Chapter Six PITT
Abbie glares at Ark like he just threatened to carve her heart out right there on the bar.
“It won’t,” he says shortly, and I can feel the tension rolling off him as she steps back out of his reach. “Those rules are gone. Everyone is safe in the club. Everyone has a choice.”
Distrust is written all over her face, and who can blame her?
The Iron Flyers were supposed to be her family, not a bunch of jackals fighting over her like she was a piece of meat.
Maybe one day I can tell her how they begged and sobbed before I ended them, but right now my job is to make sure that Ark doesn’t screw up this chance to get her back.
“Are you really saying we can just walk in there?” Abbie demands, grabbing a napkin off the bar and dashing it over her tear-streaked face. “No claiming bites? No alpha at our backs?”
I stiffen at that question, a protest forming in my chest, but her gaze is rooted on Ark.
From what he’s told me, this conversation is a long time coming, and I have to brace myself so I don’t step between them.
Ark might be my friend and president, but I’m drawn to Abbie in a way that I can feel deep in my bones.
Protect her, at all costs.
I’m pretty sure it’s the reason he asked me to join the Iron Flyers.
Abbie was already seeing Wings in secret, unaware that Ark had people around her nearly every moment of the day.
As far as she was concerned, the club cast her out and forgot about her, when the truth is, Ark has spent the last three years rebuilding the Flyers in her memory.
Even before lung cancer strangled the last breath out of his asshole of a dad, Ark was cleaning house, dumping the worst of the trash and bringing in members loyal to the new order.
No more illegal deals, no more omega abuse.
It’s not perfect yet, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the club she remembers.
But there’s a long road between good deeds and their rewards, and Wings clutches Abbie tighter as she leans back into his arms. My gaze flicks between them, assessing but also admiring.
It’s hard not to when they look the way they do and smell like chocolate-drizzled peaches.
In fact, eyes across the room keep sliding their way, drawn both by the drama unfolding in our little huddle, and by the omegas’ mesmerizing beauty.
I shoot a glare at the closest alphas, warning them off. Not that anyone is going to approach the two most dominant alphas in the room, especially when they’re locked in some kind of intense stare-off with a pair of unbonded omegas.
My gaze flits back over Wings’ neck, satisfaction humming through me at the sight of my teeth in his throat.
A calming bite, not a claiming one, but there’s no denying he’s wearing my mark.
With the way they’re wrapped around each other, it’s hard not to let my gaze wander to the butterfly perched so prettily on Abbie’s scent gland.
The number of times I’ve studied the tattoo, I’m pretty sure I could ink it on my own skin with my eyes closed.
Wings bends to murmur something in her ear, and she nods, but she’s still clinging to his arm like he’s anchoring them against a storm.
Her anger and hurt have given her scent a sour edge, and I can’t stop the words that scrape out of my throat.
This is Ark’s negotiation. His chance to make amends.
But I can’t stand the way she’s looking at us, as if at any moment we might rip her from Wings’ arms.
“Blunt. Creekers. Langham. Drone. You know those names?” She studies me for a moment before offering a jerky nod, because how could she forget them?
They were Booker’s inner circle, the worst of the worst. They were the ones who came up with the free use plan, and the thought of grown-ass men plotting to use and abuse a teenager still makes me vibrate with rage.
“If you’re wondering how they’ll greet your return, you should know they took a trip to Springvale Morgue a few months back. ”
Her gaze flicks between me and Ark, something soft trembling around her mouth. “Seriously?”
Ark tilts his chin. “It should’ve happened years ago, but it’s taken care of now.”
Taken care of is a polite way to put it, since those miserable excuses for alphas will never breathe the same air as her again.
“I just… Mom used to freeze up every time they looked her way.” Her hazel eyes bore into mine, hope glimmering in their depths. “They’re really gone?”
“Dust to dust.” Or ash to ash, really, since our newly patched brother, Dusty, is in charge of the incinerator at the morgue. He has no issue taking in donations from the club, even if they come in bits and pieces. “They can’t hurt you anymore, sweetheart.”
She dips her head, studying the ink on Wings’ fingers. “And the Vipers? Are they gone, too?”
