Forty-Eight
FANG
“Jez!” I jog through the house to the kitchen, hollering her name. “I need you to watch Molly.”
She looks up from where she tidies breakfast dishes, and nods, a slight frown displaying her confusion. “Why? What’s happened?”
“That was my bike,” I say, mind cartwheeling in the background to work out how best to chase Jenna down. “I gotta sort it,” I say dismissively, too fucking distracted to stall for proper conversation.
“What the fuck, Fang?” Reno crosses out of the parlor as I re-enter the foyer. “Did I just hear you ask Jezabel to watch our daughter?”
“Not now.” Hand raised to the woman, I turn for the stairs. Circus has two bikes—maybe he’ll let me use one. But then how do I get both home? Would it be better to take the truck? I could put my bike on the back and throw Jenna in the cab, making sure she doesn’t—
“I’m right here, asshole.” Reno catches me by the arm as I take the bottom step.
Her lisp has improved—tongue no longer bleeding, I presume—but her attitude remains the same.
“What the fuck has got into you?” she sneers, eyes narrowed.
“You take Molly from me, don’t call when she’s in danger, and now you fucking give her to a whore to babysit rather than me? The hell, Fang?”
“I seriously do not have time for this right now.”
“You’ll make goddamn time if you want me to play by your rules.” Her leering smile says she thinks she’s won already. That her threats have weight.
Maybe they do, but today? Today I need to make sure I don’t lose both women I care about all in the same week—young and old. “Go home, Reno.” I shake her arm off me and turn for my room.
Chaos waits at the head of the stairs.
“What the fuck is going on?” He runs a hand over sleep-mussed hair. “I’ve got a goddamn meeting with the lawyer in thirty, and you two are having a fucking lover’s quarrel in the foyer?” His brow pulls taut as he stares at me. “Thought I heard your bike, just now.”
“You did.”
His expression morphs into resigned curiosity. “Why?”
“Jenna took it.” I move up the stairs and away from Reno. “Jezabel’s watching Molly. I gotta go get her to come back.”
“She took your bike,” he repeats slowly, mismatched eyes searching mine as I level with him on the landing. “What the fuck for?”
“That’s what I’m about to go find out.”
Chaos sighs, extending an upraised palm toward Reno, who climbs the stairs. “Stay where you are. This doesn’t involve you.” He turns to glare at the woman.
She scowls right back at our president. “I’m taking Molly home, Chaos. I don’t give a fuck what Fang says. She’s not safe here.”
“Is she injured? Upset?” he asks. “Does she want to leave?”
Reno stalls, and I see it in her dimming eyes—Chaos didn’t have to vocalize it. She came in here guns a blazing at me, yet she hasn’t once stepped foot out back to check on the daughter she apparently cares so much about.
“She’s fine here, Reno.” I grit the words through a tight jaw. “Go home, and I’ll call you later.”
“Don’t bother.” She turns to leave with a huff. “You won’t have anything I want to hear anyway.” Troublemaker fires the parting shot as she snags her coat off the hook by the door. “Hope that bitch crashes.”
“Leave it,” Chaos quietly warns me, waiting until Reno has left, the door closed behind her. “You made your point.”
“You did,” I clarify. All I did was make things worse—as usual. “You need me here for the lawyer?”
He shakes his head. “Jinx and I got it covered. We’ll get everyone together later to share the outcome.” He rolls his bottom lip between his teeth, studying me a moment. “Is this woman worth the ongoing hassle?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is she a sunk cost, Fang?”
I blanch, and then promptly feel a wave of anxiety spike at the foreign feeling. “You asking if I want her put to ground?”
He nods.
“For taking my bike?” I splutter.
“For killing a woman—a woman associated with the Blood Eagles—and then lying to hide it. For withholding that she knew who Anna was. For drawing danger to your daughter. For all the fucking shit she’s done to make this place more of a headache than it already is.”
He’s right—she’s a massive liability, yet even my loyalty to the patch can’t stop me from voicing how I feel. “She’s a broken fucking woman, Chaos. Would you have put Vanessa to ground for all the shit that follows her around?”
I brace for it, for the anger at mentioning his woman. For the retaliation and punishment to put me in my place.
The fucker smirks.
“What?” I bark, itching to get this over with and on the road.
“You defend her,” he states.
“Damn right I do.” A fist forms at my side, and I squeeze it tight to redirect my anger.
“I’ve killed people, Chaos.” Way more than she has.
“I’ve lied and withheld information to manipulate things in my favor—hell—in the club’s favor.
And I’ve brought trouble to our door on more than one occasion.
” I lean in. “Wanna put me to ground too?”
“Nope,” he sasses, popping the ‘P’. “Just wanted you to voice out loud what you’re too afraid to admit to yourself.”
The fuck? “Which is?”
“You care about her.” He smirks, getting in my face to taunt, “You like like her.”
“How old are you?” I say, backing up a step. “Nine? For fuck’s sake. Act your age.”
He chuckles, turning for his bedroom. “I gotta get my shit ready for this meeting,” he calls as he goes. “Go and get your woman, Fang, and fucking tell her why you’re doing it.”
Why I’m doing it? I mull the question a moment after he closes his door and then turn for my room to strap up and get my goddamn boots on.
I do it because she has my fucking bike.
It’s that simple, isn’t it? Then why not just report it stolen?
Because that would get Marty involved, and the further away from him she can stay, the better.
Because…? I hesitate, foot sliding into my second shoe.
Because I want to keep her safe. I do like like her.
The fucker’s right, and I know he’s right.
Where he’s wrong is that I was too scared to admit it to myself.
I have thought about it—a lot. Every time my hand found her face, or I caught myself staring at her from across the room.
