Chapter 16 Wes
SIXTEEN
WES
I held Callie in my arms as my phone buzzed in my pocket.
Somehow I knew it was Killian calling, regardless that we’d come home without a trace of another member trailing us.
Callie ordered me to explain what happened the second we climbed into the truck and began driving home. So, I did. Slowly, cautiously, and leaving out the part where I joined the club.
Now, we were in the cabin, and she was awake, lying against my chest as the small television on our dresser played some sitcom on Netflix. Neither of us were watching it. Tears kept hitting my bare stomach as she sniffed every so often, wiping at her eyes with the edge of the sheet.
“Did they get the guy who hit me?” she finally whispered after about an hour.
Not fucking yet, but I would.
“Don’t know…your dad is handling things,” I said instead.
She swiped her finger over one of my abs, and let out a tiny shudder. “Who got me out? I mean, if my dad is still dealing with it, and Kill, then who brought me out? How did you find me?”
Fuck.
Hitting pause on the television, I gently pushed the hair off her face and asked her to sit up.
“I need to tell you something. You can get mad…you can hate me.” My voice broke as I pushed a lock of hair off her face. “Just don’t fucking leave me.”
Her hazel gaze searched mine for meaning.
I pushed away the trepidation in my gut and let the confession fall from my lips.
“I got you out. It was me who went in and discovered where you were.”
Her brows caved as her head shook with confusion. “But how did you know where I’d be?”
I stroked her jaw as a pained rasp left my chest, “Hamish told me.”
She immediately retreated from the bed, and her face twisted with anger. “No, because the only way he would tell you is if you were one of them. That’s how it works in the club. You can’t know anything at all, even if a life depends on it, unless you’re patched in.”
She shook her head adamantly, almost as if she were convincing herself.
I slid slowly off the bed, tugging the cut out from under it.
Holding it out to her, I knew right then and there I’d never get the look on her face out of my head, not for as long as I lived.
Not the way tears coated her lashes as she gently took the leather from my hands, not the way her lip wobbled as she traced my name, nor the way she sobbed as her nail passed over the fox patch.
My throat grew tight as I worked up a response. “River, I’m so—”
“No!”
She stepped forward and hit my chest, tears streaming down her face.
“You promised me!” Her slaps turned into fists, pounding against my chest.
I walked forward, absorbing the hits, and wrapped my arms around her, sinking to the floor as she cried.
“They can’t have you. They can’t take you from me.”
I rocked her on the floor until she eventually passed out, and even then, I stayed there, terrified of what this would mean for us.
“You wanted to see me?” I asked, approaching Simon while he worked on his bike.
It was dusk and the summer bugs were singing, ushering in the night. Killian had offered to stay with Callie after Simon had sent him in search of me.
After the truth came out about me joining, she wouldn’t talk to me. That was two days ago. This was the first time Simon had asked for me since the event, and I wasn’t sure how he was going to respond to this news or if it would be any better than the way his daughter had.
Simon stopped what he was doing and stood, abandoning his bike.
He eyed the cut I wore over my dark T-shirt, narrowing his hazel eyes on the patch and the name he’d had sewn in for me. Then in the blink of an eye, he threw his wrench across the garage as hard as he could.
“So, it’s fucking true then?”
I backed up a step, only because I had never seen him this angry before.
Simon’s eyes blazed with anger as his jaw worked back and forth.
“You interfered.”
I grit my teeth, biting back the retort I wanted to make, and instead calmly said, “With all due respect, you were keeping me in the dark and expected me to wait here while you dealt with her being fucking kidnapped. She was taken, Simon. What would you have done?”
He grabbed me by the cut and threw me to the ground with more ease than I was prepared for. I knew he was pissed, so I allowed it.
“I would have fucking waited,” he yelled over me, spit flying from his mouth.
I slowly got to my feet, dusting myself off.
Simon’s lip curled as he stretched his fingers out.
