Page 82 of The Vows We Keep

“It’s a Shakespeare quote.I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.That’s why it’s placed where it’s placed.”

I wipe away the excess ink with a tissue and continue. “You’re really all in with Rae then?”

“Yeah. She’s good for me. Always seems to know what I need and gives it to me, whether I like it or not.”

I look at the wordlefton his chest, and I feel a hole start to open in mine. “Cat says she’s going to stay for a while. We’ll keep trying to get to the bottom of what happened to her dad but, you know, we’ll see what she and I have too.”

King looks at me. “You’re happy?”

“With her? Yeah. In a way I never thought I would be. We both just ... accept each other. We’re both ... different.”

“Never could decide ifdifferentwas the best word in the dictionary or the worst. Being yourself is the life we strive for. Being the one percent who lives outside the rules by making our own. But being different also means being judged. It can be a word used to ostracize and alienate.”

“Big words from you, Prez.”

He huffs. “Living with Rae, I’ve learned all sorts of new words. Likepedantic. She called me that just last week and I had to look it up after she’d gone to bed. But I’m serious. Being different isn’t bad.”

“You aren’t my kind of different, King. I’ve lived with being me my entire life. But now I’m seeing shit through a different lens. And somehow, we fit.” I turn off the tattoo machine for a minute. “I don’t want her to leave, Uther. I need your help to make it happen. I want to give her the one thing she can’t get anywhere else.”

King looks at me. I rarely use his real name. It’s by the blessings of brotherhood that we call each other by our road names. “What’s that?” he asks.

“I want you to make her a brother.”

“No.”

“Hear me out. Los Reyes have used her as an assassin for years. And you didn’t see her when she killed Henley. She was ruthless. Cold-blooded. Predatory. Jesus, just thinking about it gives me a boner. If she were a guy, she’d be a prospect by now.”

King grips my shoulder, and I look up at him. “But she’s not a guy.”

“Why does that even matter?”

He raises an eyebrow. “You know why.”

“The club can change. We can edit the bylaws. I’ve been looking at our charter and—”

“Niro. Stop. I can’t authorize that.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“Can’t.”

I resume tattooing. “Did your dad ever tell you the full story of the day I got this scar?”

King nods. I feel the muscles in his chest relax. He thinks I’ve moved on from the topic at hand. “He did. Told me not to mention it to you that I knew. But remember that thing that happened in Des Moines?”

My second solo ride out for the club, and I’d screwed it up so bad. I was late and missed the delivery window. Then I fucked our contact’s wife when I’d gone looking for him. I was honest and told Camelot. He told me I had to finish the job. When I went back to the guy’s house, he was beating his wife, so I shot the fucker.

Which then ruined a hard-earned relationship and distribution arm for the weapons we run. We battled that organization for eighteen months.

“I do.”

“After that, I was pissed. I asked Dad why he kept you around. You were a walking liability. He told me.”

“Did you know he asked me what he could do for me, beyond letting me join the club? He said that was a given, seeing my then-bony ass was capable of so much already.”

“What did you ask for?”

I look up at King. “I didn’t. I said I’d give it some thought and get back to your dad when I knew what it was.”