Page 20
Diletta
A dam Archer is a silver fox type of guy, clean cut, professional, probably in his late forties. His clinic might be state of the art down here, set up just for the sole use of Satan’s Angels MC, and Archer might even be okay, but he earned a spot at the top of my shitlist when he took Ronan from Crow and Preacher, and hustled him straight into a private room that I was locked out of, despite my protestations that I was an actual nurse, godammit.
I don’t give a fuck that he wants to run tests, get Ronan hooked up to an IV, and start repairing the damage my father’s men did to his body. I wanted to be in there with him. To be fair, which I don’t feel like being at all right now, I didn’t say a thing. Not when a few of Ronan’s MC buddies poured onto the sidewalk to meet us as soon as I pulled up. Not when they took their unconscious friend out of the passenger seat and carried him downstairs to the sterile secret clinic with the unmarked steel basement door. Not when they walked Ronan right to the back, where Archer was already gloved and scrubbed, prepared for the worst.
I haven’t said a single thing so far and it’s been twenty minutes.
Lark and Ella are here with me, as well as an older biker lady named Rita. She has boss babe, in control vibes about her, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the leader of the old ladies or the women who hang around the club, in some capacity.
They’ve all been quiet too.
The men hang on the periphery around the small waiting room. It doesn’t look like anything out of a hospital or doctor’s office. The chairs are too nice, the floor too clean. It looks more like the waiting area of a law office, minus the coffee table with the token magazines. The huge, rough bikers look out of place here, but they’re lending their support to their fallen brother and that means the world to me. If they’re angry with me—and I damn well would be if I were them—they haven’t shown it. They might be outlaws, but they had impeccable manners.
My insides are a mess, my thoughts roiling through me in waves. I don’t want to keep dwelling on the panic I felt driving from the cabin to Seattle to find that butcher shop. The thought that I might be too late, the paranoia that maybe a conversation meant with a bullet and not words. I’ll never forget the sight of Ronan strung up in that freezer like an animal.
I saw my father’s men roughed up while I was growing up and once, I walked in on a man being interrogated, but he was sitting down in a chair. It wasn’t any better, but he was a stranger. This was Ronan.
My Ronan.
The weeks ahead of me are going to be long and sleepless as my mind keeps bringing me back and around to the whole haunting drive from Seattle to Hart. I knew Ronan was unconscious. I knew he was tougher than a hard knock to the head and some fists and kicks. That didn’t stop me from thrusting my fingers to his neck every few minutes while I pretty much broke the barrier of sound and light trying to get here.
I have my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. I’m scrunched over, nearly bent in half, but it does nothing to keep the sharp twinges of regret, grief, and anger from sparking through me. I want to be in that room with him.
After twenty or so minutes of silence, it’s clear that the women have had enough of leaving me alone with my thoughts. They’ve respected my need for silence, but that’s at an end.
Ella walks over to my chair and stands beside me. She puts her hand on my shoulder. She and Lark might have just met me when they dropped by my house to introduce themselves, thinking I needed a warning about ‘the life’ and about ‘the man’, but they both feel like people I’ve known for a long time. Some human beings take an eternity to get to know and others, you just mesh with instantly.
They’re here for me, not because they have to be, but because they want to be. I know their men didn’t ask them to come.
Lark’s man, Tyrant—their president, isn’t here right now. He’s at the club, no doubt trying to figure out what their next move is and how bad this threat might be. I think they’re probably going into lockdown. Maybe not. I don’t actually know anything because I haven’t been able to bring myself to ask.
“How are you doing, honey?” Ella asks, smoothing circles over my back. She looks like a badass too, with her leather jacket, her ripped jeans, her heavy dark makeup and her biker boots.
I want to lie, but the wrong words come out. “How can I ever apologize to R—” I stop myself just in time. His club might know his past, but the name he shared with me is a precious gift and is mine alone. “How can I apologize to Gunner? My father did this. I don’t know all the details yet, but we’re going to have to work it out. I’m expecting a call anytime. I’ll have to meet with him later. But I- I promised Gunner that I’d look after him. I convinced him that everything would be okay. I said I’d handle this. I most definitely did not handle it, nothing is okay. He’s hurt. This isn’t happy anything.”
“Yeah,” Ella sighs. She’s so sweet and tender that she’d for sure be one of those people who holds back her bestie’s hair after a night of hard partying. Then again, looking at Lark with her sweet bohemian vibes, I can’t imagine that she’s ever partied hard at all.