“You think you love her in a way that would have challenged a father’s love for his own child? You think I wouldn’t burn the world down for her? She’s my blood.”
Stepping toe to toe with him, I roared back, “And she’s my entire fucking soul.
We’re bound, her and I. In this life, and even in the next.
She will haunt me for eternity, and when the devil tries to pry my soul from her grasp, he’ll realize there’s nothing to claim because it’s hers.
All I fucking am, and all I ever could be belongs to her.
There is nothing inside me that would have tolerated waiting.
You’ve never once asked if I loved your daughter, and I know it’s because you already know.
What you don’t know is that she’s my ending, Simon.
She was my first love, there when I just barely started in this world, and she’ll be the only thing on my mind when I leave it. ”
Simon’s eyes flicked my way once more before darting around the garage. He paced, while tossing more tools.
“She never wanted this for you. She’s going to hate me for it, Wes. She’ll blame me.”
“I won’t let her.” At least that was my intention.
I hadn’t thought through far enough whether this would come back on him.
“What do you want me to do? I can take it off, act like it never happened.” It wasn’t like the entire club had seen me.
Hamish and Giles would keep their mouths shut, Killian too.
“They all know, Wes. Because after we’d made a deal for her release, they went to find her and found Dirk’s woman instead.
She was arguing with him over the kidnapping when her kid spoke up and said it was you who took Callie.
Their entire club now knows you stole leverage from Dirk Lenair.
You have a target on your back, and because you’re with my daughter, she’s not safe either. ”
I scoffed, running my hand through my hair. “She was never safe, Simon. Fuck, she was just kidnapped for being your daughter.”
Hurt flashed through his eyes before he settled on the stool near his work bench.
“You need our protection. The best option is for you to keep the patch, wear the colors. Ride with us. Callie will eventually accept it, but you’ll have to give her time.”
I knew he was right, and once I explained all this to her, I hoped she’d understand that we were out of options. Curious about something he’d said, I asked.
“You said you made a deal…”
Simon’s face turned up, his hazel eyes shining with something I couldn’t place. He stared off somewhere behind me for a while before his gaze met mine again.
“Somethin’ like that. I made it before I knew Callie was gone.
He went to pull her upstairs, and he’d made it sound like by the time she came up she’d be dead or missing her fingers.
I couldn’t risk it, so I made the deal. Minutes later, his woman came up, then the kid opened his mouth, spewing shit about you.
By then it was too late and the deal had been made. I’ll find a way out of it.”
The weight of the words felt ambiguous, and the fact that he wasn’t elaborating made me nervous.
“You’ll report for church every Monday morning at ten.
You’ll fit within one of the companies owned by the club.
Lucky for you, that mechanic shop you’re working at does, but you’ll transition as the new owner on paper to take heat off the club.
We’ll begin using that as a place to move weapons.
We started trading with the Mayhem Riot from New York.
If this goes well, it could be lucrative for us. ”
Simon finished his sentence with a flick of the cigarette he’d burned through. My stomach flipped at all the information he’d just dumped on me. For one, I had no idea how in depth their illegal activities were, and the shock must have shown on my face.
“What’s wrong, little Wes? Didn’t realize we dabbled in the dark?”
I cleared my throat and shook my head.
“Just wasn’t sure it was—”
He cut me off with a slap to my back as he closed the space between us, “What did you think that one-percent patch meant on the left of your breast?”
Speechless, I just looked down at the white number sewn into my leather cut. I hadn’t ever considered it before, or what it would mean for me if I joined.
“Now you get to go explain to my daughter what her future looks like if she chooses to be with a Stone Rider. Good luck, son.”
I swallowed the thick lump in my throat, staring down at the new vest he’d placed in my hands.
It was leather, like mine in almost every way except the patches on the front. Instead of a member patch, it had Callie’s name with the initials of the club below it, and on the back, instead of the club colors, there were just three words stitched in white.
Property
of
Wes