Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
KEELEY
The search takes what feels like an eternity. I keep my face pressed against Nic’s chest, listening as the police turn over every room like they’re expecting to find bodies under the floorboards.
Nic’s hand is wrapped around my nape, his thumb brushing back and forth in that way he’s learnt soothes me when I’m on the edge of falling into an anxiety attack.
The blanket is still around my shoulders, a shield between me and the men tearing through the place that feels more like home than my apartment ever did.
I catch Dayna’s eye across the table and she raises her brow just an inch.
Yeah, what the fuck is just about right for this shit show.
McKay is standing at the bar with Given and a few other officers. He keeps shooting looks in our direction, as if he’s checking Bird hasn’t stolen us from under his nose.
We’re all huddled together, herded like sheep into one corner of the bar. The room is… a mess.
Tables over turned, cushions pulled off the couches. Even the pool table got half-dismantled in case there were, I don’t know, drugs under the felt.
Maylie’s rocking slightly, Theo clutched to her chest while Mace keeps a hand on her shoulder.
The others are pale and quiet. No one has said a word for a while, so we can all hear the bangs and crashes down the corridor.
Eventually, the officers drift back into the room. I cling tighter to Nic when Bird comes in behind them. I don’t look at him. I can’t.
“You done?” Nic demands. His voice is steel and stone.
“For now,” Bird says in an ominous tone.
I flinch against Nic’s chest and his fingers lightly squeeze the back of my neck—a reassurance he won’t let anything happen to me.
I don’t pull my head from his chest until the sound of boots fades and silence stretches like a rubber band.
“Is anyone hurt?” Nic asks, cutting his gaze around everyone.
His family.
Mine too one day, I hope.
My stomach unknots when everyone assures him they’re fine. Riot ruffles Toby’s hair, earning him a scowl only a teenager could conjure. “You okay kid?”
“Yeah,” he lies. He’s pale and there’s a faint tremble in his hands. “I’m good.” He glances at his sisters, his niece and nephew, and swallows hard.
Diesel is staring at the door the police left through, like he’s contemplating going after the entire force. He probably would have already gone if Makenna wasn’t tucked against him.
“Well,” Dayna mutters, pressing her palm over the swell of her stomach, “that was awful.”
Dash rests his hand beneath hers on her bump. Like all the guys, his muscles are bunched, and anger is vibrating beneath his skin.
But he softens for her. They all soften for their women. “You cramping? You need the hospital?”
“I need a week on a Greek island with an open bar and buffet table,” she deadpans. He’s not smiling, not like he usually would when Dayna’s throwing out her dry humour. She brushes her fingers over his cheek. “I’m okay, Rhys. I promise. The kid too. Nothing feels off. I’d tell you if it did.”
My chest is warm at the way he touches her. It’s nothing grand, just little brushes like he has to be in contact with her at all times.
“The buildin’ needs sweepin’,” Nic says pointedly. “Every room, every fuckin’ inch gets checked.”
I’m clearly na?ve because my first thought is sweeping means brushing—cleaning—until Mace mutters something about grabbing the scanner.
“I got phones and computers,” Diesel mutters.
He kisses Makenna’s temple, but he takes a second before he’s able to move away from her.
Mace slips into VP mode, issuing orders to the others. As he passes Seren, he brushes his hand over her curls, and the little girl glances up at him through wet lashes. There’s no fear there, no uncertainty. She just holds her arms out for her uncle.
Because the men wearing kuttes and riding bikes aren’t the monsters in her world. The ones breaking through the front door wearing uniforms are.
I watch as Ivy hands her over to him and the sight of this big gruff biker holding his niece is surreal.
The two halves of this world we’re all in.
Man verses position.
Club verses family.
How do we separate the two?
“Sunshine?” I lift my gaze to Nic and I see the war in his eyes. He doesn’t want to leave me, not like this, but he has to. “I gotta make it safe and then I’ll come to you, yeah?”
I don’t want him to leave me, not after all of that, but I understand. I’m not going to make things harder for him, not when he’s already struggling.
Clutching the blanket tighter, I roll to my toes and skim my mouth over his briefly. It’s not the kiss I want to give him, but for now it’s enough to tell him everything I can’t with words.
“I’ll be waiting for when you’re finished.”
He squeezes my nape. “I won’t be long.”
The guys disappear to do whatever they need to, Nic pausing at the door to glance back at me, like he’s checking I’m really okay.
Maylie, Toby and Ivy go to their rooms to settle the kids. Makenna too.
