Chapter 36 #2
“Speaking of your dad, I have another assignment for you while you’re lounging in the pool.
This place needs to be fortified. We built the apartments here to keep you all together, but it made us a target.
I want you, your dad, and brothers to make this property a fortress.
A simple fence around the yard isn’t going to cut it anymore. ”
“We can do that,” I said. He was right, and we could get that designed, and eventually built. “So what’s the plan for The Collective?” I asked.
“We’re back to square one,” Flir said with a sigh. “We have to find whatever hole they scurried off to hide in.”
Everyone was nodding.
“I can help find them,” I offered.
“No. You focus on your old lady,” Ruck ordered.
“She is your old lady now…right?” Drifter asked, raising his brows.
“Still unofficial.”
“Maybe you should work on making it official,” Ruck suggested.
It was past time I told Devyn how I felt about her. What my plans for our future were. I needed to see if we were on the same page. If we weren’t, I needed to get us there. Dev was mine, and I was going to make sure she knew it.
* * *
“It goes in that house,” I said, pointing Merc and Hype in the right direction.
We were moving Dev and myself, my family, and Camila’s family into the houses today. Tomorrow would be Kilo and Camila with their baby Ravi, Devyn’s family, and Kilo’s mom. It was a lot to do, but we had everyone out here helping. It had only taken a couple days to get everything packed.
“You’re not seriously telling me that I have to move in with Mom and Dad?” Isaac said, setting a box down at my feet while scowling at me.
“It’s just temporary, Isaac,” I said in an annoyed tone.
“Then you live with our parents and I’ll take your house.”
“We have a new baby coming-”
“Exactly. Mom will be thrilled to help you with him. And I can bring women home.”
“Like you pull any women,” Relay said as he and Strike carried a dresser past.
“I get all kinds of pussy, you fucking piece of-” Isaac grunted and shut his mouth when Dad smacked him upside the head.
Dad glared at him. “There are women and kids around here. Seriously? I raised you better than that.”
Isaac sighed and looked around. “No one’s listening. Besides, those ‘kids’ are living in an MC clubhouse.” He pointed over where Ryan and Teddy were standing. “You think they haven’t heard worse.”
“Fucking zip it,” Dad told him. “Your mother is going to be pissed if she hears you talking like that. Which means we’ll both suffer. Which means you’ll suffer more because I’ll make sure of it.”
Isaac gave me a bland stare. “This is what I mean, Bro.”
“Yeah, sure,” Dad replied, his tone heavy with sarcasm, “you’re the one who’s going to suffer when you move in with us.” He picked up the box Isaac had set down and went inside the house with it.
Isaac shook his head, following after Dad.
“Where do you want these?” Flir asked, pointing over at the last items on the moving truck.
I looked around, trying to spot Devyn. She was inside with her mom, sisters, my mom, Rue, and Camila and Ravi. “Second door to the right upstairs,” I told him.
He motioned for Drifter and Code to give him a hand. I went over to one of the other moving trucks and began unloading. I gave them about fifteen minutes to clear out the last items from our truck, then went inside and found the women.
They were sitting around a kitchen table, chatting, while Camila’s Ravi slept in a Pack ‘n’ Play.
It was nice to see Devyn looking more relaxed.
She’d been a little jumpy the last few days, not that I could blame her.
A cop had tried to kill her. And now that we knew Bowers was connected to The Collective, we knew there were more threats out there.
She had every right to be worried. But we were doing our damndest to protect all of them.
“Dev.”
Everyone looked over at me and smiled. I was glad to see the welcoming looks from her mother and sisters, because Dev’s dad had looked at me like he wanted to bury me alive and hadn’t said a word to me yet.
They were all here to help, even though their things weren’t being moved until tomorrow.
Which meant I kept catching angry looks from Mike.
He blamed me for putting his daughters in danger the other night.
And really, he wasn’t wrong about that. It didn’t matter that none of us realized the threat that Bowers was.
Or that he’d go unhinged like he did. We weren’t going to let anyone else catch us by surprise again.
“Can I borrow you for a few minutes?” I asked. I took her by the hand when she came over to me. “I’ll bring her back soon.”
The women all nodded and laughed, then went right back to talking. They all seemed to be getting along great. That was a good thing since they were all about to be neighbors. Not to mention a connection to the club meant they were all about to become family.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” I told her as I led her over to our new, but temporary, house. We went up the stairs and I opened the door to the room we’d decided would be our nursery. “I’ll paint it any color you want.”
She stopped in the doorway, lifting her hand to smother a gasp. “W-where did you get those?” Tears were gathering in her eyes as she looked at the wooden crib, bassinet, dresser, and rocking chair sitting inside.
