17. Zane
17
ZANE
I ’m washed and dressed again by three on the dot. I take the weapon I brought with me and put it into my conceal carry holster. One gun isn’t much, though, and if Vani can hook me up with more from Phoenix and the others, I’ll be grateful.
I think about her and smile. We told each other some deep shit tonight, and I don’t regret a minute of it. She’s so damn tough. I knew, deep down, the moment I saw her arrive on that bike, that she’d be someone special. I had no idea just how special.
She had floored me then with her tough exterior, but, man, she had to have been resilient to grow up among these hardened men and not be either a shell of a person, or made into a hardened person herself.
Vani has true strength. She’s still kind, and loving, and soft, but also so very, very strong.
I splash on some aftershave. Dumb ass move, maybe, when we’re heading into a warzone, but I figure I’ll still be riding up close with Vani, and I want to smell good for her.
She came for me so beautifully when I fucked her in the ass. I own every bit of her now. Her mouth, her pussy, her ass … and best of all, her heart.
What’s even better is we were the ones to say it first. I know she loves the other two, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but her saying those words to me first will always be mine. No one can take that from me.
When we get Lex back, I want to talk to him and Saint about us all making a real commitment to Vani. Not fucking marriage and babies; she’s not that kind of girl. I don’t think she wants those things, or at least, not yet. What does she want? I wonder about her goals and dreams as I shove my feet into my boots and run my hand through my short hair.
Ready, I head to the door and slip out, taking care to be quiet.
We can’t wake up Vani’s dad or she says he’ll insist on coming and all hell will break loose. She has told me that Phoenix and the others will make sure security don’t alert her father to us leaving. I think of something and pause by the door. Taking my phone out, I type.
Won’t the sound of bikes wake your dad up?
There’s only the briefest of pauses before three dots appear, disappear, and then words pop up. She’s awake.
Bikes come and go all night and day. He won’t notice a few more.
There are more dots and then more words follow.
So long as the guards don’t wake my dad up, we’re good. Phoenix said he’ll sort that out.
I hope she’s right and they do. Something tells me if her dad is alerted to this scheme of hers, it won’t be Vani in the deep shit, but me. Her old man will definitely find a way to pin it on me. He might have grudgingly accepted his daughter telling him she was seeing me, but he doesn’t like me. It’s in the narrowing of his gaze when he looks at me. The twitch of that muscle in his cheek whenever Vani touched me last night. Yeah, he’d break my bones if he didn’t think it would lose him his daughter.
I slip through the compound to where we left Vani’s bike the previous night. It looks like I’m the last one to arrive. Vani is standing beside the bikes with Phoenix and Zoo. I experience a stab of jealousy and have to rein it in. I have nothing to be jealous of. She knew these guys growing up, and she loves us, the Vipers.
She’s ours.
Phoenix spots me and jerks his chin in my direction.
“Hey,” he says. “You know how to ride one of these things?”
I narrow my eyes slightly, hoping he’ll take that as ‘of course I do’ and then throw in a nod.
“Good.” He steps out of the way to reveal a Harley. “You can take this one. Club loan.”
I tap my fingers to my chin and gesture. Thank you.
As much as I’d wanted to be close to Vani, we might need to be maneuverable, and my added weight to Vani’s bike would slow her down. This way, I’m more able to react to any threats we face, too, and more able to protect Vani than if I’m on the same bike as her.
Phoenix tosses me the keys, and I snatch them out of midair.
“The guards already have the gates open for us,” Zoo says. “They know to keep quiet.”
“I really appreciate you guys doing this for us,” Vani says.
“It’s for all of us,” Zoo replies. “We need you to stay safe, but we need the same for your dad. Him rushing hotheaded into this situation won’t be good for anyone, but especially not the club.”
I get that. Jack-the-blood is the head of this club. What happens when you cut the head off something? It dies.
I can tell the guys care about Vani, too, though in a little sister way. They ruffle her hair and tease her about her choice of clothes, and she rolls her eyes at them, good-naturedly. I wonder how Saint and Lex will react to their presence. I’ll have to make sure Saint, in particular, doesn’t do anything to fuck this up. We’re doing this for his brother, after all, but Saint has a temper. I guess we all do, but he also has that sharp tongue, and he doesn’t control himself as well as Lex and I.
I climb on the loaned bike, and, around me, the others bring theirs to life. I exchange a smile with Vani, our eye contact alone speaking of the moment we’d shared only a few hours earlier. It’s as though we have this secret between us now, and my heart swells in my chest in a way I’d never thought possible.
Before I’d met her, I’d genuinely believed I was a shell of a man. A useless husk who didn’t even have the ability to speak. I’d done my best to stop feeling much of anything so I could block out the pain. It hadn’t worked. Vani came into our lives, and she brought me back to life. I wonder again about Lex and Saint. They’ll learn about the words Vani and I have exchanged at some point, too, and I’m intrigued as to how they’ll react.
The roar of the bikes is painfully loud. I start the engine of the borrowed Harley and cringe at the noise we’re making. Yes, they’re used to there being bikes around here, but the combined growl is like thunder.
We get moving, falling into line, one after the other. Only Vani and I know the way, so I take the lead, with Vani behind me, and Phoenix and Zoo bringing up the rear. As promised, the gates are already standing open, and the guards—who are dressed just like the rest of the bikers, in leather and denim—give us a two fingered salute as we ride through and onto the road.
We’ve got a long ride ahead of us. I’m still unsure what we’ll do when we reach Verona Falls. It’s not as though we can take Phoenix and Zoo inside the boundaries with us—Nataniele will throw a fit, or worse, he’ll call Vani’s dad. They’re going to have to wait while we collect Saint and then place the call to Jarl Olsen to tell him we kept our side of the bargain.