Also? I think they’re tight, but not besties. Their friendship seems to be a more recent development.
“I know it’s corny,” Ella sighs, “but sometimes all you can do is live hard and create your own happiness. Live out your own story despite what life is throwing at you.”
Lark gets up, smoothing down her long dress, and kneels beside my chair. “He killed to save our lives. Did you know that?”
I make a small noise. Did I? I can’t keep a single thing straight right now.
“We’ll apologize to him too, for ever being afraid of him.”
“It’s easy to be afraid of what you don’t understand.” Lark tilts her head at the big man dressed in black at the far side of the room. He’s called Crow, and he’s the man I managed to speak to when I called the clubhouse.
Yeah. I’ll admit he’s pretty much a walking horror show and not in that hot antihero kind of way. He’s menacing in more than a brutish way. His eyes keep shifting around the room, cautious and alert, but also completely dead. It’s the kind of gaze you don’t want to get trapped in if you value the blood in your veins flowing free without an ice blockage.
“We’re a family,” Ella whispers, her eyes soft but not pitying. “That’s what the club stands for. Idealistic, for sure, but if you have nothing to move towards, what are you even accomplishing?”
“Gunner is actually kind of funny in a horrifying kind of way,” Lark tries.
“I’m the funny one,” I tell them humorously. “I threatened to shoot a man in the foot and feed him his balls and then I did it.”
Their eyes both shoot wide open.
“Only the first part of the threat,” I add quickly. I should feel some kind of guilt about shooting another human being, and maybe I will tomorrow, but in the heat of the moment, I was a beast. I was no less fearsome than my father.
“I’m so sorry I brought this to your doorstep.” I need to fix this. Now. It’s so incredibly frustrating sitting here, powerless. I had to do that once in my life already and I hated it. It was out of my control, but I vowed I would never let anyone take anything from me that way again. “I promise that I’ll make everything better. You don’t need to be on lockdown. My father won’t hurt any of you. He just wanted Gunner and that’s only because of me. If I had never- if I—”
“Fathers can be rough.” Lark exchanges a look with Ella before she pats my knee sympathetically. “Gray’s dad tortured him and burned his house down.”
“I did hear something about that,” I admit. “But that’s insane. Parents should protect their children at all costs. That’s what my father was doing. It might be extreme, and I wish that he’d talked to me first and that all of this never happened, but- ugh. You must think the worst. You must think he’s horrible.” That wounds me too. This all hurts. It feels like I’m being straight down the middle and certainly not cleanly.
“We don’t think anything like that,” Ella assures me. She takes Lark’s hand and then she reaches for mine.
I’ve never had a sibling. I’ve never had a best friend. I was raised far too solitary and protected for anything like that. The little circle we make warms me in a strange, unexpected surge. I don’t know if I believe her words, I don’t know if she does, but I appreciate the lack of judgment.
Another hand, soft but strong, lands on my shoulder. I turn my gaze directly into Rita’s weathered face. I nearly leap out of my skin. For a minute, I’d forgotten that there was anyone more than just us three in the room.
“You’re part of a family now.” Rita’s voice, like her face, is worn in and lined. She has that deep rasp that comes from smoking a pack a day or more. Hard and fast, wild living. She’s so beautiful in her own way, with all that kindness flowing from her into me when I least deserve it.
I bow my head. “I keep expecting my father to call me, but he probably hasn’t touched down yet, and with how careful he’s been over the past few years, I know he’ll want to be discreet. Wherever it is that he wants to meet, I’ll go alone, and I’ll set all of this right. No one will be in danger because of me. I won’t let a single other person get hurt.” My eyes glisten with unshed tears, but there’s no way I’m giving in to them or I won’t be able to stop them from constantly leaking out of my eyes. “I’ll leave before that ever happens.”
The door at the far side of the clinic bangs open. All of us whip around and there’s Ronan. Bruised and beaten, still in his boxers, eyes blazing, his hair blood crusted. He’s a warrior who just went into battle and lived to see the other side of it. He’s awake now, and he is not looking pleased.
Archer hovers just over his shoulder, one black gloved hand extended, shaking his head, but he says nothing. He’s probably worked with bikers for long enough to know how useless that would be.
“Like hell you are,” Ronan growls, so predictable that I bite down on my lip to choke back the world’s most inappropriate laugh.
I expected this to be an argument. There’s no way that I’m letting Ronan get anywhere near my father. I’m trying to prevent a war, not start one.
