4. Tyke
4
TYKE
"He's to be kept alive, Min," I grumble to my Enforcer. "I want to talk to the asshole myself and hear his fuckin' excuses for this shit."
“Sure thing, boss.” The sounds of men mobilizing filter through from the background of the call. Engines roar, words are hollered, and doors slam. "You want me to keep Maddie company 'til you get there?"
“Get her home,” I instruct. “I don’t want her to be where she doesn’t feel safe for a minute longer than she has to.” Fuck. I want nothing more than to hold my little girl in my fucking arms like I did when she was a kid. Rock her side-to-side, feet swinging off the ground, and hear her nervous giggle. But I'm no fool. We get her back from this and she'll be one of many things: scared, mad, tired, upset. She won't be fucking happy to see me. That's for sure.
“Sweetie’s prepping her room, and Jamie said she’ll stay with her tonight if she needs it.”
I glance at Rae, the woman my daughter should want to be with in her time of need and flinch. I’m responsible for their divide, for that loss of trust. "She'll have Rae, too, if she needs anyone."
"Of course." The wind cutting across the mouthpiece distorts his voice. "I'll send you live updates."
“Wouldn’t expect anything less.” I draw a deep breath and bite down on my fucking lip before confessing, “Thanks for being there when I couldn’t, brother.”
He’s silent a beat before uttering a quick, “Ain’t nothin’, boss,” and hanging up.
I pocket the phone and swallow hard. My fucking girl. To my fucking brother.
It's usually easy to switch off from my enemies' humanity when they cross the line. I don't know the people personally. They have no ties to me, no meaning.
But how am I supposed to string my fucking brother up and gut him? My fucking brother. Jesus.
Family. It’s the fucking foundational principle of our club, and yet the people I don’t share blood with are better defined by the word than the asshole who came out of the same fucking sperm donor as me.
"You good?" Digger approaches from the cabin's direction.
I glance around and find Connor vaulting the fence line a hundred yards down from the gate and Rae seated on the steps of the ramshackle building. "Be good soon, brother." I drag a hand over my face and sigh. "How did I let this happen?"
"You let shit all happen," he growls. "You there when he snatched her? You standin' by and watchin' while he did it? No. So stop blaming yourself.”
“Natural to,” I bitch back.
I’m her goddamn father, for fuck’s sake. It’s my goddamn life’s purpose to keep her safe.
Connor's truck rumbles to life, lights speckled behind the trees soon after. I track his taillights down the fence line and past our bikes, his engine roaring as he opens it up on the wider access road.
"She did good, don't you think?" I nod toward Rae. We're close enough to read the stiffness in her shoulders but far enough away to be out of earshot.
“Yeah. She did.” He chuckles. “Fuck me—when she held that knife to his hand…”
He doesn’t need to say it. I get it. My goddamn dick twitches at the thought too.
She was full of vengeance and fire, and I don't know if that was for her, for Maddie, or us. Maybe all of it? Whatever the mix, the goddamn result was pure art.
“Minion’s keepin’ me updated,” I fill in. “Said we’d meet them back at the clubhouse.”
“Confident they’ll get her back without issue?”
I nod sharply. “Fox may be cunning”—a man who lived up to his name— “but he’s not smart. He’ll think he’s got time. Time and the upper hand. He won’t have anythin’ more than a handful of people there with him.”
“Unless Terry’s bank-rollin’ it.”
I shake my head. “If he wanted to do that, he’d have just taken her himself.”
“True.”
We both turn our heads and watch the woman fidget with the grass between her feet. She doesn't look our way, seemingly unconcerned with what we do or who's around. Rae's somewhere far, far away in her head—somewhere I'd rather she wasn't.
“Come on.” I nod her way as I start to walk. “We got work to do here before we head back.”
Digger follows quietly behind as I approach Rae, my boots swishing through the lush grassy clearing. She glances up as we approach, her face unreadable in the dim light.
