallowed.”
“Pardon?” I gasped, daring to peek one eye open.
“Hallowed. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”
“I’m not on a first name basis with our heavenly Father; he’s been absent. So excuse me for getting it wrong.”
Dante chuckled then. “Are you regretting your choices?”
“I regret ever getting in this car with you.”
We needed a car for Vienna. No one knew what state he was going to be in, but we were all silently agreeing that he wouldn’t be in any fit state to ride his bike. And Dante didn’t trust me enough to let me drive the car alone.
So, here I was. Stuck in a car with a maniac.
“The choice was my bike or my car. And considering the lecture I gave Vienna about getting my old lady on the back of his bike, I couldn’t exactly do the same with you.”
I frowned. “Rachel gets on the back of Vienna’s bike?”
A small wave of ridiculous jealousy rolled through me.
But that was almost unheard of.
At least in my club, anyway. Old ladies were forbidden to ride anything other than their man and his bike.
“You might have noticed something about my old lady. She tends to do what she wants, when she wants. Consequences be damned. And Vienna isn’t much better.”
“And you tolerate that?” I asked.
Dante barked a laugh in response. “When it comes to Rachel, you learn to pick your battles. Do I like seeing her wrapped around Vienna? No, of course not. But I also know my old lady, and I know she’ll have driven him half mad with her backseat driving, she’ll have hit him in his face with his own beard at least fifteen times on a two-minute journey, and then there’s the bickering.
If by some miracle he doesn’t throw her off the back of his bike and they make it home in one piece, they won’t speak for at least a week unless it’s to argue over who was in the wrong. ”
He shook his head, as though he was remembering that exact scenario, and then adjusted his mirrors, focusing on the black bike riding behind us.
“You give her a lot of freedom,” I said, daring to glance behind me for one quick moment, seeing Rachel on his bike, sticking her finger up at us.
“Yeah… she’s not one to be argued with,” he said, but he didn’t sound frustrated. Instead, there was pride in his voice and a gleam in his eye as he clocked the gesture I’d just seen Rachel doing.
I didn’t respond. I focused on the driving, feeling my nerves ease slightly as Dante slowed down his driving just enough so that I didn’t feel like throwing up. I didn’t comment on it, and neither did he, but I appreciated the gesture all the same.
“Question,” he said suddenly, taking a corner much more carefully than the last few.
“Shoot.”
“Why didn’t you want Rachel driving you?”
Even without looking at me, I knew his attention was on me. It was something I had always noticed about Dante—he was aware of his surroundings at all times. And I knew he’d read any lie in my face.
“I don’t like her.”
He chuckled through his nose. “Not many people do. I don’t most days.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re living in hell,” I muttered.
“Again, you don’t know my old lady.”
“I know enough, and what I know, I don’t like.”
“She could say the same about you,” Dante said, his tone growing harder.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like me insulting her? Well get used to it, Dante. She killed my brother. Why should I tolerate her?”
He just laughed.
“How is that fucking funny? Did she kill your brother? Because I think you would react differently if—”
“She did, actually, yes.”
My head snapped back in shock, the wind knocked out of my sails. “Rachel killed Macbeth?”
“Sure did,” he said casually. “Skinned him alive like a pro. And threw salt in the wounds. And then stabbed him in the dick.”
“But…”
That wasn’t possible. I’d heard the stories.
“But…?”
“We were told you killed him.”
He flicked his gaze in my direction. “Oh, no,” he drawled. “We lied to the Rough Riders? Now, why on earth would we do that?”
I fought the urge to pout at him. “Sarcasm is really unattractive, you know.”
“I didn’t ask you to suck my dick, so it’s all good.”
“I didn’t fucking offer.”
“Don’t worry about my attractiveness then, eh?” he chuckled again.
I was beginning to regret not getting in the fucking car with Rachel.
“I know what you’re thinking, and trust me—Rachel would have annoyed you more,” Dante said, shooting me a lopsided grin before pressing down on the accelerator and recklessly screeching around another corner.
“Doesn’t matter. I fucking hate you all.”