Page 18 of Burning Ember

With a dower expression, he says, “Mav, need a word.”

I rarely find time these days to catch up on work. In fact, I’m a week late on this current project. And today is the first day since Cap was shot that I’m not letting club business take precedence. I can’t keep letting the continual shit-storm, which seems to be circling the club, distract me, and put my own responsibilities off any longer. I hate disappointing clients, breaking my word, and missing deadlines.

It makes me look like a lazy, no good biker, and I hate that stigma.

So today, I’m not a HOC. I’m simply Maverick Gunn with my own shit to take care of before I go back to running the club in Cap’s absence.

I’m pissed off further because it’s Dozer interrupting me. Dozer, as Cap’s son and the club V.P. before he stepped down, should be the one dealing with the club shit right now. Not me.

I never aspired to be club president. Nah. I’m happy being a patch member and the Sergeant-at-Arms, or I was until everything went to hell. I’m the right hand man, the one who gets his hands dirty, not the leader who makes others do it for him.

Edge’s release can’t come soon enough. Then we’ll take a vote and put in a new president. Which should fall to Edge. However, some members want Griz to take up the gavel. Though Griz, himself, isn’t one of them. But only Cap and I know why.

I’m still uneasy about Edge’s return. I can’t sleep for shit lately. I don’t know how he can forgive me so easily for what happened. Since my actions, my decisions stole five years of his life. He swears we’re good though. Every time I’ve visited him in the pen, he’s told me I need to let that shit go. Move on.

But I can’t.

I can’t move on until I’ve made amends. Might take five fucking more years or my whole goddamn life, but I’ll do it somehow.

I hope that Dozer’s here because he’s had a change of heart. And he’s ready to man up, put his pride aside, and help me take care of business.

Without lifting my head from the sketch, I tell him to come in.

He enters and out of the corner of my eye, I see the color of crimson beside him. That color makes my blood run cold. My chest instantly aches. The color of something . . . someone . . . I never want to lay eyes on again. Lower, I see a pair of feminine legs and confirm it’s her.

The woman I hate with every beat of my blackened and damaged heart.

White-hot rage fills me, rushes through my body like water down a river filling every part of me. A barrel of emotions I’ve long kept at bay threatens to break the dam I’ve forged to hold them back. For the last five years, the ever-present ache in my chest, which has been plaguing me on and off, is now throbbing and screaming for attention.

I envision exploding out of my seat and lunging toward her, choking the life out of her with my bare hands. Or using the knife on my belt to mar up her alabaster skin.

I reach for my cigarette knowing it will help calm me the fuck down.

How dare she fucking come here. How dare she show her face and breathe the same air I breathe. After what she stole from me. From Edge.

Just thinking about it causes more murderous thoughts to run wild through my mind. Does she not realize I’ve fantasized about delivering her death a thousand times? That I’ve strangled her and buried her in my dreams? Thrown dirt over her cold, dead body? For the last five years, every waking moment of my life has been poisoned by this bitch. Now she’s here. Why? To stomp on what little is left of my heart? To snuff out what’s left of my soul? To send Edge back to prison the second he gets out?

Slowly, while trying to contain the rage I feel, I sit up, turn, and face her. Only my eyes find slightly tanned and freckled skin, not white alabaster. My gaze lands on eyes the color of the sea, teal, not the deep brown I anticipated. A pretty face sans make-up.

The ache in my chest cools for an instant.

Who the fuck is this?

Confusion floods through me, and I take in the girl standing beside Dozer. She’s not Dana, but there are similarities. The hair for one. The state of desperation another.

The blistering hatred for Dana is all I feel though, and I can’t help but cringe at the sight of this girl. A reminder of all that I’ve lost. Of who I was, and what I am now. All because of one fucking redheaded girl.

I can’t help but see every woman with hair like fire as poison ivy in disguise. A disease. A fire starter. A plague ruining all it touches. Not something I want within ten feet of me.

As my eyes travel down her body, I take in her cheap and ragged clothing. She’s short, and thin, but tan for a ginger. I can’t deny she’s attractive. She’s everything I’ve always been attracted to, long red hair, toned petite body, beautiful innocent face, and a nice handful of curves.

Only now, some of those attributes I despise.

The girl is young, maybe late teens or early twenties. The way she’s dressed . . . reminds me of . . .

I can’t even think about it too long, or what’s left of me may shatter into a million fucking pieces.

The girl looks like she’s been living on the streets. Malnourished. Dirty. Desperate. Red eyes and sunken cheeks.A junky?