Page 12 of Stripping Keys (Devil’s Riot MC Tennessee #6)

CHAPTER NINE

MARLA

“Sweetheart, you gotta talk to us about what you’ve got yourself involved in,” Mom says, patting my hand in hers. She claimed me the moment Keys and I walked out of his room not five minutes ago.

My entire family was with us, and they were being quiet. This was unusual for my brother and sister. They would typically have something to say. The same goes for my dad.

Ignoring them and even Keys, who stays close. I mean close as in he’s stationed himself directly behind me, somewhat in the same manner as Griz stood behind Marley.

It’s eerie in a lot of ways. Like he’s got some claim on me when he doesn’t.

No, what he has is . . . I don’t even know what he has. Maybe it is some unspoken claim. I mean, he did say he wasn’t letting me go. That we were going to . . . I guess you could call what he wants some sort of claim.

While he’d been gone earlier, I’d thought a lot about what he shared with me about what was happening between us.

It sounded to me like I was going to be his.

As much as I didn’t want to like it, I really did.

Admittedly to myself, that is, I’ve always wanted Keys.

I wanted him before I saw him in person.

His voice was the first thing to attract me to him, and I wanted him. I’d dream about him.

Now, with everything else going on, I might still want him, but I also don’t want to be held prisoner. Okay, so that might also be a partial lie. If it involved being imprisoned in his bed with him, I definitely wouldn’t mind.

But right now, I shouldn’t be thinking any of this.

I shouldn’t be thinking anything along the lines of Keys in bed.

I needed to deal with my parents and siblings.

I needed to get them off my back, and then I needed to get back to work to make sure nothing was going wrong on any of the things I was working on.

Straightening in my seat, I shake my head at my mom. “Sorry, Mom, but I can’t do that. It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

Mom’s eyes narrow slightly.

“What do you mean you can’t do that. You can’t or you won’t?”

“Both,” I answer her without hesitation. “It’s nothing you guys need to worry about.”

My dad makes a growling scoff noise, earning a look from my mom before she returns her attention to me.

“When it comes to you, your brother, and sister, we always worry. It’s our job to worry about you all. What you might not think of as a big deal, is surely just that. Now, if you don’t want to tell us what you’re up to, you still need to give us something.”

“What you need to do is tell us what the fuck you’re into,” Marshall grumbles.

“What’s going on over here? Family meeting?”

Thank you, God, for West’s interruption. His presence keeps me from snapping at my brother.

“Nothing for you to be a part of,” Marshall grunts, glaring up at West.

West’s face flushes and turns a bright red as he glares back at my brother.

Weird.

I don’t know what’s up with the two of them, but a part of me wants to know. The bitch in me really wants to come out and demand to know, but at the same time, I couldn’t and would never hurt West in the process.

He’s one of the only people I couldn’t do that to. I can be bitchy toward him, but not in a way that would see him hurt.

Instead, I level a look toward my brother. “What I do with my life isn’t any of your business or anyone else’s. That is, unless I decide to make that knowledge available to you all.”

Marshall opens his mouth, but it’s Marley who speaks up.

“You know what,” she snaps, “You need to knock it off with being a bitch. We just want to know what the hell you’re hiding because for two months,” she emphasizes, “you’ve been MIA.

No one could reach you on the phone. I couldn’t track you down.

Neither could Dad nor Keys, for that matter.

We’ve had to worry about whether or not you were dead in a ditch.

Mom cried more than I’ve seen her cry . . .”

“You can stop right there with your high and mighty guilt trip,” I snap, getting to my feet, hands planting on the table as I glare down at my sister. “You want to sit there and talk, let me remind you that not three months ago you had been keeping our parents out of your business.”

“They knew what I did for a living,” she protests.

“They might have known some, but you didn’t share it all with them. Did you? No, you didn’t. You kept what you wanted to keep to yourself. Now, you’re sitting there trying to lay out a guilt trip for me. Oh, please, don’t even think about it. It won’t work.”

Okay, so that was a lie, but she didn’t need to know it. Mom could be used as a weakness for me. I wasn’t going to let them in on that tiny fact.

“Marla,” Keys says, his hands coming to rest on either side of my waist. His body presses into my back, and he whispers in my ear. “Calm down.”

“Fuck calm,” I snap and continue on. “You can’t sit there, Marley, and try to bullshit me like this and think it will work. As you would say, I’m all about me. Selfish, so what the fuck do I care? Well, you’re right. I don’t give a damn about the fact you all worry.”

Stepping away from Keys’s grip and the rest of my family, I stalk away from them all. I didn’t care. I really didn’t. They could think what they wanted. They always will. Didn’t matter that they don’t know me. Not the real me. And the fact that I did care. More than any of them knew.

I don’t bother going outside the clubhouse. I didn’t even think about it. Instead, I stalked back the way I came and went right to Keys’s room. I’d rather be locked in there than hearing and feeling my family’s judgment for not giving in to their demands.