Page 40

Chapter forty

Shit has been calm around the club over the last few weeks. I don’t fucking trust it. Don’t fucking trust Killer. The silence from him doesn’t sit right, not with the way we know he operates, but unless we want to go to war with his club, we have to play it cautious. Got to wait until he gives us a reason. Can’t prove it’s him behind the shit at Sinful Saloon and the messages Bailee gets because that ain’t the way he usually works.

Tweek’s been working on tracking as much shit as he can on Killer and his guys. We’ve had some prospects doing recon, but it’s like Killer forgot about Bailee, which is fucking laughable. Not with her having the evidence she has on him.

Guaran-fucking-tee he’s got shit in the works, and we won’t learn what it is until something’s already happened.

The club is getting restless. We’ve barely had any family get-togethers with everything that’s been going on. Wraith and Nova had their little girl three months ago, and they’ve not brought her around the clubhouse much because they’re worried about things going down while she’s there. Much like with all the other kids. It’s why I’ve been keeping Lyric away as much as possible.

Crow has laid low enacting his revenge for his family since he and Sage started whatever it is they’re playing at. They’ve been a thing for about two years now, but the brother is still running scared, if you ask me. Not that I got much room to talk. Was fucking up with my woman left and right long before we became an ‘us’.

Wraith pulled us into the common room earlier this week and told us we were gonna host a bonfire tonight.

Just the brothers, their Old Ladies or whatever partner they have for the night, and the kids.

Family.

That’s what tonight is about.

Family coming together for a reprieve from the darkness we’ve been dealing with lately.

I head into the bedroom where Bailee’s still getting ready and lean against the doorframe as I watch her slide a pair of jean shorts up her legs. They rest just under her ass cheeks, and when she turns around to view herself in the mirror then bends over to check how far they ride up, I let out a groan, which has her snapping her eyes to mine.

Shoving off the frame, I close the distance between us and wrap my fingers around her neck, gently pulling her to me. “Fuckin’ beautiful, you know that? Can’t get enough of you. In bed, out, it don’t matter none. Want you buried in my veins, baby girl.”

Her eyes fill with warmth as her body leans into mine.

We’re still struggling to find our footing in our relationship after the tension that fell between us. She still smiles and laughs, she’s still there growing closer to Lyric, and she’s in my arms every night. Still, sometimes she looks at me with this lost expression, like she can’t tell whether my words from our conversation were my truth or not. It’s a look I hope will go away with time. The only thing I can do is keep showing up and hope I don’t fuck anything else up along the way.

“The feeling is mutual, bossman,” she says, lifting to her toes to brush her mouth against mine.

Fuck that.

I drop my hands to her ass, pulling her tighter to me and sealing our mouths together.

Like usual, it doesn’t take us long to lose ourselves in one another. So much so that when my daughter’s loud, off-tune singing filters through the air, I pull away with a groan. I’m unsatisfied that my time with my woman is getting cut short but loving the happiness that rings in my little girl’s tone.

Lyric loves having Bailee around. She loves that Bailee sees her and that she gives her the love Lyric has always craved her own mother. Those two are peas in a pod, and if I fuck this up, I’ll not only be breaking Bailee’s heart, I’ll be breaking my daughter’s too.

That’s something I want to try my damnedest not to do.

Crushing my daughter’s heart would be crushing my own.

Lyric has had enough hurt and disappointment from one parent already.

I pull away and place a kiss on Bailee’s nose. “You look beautiful. About ready?”

“Yeah, just got to slide my shoes on. Do you mind grabbing the pasta salad out of the fridge? That’s all we needed to bring, right?”

“That’s all,” I answer, smacking her on the ass.

A smile breaks across her face as she pushes me away with a laugh. “Go make sure our girl is ready to go. Her bag is on the couch. I put some extra clothes in there along with some bug repellant and snacks. Can you ask if she wants to bring anything else?”

Listening to the way she cares about my daughter . . . fuck . It makes my heart fill with her even more. Soon, I’ll never be able to scrape her out of it.

Did Heather ever put extra thought into shit for Lyric? I can’t think of any time that she did. When Lyric was smaller, it was always me or someone from the club getting shit ready. As she grew older, she started to learn how to gather her own things when I couldn’t be there to do it.

“I’ll make sure she’s got what she wants.”

“Thanks, bossman.”

While Bailee finishes up, I head out in search of our girl. I find her sitting on the edge of her bed, her little legs swinging, staring morosely at the phone in her hand.

“What’s wrong, Princess?” I ask, squatting in front of her.

“She hasn’t called me lately.”

Fucking Heather, always hurting my girl.

One of the stipulations I put in place with the rehab center was that Heather can call Lyric and me anytime she needed or wanted to. Heather’s called me a few times, and I know she’s called Lyric a couple too, but I can’t recall her doing it lately.