I planned to put the room together however she wanted it, but for now everything else was stacked along the walls. My gifts for her were sitting front and center though, just like I asked Flir to do. “I made them. For you and our son.”
She swallowed hard, but the tears were slipping down her cheeks now. “They’re beautiful!” She turned and gave me a hug. “Thank you so much.”
“Sorry I didn’t have them done in time for the party the other night. I still had to finish up the dresser and I didn’t want to give you an incomplete gift.” I squeezed her tight, then let her go so she could go sit in the rocking chair.
She ran her hands over the wood. I’d sanded everything down, then stained them to match. “They’re incredible, Bolo.” She smiled up at me. “I didn’t know you could make stuff like this.”
There wasn’t much I couldn’t make if you gave me enough time to figure out how it was supposed to go together.
I’d driven my mom insane when I was younger because I’d constantly been taking shit apart to see how it worked.
That was just the way my brain functioned.
The last straw had been when she’d walked in to find me dissecting the motor on her KitchenAid mixer.
She’d banned me from touching her things after that. I’d mostly respected that boundary, with only a couple slips here and there. Things like furniture? They were easy. Just wood, nails, screws, and glue. “There’s one more,” I said, then pointed over toward the wall.
Devyn sucked in a breath, stopping the motion of the rocking chair as she stared at the intricate wooden rocking horse I’d made. That one was specifically for our boy.
“Bolo.” She got up and went over to it, running her hand over the head. “This is…” She shook her head, at a loss for words.
“It’ll be his war horse when he gets a bit older,” I said with a smile.
“I’m surprised you didn’t make him a motorcycle,” she replied.
“When I build him a bike, it’s going to be the real thing,” I warned her. “It’ll be one we restore together. When he’s old enough.”
She stepped forward again to hug me, but someone clearing their throat caught our attention.
We turned and faced Mike together, a united front. “Dad,” she said, her voice a little chilly.
I was glad she wasn’t talking to me in that cold tone. I much preferred the soft one she’d just been using on me.
“Can I speak with you?” he asked, looking at me.
“Of course.”
“You can speak with us both,” Devyn said, giving me a nudge.
Mike narrowed his eyes, then nodded. “Fine, but I’m not changing what I have to say to him just because you’re here.”
“Fine,” she echoed, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Why don’t you sit?” I told her, leading her back over to the rocking chair.
“I’ve been thinking about everything my daughter’s told me,” Mike said once she was settled. “I don’t like it a damn bit that being involved with you could put her in jeopardy.”
“Dad-”
He shook his hand. “You don’t have to like what I have to say, Devyn, but I’m going to say it.”
“That’s understandable,” I told him, interrupting an argument between them. “I don’t like it either.”
“Then why don’t you leave?” He studied my features as he asked that.
“Leave? My club?” I asked. When he nodded, I raised my brows. “Could you leave your family? Your wife? Your daughters?”
“You’d be leaving for your family,” he countered.
“I’d be leaving for a portion of my family,” I corrected. “As much as I love my parents, if they asked me to leave Devyn, I wouldn’t. If Dev asked me to leave the club, I couldn’t.”
“I’ll never ask that,” Devyn said, voice filled with shock. “I understand the bond you have with them.”
Dad scowled at her. “They’re not his family.”
“But they are, Dad,” she insisted. “They’re as much his family as his parents and brothers. Asking him to leave that isn’t fair. I would walk away before asking that of him.”
“I don’t want that either,” I told her.
“I thought maybe you were asking too much,” Mike said, then he sighed. “Really, I’m just looking for a way for Devyn to be with you and be safe.”
“Being with me is being safe.” I shrugged.
“What happened at Sophie’s house… I can’t promise that something like that won’t ever happen again.
All I can do is promise that I’ll do my best to keep her and our children as safe as I can.
That I’ll lay down my life to make sure they keep living. It’s all I can give.”
“It’s enough,” Devyn said, rising and coming to stand by my side. “Can you accept that, Dad?”
He sucked in a heavy breath then released it. “Yeah. I’ll get there. It might take me some time. But my girls are right. You ran into a burning building and saved three people who are incredibly important to me. You didn’t have to do that.”
I scoffed at that. “Yeah. I did. I always will.”
Mike nodded. “And that’s why I’ll learn to live with this vigilante shit. I can tell you love my daughter.” He stepped forward and held out a hand. “But you have to promise me something.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want you to die for them. I want you to live. You make sure to kill any bastards that threaten them. Deal?”
“Deal.” We shook, then he left us standing there in our son’s nursery. I grinned down at Devyn. “I knew I’d win him over.”
She rolled her eyes. “You think it was your charming personality that did all that?” She shook her head. “Yeah, right.”