Page 30 of Fallen Dove (Fallen Lords MC 2nd Gen #1)

Adley

“Let him go!”

Mom ordered.

Dad didn’t. He kept his grip on Mason’s cut and his fist raised.

“You won’t want me to let him go when you find out what he’s been doing to our daughter?”

Mom threw her hands up in the air.

“I assume you’re ready to kill him because he’s been seeing Adley and not because he ate the last donut.”

Mom snapped, and the room stiffened around the small, ridiculous joke like it was a live wire.

Mason shoved free of Dad’s grip with a hard shove. He brushed his hands over his shirt as if to say, See? I’m not broken.

Fox muttered to Basil.

“Think Carnie could pop up some popcorn?”

and the stupid question landed like a stone in the pond. Everyone’s mouths opened and closed. Wrecker’s stare cut through the joke and Fox shut up.

No one said anything for a beat, the silence heavier than any argument.

“I’m going to need an explanation of just what in the world we walked in on,”

Karmen said, calm but loud enough to push through the static. She folded her arms and stared at me.

I stepped forward, cleared my throat, and said the simplest thing I could.

“Mason and I have been seeing each other.”

You could have heard a pin drop. The sound that left the room was a collective intake of breath. We must have been better at sneaking than I thought.

Alice held up her hands as if she’d finally been released from a lifetime of secrets and let out a huge, exhausted sigh.

“Thank God I don’t have to keep this secret anymore,”

she said, part relief and part exasperation.

Dad’s eyes sliced to Alice.

“You knew!?”

Alice jabbed a finger toward Wrecker.

“He told me!”

“Jesus Christ,”

Wrecker muttered, and rubbed a hand down his face.

Dad turned on him like a storm.

“You knew about this and you didn’t think to tell me? That’s my daughter.”

“Can we stop talking like I’m not here?”

I cut in, sharp and quick. I didn’t like the way everyone’s eyes flicked to me like I was something fragile they might drop. Yeah, I was Slayer’s daughter. I was also thirty-one and very much my own person.

“I’m the one who’s going to talk, not you.”

Wrecker shrugged, like the whole affair wasn’t complicated.

“I overheard them talking,” he said.

“When?”

Dad demanded.

It was like I hadn’t just spoken.

“You’re probably not going to like the answer to that question,”

Alice muttered.

“How did you even find out?”

I asked. If it wasn’t Mac, if it wasn’t the cameras, if it wasn’t Alice…my mind chased down every possibility and hit dead ends.

Dad pointed toward Star, who had gone pale and who looked like someone had handed her a live grenade.

“She played clips of shit for me and told me to just make comments on what I saw.”

Dad lifted both hands as if to show how horrible all of it was.

“Imagine my fucking surprise when I’m looking at the screen and I see my daughter being taken advantage of by this creep.”

“Stop!”

I shouted. I wasn’t going to stand and have my father paint Mason as some predator in front of our whole family. I wasn’t going to let him treat Mason like something he couldn’t wash off.

“Mason hasn’t done anything wrong, and neither have I.”

“You’re my daughter!”

Dad hissed, like that absolved him of listening.

“Yeah, I think you’ve made that pint,”

Cole muttered loudly from the couch, and a few heads cracked smiles at the edge of ridiculousness. I didn’t have the energy to be amused.

Dad jabbed a finger at Mason.

“And he is supposed to be my brother.”

Arlo, who usually had a comment tucked under his tongue, winced and tried to smooth things over.

“Good thing we all know that it’s not brother through blood because this would be a whole other conversation we’d be having.”

Mason looked at Mac.

“Why did you show him the video? You said you would give me a chance to talk to him!”

Mac held up her hands.

“It was an accident. I didn’t realize Star had those clips. She didn’t mean to show him, Mason.”

Her voice was steady but hollow. Even she sounded surprised.

This wasn’t anyone’s fault except mine and Mason’s. We’d been the fools playing at secrecy, and now someone else had tripped over the cord.

“I have no idea you liked Mason,”

Mom said to me like she’d just been informed of a new tax bracket, as if Dad wasn’t five feet away ready to sink his anger into the man standing across from him.

I closed my eyes and counted. One. Two. Three. Four -but I got to four and the room’s volume turned up again.

“Fourteen years!”

Alice shouted at the top of her lungs like she’d been handed a scandal and needed to throw it on the table.

“This has been going on for fourteen years!”

My eyes landed on Ender, who was counting on his fingers with a sheepish little grin. I should have known better than to hide the timeline when Ender was in the room. He was precise and annoying like that. I opened my mouth to correct it and then shut it again because truth was a tangled mess.

“Relax,”

Ender announced, doing his best to be reasonable.

“She was eighteen.”

“You’ve been with my daughter since she was eighteen?”

Dad thundered, as if eighteen was an unforgivable number no matter the person or the choice.

“This is not getting better,”

Mom snapped.

“Shut up!”

I called, louder than I’d intended. The room went mute except for the sound of the refrigerator and the soft buzz of the lights.

“The only people who are going to talk for the next two minutes are me and Mason, okay?”

