Forty-Four
FANG
Midnight has come and gone by the time I finally get Molly to bed.
My head’s too wired to rest, too many thoughts circling up there.
I make my way to the kitchen, calculating the hours until Reno’s awake and she hears the news.
What kind of fuckery is it that this happens on the same day I argue I can better care for our daughter?
I roll my shoulders, sucking air between my teeth as I stretch the sore muscles.
My back still aches like a motherfucker; I haven’t had a quiet moment yet to check it out.
“The old boys are on their way,” Highway warns when I enter the kitchen to make coffee. “Chaos will probably want us all in church when they arrive.”
“In the small hours?”
“You want us to wait until you’ve had your beauty sleep?” he quips. “We need to act on shit like this quick.”
“I know.” Situations this serious require the vote of the life members as well as the officers. We’ve done well to keep the nosey old shit-stirrers out of the details this long, but the threat of war removes that option from the table. “He call them?”
Highway nods, reaching into the fridge for a can of energy drink.
Should probably smash one of those back myself.
All-nighters suck at the best of times, but they’re fucking worse when you’re already sleep-deprived.
What did my father say when Chaos called?
I’d be interested to know. I haven’t seen Viper in a while, and it’s no accident.
My father is a man’s man. Last of a dying breed, raised on afternoon Westerns and being called ‘sport’ by his father’s friends.
Boys don’t cry, and only pansies complain about their feelings—his words, not mine.
I was six years old when he first put a gun in my hand.
Not much past that when he beat me around the head for bringing an injured fox home to tend.
I stopped talking to my mom after school by grade seven and quit entering the kitchen altogether by junior high.
Men had their domain in my father’s house, and women theirs. Never the twain shall meet.
I can’t see the tyrant having much empathy for these women. His motivation will solely be ego-driven, all about reminding the Devil’s Breed why the Kings of Anarchy run these parts. Guess I’ll find out how right I am when he gets here.
Darko enters through the back door, visible from the kitchen. He releases a heavy sigh and tosses his T-shirt in the laundry, cut slung from his hand.
“Sorted?” I lift a coffee cup from the hooks beneath the cabinets.
He nods. “Yeah. Circus is finishing up.”
“Be a fucking darn sight easier if we could just leave this shit for the county to clean up.” I pop the lid of the coffee granules.
“But then we’d all be behind bars by now.
” They were lucky that Loki and I managed to keep Marty and his deputies occupied long enough for Chaos to show up with transport for the body.
“Ain’t that the truth.” Darko nods to the counter. “Make me one too, yeah?”
“Do I have a pinnie on, bitch?”
He smirks. “You’d look a lot better if you did.”
“Go get dressed before you get the women worked up.”
He walks away to make himself presentable for church, shaking his head. I assume he knows a meeting is on the cards. We should have all figured it out by now.
The clock on the oven reads two-fifteen by the time I have the caffeine ready, Highway seated at the table with his can of energy drink in his hand, and his head hung back on his shoulders, eyes closed. I pick up the dishcloth and throw it at his head.
“Wakey, wakey, princess.”
He lifts his head with a grumble. “I was just resting my eyes.”
“Sure.” I take a sip of the scalding brew. “And I’m the type of guy to settle down behind a white picket fence.”
“Never say never, brother.” He pushes his chair back and stands, promptly downing what’s left in the can. “Anyone here yet?”
“You’d know if you were just resting your eyes.”
He lifts his middle finger.
Right as Jenna walks through from the front parlor.
She flicks her gaze from him to me, and then ducks her chin, heading toward the coffee.
I catch Highway’s pointed stare over her head, the asshole’s eyes flicking to her, eyebrows raised. Fuck me. She hung around like I wanted at the burger bar, but after dealing with Marty I didn’t have the energy to do much more than drive us home. We need to sort shit out before it festers.
Before it fucks things up worse than they already are.
“Can’t sleep?” The question comes out flatter than I intend.
Jenna pauses, hand on a mug, and stiffens her shoulders.
Says nothing.
I glare at Highway to convey ‘what do you want me to do now?’
He frowns, lips flattening before he leaves the area with a shake of his head.
Only the clink of Jenna’s spoon inside the mug fills the void between us. Goddamnit.
“It won’t feel so raw in a few days,” I offer. “Once the memories aren’t so fresh.”
She glances at me, eyes critical, and then resumes making her drink.
“You sure you didn’t get hurt?” The concern feels tight in my throat as I push the words from my mouth.
She retrieves creamer, adds a dash, and then returns the carton to the fridge.
Fuck this. I pick up Darko’s coffee and head off in search of the asshole.
“The crash isn’t the reason I can’t sleep, Fang.”
I stall near the dining table, a mug in each hand.
I should say something back. She’s given me an open line to enquire what’s really on her mind, but the thought of getting deep with the woman has my stomach sour the little bit of drink that’s in there.
Sounds like guilt talking, boy. Shoulders rising with a deep breath, I close my eyes briefly and stiffen my jaw before uttering, “Yeah?”
Fuck my life.
“Why do you think I’d do something like that?”
Why do I think she’d do— “Because you’re the fucking enemy, Freckles.” Back still toward her, I temper my breathing. “No matter what’s gone down between us, that doesn’t change, does it?”
“Because of who my father is?” she asks, voice dripping with derision. “Or because of the things I’ve done?”
“Because of your father,” I confirm. “Yeah.” If I made her the enemy for what she’s done, I’d be a hypocrite.
