Chapter 55
Rachel
I woke up the next morning, hating everything about the clubhouse.
I flew through the house, searching for Dante, eventually finding him with Vienna and Shark in the kitchen.
“Dante, I hate it here,” I said, without so much as a good morning.
“We’ve heard, Rachel. What’s next on the top forty?” Vienna replied, rolling his eyes.
“Ooh, I know!” Shark laughed. “How about a rendition of ‘ I Was Kidnapped’ ? We’ve not heard that in a while.”
“If you wanna follow it up with ‘I Killed Macbeth, I’ll Kill You Too’, that would be great. That’s always been a favourite of mine,” Vienna said.
Dante shook his head at them whilst I scowled, and then came forward to gently take my elbow and lead me out of the room.
“What’s up?”
“I hate it here. I—”
He silenced me with a heavy sigh. “I thought we were past this? I know you’re not happy, but I thought we said six months—”
“No,” I interrupted with a laugh. “I don’t hate it here. I hate it here ,” I said, pointing to the ground with both hands.
“That’s the same thing,” he frowned.
“It’s not. I’m coming to terms with this—the club, the life…
you. But I hate it here. I’m not comfortable here.
I feel like I’m living in a shrine to the dead.
Nothing here is my own. Everything is decorated the way your mother had it.
This isn’t my home. I feel like a guest here most of the time.
I want to make things my own and … What are you doing?
” I asked as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet.
“Take this,” he said, handing me his credit card. “If you want to put your stamp on this place, do it. I couldn’t give a shit what it looks like, but if it makes you happy, do it. But do me a favour?” He asked, heading to the door.
“What’s that?”
He came back to me and grabbed hold of my face with both hands and gave me the most delicious, bone melting kiss, and then pulled back to grin at me.
“Maybe next time you could lead with what you actually meant, rather than giving me a fucking heart attack thinking you were pulling away again? Shark!” He called out, walking away from me, leaving me dumbfounded.
“S’up, brother?”
“Take Rachel out shopping, will you?”
“I can handle going on my own—”
“And I would feel more comfortable if you took someone with you. How much trouble can you get into with the Shark man keeping a watchful eye on you?”
“You’d be surprised,” I laughed.
“You were spying on me. I don’t know why you insist on lying all the fucking time,” I huffed, shoving Shark.
He stumbled, the weight of all the bags knocking him off balance, and then shoved me back, smacking me with one of the heavier bags.
“I was following orders. That is not spying!”
“If the order was ‘follow Rachel and keep tabs on her’, it absolutely was spying, and you’re in denial!”
“It’s a job.”
“Yeah, and detectives also have a job to do. Doesn’t mean they’re not spying either!”
He rolled his eyes at me and refused to engage any further. As far as I was concerned, that made me the winner.
We had spent a lovely morning together, but it was inevitable we would start bickering about this. Jenna said we were a pain in her ass because it happened anytime we were together. And I don’t care that it happened years ago. It was definitely spying, and he knew it.
Shark had been a good sport today, though, and it was nice to spend time with him. He had let me go to any shop I wanted, hadn’t huffed and puffed about visiting a dozen different places, had offered to carry all the bags, and was just completely different from how Dante would have reacted.
It said a lot about me that I was currently trying to draw him into an argument based on something that had happened years ago, rather than just enjoying the peace, but to acknowledge that would mean addressing that I actually enjoyed the drama, and I was too stubborn to do that.
“You realise my name is Shark, right? Which means I’m good at the hunt. If I was stalking you, you wouldn’t see me coming.”
I burst out laughing and then scoffed at him. “You’re called Shark because you make a decent charcuterie board, you fucking imbecile. And maybe because you like dining out during shark week. I haven’t quite got Jenna to confess that one yet, though.”
“What the fuck does that mean? Dining out during shark week?” He asked, stopping dead still in the middle of the busy shopping centre. I grinned at him and patted him on the cheek.
“Think it over,” I giggled, walking out of the doors and into the open air. I took a quick glance over my shoulder and saw him still stood still, a confused frown on his face.
I gave him a mischievous smirk and then brought my two fingers to my mouth and slipped my tongue between them. His eyes widened in realisation, and a furious blush flew over his cheeks before he came running over to me with a look of horror on his face that was almost adorable.
“Rachel!” He half hissed, half whispered. “You can’t just talk about shit like that in the middle of the street!”
