Chapter 6
SIX
Dakota
Halsey’s song, “Bells in Santa Fe” was playing quietly from my phone on the nightstand as I wrote out a few new recipes I wanted to try in the food journal I always had with me.
A person never knew when inspiration might strike, and I always wanted to be prepared.
The atmosphere around me was calm for the first time in days, and I was just starting to relax when someone suddenly started pounding on the door to my room so hard I jumped, accidentally dragging the pen across the page and creating a crooked black squiggle.
“What the hell?” I muttered as I snapped the notebook closed and tossed it aside before climbing off the bed.
“Dakota!” My hand froze on its way to the knob at that loud, furious, familiar voice booming from the other side of the door.
My heart started thundering in my chest in time with Roe’s fist beating against the wood so violently the thing rattled on its hinges. “Dakota! Open this goddamn door or I’m gonna kick the fucking thing down.”
A heat I hadn’t felt in a really long time—one I thought had been snuffed out permanently—started to burn in my belly, beginning as a low simmer and growing into a rolling boil between one heartbeat and the next.
I leaned into that fire, letting it take over and wrap around me like armor. Twisting the knob, I yanked the door open and glared fire at all six feet, three inches of pissed-off biker. “What the ever-loving fuck?”
Roe’s nostrils flared like an angry bull as he lifted his hand and placed it in the center of my chest, pushing me backward as he barged into my room like he had every right. “Excuse you! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He slammed the door closed with the sole of his boot and kept advancing, forcing me to retreat until I backed right into the wall and had nowhere else to go.
His lips curled away from his teeth, his back molars grinding together as he growled like a wild animal. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
That burn in my gut went from a boil to a blazing inferno. “You need to step back.”
“Not until I know you’re listening.”
Red coated my vision as I placed my hands on his chest and shoved with all my might.
He was so much bigger that I knew the only reason he moved was because he chose to.
Taking a massive step back, he huffed out an audible breath like he was trying to calm himself down.
His biceps flexed as he raised his arms and interlaced his fingers behind his head, straining the seams of his old, faded T-shirt sleeves to the max.
It was what he used to do when he felt the anger coming on in a big way and was trying to keep it in check.
He used to say he got his anger from his old man.
It was something that had weighed heavily on him, like he was worried he’d turn out to be just like his father if he wasn’t careful.
It had been one of his greatest fears back when I knew him, and from the way he was pacing around my room like a caged tiger it still was.
The thing was, that was never something he needed to be concerned about. Even at his worst, I never feared him. Not even close. He never gave me a reason. He was the one person on the planet I knew to my very marrow I was safe with. That feeling hadn’t changed, even all these years later.
Looking at him, it hit me that I had never seen him look so angry before.
Oh, I’d seen him pissed-off plenty of times.
Usually because of me. I had a way of running off my mouth that often led to trouble.
A lot of the time my attitude turned him on, and what came after had been pretty damn spectacular.
Other times he just got mad. The night I ended us, he’d looked desolate, but this was something else. Something I’d never seen before.
He looked like the top of his head was about to pop right off.
And still, as furious as he was, I wasn’t scared.
I’d known fear in my life. I’d lived it day after day with my mom and my ex.
I used to spend most of my days walking on eggshells.
Even when Adam wasn’t home, I was stressing about every move I made.
What I wore, how clean the house was, or if I made the right meal for dinner.
Every decision I made was with thought to how he might react and how I could best avoid his wrath.
Not that it mattered. Nothing I did was ever good enough. It had been the same with my mother.
But I never worried about any of that with Roe.
Even as that vein in his forehead throbbed in time with his racing pulse.
That vein had always been an indicator of how badly I pissed him off.
The more pronounced it bulged beneath his skin, the angrier he was.
I used to challenge myself to see how far I could make it pop out, and judging from the way it was throbbing that very moment, I was pretty sure that whatever I’d done this time was a personal best.
“What are you even talking about?”
He stopped pacing and narrowed his eyes at me, their dark blue swirling with thunder clouds. It was a look that would shrivel the balls of men twice my size, but all it did was toss gasoline on that fire inside me. He finally answered, each word coming out in a clipped growl. “Tolliver. Brady.”