He sways and has to thrust a hand out against the doorframe. That’s all it takes and I’m rushing across the room, throwing myself at him. I’m careful not to hurt him. I wrap my arms around him just to give him support and let him lean on me. I press my forehead to his chest. He’s sweating and he feels hot. It’s such a change from the coldness of his skin earlier. I’ll never forget that either. How lifeless he looked and felt.
He takes one step, stumbling against the wall, and then lifts me up into his arms.
“Put me down, you crazy idiot. You’re going to hurt yourself.’
“Not a chance.”
He’s not gentle when he kisses me. He was punched in the face and the split on his lip opens. I taste his blood, but more than that, I taste his desperation and fear. He didn’t know that I was safe. He could only guess what those men wanted. Ronan is smart and he would have gathered in short order who they were, but at first, when he’d found the cabin swarming with them and fought his way out to try to get to me, and after he was taken, it could only have been horrible for him.
I rake my hands over his shaved head, grasping his hair in both fists. “Put me down before you fall over and hit your head again.” He doesn’t obey. I do feel the tremble in his arms. He’s hurting himself to hold me close. I whisper near his ear, just for him. “Ronan. Please .”
He slowly lowers me so that my feet touch the floor, but he holds me so tight, huge hands splayed over my back, that I’m not going anywhere.
“You can’t meet with him alone.”
“I have to. I need him to listen to what I have to say and he’s not going to do that if it’s anyone but us there.”
I can’t say, in front of all these people, that what I want to do is give my father the dressing down of a lifetime. I’ve always dutifully listened to him. The one time I asked for freedom, he let me have it—to some extent, but he did care. Still. I’ve never come to him in a position of authority. He’s always been my papa and I’ve always been the daughter. Now, I feel like a grown woman, ready to take on the world and if that means taking on my father too, I will. I’ll fight and fight hard, dirty, and wild if that’s what it takes.
“I can’t let you go.” He doesn’t finish that sentence, but I hear the unspoken words.
If I never see you again, I’ll die. If something happens to you, it will kill me. I need to make sure you’re safe or I won’t be able to breathe.
“You’re involved now. You and the club.” I note the nods around the room. The men are stoic, but the women are in total agreement. “I’m not sure how to do this. You could follow me or something. But you have to keep your distance. It can only be me and Papa in there.” I beg him silently to understand.
“You don’t have to be strong for me. I know that you’re used to looking after yourself. You’re independent. You’re able to handle yourself in any situation. I might have saved you before, but you returned the favor today. I couldn’t believe it when you stormed in there, alone, like a queen.”
He cups the back of my head, bringing my face so close that his breath skates over my lips. The cut on the lower corner of his mouth is still bleeding. I want to lick it away. I want to be able to heal every single one of those bruises covering his body. I’d take all of his pain if I could.
“You’re my life, Dil. Mio Cuore. Mia Vita . You’re not alone anymore.”
“I never really was, though, was I? You were always there.”
He closes his eyes, and I give in, pressing my lips to his in a gentle kiss that won’t hurt him further. He groans into the kiss but shakes his head.
“Still no. No way I’m letting you go there alone.”
I know this is going to hurt him, but there’s just no way that I can agree to it. “You can do surveillance. I’ll let my father know I won’t be coming alone, but that when we talk, it will be just us.
Ronan’s hands tighten on my upper arms. He doesn’t have his contacts in. My heart races. Has anyone noticed? Does it matter anymore? They all know his secrets, well most of them. “I’m not worried about me. I’m worried about you. He’ll take you over my dead body.”
“That’s not funny. Not when- after…”
Finally, Raiden breaks his silence. He crosses the room with the other men right behind him. “She’s made her stance pretty clear, brother. We’ve got your back, and you’ll have hers. You think your woman can’t stand on her own two feet after she just fucking rescued you?”
“I’m worried that Luciano Cosmo is going to kidnap her and take her back to Italy.”
Another bolt of pain shreds me apart. “That’s not going to happen.”
Ronan’s thumb brushes over my cheek. “I know you miss it. You miss him. Family is everything. It’s your choice. If you want to go back, I won’t stand in your way. I’d fight with my very last breath to give you the freedom to choose. I’m not going to pretend that a lifetime with your own flesh and blood in the country of your birth means more than just the few weeks you’ve known about me.”
