Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Romeo
The room emptied slowly after church. Brothers filtered out in groups, some heading for the parking lot while others drifted toward the bar.
Morgan left with her mother’s arm around her shoulders, Grace beside them as they talked quietly about getting her packed.
The noise followed everyone through the door until eventually the room settled into silence.
I stayed near the wall with my arms crossed.
My president hadn’t moved.
He stood beside the table with his hands on his hips until the last person disappeared. Then he turned toward me. “Close the door.”
There was no mistaking what this conversation was about.
I pushed away from the wall and closed the heavy door behind the last brother. When I turned back, King was watching me with the same expression he’d worn outside after seeing Fiona in my arms.
“You want to tell me what the fuck that was outside?”
I didn’t bother pretending I misunderstood.
“That was me keeping a promise.”
“A promise.” His jaw tightened. “To an eighteen-year-old girl.”
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ, Romeo.” King dragged a hand through his hair and paced a few steps away before turning back. “Do you have any idea how fucked up this is?”
“I know how it looks.”
“How it looks?” His voice rose. “It looks like one of my men is sniffing around a goddamn teenager. It looks like you’ve been keeping shit from me for months. It looks like you’re about to bring a world of shit down on this club because you can’t keep your dick in your pants.”
My hands curled at my sides.
King had every right to question me. He was my president, and Fiona’s age made his concern legitimate.
The rest pissed me off.
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what the fuck is it like?” He crossed some of the distance between us. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’ve been grooming a kid who works for your cousin. A kid who’s barely legal and doesn’t need some biker twice her age making her life harder.”
“I’m not twice her age.”
“You’re thirty-one, Romeo. She’s eighteen. That’s thirteen years. That’s a fucking lifetime at her age.”
“I know exactly how old she is.”
“Do you?” His voice dropped again. “Do you know what this looks like to the club? To the fucking cops if someone decides to make noise about it?”
“I know what it looks like.”
“Then why the fuck are you doing it?”
Because she was Fiona.
Because for nine months, every road had somehow led back to her.
Because a woman fifteen hundred miles away had become the person I wanted to talk to when something was funny, when I was pissed off, when the clubhouse got too loud, or when I simply wanted to hear a voice that made the day feel better.
None of that was going to satisfy King.
So I gave him the truth I’d known from the beginning.
“Because she’s mine.”
He stared at me. Then his expression hardened.
“She’s yours. That’s your answer?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck you, Romeo. You don’t get to claim an eighteen-year-old girl like she’s a goddamn bike you found in a junkyard. You don’t get to decide she belongs to you just because you want her.”
The words hit exactly where they should have.
Months ago, I might’ve argued with him.
Now Morgan’s face from ten minutes earlier was still too fresh in my head.
“I know.”
That stopped him.
King’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“I know I don’t get to decide that part.”
“Then what the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about me.” I pushed away from the door and faced him fully. “I knew what Fiona was to me the first night I saw her. That doesn’t mean I get to tell her what I am to her.”
Some of the fury in his expression shifted, but not enough.
“So you saw a seventeen-year-old girl and decided she was yours.”
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“Do you?”
“I do.” I held his gaze. “And no, I didn’t start chasing a seventeen-year-old. I went home.”
King crossed his arms.
I continued before he could interrupt. “I met her at the ski resort in December, right before Christmas. Josie brought her back after a bad night at a school dance. She walked into the room, and I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“The same thing every fucking La Croix seems to know eventually.”
King’s expression flattened. “That fucking curse?”
“The La Croix curse.”
“Romeo.”
“I know.” I almost laughed because I could hear exactly how insane it sounded coming out of my own mouth. “I never believed the damn thing either. I thought it was family folklore—something the mamas told around the dinner table to make generations of questionable decisions sound romantic.”
“At least we agree on something.”
“My mother met my father when she was seventeen. Aunt Marabella met her husband at fifteen. Uncle John and Auntie Gail were barely seventeen when they ran away together. Granddaddy Pierre met his wife when she was nineteen and he was thirty-two. It happens over and over in my family.”
“And that makes this okay?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Fiona makes whatever happens between us okay or not okay. The curse only explains why I knew.”
King watched me without saying anything.
