Page 86 of Caution to the Wind

Across from me, Mei’s smile cut like a bloody line across her face.

The Fallen Compoundtook up an industrial-sized block on the outskirts of the “polite” side of town, between the tidy upper-class neighbourhoods with their big houses and manicured lawns and the tiny cracker-box houses with chain-link fences and Beware of Dog signs on the other. It was nothin’ like Rooster’s clubhouse had been back in Calgary.

For one, it was a hub of business.

Edge Truckin’ operated out of the far-left side of the property with its own gate in the ten-foot fence, closin’ the property from the public after hours. Beside it, Hephaestus Auto & Garage with its four huge bays open to the forecourt, brothers millin’ about workin’ on repairs and custom bikes. It was famous in the biker community, not just ’cause a notorious MC owned it, but ’cause the brothers who worked there under Zeus and Bat did fuckin’ beautiful work.

Then tucked up against the river cuttin’ through the back of the property, the clubhouse. A one-level sprawl of brick and mortar with a massive depiction of The Fallen’s emblem, a skull with burnin’, tattered wings spray-painted on the front by Nova himself. It was tidy, with window boxes tended to by Lila and a little garden with picnic tables off to one side of the asphalt lot.

None of it looked criminal, but then, that was the point.

It was only the club and the cops who could spot the little ways it protected its members from intruders or pryin’ eyes. The high fences backed by slightly transparent black screens impeded visibility, and the two entry points operated on remote mechanisms that locked with strong bolts and passcodes. The doors on the buildings, heavy and metal, only opened outward to prevent forced entry, and the clubhouse was so closely backed by the river to prevent a sneaky approach from behind and also offered an alternate mode of escape if we were boxed in.

It was, more than anythin’, a second home. A sacred, safe place for men who’d been mocked or punished by “normal” society for the choices they’d made or been forced to make in their lives.

I fuckin’ loved it, and the knot of tension between my shoulders uncoiled slightly when I rode into the forecourt and backed my white Harley into the line of bikes beside the clubhouse.

“Axe-Man,” King said from his perch on one of the picnic tables where he was writin’ in one of his ever-present notebooks. Our resident biker poet. “Everyone’s waitin’ inside.”

“But you,” I noted, clippin’ my bucket to the handlebars before makin’ my way over to Zeus’s eldest kid, a man now, one I respected better than most.

The wind pushed his yellow hair into his face as he grinned at me, leanin’ back on his hands in a faux gesture of innocence. “I like the fresh air.”

“It’s cold as hell, and you know it.”

The grin dropped, replaced by that searchin’ gaze that so adeptly picked apart grown men and divided them into their pieces. It was instinct to look away, but I forced myself not to.

I had a lot to atone for, but I refused to be ashamed of my past, especially when it was threatenin’ to haunt my club.

“Heard you had two visitors yesterday,” he drawled. “Unusual for you.”

I grunted but leaned a hip into the side of the table and crossed my arms. King had somethin’ to say, and it’d do no good to rush him.

“H.R. said she’s gorgeous,” King noted.

Ah, so that was the priority. Not Jiang and the business with the club. Not the dead ’coon at Honey Bear Café. For the romantic, the girl would always come first.

“She’s a kid,” I rebuked with a one-shoulder shrug.

And she was. Twenty-five. Sixteen years younger than me.

Cleo’s best friend.

And that was the least of our fuckin’ problems.

“Cress said the same thing ’bout me at first.” His eyes sparkled in the pale winter sunlight, so light a blue they seemed nearly transparent. “’Til I convinced her otherwise.”

I snorted. “Yeah, well, she tried that once before, and it didn’t work.”

“Uh-huh,” King murmured, but there was triumph rich in his tone, and I cursed myself for givin’ anythin’ away, especially to him. “So she loved you, once.”

“She didn’t know the meanin’,” I ground out, irritated with us both and with Mei for even bein’ the source of this conversation. “She was seventeen and confused.”

“Loulou married Dad at seventeen,” he noted, implacable, starin’ me down like we were ten paces out and ready to draw pistols. “You think she was confused?”

My teeth clenched so tight, my jawpoppedominously. No one knowin’ Loulou Garro could ever say she’d been a lost and confused seventeen-year-old. A two-time cancer survivor, cut off and physically assaulted by her father, neglected her entire upbringin’ by her parents to the extent she took on a criminal nineteen years her senior as a fuckin’ pen pal, Loulou’d been mature beyond her years.

“Mei isn’t Loulou.”