“My father would never kidnap me just because I don’t want to listen to him. I know he’s done bad things, but he’s not living in the past where the man controls his entire family. He’ll listen to me. I’m not going to Italy. Not right now and maybe not ever. That’s my choice.” I press against Ronan’s shoulders, walking him back into the room. “I wasn’t happy here at first, but now I want to be that kindergarten teacher. I want to go back tomorrow and see all those kids I love. I haven’t made many friends here because it was safer for them if I didn’t, but I want that. Five years is a long time. The people back home will have gone on living their lives. My job will no longer be there. My father is there, but he has the means to be anywhere. I’m not just going to talk to him about us. I’m going to try to convince him to retire.” Archer helps me sit Ronan back down on the massive chair. “Don’t look at me that way. I know that you think retirement means taking a permanent dirt nap, but that’s not the only way.”
“What might be the only way to examine you is to have your old lady be here.” Archer casts a plaintive glance my way. “He never said two things in here while I was trying to determine what damage was done to his head.”
“I trust you. I just don’t trust him,” Ronan barks, ignoring Archer completely. “Not when he could have called you and saved us all a lot of worry.”
“And stitches.” Archer points at the tray off to the right, with gleaming instruments laid out on the sterile surface. “Speaking of, you’re going to need at least a few. If you’ll let me do them, it would be appreciated. I have patients I had to leave.”
“Fuck your nose jobs, Archer,” Raiden drawls from the doorway. He leans up against it, arms crossed, watching intently, like he doesn’t quite trust Archer to do his job.
Archer shakes his head, growing more exasperated by the second. “It’s breast augmentation, but alright. There are only so many emergencies I can make up to excuse myself. Unless I have eight grandmothers, the funeral excuse is wearing thin.”
“Fine.” Raiden claps his hands. “We’ll clear out.” The men and women just behind him start doing just that, but Raiden isn’t finished. He takes one step into the room, making it feel crowded and tiny even though it’s not. “We feel you, brother. Tyrant is back at the clubhouse, but I know he’ll give us men to go with you. I don’t think you should be going with a gashed open head and probably a concussion, but that’s not my business.” He nods at me, by way of goodbye. “He says he’s fit to ride, he’s fit.”
Thank you so much for your expert medical opinion.
“I’m going to stitch him up, so no gash, and as far as I can tell, he’s not concussed, but you should keep an eye on things. I’d definitely recommend against riding a motorcycle,” Archer says.
Ronan tenses in the chair. “I’m coming. I’ll ride in a damn cage if I have to.”
“You could get on the back of my bike, princess. It’d make sense, given how pussy whipped you are in a record short amount of time.” Raiden winks, but I don’t know how much Ronan can even see through his bleary eyes or can even force his brain to focus on.
Ronan just glares at him and winces as Archer tries to clean his head wound.
“Anyway, let Archer finish up. I’ll have Crow wait outside to make sure you both get back to the clubhouse.”
“Acting like a VP at last. Good job, Sparkles.”
“Call me Sparkles one more time and—” Raiden huffs out.
“I happen to like Sparkles. I think it’s adorable.”
I’m guessing that’s an inside joke. Despite the words, I can see that there’s affection behind the teasing. Ronan needs to be here, he might think that he’s never fitted in, but it’s clear that these men are his family. “Great to see you’re not concussed, but I think something knocked loose in there.” Raiden points at his skull. “You’re normally so quiet you could be a ghost.”
I take Ronan’s hand and press his bloodied knuckles to my lips. “Not a ghost. Just flesh and blood that does indeed need stitches. Thank you for everything, Raiden. We’ll definitely be back at the clubhouse soon and I promise that I’ll sort all of this out.”
Ronan gives a warning growl at my stubborn insistence. Raiden just chuckles. “You’ve finally met your match, Gunner. It’s good to see. You sucked when you were single.”
“You’d know all about meeting your match.”
“I do,” Raiden agrees easily. “I most definitely do.”
After he’s gone and Archer is getting ready to do those stitches, Ronan’s eyes flicker to my face. “I didn’t suck when I was single, just so you know, but I’m a thousand percent better with you.”
I don’t release his hands. I can’t find words, but I don’t need to. The way he’s looking at me tells me that he understands everything I feel.
“For a bunch of supposedly hardcore bikers, you guys are truly sappy,” Archer quips. “Bend forward, please. I’m going to numb you and then we’ll start.” He winks at me, but only I can see it. For Ronan’s benefit, he continues. “Don’t worry. Just like I’ve kept this place a secret, I’ll be sure not to tell anyone that your killer aura is just cover for a ton of golden retriever energy.”