Page 128 of Healed

Gabriella

The next few days slipped by uneventfully.

Vienna was occupied with club business for most of it, and so I didn’t see him much during the day. But every night he returned to me, sitting on the end of my bed and catching me up on what had happened.

As much as he would have liked the entire focus to be on Nico, there was still an empire to run. They had drug shipments coming in that needed cutting and distributing to their sellers. They had drama with other charters that needed Vienna and the peacekeeper, Riley, to handle. Then there were the legitimate businesses, such as the garage and the shops. As well as making sure the working girls were taken care of.

I flinched slightly when Vienna mentioned them, but he reassured me that these girls were willing sex workers, and rather than keeping them on the streets, the club had set them up with their own hotel and made sure it was kept safe and free from the police. They also had a strict policy that the girls could not be using anything, and that they were there because they wanted to be.

All things considered, it was a relatively “clean” operation, and after he took me to visit one day in an effort to reassure me, I was satisfied that the women seemed happy enough. I’d asked a few of them, and they were all aware they could leave at any time, and one even mentioned that someone had left a few months back, using a grant from Dante to help her start over. I wasn’t over the moon that this was a business under Vienna’s belt, but I was placated by the fact it was being handled respectfully.

He then also told me about some of the other businesses they had their fingers in. Laundrettes, gambling shops, restaurants etc.

It seemed over the years, the Devils had built up quite the portfolio, bringing in a steady stream of income, and somewhere to launder the money that came in through their… less than legitimate business ventures.

“Are you sure you’re a biker?” I’d teased Vienna one evening.

“The cut I wear would say so.”

“You’re giving mafia vibes to me. Have you ever thought of wearing a black three-piece suit? Ooh, maybe some suspenders and a hat. You’d look damn good in suspenders.”

“I heard nothing,” he replied, almost drooling.

“Was it the suspenders?” I teased.

“Gabby, please. I’m just a man.”

I’d laughed then and thrown a pillow at him.

When he finished telling me about his day, he always gave me a chaste kiss on the cheek and went to sleep in his own room. Sometimes he would knock on my walls in an attempt to do Morse code. I told him it sounded like someone playing the bongos. So now he just shouted through the wall. Which made Dante threaten to put his head through it. So Vienna, in typical Vienna fashion, put a hole through Dante’s bedroom door, covered it with a jacket and when Dante was sleeping, he stuck his head through it and screamed, “Here’s Johnny!”

Dante had almost shot him, which… wouldn’t have been ideal, but I laughed my ass off all the same.

I didn’t quite know where I stood with Vienna. He respectfully kept his distance from me, never once invading my space, and he stayed away from all the other women as well, especially the bunnies. There had been a few times when someone had slipped up and called me his old lady or his woman. Vienna didn’t correct them, and neither did I. But that wasn’t a conversation we’d had, and I wasn’t sure what our official status was.

And, to be honest, I was too embarrassed to ask him. Which sounds ridiculous, because this was Vienna, the man I had loved since we were eleven. And yet… it just felt awkward when we had so much history. It felt silly to be asking him to be my boyfriend like a teenager. But too much history to also assume that’s what he was.

As Friday rolled around, the men set out for their weekly bike ride. As with most clubs, these rides were not optional. If you didn’t ride, you didn’t stay. It was as simple as that.

Rachel was taking Bee to school and staying for her school play. The other old ladies were busy with their jobs. Which just left me, feeling out of sorts.

That was how I found myself wandering through the compound, heading towards the café that Heather had taken over as a mini-nursery within the library built in there.

I found Heather exactly where I had expected to.

The café had long since lost any resemblance to any café you’d find in the city centre. Toys had taken over one corner, tiny tables another, and books were scattered absolutely everywhere. There were paintings on the wall, a kitten running around—Steph’s handiwork most likely—and a stressed-looking barista trying to serve the customers.

One little boy was happily colouring in what I suspected was supposed to be a dinosaur, though it currently looked more like an unfortunate potato with legs. Another was running around, giggling as he dared to cross the colourful padded mats that signalled the play area, and then ran back into the “safe space” after two steps.

Heather, meanwhile, was balancing Trex on one hip whilst attempting to wipe chocolate from Axel’s face with the sleeve of her jumper.

“Do you need a hand with that?” I asked, grabbing hold of a couple of napkins from the counter and rushing over.

“Oh, you’re an angel,” she breathed, gratefully grabbing the napkins. “I was only supposed to have Axel and Trex today, but then Kourtney came along and the twins there,” she nodded at the boys I had first seen.

“Who do they belong to?” I asked, scooping Axel off the floor and out of her way so she could compose herself.

“No one here. Sometimes friends of the club drop their kids off if they know I’m not busy. They must have forgotten to ask today,” she muttered.