“What?” I asked innocently. “You show me the law that says I can’t ask a man if he eats his old lady’s pussy whilst she’s on her period. Show me.”
“Stop!” His cheeks were burning bright red, and he tried shrinking down inside his cut, as though no one would be able to see the 6ft, tattooed, angry looking biker he really was.
“Let’s ask some people, shall we?” I said, scanning the crowd. My eyes narrowed when I thought I saw men dressed in what looked suspiciously like cuts—cuts that did not belong to the Devil’s. But they turned down one of the streets in front of us before I could get a proper look at them.
It wasn’t against any rules for them to be here. This was technically the Devil’s patch, but other clubs were welcome here so long as they kept the peace. I focused back on the crowd and shot Shark a wicked grin when I noticed a gang of women heading towards us.
“Rachel, I’m begging you. Do not ask—”
“Excuse me!” I called to one of the older looking women, jogging over to her. “Me and my associate are running a survey, and we were wondering if you wouldn’t mind answering some questions?”
“Yes,” one of the women said instantly, looking Shark up and down and practically licking her lips. “Yes, he can have my number.”
“He’s been castrated for being a serial cheater. He’ll be no good to you,” I replied, keeping my tone light and cheerful.
“Rachel!” He hissed, burning redder than ever.
“Oh, I think he’ll have more than one use. Look at those lips!” She was drooling at this point, and Shark looked unbelievably uncomfortable.
“That’s actually perfect, because I wanted to ask if you thought it was appropriate to talk about dining out during shark week, if you get my meaning? My friend here seems to be a bit of a prude.”
A few of the women laughed, the rest looked slightly embarrassed. But none of them said no, and I shot a victory look in Shark’s direction.
“Honey, if the day ends in Y, I’m not saying no. He can take me anywhere, anytime, any day… I’m game if you are.”
I burst out laughing as Shark groaned, seized my arm the best he could between all the bags, and pulled me away, hiding us down one of the side streets. I shot a friendly wave over my shoulder, followed by a quick “bye!” and then turned to Shark with a grin.
“You’re fucking incorrigible, did you know that?” He hissed at me.
“Ooh, what a fabulous word. I hope this outing hasn’t made you too discombobulated?”
“What the fuck is this? The big word Olympics? Don’t do that again. I’m fucking mortified.”
“Oh, don’t be so soft, it was only—”
“Excuse me?”
We both turned in the direction of the voices, and my eyes narrowed suspiciously when I saw the same two cuts from earlier.
“Are you here to join the survey?” I asked, noticing that Shark had stepped slightly in front of me.
“You seem really familiar,” one of them said, completely ignoring my question. “Are you Rachel?”
“No, I’m fucking Queen Elizabeth. This is my associate, Winston Churchill. How can we help, Einstein?”
“We were told you had a smart mouth. I know a better use for that pretty little thing,” the taller of the two said, practically licking his lips at me.
“Hey now,” Shark said, pushing me further behind him. “Show some fucking respect. She—”
He didn’t get to say anymore. Everything happened so fucking quickly.
Before I could even process what they were planning, the taller of the two charged me, knocking me to the floor.
I struggled beneath him, twisting my head to see the other guy bring a baseball bat from behind his back and smack Shark around his head.
I screamed, watching Shark fall to the floor and the main raise the bat above his head, raining blow after blow down on my friend.
Blood spat from Shark’s mouth, landing on my face as the man pinning me down ground himself into me, whispering fucked up things down my ear.
I froze, a million memories coming to mind. Alex, Ben, Callum, hell, even Dante himself. And then I heard Shark make a pained noise, his breath rattling as his ribs shattered under the bat.
And that’s the moment I saw red.
With a feral scream, I brought my head forward, collided with the man’s nose, making his grip on me loosen. I didn’t hesitate for a second. I grabbed his head on both sides and stuck my thumb in his eyes, pushing down with every last bit of strength I had.
He howled in pain and tried to shake me off, but I dug my nails into the back of his head, refusing to let go.
I pushed my upper body up and pushed my thumbs into his eye sockets even harder.
Blood and gore seeped from underneath my fingernails, pushing around the pads of my fingers, but I still didn’t relent.
I kept on pushing, using the force of my push to move the man off me, allowing me to sit up further and further, until eventually I was above him.