Page 14 of Viper (The Dark Angel’s MC #4)

Viper

I gently pull up beside Lake’s truck and turn my bike off, but I don’t get off. Instead, I watch as she grins widely at a chatty Tate as she lifts her out of the car seat, not looking at me once.

I didn’t think Tate would come to me with my cut on. I was hesitant, that's for sure but Lake made sure Tate knew the cuts aren’t scary, that I’m not, and no, I will not be looking more into the way it made my heart race.

“Come, Auntie Lake!” Tate says excitedly as she grabs Lake’s hand and drags her towards the park, and my jaw ticks while my stomach tightens.

Auntie Lake?

Damn, I liked the sound of that more than I’m willing to admit.

I watch them go through the gate, my eyes taking in the way her ass is shaped in those jeans, and of course, my dick twitches.

Fucker.

Huffing, I quickly grab my phone from my cut with their giggles surrounding me, and ignoring the photos I can’t seem to make myself change, I bring up the text thread between Fury and me.

Me: You, me, in the ring tomorrow, this shit is not alright, brother, and you fucking know it!

I press send and put my phone back in my cut, shaking my head at the shit he’s just put me in, just as Tate shouts, “Come on, Uncle Viper!” ordering me around like always.

At least she’s not scared of me now.

Chuckling, I climb off my bike and, doing as she’s asked, head over to the slide where she’s currently climbing the steps with Lake hovering over her. I keep my cut on like Fury demanded when he called me an hour ago.

Fucker set me up.

He knows I won’t start an argument with Tate around, that we’ll try and be on our best behavior.

Again, fucker!

“Swings, Auntie Lake,” Tate demands, and Lake giggles and follows Tate as she runs over to the swings, and I follow, shaking my head.

“Alright, little darling,” Lake says as she helps Tate in the swing bucket seat, then gently pulls her back before pushing her.

I stand back a little, leaving them to it, not wanting to talk, needing to keep my distance.

This was Fury’s bright idea, not mine. Lake and I are over, have been since that day at the diner.

We’re too toxic together, and I don’t plan on sticking around.

The club may have voted against me going nomad, but it isn’t down to them, it’s down to me, and as long as I train someone to take my place, they can’t say fuck all.

Blade knows I need to leave, that I’m struggling to keep my anger under control.

“I want to slide again Auntie Lake.” Tate demands with giggles, and Lake grins, not once looking my way.

My stomach tightens, not liking it, but I swallow the emotions wanting to take over, stopping the nasty words just to get a reaction from coming out.

I step forward, stopping the swing before she can, helping Tate out, and just as I put her feet on the ground, she runs back over to the slide, and Lake follows, again, without looking at me.

“I can’t see my life without you, Jaylen, you make everything better.”

Her whispered words haunt me as I follow a step behind her, trying to resist the urge to wrap my arm around her waist and hold her tight to me like I used to.

Fuck I miss the feel of her body pressed up against mine, to feel her skin on me.

Quietly, while slowly drowning with my emotions, I watch as Tate goes down the slide three times before rushing over to the sand pit, no words exchanged between me and Lake. It’s like we’re complete strangers, while my mind goes over our entire relationship. Every word said, every action.

“My mama didn’t want me.”

She wasn’t really lying, Cherri’s been extremely vocal about not wanting her daughter, that she was useless by not being born to a brother, while trying to get me to fuck her.

I shiver in disgust.

“Growing up, it was just me and my dad. I didn’t really want anyone else around.”

That was a lie, though, wasn’t it? She had Anna growing up.

“Dad preferred me to be homeschooled.”

Well, that isn’t so shocking considering the whole town knew who Cherri was and what she wanted.

I side eye Lake to see she’s not paying any attention to me, her whole attention on Tate like it has been since she walked out of the preschool with her in her arms.

She had a label put on her before she was even born, a label my generation was told to continue, fuck, the brothers, not Brick though, warned us away from her if she ever came to see her dad, which she never did.

“You scare me, Jaylen,” she whispers, “You make my heart beat faster, my stomach tighten. When you’re not around, you’re all I think about, and I know I’m falling madly in love with you, and it scares me.”

I blink as Tate’s giggles and see her knocking her own sandcastle down, and I side eye Lake again, who's smiling at the sweetheart.

I believed her when she said those words.

It was late, the sky black with stars shining above us, and we were lying on a blanket in the meadows and I made love to her after those words she whispered into the night sky.

Two days later, I walked into the diner only to have her bump into me holding Hudson, and three months later, I feel like I can’t fucking breathe without my anchor, my heart.

