Chapter 22
The gate slammed shut behind them with a heavy clang that echoed across the compound, and for a moment the sound seemed to pull the rest of the yard into silence.
The Assholes members who had been scattered amongst the bikes, laughing and talking only seconds earlier, became considerably quieter when they got a proper look at Reeze and Charlie.
Rollo didn’t need to ask what had happened.
It was written in the blood running once again from the wound above Reeze’s eyebrow, in the swelling already beginning along Charlie’s cheek and in the anger still hanging over the yard like an electrical charge after Dennis and the others had disappeared.
“For fuck’s sake. Of all the fucking days.”
He dragged a hand through his hair and began pacing across the concrete while Billy and Jesse helped Reeze into the clubhouse.
Several of the Assholes had witnessed the entire attack, while others had made it outside in time to catch the end of it, and every last one of them looked as though they would have been delighted to catch the car before it made it away from the compound.
“Cops,” Rollo muttered with enough disgust to make the word sound like an insult. “And they did it right out in the fucking open.”
He stopped and stared towards the gate where the car had disappeared only minutes earlier, then pulled his phone from his pocket.
“Call the lawyer.”
Nobody needed to ask which one.
“Already on his way,” Billy said as he pushed Reeze down onto a chair.
“Good. I want every fucking detail written down before people start forgetting things. Assholes saw it, we saw it and everybody else standing in that yard saw it. They came here, onto our property, and attacked one of our officers and his woman in front of twenty fucking witnesses.”
The anger was still there in Rollo’s voice, but Charlie could hear something underneath it now.
Calculation.
Dennis had come there looking for a reaction. He had wanted Reeze, or one of the others, to behave exactly the way he expected a group of furious bikers to behave.
Rollo clearly had no intention of giving him the satisfaction.
When he stopped in front of Reeze, his voice was considerably calmer.
“They want us to react.”
Reeze rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“Good. Then we’re going to do exactly what they don’t expect.”
Silence settled around them.
Everyone in the room probably knew what it cost Rollo to say it, and everyone knew just as well that he was right.
Billy continued cleaning the blood from Reeze’s face while muttering about stubborn fucking idiots who apparently couldn’t keep themselves in one piece for more than a few hours at a time.
Jesse stood against the wall with his arms folded across his chest and had been unusually quiet ever since they came inside.
Eventually, he looked at Reeze.
“They hit her.”
Only three words, spoken almost calmly, but Charlie immediately saw what they did to Reeze.
His jaw tightened and one hand closed hard against his thigh.
The bruises, the injured shoulder and the stitches that had opened again clearly meant nothing compared with the memory of Dennis getting his hands on her before Reeze could stop him.
“And that,” Rollo said before Reeze had a chance to work himself back into a fury, “is exactly why we’re going to use our heads instead of our dicks.”
Billy snorted.
“You’re asking a lot from this lot.”
Rollo slowly turned his head towards him.
“Would you like to repeat that?”
“No, Pres.”
“Thought not.”
The interruption was at least enough to make several mouths twitch, and Billy went back to dealing with Reeze’s eyebrow while his patient protested loudly.
Charlie remained a few metres away, with blood staining her hands and Dennis’s words still echoing somewhere in the back of her mind.
Now that it was over, her body felt strangely heavy, as though the adrenaline had drained away all at once and left nothing behind but exhaustion.
She still couldn’t quite shake the feeling that someone might come charging out of the darkness again at any moment.
She didn’t notice Mia approaching until the woman was standing directly in front of her.
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
Charlie blinked.
“Mia—”
“No, I mean it. What were you thinking, going out there?”
For a moment Charlie thought she was angry, but then she noticed Mia’s hands and the hard tension around her mouth.
She was frightened.
The adrenaline hadn’t left her either.
“I needed some air. I needed to think.”
Mia dragged a hand through her hair and let out a sharp breath.
“I understand that. But the next time you need to think, you don’t wander outside when you’ve got a fucking lunatic cop after you.”
“I wasn’t alone. Reeze followed me.”
“Which proves that idiot possesses some kind of self-preservation instinct after all, even if apparently it only works when other people are involved.”
From the chair came an indistinct mutter.
Mia raised her voice.
“I heard that!”
“Good.”
Billy started laughing, and Mia rolled her eyes before turning back to Charlie.
“Come on.”
She led her a few steps away from the others and leaned against the wall.
“You found out something about Reeze you weren’t prepared for.”
Charlie looked down at her hands. “He killed someone.”
“I know.”
“And it wasn’t the first time.”
Mia didn’t answer immediately. She didn’t have to.
“I just don’t know how I’m supposed to…” Charlie stopped, searching for the right words. “How I’m supposed to reconcile that with him.”
“You won’t do it in one night.”
Charlie looked up.
