Chapter 16
Maverick
“You’ve been quiet.”
I looked over at Shadow, and nodded. “Been busy.”
“Got anything to do with the woman you’ve been carting around, hiding away or the little boy you had Cherry watch over?”
Fuck I hated it when he crept around. He was called Shadow for a reason. King of infiltration and surveillance.
“Prez been keeping an eye on me, has he?” I asked, bitterness in my tone.
“Not the Prez, brother.”
Shadow was a man of few words, but the words he used were always enough to get his point across.
“What do you know about her?” I asked, needing to know if I was going to be hauled over the coals before I had a chance to tell Reaper about this.
“Everything,” Shadow said, his eyes on me. “I also know who she’s married to and what she’s running from. You need help, brother, you don’t need to involve the others. Me and Beast could take care of it.”
“I got it,” I told him. “That fucker is mine to take out.”
“Be smart about it,” Shadow warned.
I knew what the warning meant, but I ignored it. No one was going to take the kill away from me. He deserved it and so much more for what he did to Tavi and Van.
Mine to protect.
When Reaper told me to be at The Pit tonight for back up, I didn’t realise how boring it would be.
His kid, Trey, had wised up. He was sober, for the first time in a long time, and was now running the fucking Pit.
I never thought I’d see the day, but fuck me, that boy got brains.
I had to give it to him. The Pit was thriving since he took over for it.
At all times, The Pit was run by two partners. One on the Shackled Sons side, and one from the Ironborne Crew side. It was one of the only mutual businesses we still had with them.
The fighters tonight were earning the club their money from the shouts and brawls I’d seen take place, but Trey always had it handled within minutes. Were we even fucking needed here? I could be at home with Tavi and Van, watching Cars and eating popcorn.
Fuck me when Tavi had tempted me with that before I got the call, I’d been all in. Snuggling with my woman, and Van settled in to sleep sounded fucking bliss.
What the fuck was happening to me?
“Brother.” Shadow was off his stool, his eyes on something toward the back of the dome building we were in. I found what he was looking at, and before I knew it, I was taking off toward them. Shadow was behind me, as always, a silent assassin that he was.
Fury burnt through me like a razor. I crossed the distance between where I’d been and where the disagreement was taking place, hauling the scruff of one fucker’s shirt back and tossing him away like the trash he was.
Her eyes opened wide, unshed tears on the verge of spilling over, but then came the relief. Her body shook with fear as two men circled me.
“Are you fucking serious?” I said to them. “You want to fucking take me on? I could snap your necks like twigs in five seconds. You want to live? Get the fuck out.”
The two fuckers grabbed their friend and left through the door, cursing the Sons’ name. I didn’t give a fuck. My eyes were on the woman in front of me.
“Lani.”
“Hey, Dad. Fancy seeing you here.”
“You got five fucking seconds to explain yourself.”
“Well, there’s this guy–”
“Wrong fucking thing to say,” Shadow muttered behind me. I felt nothing but pure rage, thinking about what I had witnessed before I got here.
“Lani…come with me.”
I grabbed her elbow and wheeled her toward the exit, which was also the entrance, with Shadow at my back. Once we were out in the cool night air, I thought the fuzziness that had taken over my brain would ease but instead, I felt angrier.
“Why?” I asked her. “Why would you come here? Where are your friends?”
Lani shook, her tears falling freely down her cheeks. “They went off with their boyfriends.”
“What?!”
She looked away, and I saw how watery her eyes really were.
“...fucking scrag! Wants to fuck Sons’ cock…probably has some kind of disease.”
I swung my head to the side to see the fuckers from before sneering at her, and me.
I saw red. Not even Shadow could hold me back as I grabbed the neck of one of the skinny fucks and slammed his head against his mate’s, watching them go down.
The third fucker was trying to run away, before I grabbed him by the back of the neck and threw him against the wall of the building.
A sickening crunch followed by bursts of blood erupted over his face, before he fell back.
I helped him back up and punched into his ribs, ensuring I got him evenly on both sides.
“You go back to your fucking friends, and you tell them that Lani Grayson is off limits.”