I follow, but Dayna stops me with a hand on my arm. She waits until it’s just us, her eyes scanning my face.
“I wasn’t on the floor, Keels. I… saw. Did he—?”
My throat tightens just for a second. “I’m fine.” It comes out sharper than I intend and I force calm back into me. “He touched close, but he didn’t… you know?”
Dayna nods like she does know. That helps. “You need to talk about it, I’m here. If you don’t, I’ll talk enough for the both of us.”
I drag in a breath that doesn’t do anything to fill my lungs. “It was nothing. He was just trying to scare me.”
“While you were in handcuffs and helpless.” Dayna brushes a piece of my hair from my face and it chokes my throat. “That’s not nothing, babe.”
“I’m fine. Really. Shaken and furious, but I’m okay. That other officer stepped in before he could touch me any higher.” I close my eyes briefly, blocking out the feel of his disgusting hands imprinted on my skin and letting the anger sink in. “I don’t want Nic to know.”
“Okay.” She agrees immediately. No discussion or persuasion.
“Really?” I raise a brow. “No lecture about how I shouldn’t keep secrets?”
“Do you want me to give you one?” Her lips kick up a little. “I learnt from the best. I can give a performance if that’s what you need.”
“No. I just… I don’t want you to think I don’t trust him.” I glance down at my hands, still trembling faintly. “It’s not that I don’t. It’s that—”
“He’ll go nuclear?”
I wince. “Yeah. He’s already dealing with enough and I don’t want him to lose his mind over something that wasn’t anything.”
“Okay then.” She huffs a breath. “I gotta go pee before I explode.”
“Dayna?” I call her before she pushes through the door and she turns back instantly. “How do you do this?” I gesture at her belly, hoping she understands.
Her palm presses over her bump. “It’s not easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is, but the man who wears that patch isn’t the same one you get at home.”
“You can’t separate a man in two and pick the parts you like.”
“I don’t,” she says. “I know exactly who Rhys is. I also know he’s the one who runs out in the middle of the night because I want peanut butter.
We live through the shit they drag home with them because they’re ours.
” Her eyes soften as she takes me in. “My advice? Don’t overthink it, Keeley.
They’re good men who do bad things and the less you know about those things the better.
” She pats my shoulder. “I’m here if you need me, but I really do need to pee. ”
I snort and wave her off. “Go, before you make a mess.”
I stand up a few overturned chairs and straighten the bar before I head back to the room—our room.
Mine and Nic’s.
My heart sinks the moment I see what they did. It looks like we were ransacked by a hoard. I stare at the mess, an ugly feeling curling through my belly.
This was destruction for the sake of it.
A message.
Every single drawer in the dresser has been yanked open, and the contents are scattered all over the carpet. A magazine Makenna gave me a few days ago to read is ripped, a boot print stamped on the tattered pages.
The bed where I laid in Nic’s arms only an hour ago has been stripped down to the mattress.
Someone at least had the decency to pile the bedding in the centre, rather than on the floor where everything else seems to have gone.
I place the blanket around my shoulders on the end of the bed and find a pair of leggings and one of his hoodies. Once I’m dressed, I pick up every scattered piece of his life and put it back where it belongs.
Anger pumps through me like a living thing the more I see how careless the police were with his things.
It shouldn’t matter. It’s just stuff. But they treated him like nothing. All of us like nothing.
I fold Nic’s clothes back into the drawers, smoothing out the creases, then I put all the bits he kept in his bedside drawer back neatly.
After that, I remake the bed, careful of my stitches.
By the time I’m done, I’m too warm and I’ve dropped everything Bird did and said to me into a box that’s now buried in the vaults of my mind.
Fuck the police and fuck him.
Fuck Morozov too and his creepy fucking buyer.
Fuck all of it.
This doesn’t get to take up space in my head. Not like this. These people are just another monster I’ve had to fight.
I’m fine and I’ll be fine, because I have Nic.
And I have the club.
The door opens while I’m just standing in the middle of the room doing nothing.
Nic steps inside, and his eyes instantly find mine. His shoulders are drawn up as if he hasn’t unlocked his muscles in hours and his eyes are heavy. The last time I saw him he was in his boxers, but he’s dressed now, his kutte sitting on his shoulders like a reminder of who he is.
I barely have time to blink before he’s across the room, his hand on the the back of my head as he pulls me into his chest. His body relaxes the moment I fold around him, like I was all he needed.
“You okay?” His mouth brushes a kiss into my damp hair, his eyes a little wild as he studies every inch of me.