Chapter 15
Rachel
I took Axel to his bedroom, murmuring the appropriate praise Dante was clearly looking for when I took in the décor, and quickly got our son changed into the new clothes in the wardrobe.
My eyes scanned over the room, taking in all the plush teddies, the toy box in the corner, and the row of children’s bookcases over the back wall. Then there were the framed images of cartoon motorbikes, followed by a border running along the middle of all the walls, filled with motorbikes.
You know, just in case Axel forgets where he came from!
Dante met us downstairs, producing a brand-new camo coloured pram, along with a tiny leather jacket with “Mini Disciple” written on the back of it.
My lips tightened, but I didn’t say a word. If I said something, I already knew I was destined to fail and break our contract within the first hour. Instead, I packed it all up and compartmentalised it into a little box in my brain marked “deal with later,” and that’s exactly what I’ll do.
It was so ridiculously obvious that Dante had known about us for a while.
Sure, he could argue the point that one of the club members that hadn’t gone to Scotland had rushed out to buy all these things.
But that custom leather jacket was not made overnight.
The bedroom had long since been painted—there wasn’t even a whiff of paint fumes, and I had run my hand over the wallpaper, pretending to admire the design, but actually checking to see if it was dry.
And what would you know? Dry as a fucking bone.
So, instead of losing my cool, I had simply strapped Axel into the evidently new pram, smiled up at Dante, and then stood to give him a kiss on his cheek—like a good old lady should.
But we were revisiting this. Oh, we were fucking going to revisit this. I wanted to know everything. If we were going to do this, then we were going to do this properly. And that meant no secrets.
Maybe you should have put that in the contract then? And does this mean telling him about your boss?
I irritated myself sometimes, but that didn’t make me wrong. I couldn’t ask for total disclosure without giving it in return. It worked both ways.
So as I ran to catch up with Vienna, I promised myself that tonight, after I had seen Bee and put both kids to bed, me and Dante were going to sit down and get everything out in the open.
A completely clean slate to begin a new relationship.
If that’s even how we were defining what we were for the next six months.
However, as I rushed out into the courtyard of the biker complex, I couldn’t help but forget all about Dante when I noticed how much… busier it was than it had been when I left.
“Vienna,” I called, jogging with the pram to keep up with his long legs.
“Need a breather from the behemoth already?” He teased, waving his fingers at Axel.
“Something like that,” I smiled back.
“Do you mind?” he asked, gesturing to the pram.
I blinked at him. “Mind what?”
“If I… you know…”
“No? Do you want to climb in it or something? Are your legs not working?”
“Why the fuck would I want to get in the pram?” He said, frowning at me as though I were a fucking moron.
“Well, you never know with you! You’re not exactly normal, are you?”
“I’m offended. If I wanted to be escorted around, I could jump on your back and call you a horse.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I warned as he took a step towards me. “Vienna, I’m being deadly fucking serious. You’re built like an ogre and my poor back will snap.”
“Really, Rachel, really? An ogre is the best you could come up with?”
“How did you want me to describe you?” I laughed.
“Not like a jolly green giant!”
“Some people are into that shit.”
“Just… shut up. You’ve made this weird when all I wanted to do was—”
“ I made it weird?!” I interrupted.
“Look. Can I just… I want to… you know…” he made a pushing motion with his hands.
“You want to push the pram? Why didn’t you just say that?” I asked, stepping away so he could take over.
“I dunno… I’ve never pushed one before. I was nervous, okay? So sue me.”
I laughed out loud at his confession, and then laughed even harder as he tested the limits of the pram.
“What do I do here?”
“You push the pram!”
“But do I like… push the pram? Or do I walk and the pram pushes itself?” He eyed the pram as though it were about to transform into Optimus Prime.
“You’re overthinking this.”
“If I push the pram, there’s every chance I’m going to hurl the poor kid at a wall.”
“Perhaps don’t push it that hard, then! It’s not that difficult. You hold on to the handles and the pram pushes itself!” He just looked even more confused, so I tried another technique. “Think of it like a motorbike. When you’re pushing that, do you push it—”
“Yes,” he blinked, looking utterly perplexed. “It takes a lot of strength, actually.”
“Right, but once the wheels start going, they sort of move on their own, and you keep it going with your movements. Your hands are just there to steer.”
“I—”
“Put your fucking hands on the pram and push it, Vienna!” I snapped, finally losing my patience.
“Hey,” he grinned as he gave an experimental push. “Hey this isn’t so bad.”
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered under my breath and then shook my head as Vienna began running around, steering Axel left, then a sharp turn right, making stupid motorbike noises as he did so.
Axel squealed with delight, especially when Vienna nearly ran someone over and yelled “beep, beep” at them, which Axel promptly copied with his own garbled “ bip-bip ”.
“Jenna’s!” I yelled as loud as I could, hoping he heard me over the sound of his own deranged laughter as I started making my way towards Jenna’s house.
“That was more fun than I thought it would be,” Vienna breathed when he caught up to me.
“Hardly surprising when you have the mind of a child yourself,” I smiled back. He handed the pram back to me and carried on walking at my side. “Has Dante instructed you to babysit me?”
“You followed me, remember? You’re obsessed with me. You’ve always stalked me.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Beard Boy.”