“I’ll do a check-in tomorrow. Sound good?”

“Thank you, Daddy.” She peers up at me. “I just want to know she’s feeling better.”

“I’m sure she’s just been super busy trying to get better, little bit,” Bailee says gently as she walks into the room.

She stops beside me, placing one hand on my shoulder and the other on Lyric’s. “Why don’t we go have some fun tonight, and tomorrow, we’ll make something special for your mom while your dad checks on her?”

Lyric’s face clears as she beams up at Bailee. “Promise we can?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thank you, Bee.”

“You’re welcome, my little heart song. Anything for you. Now, why don’t you go put your shoes on so we can go, yeah? Is there anything you want me to shove in your bag?”

“Nope,” Lyric says, her lips popping on the last letters.

Bailee runs her finger down Lyric’s nose in a move that’s becoming familiar, causing Lyric’s smile to widen. “Run along, little bit. Dad and I will be right out behind you.”

I climb to my feet and slide my hand around the back of her neck. “You’re good with her.”

Bailee shrugs, lifting her hand and curling it around my wrist. “It’s not hard to be good to her.”

“More than that, Hummingbird. You treat her as your own.”

She bites her lip, her eyes unsure. “Is that not okay?”

“Fuckin’ perfect. You give her what she craves. More than what she’s ever gotten from her mom. Even knowin’ it won’t matter to Heather, you’re still goin’ to do something for her to make Lyric feel better.”

“I love her,” she states simply.

Fuck, this woman keeps burrowing further into my heart.

I give her a quick kiss, wishing I had more time to show her how much I appreciate her loving my daughter like she does.

“Let’s go be with your family,” Bailee murmurs when I pull back.

I tune out Tweek’s ridiculous shit he’s spouting about a hookup as I watch the flames of the fire dance along Bailee’s features. She’s chatting with Nova and Kiwi, her head falling back as laughter pours from her mouth. Her eyes keep finding Lyric, reassuring herself that she’s fine despite being surrounded by so many people who’d die to protect her. She’s got the instincts of a parent who loves their child without wearing the title.

Yet.

Without wearing the title yet .

It’s a reassurance I hadn’t known I was searching for from her.

Bailee lifts her camera, snapping some pictures of Kiwi and Nova before she turning it toward where Wraith and Crow are standing. Her face softens behind the lens, and I know she’s capturing some shots of Wraith holding his new daughter, Tilly.

Lyric is chattering away to Big Johnson and Sprinkles. They watch her with amusement, nodding along to whatever she’s going on about.

She’s having fun, and that’s all that matters. Her mind is no longer on her mom.

“Things good with you two?” Thrasher asks from my side, lifting his bottle of water to take a drink.

Usually, we’d all have beers in our hands, but with everything that’s been going on, we want to keep our heads about us.

“Reckon so,” I reply. “How’s your mom?”

His mom, Desdemona, is serving consecutive life sentences for the premediated murders of the six men who raped and tortured her twin daughters when they were younger. Vanessa ended up overdosing after chasing anything and everything to make her demons disappear. Carissa ended up in an institution when it all became too much to bear and she got locked inside her head. The last I knew, she hadn’t spoken since it happened. Her days are spent staring at the walls of whatever room she’s in for the day. Thrasher pays for her care and goes to visit her a few days a week. He refuses to give up, believing she’ll one day be present again. He’s always full of anger and sadness after his visits with her. So much so that Wraith has been considering opening a gym so he has a place to safely purge all the negative shit that burns through him on those days.

“Still running her shit,” he replies.

Desdemona runs Iron Port Penitentiary. She went into that place taking no shit and continues to hold her own if anyone dares to disrespect her. She earned a hell of a lot of respect for taking the trash out without asking for help. We use her whenever we need assistance from the inside.

“And your sister?”

He turns to me, and I can tell something has changed. There’s not as much darkness in his eyes as usual when the question is posed.

“There’s been some recent signs that she’s becoming more lucid.”

I clasp him on the shoulder. “Fuck, man. That’s good, yeah?”

He nods. “Don’t want to get too optimistic. Docs aren’t sure what’s gonna happen if she does. She’s spent so long locked in her head and not dealing with what happened to her.”

“You’re scared,” I state, witnessing the emotion flash in his eyes.

“‘Course I am. It’s been over a fucking decade, brother. So much shit has changed. Fucking terrified what that’s gonna do to her.”

“Goin’ to have a whole club at her back, brother. Whatever she needs, let us know.”

I peer over at Bailee to find her eyes on Lyric again. Her brow furrows as her head slowly swivels toward where Sage is sitting with Jagger. An expression of horror crosses her face, and she jumps to her feet.

I’m moving before I even catch Sage’s body jerk. Everything after that blurs as we go into protection mode and try to figure out where the fucking shot came from.