“Even though I didn’t grow up associated with the club in any way?”
“Your blood associates you.” I ditch Darko’s coffee on the table. Fucker can get it himself; I’m not his fucking maid. “Your lineage associates you.” I turn around. “The fucking womb you spawned from associates you. No matter what you do, your name will associate you.”
“Guilty by association and association alone.” She nods stiffly.
“Don’t fucking make out it doesn’t matter.” I gesture toward her with my coffee. “You fucking killed a woman based solely on that club allegiance.”
“No, I didn’t!” She straightens from where she’d been leaning against the counter.
“I killed because I knew if I didn’t, I’d be one motionless on the floor.
It didn’t mean shit who her father is—was—or what club he belongs to.
Doesn’t matter shit about my father’s club.
It mattered because she was ready to use me to save herself. ”
She’s right. And I fucking know it. But the part of me conditioned to black and white, us versus them, Kings of Anarchy and everyone else, can’t let it go. Can’t separate her from her father’s patch.
Even if it means watching a woman I care about get torn apart by my ignorance.
“Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same,” she demands, eyes narrowing. “Tell me you haven’t already.”
I set my cup down slowly on the end of the counter, gaze fixed on my hand. She fucking has me, and she knows it. My resistance to her runs deeper, and what scares me most is the sense that she knows better than I do why.
“Why the fuck would I arrange something like that and then sit there and goddamn pull glass out of your daughter’s arm if all I wanted was to harm you?” she presses, moving closer.
I lift my head. She what? Why didn’t I know that?
“Why would I do something like that if this is the only safe place I have right now, as unwelcome as it is?”
I lock my eyes on hers, finding all the honesty and conviction her tone implies.
“Do you have any idea how fucking messed up that is? That the one place I feel most secure is in the house of people who don’t trust me?
” She shakes her head with a little huff.
“That’s why I can’t sleep, Fang. Not because of what happened tonight, but because I feel so fucking alone it honest to God terrifies the shit out of me to be so isolated, all because of who my father is,” she mocks, tears building in her eyes.
I take a step toward her, open my mouth to say something—fucked if I know what—and have her recoil.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what, Freckles?”
“Act like you care.”
I look to the side, equally as frustrated by my lack of commitment to either feeling: empathy or apathy. Why do I care? Why do I care when she frustrates me so goddamn much? When she’s the embodiment of everything I shouldn’t want.
Why do I want nothing else but to take her upstairs and hold her all night, reassuring her things will change? How fucking hypocritical is that when I’m the main reason they don’t?
Jenna takes a step back to retrieve her drink.
I catch her by the arm without a second thought.
Her heated glare snaps to my hand, and then my face. “Let me go.”
“No.”
She jerks her arm.
I hold fast.
“Fang…”
Using her other hand, she attempts to push mine off.
I pull her closer.
“Let me go. Now.”
“Why do you test me?” I ask, wrapping my arm around her to keep her pinned against my front, other hand still tight on her arm. “Why did you pick me to do this to?”
“Do what to?” she snaps. “What exactly have I done now? Existed? Breathed?”
“Made yourself at home under my fucking skin,” I murmur, leaning in close. “Even when you’re not welcome.”
“Sounds like a you problem,” she whispers, words hitting my face in gentle minty gusts.
“Never said it wasn’t.”
Her chest pushes against mine in an increasing pace, her breaths quickening with each moment that passes. Neither of us look away. “Don’t you dare do this again.”
“Do what?”
Her body presses hard against the cage of my arm. “Make me your whore.”
My fucking dick twitches at the thought. Not of her being a whore, but the vision of her giving herself over to me. “Last time I checked, you weren’t getting paid.”
“Last time I checked,” she sasses, “neither was Jezabel.”
Checkmate.
“What are we doing here, Fang?”
I shrug. “You tell me.”
Jenna swallows, ink warping with the roll of her skin.
I don’t know what to say to her next; I just know I’m not ready to let go. To break apart whatever we’ve started here. I might never get it again.
I don’t deserve to have it now.
“Are you going to kiss me again?” she taunts, lifting one eyebrow.
“Do you want me to?”
Her lips twitch as though to answer, yet she doesn’t say anything right away.
I move my thumb against the soft skin of her wrist, rubbing slowly.
“I want you to,” she finally confesses. “But I know I need to respect myself better than to give a person who hates me that access.”
“I never said I hate you.”
“You didn’t have to.” She smiles sadly. “It’s there every time you look at me with suspicion in your eyes.”
“I can be suspicious of you and still like you,” I reason.
Her chin ducks. “No, you can’t, Fang.”
Finally releasing her arm, I use the same hand to coax her face up again. “Yes. I can.”
She inhales sharply as my lips touch hers, spine rigid against my palm.
I take it slow this time, dotting small kisses at the corners of her mouth.
Jenna relaxes against my hold, palm rising to rest against my chest when I go a little deeper, sweeping my lips over hers, intensifying the moment in small increments.
A soft sigh escapes when she gives in, her hand tightening to a fist at the front of my shirt.
There’s so much confusion. So much uncertainty. Anger.
But everything about this feels intentional. As though fate brought us together for a reason. As if the only way we could heal our wounds was to be challenged with somebody so paradoxically opposite to what we desire.
She breaks away first, hiding her face as she whispers, “We can’t do this, Fang. All we do is hurt each other.”
I thumb her jawline and force her head up again. “Maybe I like the pain.”
She gently removes my hand and steps out of my hold. “I don’t.”