I looked around the room, making sure my glare landed where it needed to land. Cora pinched her fingers together and made a show of zipping her lips shut. A few of the younger ones exchanged looks. I heard Wrecker clear his throat. Somebody laughed, nervous and small.

My pulse felt like it was beating in my throat. I felt the heat under my skin, not just from the argument but from the raw exposure of being the center of a thing that belonged only to me and Mason.

“Good,”

I said.

“Then shut up and listen. I kissed Mason when I was eighteen.”

The room went dead quiet. My voice carried like I’d just dropped a bomb in the middle of the clubhouse.

“And he kissed me back,”

I continued, my eyes locked on my dad.

“but then he told me we couldn’t be together.”

“You think-”

Dad started, fury already boiling, but I snapped my glare at him, sharp enough to slice.

“Don’t.”

My voice was low but firm.

“You don’t get to interrupt me right now.”

His jaw ticked, but for once he shut his mouth.

“And he was right to tell me no.”

“Adley,”

Mason’s voice broke through the thick air, low and rough, like gravel dragged across steel.

I held up a hand, stopping him.

“I was young and dumb, Mason. Thank God you had some sense and knew taking me up on my offer wasn’t the best choice.”

Mom’s hand came to rest on my arm, soft, grounding.

“So I went to Chicago with my tail between my legs. I went to college, got my degree, tried to build a life. And I stayed there.”

Dad opened his mouth again, but I didn’t let him get the words out. I pointed a finger at him.

“And Mason was not the only reason why I went to Chicago and stayed. I’d planned all along to go to school there. I just…stayed because I needed to grow up.”

I turned back to Mason, and my voice softened.

“And I did.”

Mason’s chest rose and fell, his eyes locked on me like I was the only person in the room. He dragged a hand down his face, then let out a sigh that sounded like it carried the weight of fourteen years.

“I didn’t push you away because I didn’t want you, Adley,”

he said, voice cracking on my name.

“God, I wanted you more than anything. But you were too good for me. Hell,”

he gave a humorless chuckle, shaking his head.

“you’re still too good for me.”

“That’s the first right thing you’ve said this whole time,”

Dad growled, the words sharp enough to cut.

It was too much to ask him to stay silent.

I squared my shoulders.

“I am thirty-one years old, Dad. I do not need yours or anyone else in this room’s permission to date Mason. Hell, this whole conversation shouldn’t even be happening. Every single one of you met your ol’ ladies and were done in a matter of weeks. Mason and I waited fourteen whole years.”

I swept my gaze around the room, making sure each set of eyes understood me.

“You have zero reasons why Mason and I can’t be together.”

I moved toward Mason, and when I reached him, he didn’t hesitate. His big hand slid into mine, threading his fingers through mine openly for everyone to see.

His thumb stroked over my knuckles, and when he spoke again, his voice was steady but thick, each word deliberate.

“The reason I told you no back then was because I didn’t think I was enough. I was a prospect, a nobody trying to earn my patch, and you-”

his eyes burned into mine.

“you were everything. Smart. Beautiful. You deserved a man who could give you the world, not some kid who didn’t even own his own bike yet.”

My throat tightened, but I held his gaze.

“I thought if I pushed you away, you’d go find someone worthy of you. Someone who could give you more than I ever could.”

His voice dropped lower, rougher.

“But you were gone fourteen years, Adley. Fourteen years where I told myself you were better off without me.”

He squeezed my hand.

“And you never found someone who compared. Because there isn’t anyone else. It’s always been you. Just you.”

The room was silent except for the thud of my heart.

I swallowed hard.

“And you’ve always been it for me, Mason. No one else came close.”

His jaw worked, emotion raw in his eyes as he lifted our joined hands to press my knuckles to his lips.

“Then I’m done pushing you away. Done hiding. You’re mine, Adley. And if I have to fight every man in this room to keep you, I will.”

The silence that followed was sharp and heavy. I didn’t dare look at Dad yet. I just clung to Mason’s hand and prayed this was the start of something that could finally be ours.

I kept my voice steady and my hand in Mason’s. I’d meant to be clear, no interruptions, no side chatter, but it felt like the room was leaning in hungry for the rest of the story. I had one on my lips and a lifetime in my chest, and if I was going to say it, I wanted it to land without someone else twisting it.

Wrecker pushed through the cluster of cousins and ol’ ladies like a calm wind and came up to Slayer. He set a hand on my dad’s shoulder, close and brotherly, the kind of touch that said he wasn’t going to let this turn into a bloodbath on his watch.

“Slay,”

Wrecker said, low, and the room instinctively quieted around him. He kept his voice soft but steady, the kind of voice that carried the authority of someone who’d been around longer than most of us had been alive.

“This isn’t a club matter.”

Slayer’s shoulders twitched. His face was still a red map of betrayal and protection and something I couldn’t read. He looked like a man who’d been punched and wanted to punch back.

“If it were a club matter,”

Wrecker continued.

“you two would have the club’s blessing.”

He didn’t wait for Slayer to say anything.

“Fourteen years, brother. He didn’t steal her away in the middle of the night. He waited fourteen years. Would you have waited fourteen years for Wendy?”

