4. Cross
CROSS
Lola comes out of my room behind me, and I don't look at her until we reach the end of the hallway. If I do, I'm going to think about what just happened in that bed instead of why Judge sounded like he wanted us downstairs immediately.
She catches up beside me. "You could be wrong."
"About Cyrus?"
"Yes."
"I'm not."
"You're irritatingly confident for a man who turned up here asking for a conversation with Kingdom Come and had absolutely no plan beyond that."
"Worked out all right so far." Her look tells me she has several opinions about that, but we reach the common room before she can share them.
Kane is standing near the bar with Judge. The clubhouse isn't empty, but the rest of the brothers have been pushed far enough away to give them privacy. Judge looks at Lola, then at me.
"Cyrus called."
I feel Lola go still beside me.
Kane holds up his phone. "He's calling back in two minutes."
"You tell him she's here?" I ask.
"Didn't have to. He already knows."
Lola says nothing.
Kane's eyes stay on me. "He wants to talk terms. You need to hear them."
"Put him on speaker."
Lola folds her arms. "I'm staying."
I turn toward her. "Maybe you shouldn't."
Her expression could strip paint and I know immediately that was the wrong thing to say.
Kane saves me from making it worse. "Her father. Her call."
I don't like it, but I nod and the phone rings before anyone says anything else.
Kane answers and puts it on speaker. "Cyrus."
"You ready to stop wasting my time?" My jaw tightens at the sound of his voice.
Kane doesn't react. "Depends what you're selling."
"I'm not selling anything. You have something that belongs to Perdition."
His eyes find mine. "Cross walked through my gates without Perdition colors," Kane says. "Far as I'm concerned, that means he decided who he belongs to."
"That's not how this works."
"Apparently it is."
Cyrus laughs, but there's nothing amused in it. "You think stripping patches makes him clean? He broke faith with his club."
I look at the bare front of my cut. "You patched Chains."
There's a pause. Then Cyrus says, "Cross."
"Still here."
"You want to explain yourself?"
"Already did. Left the explanation on the bench with the rest of the patches."
Beside me, Judge almost smiles.
"You rode under my colors for ten years," Cyrus adds.
"And I returned them."
"You don't return Perdition colors. It doesn't work like that."
"Looks like I just did." The silence on the phone stretches.
I've known Cyrus long enough to hear what it costs him not to lose his temper. He isn't calling because he wants an explanation. He wants submission, preferably with Kane listening while he gets it.
"Here's what happens," he says. "Kane sends you out of those gates by midnight. You come back with us, and Kingdom Come stays out of Perdition business."
Kane's expression doesn't change. "No."
"You might want to think before you answer."
"Already did."
"Then hear the rest. Midnight comes and Cross is still behind your gates, I bring Perdition to them. After that, what happens is on you."
Lola is staring at the phone as Cyrus keeps talking. About me, about Kane and about Kingdom Come. Not once does he say his daughter's name. My attention shifts fully to her. Her arms are still folded, but the fingers of one hand are digging into the sleeve of her shirt.
Kane notices too. "Anything else?" he asks.
"You've got until midnight." The call ends.
For a few seconds, nobody speaks until Lola looks at Kane. "He knew I was here?"
"Yes."
"And that was all he said?" I hate the question because I know what she's really asking.
Kane doesn't pretend otherwise. "That was all."
Something leaves her face. Not anger. She knows anger too well to lose it that easily, but something underneath.
She gives a short nod. "Okay."
"Lola—"
"I'm fine."
Nobody in the room believes her, and she turns and walks back toward the hallway. I start after her, but Kane says my name.
"Cross." I stop.
"I can leave," I say.
Kane looks at me. "No."
"You don't owe me a war."
"This isn't about owing you anything."
"He wants me."
"He wants me to hand you over because he said so."
"Difference doesn't matter much when Perdition's shooting at your gates."
"It matters to me."
I look toward the hallway where Lola disappeared. "If I ride out before midnight, he loses the excuse."
Kane shakes his head. "No, he learns threats work."
"He might take it and go home."
"You actually believe that?"
No. That's the problem. I don't.
Kane leans one hip against the table. "Cyrus has been looking for a reason to prove I'm weak since I took the gavel. Yesterday wasn't enough. Chains wasn't enough. If I hand you over tonight, tomorrow it'll be something else."
"I'm not Kingdom Come though."
"Didn't say you were." That lands harder than if he had.
Kane continues, "But you came to my gate without enemy colors, kept your hands where my men could see them and told me the truth. I'm not sending you out to be murdered because Cyrus throws a tantrum."
"Your men might disagree."
"Then they can tell me. This isn't Perdition."
