Page 171 of Caution to the Wind

Ransom elbowed the gangster at his back in the belly and wrenched out of his hold, turning to fight him at close quarters.

Kasper started running, pulling me behind him. We were almost at the car I could see through the trees when I heard the gun go off behind us. I swallowed another sob and prayed it wasn’t Ransom who’d been shot.

It occurred to me as we reached the car and another gangster started the engine as Kasper shoved me into the trunk, that I probably wouldn’t live to find out either way.

The trunk slammed shut and darkness descended.

I closed my eyes as the tears came and terror claimed every nerve in my body, but even then, in the dark driving toward my death, I couldn’t be sorry I was the one paying for our revenge instead of Axe-Man or Cleo or the rest of the club I’d unwittingly started to think of as my home, too.

AXE-MAN

“Looks good, man,”I told Nova as I studied my new ink in the mirror at the clubhouse before gettin’ dressed for the weddin’. “Thanks for takin’ the time this mornin’.”

Nova clapped me on the back, his smile wide in the reflection behind mine. “Anytime, brother, you know that. Especially when the piece has got a message as good as this.”

The left side of my mouth curled up as I traced the design inked into my left pec; five stylized slash marks with dragon’s talons peekin’ through at the ragged ends, like I’d been cut open by one.

And I had.

I’d already told Mei she had her teeth and claws in me, and I wanted to tell her the rest of it. That I was so in love with her, I felt mad with it. That I wanted her to stay here in Entrance with me forever. That I wanted to tie us together with more than just ink and paint and words. I wanted ceremony and legal papers with our names on them. I wanted decades of adventures as the Off-White Knight and his Rocky.

I was almost forty-one years old, and I’d only just found the love of my life after years of strife and loneliness. I wanted to start our life together right this fuckin’ minute.

But I’d never been much good with words, and I couldn’t seem to find the right ones to explain to her the magnitude of how I felt.

So I’d reverted to action. Somethin’ I knew would mean the fuckin’ world to her as she meant the world to me, ’cause she’d told me so at seventeen.

I got her tattooed into my skin forever, right over the heart she owned in my chest.

“Good to see you happy, man,” Nova muttered, pullin’ me around into a back-slappin’ hug, careful not to press into the fresh ink. “Didn’t realize ’til Mei came to town that I only ever really saw you smile around Cleo.”

I grunted my acknowledgment ’cause hearin’ those words from a man who was a brother and a best friend to me, as well as a trusted business partner, was every-fuckin’-thing.

“You guys about ready to head over?” Lion asked, comin’ into the main room of the clubhouse decked out in an emerald-green suit with a white rose in the lapel.

“Eager?” Nova teased.

Lion leveled him a solemn look. “Damn eager. Can’t wait to make Harleigh Rose Danner my wife.”

Zeus scowled as he joined our group. “Still think she should keep her maiden name. This is the twenty-first fuckin’ century.”

King knocked into his dad with a laugh. “Sure, old man. You couldn’t even wait for Lou to graduate high school before you made her Mrs. Garro, so shut up about it.”

“I think we oughta propose a toast to the groom,” Bat announced as he brought over a bottle of Patrón tequila, Dane and Wrath followin’ with two trays of shot glasses. “The man who gave up his sterlin’ reputation with the law to come over to the dark side with his lady love and her Fallen family.”

Lion laughed good-naturedly as Bat filled the shot glasses, and Dane and Wrath handed them out.

“It wasn’t just for my Rebel Rose,” he admitted, hoistin’ the glass into the air to address the club as we gathered around him. “Found a home and a family with her and hers, and I’ll be grateful to you all for that forever.”

“Are you cryin’?” King asked Curtains who was dashin’ somethin’ from his cheek.

Curtains scowled. “Fuck off, you’re the one who writes poetry.”

“Yeah, but you don’t see me cryin’ over Danny’s lame-ass toast,” he quipped.

I laughed as I fished my vibratin’ phone outta the pocket of my black jeans––as good as my formal wear got, given I didn’t have to stand up with Lion at the altar.

“What’s up, honey?” I asked Cleo, surprised she’d be callin’ me when she was enjoyin’ her sisterhood over at the Danner ranch.