15. Zee
“Someone tells me we’re losing you to Canada.” An arm hooks around my neck. “Is that true, Ms. Suzy?”
“Don’t call me that, Link.” I groan.
“Ignore him,” Lily, his Old Lady, says with a tut. “He’s been pouting ever since I told him in Canada, they think they live above a crack den.”
“I thought it was a joke.”
I cough. “I mean… ha, ha, ha?”
Lily pats Link’s cheek. “To be fair, you help create the crack den vibe down here, baby.”
“Sugar tits, you wound me.” He slams a hand to his heart. “I’m a man trying to make an honest buck?—”
“Since when is anything we do honest?” Nyx rumbles.
Once upon a time, when I first met Nyx, the now-VP, and Link, the Road Captain of the Satan’s Sinners’ MC, I’d almost crapped my pants, but I’ve gotten used to how terrifying they both are.
Rachel calls it ‘immersive therapy.’
I call it ‘adapt or die.’
“Hi, Nyx!” I chirp. “Everything okay with Giulia and the baby?”
“She’s due any day and she’s making my life hell.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “And Samael thinks it’s funny to piss in the garden since this asshole—” He slaps the back of Link’s head. “—got drunk after a game and used Giulia’s rose bushes as a toilet.”
I cough. “I’m sure it’s a phase.”
He points a finger at Link. “It had better be.”
Link tries and fails to hide his grin. “What’s in Canada that you can’t get here, Suzy?”
“I hate it when you call me that. My name’s ZEE, Link. And there’s my ranch.”
“A ranch?” Link frowns. “Rachel never mentioned a ranch.”
“My family’s owned one for years.”
Lily blinks. “You’re a farmer?”
“No. I’m a rancher.” I crinkle my nose. “Not that I’ve ever ranched, but I’m the daughter of one. On my mom’s side. It’s time to go home, I guess. The non-crack den awaits.”
Link snickers. “You’re lucky you’re not a guy. That’s all I’m saying.”
I wink. “I’d best go in and see Rachel. I have some stuff to finalize before I leave.”
“You’re still working for her?” Nyx questions.
“Yep. Just changing my location.”
As we make our farewells, the three of them take off out of Rachel’s front yard and cross the patch of land that leads to the Sinners’ clubhouse.
Yes, I work for Rachel Laker. But she works for an MC and a myriad other consortiums with dubious legal ties.
And no, my grand-mère will never, ever, ever learn that because I already get grief about being lower on the career ladder than a murderer. If she knew I work for actual murderers then?—
“She’s here!” Parker yells from the staircase, rushing down the final steps so fast I thought she was falling, but she lands like a pro gymnast and immediately tugs me into a hug. “I expect daily messages?—”
“I’m going home, not to the other side of the world, Parker.”
“My baby’s growing up.”
“I didn’t even know you were here,” I mumble, squeezing her tightly because I thought she was still in Ohio.
From her position by a coat rack where she’s shoving her daughter into a raincoat, Rachel snorts. “Leave her alone, Parker. She has more sense than you anyway. She’ll be fine.”
Parker pouts. “And she calls herself my friend.”
“It’s because I love you that I can give you crap.” Rachel, ignoring Sommer’s wriggling, arches a brow at me. “It’ll be strange you not popping by for visits.”
“I know.”
“You sure there’s nothing I can do? Want me to reach out to some attorneys in Canada?”
“It’s fine. Honestly.”
Rachel shakes her head. “I didn’t think arranged marriages happened outside of the mob and for religious purposes.”
“Business. That’s all it is.”
Parker and Rachel share a look.
“If he hurts you,” Rachel growls, “then you tell me and I’ll send Rex to deal with it.”
“Who’s taking my name in vain, little swimmer?” Rex, the President of the MC, demands as he swoops in to grab Sommer and tosses her up and down, making her chortle in delight.
“I’m telling Zee that if she finds herself in a sticky situation, you’ll sort out her new husband for her.”
Rex settles his attention on me. “Without a shadow of a doubt. I know you wanted to keep the reason for your departure a secret from the rest of the MC, but you’re one of us—” Grand-mère would love to hear that. “—and we protect our own. You get me?”
My lips twitch into a smile. “I get you, Rex. Thank you.”
“She didn’t want a farewell party. That’s why she didn’t want anyone to know,” Parker inserts.
“I’m not leaving. Not really.”
“I think you need to look up the definition of that verb,” Rachel derides, her tone as cool as ever.
I spent the first two years of my position with her thinking she detested me.
Now, I can’t decide if she likes me.
I do know that she didn’t want to lose me. Enough that she’s given me a stipend to set up a proper home office at the ranch and she doesn’t have a problem with me telecommuting.
I guess that means I do something right.
Rex kisses Rachel on the cheek. “I’ll see you later.”
“You’ll be okay taking her to the pool?”
“I think I can handle it,” he drawls before he whispers something in her ear that has her blushing.
“Would you like some coffee?” Parker asks, rolling her eyes at their antics.
“I have some work stuff to finalize with Rachel.”
“Boring.” Parker boos. “You’d better come and see me in my office before you leave. No sneaking out like a big, sneaky sneak.”
Rex chuckles. “Original, Parker.”
“You don’t appreciate that I refuse to swear around your offspring, Rex.”
“Come on through, Zee,” Rachel directs as the other two start bickering.
I almost appreciate Rachel’s MO—the second I’m through the door to her office, it’s all work and there’s comfort in that.
I didn’t want to make a fuss about leaving and I sure as hell didn’t want to attend what the Sinners consider a party. Farewell or otherwise.
The calm of Rachel’s office is found in the highly stressful work we both undertake on her clients’ behalves.
Three hours later, we’ve finished and have discussed how things will be once I’m in Canada.
“I appreciate you being so flexible, Rachel. I didn’t want to stop working for you.”
“And I didn’t want to lose you. You’re a damn good paralegal.
“I know your grandmother gives you a hard time about your chosen career, but you can tell her from me that it’d be a shame for you to quit.” She pulls open a drawer in her desk. “Here’s a ‘goodbye’ gift from me.”
My mouth rounds when the case reveals a Mont Blanc fountain pen. “Rachel!”
“You’re right about it not being a true farewell, but I have no idea when I’m going to see you again—” Her words cut off with a sniffle.
A sniffle.
Rachel is crying?
I sit there in perplexed silence as my boss cries (while pretending she isn’t) and continues, “You deserve this, and I hope you know how much I appreciate you.”
I clear my throat. “Rachel?”
“Yes, Zee?”
“Would you be okay with a hug?”
She sniffles again, and my day gets weirder when she nods, rounds the desk, and opens up her arms to me.
As I hug my boss a non-farewell farewell, as lovely as it is, it acts like another death knell on my stateside era.
The US might be a crack den in the eyes of Canada, but I’ve loved my time here.
It gave me shelter when I needed it. Provided me with anonymity when I craved it.
And offered me a future when I was stuck in the past.
Whatever my grandmother says, these bikers might be murderers, but they’re also good people.
I’ll go to my grave believing that.