Ark stiffens beside me. “Not all of them,” he says slowly, reluctantly, because the remnants of the Steel Vipers are like a thorn he can’t pry out, even with pliers and a blowtorch. “Jackpot, Nitro, and Crab are still there, plus Mimi, Slade’s old lady. She’s with Jackpot now.”
Abbie pulls a face and I don’t blame her. Mimi lives up to her old club’s name, as vicious and sly as any rattlesnake I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter. She spreads bad blood wherever she goes, riling up the other old ladies and treating the younger girls in the club like less than dirt.
“I’m not worried about that nasty bitch,” Abbie says dismissively, flicking back her hair.
The golden strands dance under the bar lights and I have to stick my hands in my pockets, so I don’t reach out and touch without permission.
But when she lifts her chin, her eyes gleaming with resolve, I’m reminded that there’s a tough-as-hell fighter under her pretty exterior.
“She might have pushed me around when I was sixteen, but I’m not a silly little kid anymore. ”
“You were never silly,” Ark says, his gaze still glued to her face. Has the guy even looked away once since we walked in here and saw them slow-dancing like a leather-wrapped dream?
Not that I can blame him. For a guy whose job is to cover all angles, I’ve developed a bad case of tunnel vision when it comes to Abigail Taylor.
“Maybe, but I still have to think about this.” She grips Wings’ wrist, looking up into his face. “Can you give me a little more time?”
It’s a question we’re all invested in, since Wings hasn’t been back to the club since he presented.
I know he’s talked to Ark a couple of times, but I’m not sure if he’s dragging his feet because of the reception he might get, or because he can’t tear himself away from Abbie’s side.
Either way, Ark and I will have his back when he does.
“As much as you need,” he replies, dropping a soft kiss on her lips.
I smile, even though jealousy clenches low in my belly and my cock stirs in my jeans.
It’s an automatic reaction now, after listening to them fuck their brains out through the paper-thin walls in her apartment.
It’s torture of the best kind, especially when they stumble out of her bedroom, lips swollen and eyes glazed, their scents layered over each other in a heady sweat.
Fuck, what wouldn’t I do to scoop them onto my lap and kiss them until they smell like me?
“We’re having a party next week,” Ark tells her, dragging me out of my fantasy spiral.
It looks like Wings and Abbie are getting ready to leave, and I can sense Ark’s mounting frustration.
He wanted assurances out of this meeting, but I have no clue if Abbie is any closer to visiting the clubhouse, let alone returning to the Flyers.
“It’s Patch’s birthday. Just Glory’s barbecue spread and a bonfire, but it might be easier to drop by when everyone’s in a good mood. ”
Her face tightens, but it smooths out the next moment. “I’d like to see Glory. She was always so good to my mom.”
“Well, I know they’d both be really happy to see you, too.”
Somehow, Ark manages to keep his voice neutral and his hands shoved in his pockets. Like his whole world isn’t edging away from him towards the door.
“Pres,” Wings says with a respectful nod, before following Abbie off through the crowds. She glances back once, questions still brimming in her eyes, but then she’s swallowed up and Ark leans hard against the bar. “Fuck. That was even tougher than I thought.”
I slap his back and gesture to the bartender for a couple of whiskeys. “You did good, boss.”
He doesn’t look convinced, but he nods as he takes his drink and downs it in one gulp.
While the bartender tops him up, he turns to me, his eyes as hard as flint.
“Jackpot’s gonna be a problem. If he catches wind of Abbie coming back – or Wings’ new designation, for that matter – he’ll try to use it against them. ”
“Undoubtedly.”
The former Sergeant-at-Arms of the Vipers is a piece of shit, but he’s a smart piece-of-shit.
We’re pretty sure Jackpot was behind another club member’s road death last year, and I’ve got intel that he’s kept in contact with the gunrunners and people smugglers Ark cut ties with as soon as his old man died.
It’s not something we can prove yet, but Jackpot has been shoring up support with some of the older, more disgruntled members, and is regularly talking about the good ole days when the club was a force to be reckoned with.
I don’t think a takeover attempt is likely, but I’m pretty sure he’d be happy to see the club fall apart – especially if it means he can patch it back up with drugs, guns, and trafficked omegas.
“That’s enough for tonight,” Ark says, nudging the rest of his drink away. The guy has the iron discipline of someone who learned early that mistakes draw blood, and second chances are thin on the ground. “You following them back?”
“Yeah. You want to come along?”