I’d spent months trying to separate those two things inside my own head. Knowing what I wanted had been easy from the first night. Learning that Fiona’s uncertainty mattered just as much as my certainty had taken longer.
“The first time I saw her, something changed,” I said. “Call it the curse. Call it instinct. Call me a fucking lunatic. I don’t care. But it happened.”
“So you took one look at a seventeen-year-old girl and decided she was your soulmate.”
“Yes.”
“And you expect me to be fine with that.”
“I expect you to listen to what happened after.”
King’s jaw flexed.
I continued. “I went home. I didn’t touch her. I didn’t ask her to wait for me. I didn’t tell her she belonged to me. She turned eighteen, and I still didn’t do any of those things.”
“You’ve been talking to her for months.”
“Yeah.”
“Every fucking day?”
“Pretty much.”
His expression darkened again. “And you don’t think that’s pursuing her?”
“I became her friend.”
King scoffed.
“I’m not pretending I didn’t want more. I did. I do. But Fiona needed the chance to figure out whether she wanted more without me shoving my certainty down her throat.”
He stared at me for a moment before shaking his head. “You’re thirty-one. She’s eighteen. You’ve had thirteen more years to figure out who the fuck you are. She just graduated high school.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that like it makes it better.”
“It doesn’t make it better. It makes it something I have to pay attention to.”
King paced away from me again. For several seconds, only the muffled noise from outside reached the room.
Then he turned back. “Cash is thirteen years older than Kytten.”
I almost smiled. “So you noticed.”
“Don’t get fucking cute. I had plenty of problems with that.”
“But you didn’t stop him.”
“Because Cash proved himself. He showed he could handle it. He showed he wasn’t a predator.”
The word hit me in the gut.
“I’m not a fucking predator,” I ground out between teeth clenched so tightly I was afraid they might crack.
“I’m trying to make sure of that.”
Every instinct in me wanted to take offense. This was King, though. The man was responsible for every patched member under him, and after everything he’d seen Fiona survive through the people connected to this club, he wasn’t going to look the other way because I was his brother.
If anything, that would’ve bothered me more.
“I haven’t touched her.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“It should make you listen before you call me a fucking predator.”
King’s mouth tightened.
“I took her to prom. I kissed her forehead. I’ve had chances to do more. I didn’t.”
“Congratulations on not fucking a teenager.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, fuck you.” King stepped closer again. “You want praise for restraint? You’re a grown-ass man. Restraint is the minimum.”
He wasn’t wrong and I hated that.
“I’m not asking for praise. I’m telling you I know where the fucking line is.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“And what happens when she crosses it?”
The question stopped me.
Because Fiona was getting closer to doing exactly that.
She’d gotten bolder in texts. She’d nearly told me she loved me. She’d run across a crowded gym and thrown herself into my arms when she saw me at graduation. Earlier today, outside, she hadn’t hesitated before coming straight into my chest.
I wanted every bit of it.
That didn’t mean the answer was simple.
“I still make sure she’s choosing it.”
King studied me.
“That sounds real fucking noble.”
“It isn’t noble. It’s necessary.”
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then King asked, “What exactly do you want from her?”
I didn’t have to think about it.
“Everything.”
His eyes hardened again.
“Not tonight,” I added before he could start. “Not because I’ve decided she owes me something. I mean everything someday. Marriage. A home. Whatever life she decides she wants to build.”
King stared at me. “You’re serious.”
“Completely.”
“You’re talking about marrying an eighteen-year-old girl.”
“When she’s ready. When she wants it. When she chooses me freely. Yes.”
“Jesus Christ.” King turned away and rubbed both hands over his face. “This is absolutely fucking insane.”
“Probably.”
“There’s no probably about it.”
I almost smiled, but this wasn’t the conversation for it.
King paced toward the table, planted both hands against it, then looked back at me. “Does she know any of this?”
“Not all of it.”
“So she doesn’t know you’re planning your fucking wedding.”
“I’m not planning a wedding.”
“You just told me you’re going to marry her.”
“I told you what I want. Fiona hasn’t promised me anything.”
That seemed to matter to him. Not enough to make him happy, but enough that some of the anger finally shifted into something closer to scrutiny.