Uh-oh.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that word of my showdown with Chief Fuckface had gotten back to Roe. That was how small towns worked. Especially this one. And especially with the history between the Iron Wraiths and the Brady family. That rift was town lore.
As much as I loved to paint my father’s club as the bad guys, there was no denying all the good they had done for this town.
With the Brady corruption running so deep, corrupting almost every branch of law enforcement and government in our small town, the people in Ashland didn’t know where the hell to go when they needed help.
The Wraiths gave them another option. It wasn’t justice by the legal system’s definition but it was something.
And sometimes the kind of justice the Wraiths provided was necessary.
Sometimes it was better.
The smile that curled the corner of Roe’s lips was downright vicious.
“Yeah, I see you’re finally catchin’ up.
” His sharp curse echoed around the room, ricochetting off the walls.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” he barked.
“You don’t fuck with a Brady, Kota. Or have you forgotten that in the time you were gone?
” I didn’t care for the snide way he delivered that last sentence, but he kept going before I could get a word in.
“You need to stay the hell away from him before you get yourself hurt. Or worse.”
The red haze covering my vision started to pulse in time with my heartbeat.
Folding my arms over my chest, I cocked my hip and lifted my chin, embracing the stubborn side of me that, until very recently, had been shackled.
“You have no right telling me what to do,” I snapped, my voice growing louder with every word until I was yelling.
“Whatever did or didn’t happen isn’t any of your business. ”
I knew the instant that last word passed my lips that it was the wrong thing to say.
The thunderstorm in his eyes became a living, breathing thing filling the room and making the air thick with so many emotions I couldn’t bring myself to identify.
The electricity in the air made the tiny hairs on my arms stand on end.
“That’s where you’re wrong.” He slinked closer, closing the distance between us like a panther that spotted its prey.
“Everything about you is my business. Every. Fucking. Thing.” He kept coming at me as each word out of his mouth landed like a blow to the stomach, stealing my breath.
“It’s been my business since the first time I kissed you.
Since the moment you chose me to be your first and let me inside your body.
Everything about you is my business because you are my business. Always have been and always will be.”
Any hope I had of maintaining control flew out the window. If we had been in a cartoon my face would have been tomato-red and steam would be shooting out of my ears. “You unbelievable prick!” I shouted back at him. “You lost the right to have any say in my life sixteen years ago.”
He met every scalding ember and licking flame of my rage with his own. I felt like a cornered rabbit as he leaned closer, bracing his hands on the wall on either side of my head, caging me in. “Just because you decided to leave doesn’t mean I stopped caring about you or your wellbeing.”
My jaw dropped open in shock at his audacity. “Are you kidding me?” My voice came out in a hiss.
“Oh, I’m dead-fucking-serious.” Roe leaned in and his scent wrapped around me, invading my senses.
He smelled like the wind whipping through pine branches on a sunny day.
Like the spicy warmth that brought to mind images of sitting by a fire as the snow fell outside.
“And if I have to spank your ass raw to make you listen, that’s exactly what I’ll do.
If you won’t protect yourself I will, goddamn it. ”
I don’t know what happened after that. Something in me snapped and I just . . . reacted.
I screamed out my fury in two words. “Fuck you!” I didn’t know what the hell came over me when I placed both hands against his chest and shoved with every bit of strength I had in me.
He rocked back two steps, his eyes widening in surprise at my aggression.
And he wasn’t the only one. Given my life so far, it was easy to understand why I abhorred violence.
At that very moment, though, it was as if I was floating outside of my body, watching like a distant observer.
I didn’t feel like myself. I didn’t have any control over my actions as I continued shouting and shoving at the man who had once been my whole world.
I kept shoving, moving us across the room, praying the action would burn away the anger that was consuming me. But it didn’t work.
That rage was eating at me. Eating and eating so fast I was terrified there would be nothing left. Tears burned behind my eyes as a torrent of emotions rushed over me like a tidal wave, threatening to drag me below the surface.
Desperation gripped me in its icy claws, so overwhelming I would have done anything to make all these feelings just stop.
At least that was what I told myself when I shot up on the balls of my feet and slammed my lips against Roe’s, pouring every single ounce of anger and frustration and pain into the kiss.