Mia shrugged. “You’re actually seeing him now. Not just the man who picks up his daughter from school, works behind the bar, fucks you and gets pissed off when somebody hurts you. You’re beginning to see the rest of him too.”
“It scares me.”
“Good.”
Charlie stared at her. “Good?”
“Yeah. Because it should scare you a little.” Mia held her gaze. “You know what would scare me a hell of a lot more?”
Charlie shook her head.
“If you found out he’d killed people and just shrugged.”
Charlie fell silent. Around them, the clubhouse was slowly beginning to return to normal.
Someone walked past carrying a crate of beer, conversations had started up again in the yard, and from the chair came Billy’s irritated voice as Reeze once again tried to move his head while he was working on him.
“Sit fucking still.”
“Stop digging around in my head, then.”
“I’m not digging.”
“Feels like it.”
“Want to do it yourself?”
“No.”
“Then shut up.”
Mia sighed.
“Idiots.”
Despite everything, the corner of Charlie’s mouth twitched.
“Yeah.”
“When I first met Rollo, I thought he was the most dangerous man I’d ever met.”
Charlie looked at her. “What changed?”
“I got to know him.” Mia was quiet for a second before a crooked smile appeared. “Then I realised I’d been right.”
A laugh escaped Charlie before she could stop it.
“The point is, the men in here carry things most people never have to think about. Sometimes they do good things and sometimes they do bad things. Most of the time, they’re somewhere in one enormous fucking grey area.
” Mia folded her arms. “I’m not going to stand here and try to convince you that everything Reeze does is right, because it isn’t. ”
Maybe those were exactly the words Charlie had needed to hear.
“But he does it for the club.”
“Yeah. And the club is part of him. A very big part.” Mia followed Charlie’s gaze towards Reeze. “When he was younger, he tried to carry everything by himself and it went to hell. He’s got better at letting his brothers carry some of it with him.”
Charlie thought back to their conversation in the back room and how easily Reeze had answered when she asked whether he could have refused. Yes. But then he would have let the club down.
“So when he says he chooses the club…”
“It doesn’t automatically mean he’s choosing it instead of you,” Mia finished. “That’s the part you need to understand.”
Charlie closed her eyes for a moment. “I love him.”
The words escaped before she had even decided to say them.
Mia smiled. “Yeah. You do.”
Charlie opened her eyes again. “How the fuck does everybody else always know things before I do?”
“Because you’re slow?”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” Mia patted her arm. “And believe me, sweetheart, loving one of those idiots doesn’t make anything easier.”
“I’m beginning to notice.”
“Just wait.” This time Charlie genuinely laughed, despite the ache in her cheek and the blood drying on her hands.
A short while later, Rollo came back with his phone still in his hand, and Charlie only had to look at his face to know something had changed. The anger was still there, but it no longer controlled him. Now he looked more like a man who had decided exactly what he intended to do with it.
“The lawyer’s been briefed, and before this evening is over I want a statement from every single bastard who was standing out in that yard.”
Mia nodded. “Good.”
“Fucking right, good. They made a mistake.”
Charlie felt her stomach tighten. “What mistake?”
“They did it openly.” Rollo shoved the phone back into his pocket. “If Dennis had any fucking sense, he’d have stayed in the shadows with his messages, surveillance and all his other little games. Instead, he’s given us witnesses. A lot of witnesses.”
He nodded towards the window, where several members of Assholes were still visible in the yard.
“And not one motherfucker out there is going to forget what he saw.”
“What happens now?” Charlie asked.
“Now we do this properly. We document everything, gather everything that already exists and make damn sure that every time he crosses another line, there’s a record of it.”
After everything that had happened, it sounded almost too simple, and Rollo apparently saw that on her face.
“Dennis wants us pissed off.”
Mia snorted. “Little late for that.”
“You know what I mean.” The faintest smile appeared beneath Rollo’s beard before he turned back to Charlie. “What he wants is for Reeze to lose his fucking mind and do something Dennis can use against him. I’m not letting that happen.”
He paused, his expression becoming more serious. “But there’s something you need to understand. You’re with Reeze. They came here and attacked you on our property. That means this isn’t just yours and Reeze’s problem any more.”
Charlie looked at him. “What does that mean?”
“It means there’s a whole fucking club standing between you and Dennis now.” He said it as though it should have been obvious. “Get used to it.”
Then he moved on before Charlie could think of anything to say.
She remained beside Mia and watched him go as the clubhouse continued coming back to life around them.
Music, laughter, the rumble of engines and people moving between rooms as though the evening hadn’t just been torn apart and pieced back together again.
But something had changed. Not in the club.
It had been this way all along. Charlie was simply beginning to understand what she had stepped into.
And perhaps, finally, who Reeze really was.