“And if she doesn’t choose you?”
There it was.
The question I didn’t want to think about.
Months ago, the answer in my head would’ve been that she would. The curse said so. Fiona was mine. End of discussion.
I knew better now.
“If she doesn’t choose me, then she doesn’t.”
King’s eyebrows rose.
The words hurt like hell to say.
That didn’t make them less true.
“You’d walk away?”
“If that’s what she wanted.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.” I shrugged. “I barely believe I could survive it. But I won’t punish Fiona for not wanting the same future I do.”
He watched me carefully. “I thought you said she was yours.”
“She is to me.” I tapped my chest. “That’s my certainty, King. Not hers. I can’t make her feel it because I do.”
Something in his expression eased for the first time since we started.
Not approval.
I wasn’t expecting a fucking blessing.
But he was finally listening instead of looking at me like he needed to drag me into the parking lot and beat some fucking sense into me.
“You’ve thought about this.”
“Every goddamn day for nine months.”
“And you’ve kept it from the club.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Because there wasn’t anything to tell.”
“You’ve been talking to her every day.”
“That’s between me and Fiona.”
“You’re a patched member.”
“And I haven’t done anything that affects this club.”
King’s eyes narrowed. “Today affected this club. I saw the way you looked at her. So did Grace. Morgan knows her. Half the fucking Sons of Hell probably know something’s going on. You think Georgie’s going to shrug when he realizes Romeo DuBois has spent nine months falling for his little sister?”
“Georgie already knows we talk.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No. He isn’t going to shrug.”
King snorted.
“He’ll probably try to kill me.”
“Good.”
I smiled despite myself. “You planning to help him?”
“Depends how pissed off I am that day.”
There was my president.
Still angry, but no longer two seconds from throwing me through a wall.
Then his expression hardened again.
“This can bring heat.”
“I know.”
“Stop fucking saying that.”
“I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
“I want to know you’ve thought farther than your fucking dick.”
“That part’s easy.” My voice lost its humor. “I want Fiona in my life a hell of a lot more than I want her in my bed.”
King stared at me.
I didn’t look away.
That was the difference I hadn’t understood before her. Women had always been easy. Attraction was easy. Sex was easier.
Fiona had made me care about mornings. Phone calls. Whether she ate breakfast. Whether she got accepted for a scholarship. What she wanted to do with her life and how she drank her coffee while she was doing it.
Some nights, I wanted to kiss her so badly it made me fucking ache.
I still wanted all the rest more.
King released a long breath and scrubbed one hand over his jaw. “This is going to blow up in your face.”
“Maybe.”
“And if she gets hurt because you rushed her, I’ll deal with you myself.”
“Fair.”
“If the club gets dragged into some shit because of this, you answer to me.”
“Understood.”
“And if I find out you’ve pressured her into anything—”
I cut him off before he could finish. “You won’t.”
His gaze sharpened. “I wasn’t finished.”
“You didn’t need to be.”
For several seconds, we stared at one another.
Finally, King pointed toward the door.
“Get the fuck out of here, Romeo. Go find your girl before I change my mind and make you ride to Louisiana tonight.”
I didn’t need to be told twice.
My hand was already in my pocket when I reached the door.
“Romeo.”
I stopped and looked back.
King still looked irritated enough to break something, but the accusation had gone out of his expression.
“Don’t fuck this up.”
I nodded. “I won’t.”
I walked into the hallway and closed the door behind me.
The parking lot had nearly emptied while King and I argued. Only a handful of bikes remained beneath the security lights, and the cool mountain air felt good after the tension inside.
I’d waited weeks for this.
One night.
Tomorrow morning, we’d ride south with Morgan. I had no idea how long Louisiana would keep me or what would happen after we arrived.
Tonight belonged to Fiona.
Not because I needed to convince her she was mine. King’s argument had made me hear how ugly that could sound when the choice only existed on one side.
I knew what Fiona was to me.
What I needed now was to let her show me what I was becoming to her.
I pulled out my phone.
Me: I’m coming to find you, Cher. Be ready.
Then I climbed onto my bike and headed toward Granny’s house.
For the first time all night, nobody stood between me and where I wanted to be.