"What you thinkin'?" I look down at her and banish the brief but crystal-clear vision of her on her knees for other reasons.
“Are we going to get her now?” She stands, brushing her hands off against her ass. “Is Maddie okay?”
“Brothers are ridin’ out to get her as we speak.”
“They’ll give us updates as they get them,” Digger adds.
“We’re not going too?” Her brow pulls.
“They’re closer.” I swallow the thickness in my throat, fist my hand with the re-kindled frustration at the predicament. “We’ll meet them at home.”
“What do you think he’s been doing to her?” Her hands find her upper arms, stroking up and down.
“Fuckin’ hope for his sake nothin’.” Knowing we’re blood gives me some confidence, but there’s always that kernel of fear that maybe this is one of those times I’m proved wrong. Fox wasn’t ever the friendliest uncle to Maddie, but I always saw that as a product of his childless life. He didn’t know how to parent a kid. But maybe that was me seeing the best out of the situation.
"Don't panic yourself thinkin' of things that ain't necessarily true," Digger offers. He steps forward and stops her traveling hands, sliding his wide palms up to cradle her neck. "We have confidence in our brothers to bring her home safe, so that means you can, too."
She nods, audibly swallowing. “Okay.”
“You did good, baby,” he assures her. “You knew how to get Connor to panic, and that’s what we needed. His fear made him talk.”
“His ego made him talk,” she corrects. “He’s not afraid of pain or losing a finger. He’s afraid of losing what makes him special in his father’s eyes.”
I frown. Digger must too, given the way he drops his hands to let her explain.
"Connor struggled at school," she says. “He's not book-smart, so he needs to be street-smart. Terry's only use for him is the way he wields those knives. Connor will never take over the business, and he knows that. He'll only ever be his father's right-hand man, his guy who does the dirty work."
It's fucking sad. "He has that little faith in him?"
"Connor didn't say much about his family." She shrugs. "Just that his mother had passed and that his dad is a workaholic. Listed all the ways Terry makes him mad. I didn't figure the rest out until right near the end."
Until she saw it firsthand, more like.
“He kept you a secret from him,” I say.
“Yeah.” Her chin drops, and it’s there unspoken.
We’re doing the same.
Minion's raised eyebrow as I walked past earlier tonight with her hand in mine comes to mind. That reaction is precisely what I knew would happen, what she’s afraid of. And I fed into it by saying we needed to be on the down low until we figured out our trio's dynamic.
"I'm takin' it to the council," I state, drawing Digger's attention. "Once I know my girl's safe and settled, I'm puttin' whatever this is—" I gesture between the three of us "—to vote. I want to have the club's blessing before we make this public."
“And what is this, exactly?” Digger asks carefully, tilting his head.
Rae’s arms cross over herself again.
I meet her eye, bathe in the obligation that swells in my heart to care for and protect her, and then find my brother's curious, patient gaze. I've always felt the same way toward him, yet in a platonic manner. As his big brother, all I've ever hoped to do is protect him. His health and his happiness.
When I put the two of them together, the goals align so perfectly. She is what makes him happy, and yet I also make her happy.
Whether we like it or not, we’re linked in this weird little triangle for the foreseeable future.
“I don’t know what the fuck you want to call it,” I say. “But the simple truth is Rae’s yours, and Rae’s mine. But more importantly,” I say, meeting her eye once more. “We’re both yours.”
"You honestly believe we can have an open relationship?" she asks.
I laugh. “Oh, baby, no. It ain’t open. You bring another man to this bed, and I swear I’ll cut his fuckin’ dick off before I use mine in a way you ain’t ever forgettin’ who you belong to. But yeah, the three of us are in this thing. And I’m good with that.”
Hearing the words from my mouth cement the decision even harder. Yeah. I am okay with this.
And seeing how my brother raises his brows with a slow nod, he is, too.
She’s ours, and we’re hers.
That’s all there is to it.