They all scurried off like little rats, and I took notice of Trey who stood at the door motioning for the cameras to be turned back to where I stood. He’d cut them off when I was taking care of the fuckers.
Smart kid.
He headed back inside just as I turned to see Lani behind, shielded by Shadow so she couldn’t see, but I knew she could. I had blood all over my kutte and hands, probably my face too.
She was sobbing, and reached out for me. I didn’t want to get her dirty, but I couldn’t resist the urge to hold her, protect her, make sure the bad didn’t get to her.
Shadow held his hand out. “Give me your kutte, brother, I’ll get Cherry to clean it up. You probably need to take her home and I know you got problems with your ex’s husband.”
Fuck, he was right. I shrugged out of my kutte and handed it to him, feeling naked without it, before I wheeled Lani around toward my bike.
“You ever ridden a bike, Lani?” I asked her.
She was shaking, so I grabbed the jacket from my saddle bag that I had grown accustomed to carrying around since Tavi had a tendency not to bring one with her on our rides.
She shook her head. I placed an old jacket of mine around her, and helped her with my spare helmet before I helped her onto the back of the bike and jumped on myself.
Showing her the passenger foot pedal to put her feet on, I showed her to hold on and where to sit before I started up my Harley, one thing on my mind.
Getting her home safe.
“Can I go to your place?” she asked me, before I moved.
“My place?”
“Yes…I don’t want to deal with Parker and his lectures. He’ll also blame you and I don’t want Bane to hear that. I’m sick of the way he talks about you…he doesn’t know you. Please.”
“Won’t they be worried?” I asked her. I liked the fact she wanted to stay with me, even if I was angry at her being here, putting herself in danger.
“They think I’m at one of my friends’ houses for a sleepover,” she said, sheepishly. “Please, Dad.”
How the fuck could I say no to that?
“Yeah, okay, but we tell your mum in the morning, yeah?” I said. “I’m not going to lie to her, Lani.”
Lani nodded quickly. “I promise.”
Taking off, out of the carpark, I headed toward my place with Tavi. I already thought of it as our place. Fuck me, I was so fucked for that woman and Van.
Once I parked the bike under the carport, I helped Lani off and took her helmet from her, leaving it on my saddle bag. Bundling her under my arm, I walked with her up to the front steps of the house. Tavi was at the door, her expression turning from a smile to worry as she saw Lani.
“What happened?”
Lani started to sob again, and Tavi pulled her into her arms, comforting her in the way only women could. I closed the door behind me and watched as Tavi soothed my daughter.
Fuck, I was in love with her.
She accepted me, with all my flaws, my kids, my ex-wife, everything. She never complained. She just took me as Dane Hart.
That was fucking powerful.
“Go down the hall, baby girl, and get cleaned up. I’ll come up in a minute and check on you, okay?” Tavi said to her. Lani nodded, and headed down the hall toward the bathroom. Tavi turned to me, taking me in.
“You, come with me.”
I followed blindly, as I always would for her. She took me to the sink in the kitchen and grabbed some dishwashing liquid, squirting it over my knuckles and hands, and began to scrub. I could feel the cuts over my knuckles stinging as the liquid seeped into the wounds, but I didn’t care.
“This isn’t upsetting you?” I asked her. She took in my appearance and shook her head.
“You were taking care of your family, Dane. I would never be upset about that. I love you more for it. If you come home to me, bloody, I will always look after you, keep you clean, wash the blood off you, and make sure you know how much I appreciate you for being you.”
I pulled her to me, soap suds going over us as I kissed her hard, showing her just how much I fucking loved her. She pulled away to finish cleaning my hands, and my face. I hadn’t even realised I had blood on my face until then.
“Go and talk to her, Dane. Be gentle. It’s not her fault. She’s sixteen.”
I nodded, knowing she was right. I kissed her quick on the lips, and headed down the hall. Lani was standing in the doorway of Van’s room when I got to her, a soft smile on her lips.
“He’s so cute,” she said, softly. “He sleeps with a bike.”
I looked in at the little Harley toy I got for him a few days ago, after I had effectively moved in. He’d taken to it like a duck to water, and it had filled me with so much fucking pride.
