Page 17

Blade

Surprisingly enough, Bella didn’t give me any shit about my mom making us dinner and wanting to talk to her.

And that’s not all. We made love like we haven’t yet.

With gentle kisses and tender caresses, taking our time in everything.

She fell asleep in my arms, spent and sated.

I followed and slept better than I had since I was a child, felt even safer than I had then.

But there’s no pushing the world away anymore.

Rogue wanted me at the clubhouse last night.

I convinced him this morning was fine. And as much as I want to make that stretch into another week of making up for lost time with Bella, I can’t.

Besides, the sooner everything the club’s facing is dealt with, the sooner we’ll be together all the time.

I took my time leaving her though, careful not to wake her, but mostly just wanting to watch her sleep.

I took my time with the note too, came up with a great quote about love, one I’d completely forgotten until this morning as she lay sleeping and I was getting dressed in the early rays of the sun.

One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is Love.

Socrates said that. And I’ve known the reverse of that…

absence of love brings all the weight and pain in life.

But what he said is more true. I added all that to the note, then felt a little like a fool as I jogged down the stairs to the driveway, but there’s nothing I don’t want to share with Bella.

And that includes sounding like an idiot when I try to be philosophical.

My mind was still full of Bella as I entered the room where the rest of the execs—and Zane for some reason—were already getting started on Council.

“Good of you to join us, Blade,” Rogue says edgily. He wasn’t happy that I refused to come in last night, but I regret nothing.

“So what’s on the agenda today?” I ask, taking my usual seat at the table with my back to the window.

“The better question would be, what isn’t?” Rogue says. “Or at least, the answer would be shorter in that case.”

“Let’s get started with the most pressing shit then,” I say. “Don’t wanna be here all day.”

Zane grins at me. “That’s right. You got better things to do now.”

I just grunt and nod in response. I don’t know if the guy is trying to be friendly or wanting to mess with me.

Neither will end well. It’s no secret that I don’t want him here.

He’s the real danger to this MC. In more ways that one.

I wish Rogue could see that as clearly as he seems to see Bella as a danger.

But there’s no logic in any of that. It’s just emotion.

He loves Zane like a brother, and he believes Bella is partly responsible for Angel dying.

I’d hope he’d mellowed out now that he’s finally in love again, but so far, no such luck.

“All right, let’s start with the most pressing shit,” Rogue says.

“And shit it is. The Hydra assholes that we put in their place seems to think we’re in an all-out war with them now.

Never mind the fact that the feds busted a bunch of them and the state police even more.

Just last night, Minx and Rock were attacked to send another message. ”

I sit up straighter, glaring at him. “You didn’t tell me that. Are they all right? Where are they?”

“Would you have come in if I had told you?” Rogue asks.

I wish the answer was a clear yes. But I pause, and he grins darkly, thinking his thoughts. They’re probably the same as mine. Two weeks ago, I would’ve been the first one in after a thing like that. Now I’m the last. Bella’s fault. I hate him thinking that.

“They’re fine, just scrapes and bruises. Rock has a mild concussion,” Rogue says. “At least those cowards didn’t go after the club girls this time.”

“And what was the message?” I ask.

“They want us to pay for what we stole, else they’ll start leaving bodies next,” Rogue says.

The quiet that settles over the room is as cold as snow.

“Pay for the sex slaves we freed, they mean?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“Well, we’re not doing that,” I say, as if it needed saying.

“Obviously not,” Creed says. He’s our money guy so he always speaks where money’s concerned, but what he said didn’t need saying either.

“I say we hit them again,” I say. “Finish what we started last time.”

Rogue shakes his head. “We need a more permanent solution. We almost lost you the last time and I’m not ready to take another risk like that. I’ve got Skye finding out everything about them and then we’re handing it all over to the cops, let them take care of it.”

I lean back, resting my head on interlaced fingers. “You mean we’re going back to the way we used to do things?”

“And it’s about fucking time,” Alice says. “I’m not OK with almost losing anyone.”

She’s the sarge, so it’s her job to say things like that.

But the way her eyes are so sharp yet so soft at the edges tells me she’s speaking from the heart.

Before we made our pact with the Devils, we’d rarely get into all out fights with the people we were hunting down. Since, it’s all we seem to be doing.

“I would love nothing more than to keep everyone safe,” I say and lean forward again. “But is there still a way back for us. After Ghost and the Devils? After taking him in?”

I point to Zane, but don’t look at him. I can feel his eyes boring into me though, none too friendlily, I’m sure.

“We’ll give the cops all we have and hope they take it,” Rogue says.

“But an operation like Hydra… there’s bound to be higher ups involved who’ll just crush any sort of investigation… “

“And we’ll worry about that when we get to it,” Rogue says with finality.

I nod and lean back again. “OK, so what else?”

“There’s trouble brewing up North with the Devils, like I already told you. Cross wants us to be ready to ride if he needs us.”

More silence falls like freezing snow.

“Will we ever be free of our debt to them?” Creed asks. This isn’t a debt counted in money, strictly speaking, but he is the guy who handles our debts so it’s fitting.

“After this, we’ll be square,” Rogue says. “Cross gave me his word.”

Except the this he’s talking about is an all-out war. And people get killed in wars. No one says anything this time. I’m sure we’re all thinking that same thing though. There’s enough cold silence in this room now to give me chills. And not the good kind.

“All right, so we get to work on Hydra,” I say and brace against the chair arms. “I want to see Minx and Rock now.”

“There’s one more thing,” Rogue says and it’s his tone alone that makes me sit back down without hesitation.

“We gotta find out if Moretti is still after Bella like I think he is,” Rogue says. “Can I give you that job?”

He’s looking at me, his fiery green eyes boring holes straight through mine.

“Yeah,” I say and hate how weak it sounds.

“You and Zane,” he says. “It’ll be good for you two to work together. You need to find common ground and I trust you to get it done in a way that won’t add more shit to the pile we’re already facing.”

I want to complain. I want to tell him no way, give me someone else to work with , but he’s trusting me with a thing a lesser man wouldn’t have. And he’s trusting me to do it well.

I hope I don’t let him down. Because I have hated Dante Moretti since the day I found out Bella was promised to him and that hatred has not died down since.

“Just watch him, see what you see,” Rogue says. “No grand gestures for now.”

I have no idea what he means by that, but I nod anyway, signaling I get it.

“So what else?” I ask.

“I think that’s enough for one day,” Rogue says. “Like you, I also don’t want to spend the whole day in here.”

I get the distinct feeling that he’s holding something back, that he knows something that I should know too. But I don’t call him out on it and the moment passes.

They all file out, leaving just me and Zane in the room.

“So how you wanna handle it?” he asks.

“Meet me out front in fifteen,” I say and get up. “We’ll figure it out then.”

Then I leave without waiting for a reply. He’s gonna hate me giving him orders, I already sense that. But there’s a lot more where that came from. I gotta know if there’s still any of that good Irish boy that we used to know left in him. And above all, I gotta know if we can depend on him.

But first, I have to see Minx and Rock, find out what went wrong with the security measures we implemented to keep all the members safe.

Because that’s always been my priority, keeping every one of my brothers and sisters safe.

Right down to taking the bullets that would’ve killed Rock and very nearly killed me.

But I want to be done taking bullets now that I have a chance of the future of my dreams back.