Bailee rushes to Lyric, grabbing her around the waist and dropping them to the ground. She tucks Lyric into her chest as she rests over top of her, protecting my daughter with her body.

Pulling my gun from the holster, I sweep my eyes around the area, trying to ignore the pandemonium around me.

Prospects surround the kids and Old Ladies, their backs to them and guns at the ready. No more shots have been fired, which leads me to believe they’d hit their intended target.

Sage.

This was a fucking message to Crow. Bet my goddamn soul on it. If it was Killer, he’d have hit Bailee and she wouldn’t be breathing anymore.

I push through the prospects and squat down so I can put eyes on my girls. Lyric is crying, her little body shaking, and Bailee is doing her best to soothe away the distress she is in.

Bailee jerks when I reach out to touch her. “Shh. Just me, Hummingbird. Want to check on you two before we go huntin’.”

She whips her head in my direction, fire burning in her glassy eyes as her lips pull back from her teeth. “Fucking find them and destroy them.”

Despite the chaos around us, a smile ghosts over my mouth. “Do what I can, baby girl.”

“You’re not hearing me, Steel,” she snarls, glancing at Lyric before coming back to me. “Find them and fucking destroy them .”

“Yes, ma’am,” I reply, amusement heavy in my tone.

With a glide of my fingers down her face, I climb to my feet. I give the prospects a nod to let them know they’re back on lookout duty then jog over to where everyone’s crouched around Sage.

Blade and Kiwi are working on her, and when I get there, I catch Blade mutter, “Sniper.”

“Wouldn’t the wound be worse?” Crow asks.

“Not if they’re not using a traditional sniper rifle. If I was to guess, she was hit with a twenty-two long rifle. There’s only so far that bullet will travel before it starts falling. For it to do this damage, they’re not far.” He calls for Wraith. “You’ve got about a three-hundred-yard radius. Can’t tell trajectory right now, so do what you can with that.”

Blade turns back to Sage as he and Kiwi continue working on her. She’s safe in their hands, with a wall of brothers surrounding her, so I step away and over to Wraith and Thrasher.

A group of brothers fall into the space around us as we wait for our President to speak.

“I’m going to keep this quick. Three-hundred-yard radius. No idea of the trajectory. Cover as much ground as you can. I want this fucker alive, but take him out if you need to. Protecting yourselves and our people are our first priority.”

After checking on my girls one more time, I join my brothers in the search for the shooter. Crow meets up with us after they take off with Sage to Kiwi’s clinic.

Wraith pulls his phone from his pocket, glancing at the screen then turning to us. “Phantom found the sniper’s nest.”

“Goin’ to let the prospects know to take Bailee and Lyric to the clinic. Be better protected there,” I tell Wraith.

He nods. “Meet back up with us. I’ll ping you our location.”

I jog back to where a couple brothers are surrounding a group of women and kids. “Get them all to the clinic. Follow on your bikes.”

I find Bailee and Lyric in the group and head toward them. Bailee has Lyric on her lap, surrounding her with her body as much as possible. Lyric has her face buried in Bailee’s chest.

Fuck. Sometimes I hate this life.

It’s why I tried so fucking hard to make it work with Heather. Being with her meant Lyric had a semi-safe place to land away from this lifestyle. Lot of good that did—she ended up in danger being with her anyway.

“Doin’ good, baby girl?” I ask, brushing the hair from her cheek then running my hand down Lyric’s head.

Bailee stares at me with a fierce expression. “Did you get him yet?”

I rub a hand across my lips to keep the smile hidden. “No, but we’re workin’ on it. Need you at the clinic where they can protect you both.”

“If that’s what you need, then that’s where we’ll be.”

Bailee reaches out to grab my beard and pulls my face to hers for a quick kiss. “Keep yourself safe, bossman.”

Wrapping my fingers around her neck, I rest our foreheads together. “Got every reason in the fuckin’ world to.” I brush my lips across hers again before turning to my daughter. “Go with Bee. I’ll be by to get you all as soon as I can. That okay with you?”

Lyric nods. “Bee will keep me safe.”

After kissing my girls goodbye, I rejoin my brothers and head out to search for the motherfucker who dared touch a Dirty Maverick’s Old Lady.

Our search into the early morning light is futile. Whoever it was is long gone, leaving very little evidence for us to find. Phantom led us to where they had a vehicle stashed, but there was nothing for us to find other than tire tracks that were left behind. Not sure where that’s going to get us, but Trucker made a cast of the tracks so they can be passed off to Jake anyway. Crow said he was going to send a copy of the cast to the hacker he’s got working on his family’s case. They’ll probably get further than normal channels can. Hell, we couldn’t even find any shell casings, which leads Phantom to believe whoever did this is either a professional or they’ve got a hell of a lot of experience and know better than to leave them behind.

Not fucking worried, though. The Dirty Mavericks always get their man, and this time won’t be any different.

No matter how long it takes us.