I glance toward Judge and he shrugs. "He's right."
Kane pushes away from the table. "I'm not promising you a patch, Cross. I'm not promising you anything beyond tonight. But while you're under my roof, Cyrus doesn't decide what happens to you."
There isn't much to say to that. "Midnight?" I ask.
Kane nods. "We prepare for him to mean it."
I find Lola in her room and the door is open. She's sitting on the edge of the bed with both feet planted on the floor, staring at nothing. I knock against the frame anyway.
"If you're about to tell me he's an asshole, save it."
"I wasn't."
"If you're going to tell me you were right about him, definitely save it."
"Wasn't doing that either."
She finally looks up. "Then what do you want?"
I step inside but leave the door open behind me. "To make sure you're okay."
She laughs once. "I'm fucking fantastic."
I lean against the wall and for once, I don't argue.
Lola looks down at her hands. "He knew I came here."
"Yeah."
"He knew I left Perdition in the middle of the night and drove into enemy territory."
"Yeah."
"And nothing."
I don't answer. She looks at me sharply. "Say it."
"What?"
"Whatever you're thinking."
"I'm thinking you're his daughter."
"That's not exactly breaking news."
"And I'm thinking I don't know what the fuck is wrong with him."
That catches her. She expected me to use this and maybe I would've once, but not tonight.
Her eyes turn bright, which makes her angrier. "I've spent my whole life defending him."
"I know."
"To you. To everybody. Even when I knew some of it was..." She stops and wipes angrily beneath one eye before anything can fall. "I always thought there was a line."
I stay where I am.
"What line?"
"Me."
The word is quiet and that's worse than if she shouted it.
"I thought whatever else he was, whatever else Perdition was, I was different to him."
"You should've been."
Her mouth twists. "But I'm not, am I?"
"I'm not answering that for him."
"Why not? You've had an opinion on everything else for ten fucking years."
"Because I'm not telling you your father never loved you just because he's acting like a bastard tonight."
She looks away. I cross the room then, slowly enough that she has time to tell me not to. She doesn't, and I sit beside her, and for a while that's all I do.
Eventually Lola says, "You know what's really pathetic? Part of me still wants him to call back."
"That's not pathetic."
"I'd probably even let him explain."
"Probably."
She turns toward me. "You're being unusually agreeable."
"Don't get used to it."
That earns the smallest breath of laughter, and her shoulder brushes mine. "Did you mean what you said last night?"
"You're going to have to narrow that down."
"About wanting me."
My body remembers exactly what happened less than an hour ago. "Pretty sure I proved that one."
"Not the sex."
I look at her.
She swallows. "Before."
"I was gone on you long before I had any business being gone on you."
Her eyes hold mine.
"I told you. I kept away because you were Cyrus's daughter, not because I thought I was too good for you. And definitely not because I didn't want you."
I glance at her. "You standing with me now is everything I used to think couldn't happen."
Something in her expression softens. I keep going before I can talk myself out of it. "But I don't want you losing your whole life because of me."
Her face closes again. "You still think this is because of you."
"I think I'm part of it."
"You were the first thing I stopped lying to myself about."
That hits somewhere I don't have a name for, and Lola stands. I expect her to start pacing or tell me to get out. Instead she walks to the window and stares across the compound.
"My father made a big mistake."
"Only one?"
She looks over her shoulder at me, and for the first time since the phone call, she looks almost like herself. "He thinks I know nothing."
I straighten. "About what?"
"Perdition."
"Lola—"
"No. Listen. My whole life, men have talked around me because I'm Cyrus's daughter. They shut up when an outsider walks in. They shut up when somebody's old lady walks past. They don't shut up for me because I've always been there."
I understand where she's going before she finishes. "You know things."
She turns fully toward me now, grief still sitting in her face but something harder pushing through it.
"I know who hates who. Who owes my father. Who thinks Raze should've had more say years ago. Who drinks too much and starts talking. Who Cyrus trusts because he's scared of losing him and who he trusts because he's too stupid to see the difference."
My pulse picks up. "Lola."
"He thinks because I don't wear a patch, I don't know his club. Unfortunately for him, I know every fucking thing."
I stand, and for the first time since I walked into the room, she looks certain and determined.
"I need to speak to Kane."
"What are you going to tell him?"
Lola reaches for the door. "Exactly where all the bodies are buried."
I raise an eyebrow. She gives me a look. "Figuratively, Cross. At least, mostly."
She walks out ahead of me, and I follow her toward Kane, knowing something has changed that Cyrus can't take back. He called Kingdom Come to demand the man who left him, and he never once asked for his daughter. Now she's about to tell his enemy exactly where Perdition breaks.