AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Dad will be okay. He’ll heal up and everything will be fine.” Lark isn’t going to stand for it any other way. “It does hurt, but he’s brave and there are good medicines to help make him better faster and help with the pain.” Lark’s dark eyes pierce through me. They’re half agony, half overwhelming love.
“What can I do?” Penny asks cautiously.
“Nothing, sweetheart. You’re already amazing. Unless you want to fist bump.”
“What’s that?” Penny makes the tiniest fist.
My heart arrests. I went years not knowing I was a father, but every single day I’m going to be the best of everything I can be now. Best man, best dad, best protector, best story reader, best whatever she needs, whenever she needs it.
“Like this.” Lark brings her knuckles to mine.
“Oh!” Penny smashes mine as hard as she can. She doesn’t even wince. “That’s way better than shaking hands!” Shelooks way up at me because even on my knees, I’m a giant compared to her. “I thought you went to be with Grandma when Mommy said you got taken away.”
Lark sucks in air so roughly that she hiccups and coughs. “No, sweetheart, remember, we talked about that? Dad isn’t going to be with your grandma for a long time. A very, very long time. No one is going to take him from us. We’re going to be a family and one day we’ll all live together. We’re moving back to Hart for good, and the club is our life now. We’ll pack up our things and we’ll get Oscar and we’ll be right back here.”
Lark and Penny aren’t leaving. I’ll send whoever it takes to get her things and her cat, but I will not let her out of my sight again. I’ll break that to her as gently as I can sometime soon. She might hiss and fight me over it, but that’s alright. We’ll work it out naked and hissing and spitting while I’m pulling her hair and rutting up into her like a feral beast is perfectly acceptable. She’ll let me take care of it in the end. Take care of her and Penny too. She’s capable. I don’t doubt that. Being in her life is an honor for me and she’ll learn that when I seem demanding and unyielding, it’s only because she’s absolutely it for me and I am so far fucking gone.
She might have been the most insane option, the worst, off limits, taboo, least likely choice, but she’s it forever. My best friend’s little sister ruined me for anyone else and she can go right on ruining me for the rest of our lives.
“You’re home here.”
“Yes.” Lark lifts Penny up. She clings to her mom and her mom throws an arm around my neck, breathing me in by my left ear, her lips pressing against the shell of it. “Yes, absolutely. You’re our home, Gray.”
Chapter 22
Tyrant
Henry is waiting just outside the door when Lark urges me into that meeting. She doesn’t want to take up more time than she should, but I want her to take it all. I want to give it all to her. She’s selfless though, putting the club first.
It takes all my strength to leave them, but the door is locked, and this is the safest place in Hart. It might have been a while since any of us were called to arms, but I don’t doubt the ferocity of my brothers for a second.
I head down the hall and make a left. I pass the row of my brother’s rooms. My own. Was it just a few weeks ago that Raiden was hauling me out of here before anyone could see their leader in that state? It’s worse now. I’m going to go into that room where we hold our sacred church and I’m going to bare my soul to them. I have done so much wrong. I want a chance not to make up for it, but to make them a world that doesn’t look like this one right now. I can’t fix this on my own. I need my club around me.
I nearly crash into Raiden as he rounds the corner from the back of the club. He’s got vengeance burning in his eyes and I know right now isn’t the time for us to hash it out over Lark.
“I’ve got everyone but Wizard, assembled. I was just coming to get you.” We’ve been inseparable for so long that he reads the doubt clean out of my heart. “It’s good to have youback. We’ve got you and we’ve got this town. Hart is ours and no one is going to come in here and take it. In war or peace, we’re brothers. We fight together and die together, we ride together and live together.” I don’t have my vest on, but Raiden splays a big hand over my back and traces out the form of our bowed angel. I’ll wear that just as proudly as I would my leather and all the patches on it. “No one is going to come in here and divide us. You have the full force of Satan’s Angels MC behind you, Prez.”
I love these men and this club so much that it’s hard to breathe.
Raiden’s not nearly finished. “They’re going to pay a thousand times over for what they did to you, especially Zale. There’s no way he’s going down catching a bullet. If he’s so fond of knife play, we’ll give him what he wants.”
Raiden opens the door, and fuck me, it’s good to be home. The only thing that has ever made me feel like I’m truly free, until Lark and Penny came back for good, was riding down an open ride, flying our colors.
I look over the assortment of men in the room. As motley, and for the most part, outlaw style ugly, as usual. We’re proud of our beards and our hair, our tattoos, our scars, and our flaws. The room is thick with smoke, whiskey, the smells of leather and men, and the low hum of conversation more than interspersed with inventive cursing.
There’s one huge table in here, an antique beast that has made its home in this warehouse longer than we’ve owned it. When the club took over, it was either chop the thing into firewood or let it live on. I like its scarred oak top, worn smooth in areas, gouged and chipped in others.
My brothers are gathered around it, officers in their heavy wood chairs, prospects and my other club brothers gathered around behind them.
Gunner is technically the VP and now that I’m back, Raiden should return to his regular position, but Gunner indicates that he’s more than happy to hand the room over to us with that cold, blue-eyed stare and a hard thump to the table that quiets the room instantly.
Raiden stalks to the front, crosses his arms, and brings church to an immediate start. “I’ll make this brief because most of it everyone here already knows. For those that might not, you’re hearing it all. That’s what we need to make an informed decision.”
He outlines all the information he knows on my father and this new threat. Most of it is undoubtedly for my benefit, because even though I spent days with them, it wasn’t in the most hospitable of circumstances, and they weren’t talkative bastards. It wasn’t like they were filling me in on plans and club structure between beating me half senseless.
“Normally it’s just officers in here, but tonight, we want everyone to have a say. We need to figure out where we go from here. Weigh what war would cost us and Hart. This is our town, our people. It’s not just our club that’s at risk. Not just our families either. Hart might be a small city, but there are so many civilians who could end up getting hurt, not to mention all the people here who make their living off bumping up against us. Anyone who wants to speak to that, can do so now.”
All eyes shift to me as I walk to my seat and lower myself down. I try to pretend I’m not hurting, but it’s starting to feel like I have the very sun itself sewn up inside my skin. Think gettingshot hurts? Try having some fairly essential organs get a daily kicking—not to mention the stuff the Berserker’s psychopaths did with their fucking box cutters and other implements of torture. The painkillers have finally worn off and I’m starting to really feel that missing finger as more than phantom pain, but I need to be clear-headed for what lies ahead.