Every time she smiled softly at someone else or every time I was near enough to catch her rosy smell.
I have thought about it.
I was too scared to commit, though.
Not anymore. Fuck knows where the woman’s headed, but nothing good can come out of it regardless. She’s a felon, and a target for two notoriously violent motorcycle clubs.
She’s all alone without a shit show in hell of fighting off an ambush from either of them or Marty.
She’s fucking reckless. And I goddamn love her for it.
I dash downstairs and snag the truck keys from the hook in the entry. Molly crosses into the foyer from the kitchen, Jezabel hanging back in the doorway to presumably make sure she doesn’t cause any trouble.
“Where are you going?” Her question holds curiosity, but there’s an element of fear to my daughter’s words I don’t like.
“I’m going to give Jenna a ride back here, okay? I won’t be long.”
Molly wanders closer, the blanket from her makeshift bed draped over her shoulders and dragging behind her like a cape. “Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.” But I need to get going if I’ll have a hope in hell of catching up.
“Then how can you go get her if you don’t know where she is?”
I open my mouth to answer and then stall. Fuck it. The damn kid is right. Get to the end of our road, and there’s two options—left or right. After that, the possibilities multiply.
“Can I come?”
Jezabel takes a preemptive step forward.
“You ain’t had any breakfast.” It’s weak, but it’s the only deflection I have.
“I’m not hungry.” Molly drops the blanket and then grabs it with one hand, dragging it alongside her. “I can eat later.” She hustles over to where I stand and plain ignores me as she shoves her little shoes on.
Fuck. I lower myself to her height, elbows on my knees as I crouch. “It’s too dangerous, baby. You need to stay here.”
She glares up at me. “No.”
“Molly,” Jezabel says softly. “Come on. We can bake whatever you want so it’s ready when your daddy gets back with Jenna. Then we can all eat together.”
“I’m going with Daddy.”
Jezabel lifts her gaze to meet mine.
Hand to my daughter’s arm, I stare into her steeled gaze.
“Baby. I need you to listen to me, okay?” Her lips purse, yet she stays quiet.
“Some things Daddy does aren’t things we can do together.
You know that. Some things I gotta do myself.
What I need from you is to trust that you’ll always be here for me when I get back, because when I do things like this, I need to know where you are and that you’re safe. Okay?”
She turns the words over in her mind, head hung, before she toes her shoes off again. “Why can’t we do them together?”
“Because you’re too precious to me to risk getting hurt.” Because having that goddamn truck crash in on what should have been a quiet dinner shook reality awake—I can’t protect her from the unknown. And what I head off to do now is exactly that: the unknown.
“You’re precious to me too.” Molly throws her arms around my neck, blanket cascading over my shoulder as she briefly hugs me and then retreats toward Jezabel.
I swallow the rock in my throat and stand tall, committing this feeling to memory.
I’ve been reckless and ignorant most of my adult life, and I get why now: because I never had this to give me pause. Love. Somebody who depends on me. Needs me as I need them.
From the day Molly was born, she slowly wormed her way into my subconscious. It took until now to put a name to that itch.
I take a deep breath through my nose as I turn for the door.
Rub a rough palm over my face after I drop down to the yard.
And exhale heavily as I palm the truck keys.
Anything to get my fucking head screwed back on straight.
Emotions fuck with decision-making skills, reaction times, all the shit that keeps a man alive.
I got no idea what I’m headed toward with Jenna, but I know I need to lock the fuck in.
I’ve messed her around long enough. Half-assed it plenty.
She deserves more this time around.
She deserves all of me. The shit that I’m too scared to say and do, and all.
I toss a few straps onto the bed of the truck along with a couple of rags in case I need them and then hoist the ramp over the side with an almighty clang as it joins the stash.
Mind racing, I slide onto the driver’s seat and slam the truck door behind me, promptly stabbing the key into the ignition.
Jenna’s got to have at least a ten-to-fifteen-minute head start by now.
Depending on which way she turned, she’s either on the far side of Temperance or tearing up the interstate toward Minneapolis.
I crank the engine and slam it into gear. Stones fly when I tear out of the yard, punching through to Darko’s number on the dash as I drive.
He takes a few rings to answer. “None of you fuckers want me to sleep this morning, do you?” he grumbles in place of a polite answer.
“If I have to be awake, so do you.”
He huffs. “What’re you calling me for anyway? Didn’t think you were going anywhere today.”
“Can you get online and check the town cameras for me?”
“Why?” He drags the single word out, lining it with suspicion.
“Jenna took my bike.” I steel my jaw and brace myself for his ribbing. “I need to know what direction she’s headed.”
Darko sighs, words strained on an exhale as though he rises out of bed. “Is she in trouble?”
I sigh, wrestling the steering wheel as it fights the ruts in the road. “I don’t know.” Jenna might have a darn good reason for doing something so stupid, but rules are rules, and they’re enforced for a reason. To maintain their integrity.
Why the fuck would she take my bike? I get that she felt as though she’d overstayed her welcome, but the goddamn sheriff’s department had offered the women help with crisis housing until they could get on their feet again.
Even if she’d wanted to avoid that route to keep her distance from the law, Freckles had a million different options before she had to steal my fucking property.
“She headed left on the interstate,” Darko advises.
Away from Temperance. “Where’s your next camera?”
“I can’t hook in again for another fifteen miles. I’ll call you back when I figure out more.” He disconnects.
I swing the truck left when I reach the highway, mentally mapping the next fifteen miles in my head from memory. How many possible exits does Jenna have? What reason would she have to take each one? Fuck.
This shit would be a darn sight easier if I knew her fucking reasoning.
Whatever it is, my gut says it won’t be good.