“I know,” I said. “Come on, let’s go down here and talk.”
She nodded, and closed his door a little, before she followed me to the bedroom. Lani took a seat on the edge of the bed and looked down at her hands.
“Go on, tell me what a disappointment it was to see me there…I can handle it.”
“What?” I shot back. “I’m not fucking disappointed, Lani. I’m scared. Worried. Angry. Where were your friends?”
Lani’s eyes shot up, a furrow in her brow, confused. “Really?”
“Lani…where were your friends?”
She sighed. “I went with them, but they have boyfriends and I only really like this one guy. I thought he’d be there but he wasn’t, and then they said that they had a guy who really liked me, thought I was hot, so they introduced me to him.
I lost track of time, and before I knew it, I couldn’t see my friends anymore. ”
“They left you alone?” I almost roared, but I put my anger aside for a minute before I scared her. “They aren’t friends, Lani. That’s seriously fucked up.”
She nodded, fresh tears appearing. “I know. I’m really mad at them.”
“You’re safe, that’s all that matters,” I said, pulling her into my arms again. “Don’t go to The Pit again, okay? Just study and graduate from school.”
“Okay.”
“Why would you think I was disappointed?”
She sighed. “Because Parker says it to me when I do something stupid. He doesn’t yell, he just says he’s disappointed in my choices. Then he grounds me.”
“Parker has raised you kids for years. Maybe he doesn’t know how to show that he’s worried about you.”
Lani shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe. I don’t know, he’s not around as much anymore, and when he is, I know Mum doesn’t like it. She doesn’t say anything but I think…I don’t think they’re in love anymore.”
That was news to me.
“I’ll talk to your mum tomorrow,” I told her. “I promise. It’ll be okay. Parker doesn’t need to know shit. This is between me and your mum.”
Lani smiled through her watery eyes. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Stay here tonight,” I told her. “Me and Tavi will crash on the couch.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Yeah, baby girl, you can. Get some sleep, yeah?”
She ran to hug me again, and I held her tighter than I probably needed to, but I needed it, before she went back to the bed and laid down on it. I closed the door to the bedroom and headed down the hall to where I saw Tavi waiting for me at the kitchen table, two mugs of coffee in front of her.
Tavi
After hearing what went down at The Pit, I felt for Maverick. He was struggling with this whole fatherhood thing. He may have been a father all these years, but he’d never had to be a Dad.
“I just don’t understand why she would hang out with bitches like that?”
“We don’t always know our friends aren’t truly our friends,” I told him. “Trust me. I had a friend when I was younger and you know what they did? They ran and told my daddy everything so they could get paid, or worse, so they could bounce on his dick for a few minutes.”
“That’s–”
“Repulsive? Yeah, welcome to my world, Dane.”
“Fuck me…I just…I’m fucking all this up. I wasn’t there. I stayed away thinking I was doing the right thing but I fucked it up.”
“No, you weren’t there, and that’s something you’ll have to live with for a long time, maybe for a lifetime,” she said, as she put her hand on mine and squeezed.
“But you know what, Dane, you’re here now.
There’s no such thing as too late, you’re here, and she knows that.
She asked to come here, because she feels safe here, with you.
That’s something. So don’t regret the past, make amends now, and give her a future with a Dad she’s always wanted to know. ”
“Fuck you’re too good to be true.”
I placed a kiss on his lips before I took our empty mugs to the sink and held my hand out for him. Leading him toward the couch, he got comfy while I flicked a movie on and cuddled up into his side.
“She said something interesting about Parker and Mari, too.”
“Oh?” I replied, but I already knew what he was going to say. I’d seen the way Mari was with Parker, the tiredness on her face when she was going to have to answer his call. I knew when a woman was done.
I’d been there.
“I think something might be up. Can you find out for me?”
“Of course, but wouldn’t you rather they work it out themselves?” I asked him.
“Mari did a lot for me, Tavi. She deserves to be happy too.”
I loved him so fucking much. “You got it, babe. Now give me cuddles. I missed you tonight.”
He did just that, curling his arm around my waist and holding me tight.
He felt like home.
Because he was.
Safe. Secure.
All mine.