The question landed like a small bomb. It made everyone look at my mother, suddenly aware that this whole argument hadn’t been hypothetical to her.

Mom’s eyes were glistening. She wiped a thumb under one and smiled at Slayer, the way she had when they were younger and the world was only a two-person universe for them.

“I wouldn’t have liked it,”

Slayer said, the steel in his voice softening around the edges.

“but I would have waited an eternity for you.”

Mom laughed, a tiny sound, and then a tear rolled down her cheek.

“I love you, Slayer,”

she whispered.

“And if Adley being with Mason makes her happy, then that is the only thing I want.”

It was like someone opened a vent and let out a collective breath across the room.

“Now that that is settled, can we freaking eat?”

one of the cousins, Ender, I think, muttered, and it was almost funny the way everyone snapped toward the kitchen like a pack of wolves who’d been patiently held back. The relief in the absurdity made a few people snort-laugh.

Thorn, polishing a glass with theatrical care, came around the bar and grinned at us.

“I wonder what it says about me that I had zero clue you two were together,”

he said, half-joking like he always did.

Mason snorted.

“You’re a good bartender, Thorn. That’s why you work at the club, not because you’re a detective.”

Thorn put his hands up, mock offended.

“Hey, I know how to pour and charm. I am not paid to peep through the back door.”

Alice sidled up between us two, arms sliding across our shoulders like she was tacking herself to the mast of a ship that had finally righted. She looked relieved in a way that made me laugh out loud; she’d been carrying this as a secret confessional for months.

“Do you feel lighter?”

she asked me, dramatic and affectionate.

“Because I feel a million pounds lighter. It was killing me to have only Wrecker to talk to about you two.”

Then she raised her voice, the kind that rallied a room no matter what the topic.

“Now that we all know Mason and Adley are knocking boots, let’s get back to the graduation party planning.”

The groans that followed were half-hearted and half-amused. Even with the relief, the idea of finishing the party prep felt like work none of us wanted to do, suddenly more real than the emotional cyclone that had just passed through.

Mac and Star moved up through the crowd, both of them with that sheepish, guilty look that told me they’d been the accidental detonators. Star’s eyes were still wet; the poor kid looked like she’d been sick to her stomach the whole time.

“I’m sorry,”

Star said immediately when she reached us. Her voice wobbled.

“I didn’t mean-”

I shook my head and smiled at her, because I didn’t blame her. Whatever chain of events had led to Slayer’s storm hadn’t been malicious.

“It’s okay, Star. You didn’t mean to.”

Mac, who always played the professional face, couldn’t help laughing once the pressure finally broke.

“I kept my word when I said I wouldn’t tell anyone about you two,”

she said, like it was a badge she’d been wearing.

“I didn’t even tell my own daughter.”

Mason chuckled.

“It’s okay, Mac. I shouldn’t have made you promise not to tell anyone. Hell, now that everyone knows, I don’t know why we kept it a secret.”

I bumped him with my hip.

“You wanted to keep it secret,”

I teased.

“I was ready to tell the whole damn world.”

Mac shrugged like she’d been holding diplomatic keys to the city.

“I get it. It was pretty touch-and-go for a second with Slayer. I was pretty sure he was going to punch you into next week.”

She leaned in close, conspiratorial and very, very Mac. “Which,”

she added with a grin that gleamed.

“will make for great TV.”

My knees gave a little. The cameras. Of course. If it hadn’t been enough to be exposed to my family and the club, now television was going to have a field day. I could picture it, dramatic cuts, slow-motion kisses, my dad folding his arms for the headline. I almost laughed and then didn’t.

“Oh Jesus,”

I groaned. I looked at Mac with pathetic pleading in my eyes.

“Do you think maybe you could just accidentally delete the last half hour of footage?”

Mac’s expression was apologetic and gleeful at once. She shook her head slowly.

“Oh no, Adley. I thought Wrecker was going to be the star of the show, but now I have a feeling all of America is going to fall in love with you and Mason.”

I wanted to throttle her and hug her at the same time.

“Don’t you dare.”

She moved away with Star, already plotting and smiling like the producer who saw a narrative arc in every human mess. Mason drew me in closer and pressed his palm along the small of my back. Then, in front of the whole ridiculous assembled tribe, he leaned down and kissed me.

It was a simple kiss. Sweet and soft. I was startled at how flustered I felt having everyone witness it. We’d been keeping this behind closed doors for so long that public affection felt foreign and a little dangerous, but it was exactly what I wanted.

He pulled back with a crooked smile and a shrug that said he’d been saving that for the perfect moment and also didn’t give a damn.

“Are you okay with all of that being on film?”

I asked, half-joking, half-worried.

He looked at me with that steady warmth that made my knees wobble.

“Just as long as America knows I fell in love with you first before they did,” he said.

I pressed my arms around his neck, fully ignoring decorum, and he wrapped his hands around my hips and pulled me into him.

“Do you want to stick around for the grad party planning?” he asked.

I curled my fingers into his cut and melted a little against his chest.

“I had planned on it, but now there is something else I want to do.”