“Besides… Even if he had, I wouldn’t tell you. You’d only go snitching to the lawyer and have the contract declared null and void.”
Excellent point.
“So, why are you following me?”
“To prove a point,” he said firmly.
“To Dante?”
“Not everything is about you and Dante, hair buddy. I have a life outside of you two, you know. Quite a fun one, actually. It might surprise you to know I even have a sex life that doesn’t involve you two.”
“I’ll refrain from bringing up the only time you were witness to mine and Dante’s sex life…”
“Ouch.” The man actually flinched at my words. “But you’re wrong.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve witnessed other occasions other than the night that shall not be named.”
“When? What occasion?” I demanded.
“The night Dante came home after being kidnapped. I waited outside that door for over an hour, hoping to say hello to him. I heard things I’ll never recover from,” he shuddered and then grinned at me.
“And then when you were finally fucking done—I even went and got a snack whilst I waited, by the way, I came in, trashed the bedroom, flipped you both the bird and left.”
“And you had the nerve to call me weird,” I muttered under my breath.
“There was also another occasion where—”
“Change of topic,” I said quickly. “What point are you proving, and to whom?”
“To Jenna.”
“What? Why?”
“She won’t let me hold the baby,” he shrugged. “She says her child is not my experiment, and she’s not letting an ‘emotionally unavailable man child who can barely hold a pint’ pick up her baby — her exact words, by the way.”
“For fuck's sake,” I laughed. “So you’re going to tell her I let you swing Axel’s pram around like a madman to prove she’s being an overprotective freak?”
“Exactly,” he beamed.
“I hope she kicks your ass.”
“That would mean putting the baby down for five minutes, which she never does.”
“Only five minutes? My, my, aren’t we the intimidating biker?”
“Do you want a repeat performance of this morning?” he asked, raising his knuckles threateningly.
“I’m good. Since I’ve got the pleasure of your company, let me ask you something? Why is it so busy here? Are there a million new members I don’t know about?”
“There’s a few,” he nodded. “But I’ll let the gossip queen tell you about them. Most people you’re seeing, though, they’re not members.”
“Then why are they here? I thought you didn’t like outsiders?”
“We don’t. But it was one of the first things Dante changed.
He said that people are curious about what they don’t know.
We opened up the compound to the public, and there’s been a lot less shit.
When Crash was in charge, we were the scary bikers they came to when they had an issue that needed fixing. ”
“Like what?”
“Domestic violent victims, for example. Instead of going to the police, which usually ends up in sweet fuck all happening, they brought the proof to us, and we handled it.”
“Wow,” I murmured. “I had no idea.”
He gave me a weird look. “You had no idea that we protected our own community? Leeds is our home. We don’t want abusers running around more than anyone else does.”
“I suppose.”
“But other than shit like that, we were pretty isolated from everyone else. And it inevitably made people curious. Or suspicious, as was the case with your good friend Officer Bradley. People are now free to come and go as they please. They can use the tattoo shop, the hairdressers, the cafe… anything they want.”
“And Dante doesn’t see it as a security risk?”
“He did. We all did. But it’s been worth it, and the risk turned out to be unfounded.
We have new members, our numbers are boosted, and we have someone on patrol at all times.
The income boost has been brilliant, which has allowed us to do some upgrades within the club.
If you want to be bored with the details, you’d need to ask Shark. He’s the treasurer.”
“Interesting,” I said, more to myself than anything else. “So people like … my parents, for instance. Could they visit?”
“If they wanted to,” he shrugged. “Provided they behave themselves, nothing will happen to them.”
“Have you had any instances of people not behaving themselves?” I asked after a moment's pause whilst I mulled over his words. The thought of my parents being here was laughable. My mother had almost had a coronary the one time she had to stay here overnight. My dad might like it, though.
“Once or twice. Dante dealt with it pretty quickly. There were a couple of lads in their twenties who thought because we’re bikers, we must be fighting all day long. They came into one of the bars, and were quick to start a brawl.”
“What happened?”
“Dante grabbed the ringleader and bit his nose off.”
“Reasonable reaction,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
“It was effective.”
“And people still want to come here, despite that?”
Why? I don’t think I’d want to visit somewhere that allowed a psycho to reign supreme.
And yet here you are.
“Strangely enough, it made people feel more secure. Behave yourselves, and nothing bad will happen.”
“Hold on,” I said as I processed his words. “What did you mean ‘one’ of the bars?”
“Oh, I forgot you wouldn’t know. We have three now.
We have ours, the clubhouse, which is not open to the public.
Dante had the basement renovated for our poker nights, and it’s only open to members, hang-arounds, prospects, old ladies, and the club whores.
Or select friends. This way he was never far away from Bee, since he can hardly rely on Mama to be a babysitter these days.
The other bars can be used by whoever wants to.
One serves food, the other is just a pub with snacks. ”
“Jesus. A lot has changed around here.”
“It has. Dante has big plans, but I’ll let him fill you in on the rest. But remember, Rachel. Though things change, much stays the same. Including the way Dante felt about you. Don’t let him hide in himself and deny it.”
He didn’t wait for a response—just skipped off down the path like a toddler on Red Bull, hammering Jenna’s door with the glee of a man who had nothing to lose.