The shock of seeing her, fuck, it knocked me for six, and not once did I stop to think that it was all innocent, that she had no idea who I was, who my family was, and that it was just a coincidence she was friends with Ivy.

No, instead, I jumped straight to her being a patch chaser because of my upbringing, then to full-blown livid when I found out she was Cherri’s daughter, the same Cherri who would do anything for a patch, but the brothers wouldn’t vote her out because apparently she gave good head.

I chew my cheek. Lake didn’t really lie to me. She told me her mother never wanted her, yet I accused her of lying.

My anger spikes through again, anger at her for not letting me in more, anger at me for taking things too far and destroying us without having a rational conversation with her, and anger at the fucking world for being a dick and pushing us into that situation that day.

I sigh, looking down for a moment, the silence between us choking me, and I cave.

“What happened with Viking all those years ago?” I ask reluctantly, but I need to know.

She flinches but doesn’t look my way as she admits quietly, “I was ten and had started my period, something my tutor claimed wouldn’t happen for a few more years,” she looks my way, her gorgeous dark green eyes I always get lost in looking haunted as she reluctantly says, “I was embarrassed to go to my dad and ask for help. In my head I needed my mama but for years my dad refused for me to have any contact with her. I, well, I didn’t understand why,” she looks back at Tate as she continues, “He denied me again when I said I needed to see her. I thought mamas were supposed to help with what kind of tampons or pads a girl needed, but when I asked my dad, without telling him why, he denied me. I ran out of the house screaming I hated him.”

Fuck. If, over the past year, what she said is true, her father is her whole world, and I’d bet my Harley she felt guilty over that comment.

“I spent two years trying to make up for that little comment,” she confirms my thoughts with a little chuckle before continuing, “I disobeyed him and went to the club anyhow but as soon as I tapped her shoulder and called her mama, she turned but didn’t recognize me.

Which yeah, I should have seen that as a ‘leave now’ kind of thing but I didn’t, instead I told her my name and she threatened to drag me out of the club by my hair claiming I wasn’t her child and called me a failure, a mistake and a disappointment. ”

Fucking Cherri, a bitch as always.

Lake looks at me with sadness and admits, “It was then I realized my dad was trying to protect me and I should have just told him what I needed,” she looks back at Tate, “I ran out the door, scared she was going to hurt me but before I could make a few steps I heard two bikers talking.”

Lake swallows hard, and I prompt, “What was said, Lake?”

“A biker with long blonde hair said he was going to take me when I turned eighteen, implying it would be with or without my consent, something I wasn’t fully aware of what he meant at the time.

He wanted to know if I’d be just as good as Cherri giving head while the guy he was gloating to laughed and didn’t put him in his place,” she admits in a whisper.

Holy fucking shit.

If Brick hadn’t have killed him, I would have hearing that.

“I was in the pharmacy trying to figure out which tampon or pad I needed while crying when Mama Lopez and Brick found me. I had no idea Dad had asked them for help when I ran out. I admitted to what I had done with Dad, what Cherri had threatened, and what I had overheard. I didn’t know his name, but I did give details about what he looked like, and he promised he’d sort it out after calling my dad.

Since then, Mama Lopez is the woman I always go to, and my dad and I are a lot closer, especially when he’s the parent who did want me, who stayed and was my hero every day despite being trapped with me,” she finishes, not once taking her eyes off Tate.

Dash, an old brother who disappeared around the time Viking was killed, was close to him. What are fucking odds Brick killed him too for not reporting what the sick fuck was gloating about wanting to do?

Sexual assault, rape, even joking about it, especially with kids, is not welcome within our club, and the fuckers got what they deserved as far as I’m concerned.

“I’ve hated the club ever since,” she admits, and I look at her in shock, our eyes connecting, the spark between us high.

“If I had my cut on that day?” I reluctantly ask, and she swallows before admitting, “I wouldn’t have come after you, something Mama Lopez encouraged me to do, to get out more and have a life because my work was my life.”

I see nothing but truth in her eyes, but I’ve never gotten the feeling she was lying to me during our relationship.

Is she just a really good fucking liar, or is she telling me the truth?

I frown, taking in her features, and I notice she has lost a lot of weight and bags line under her eyes, and I admit, “Your dad’s worried about you.”

She looks away from me, breaking our connection as she mutters, “He doesn’t need to be.”

I narrow my eyes and my anger spikes again at how easily she’s brushing her father’s worries under the rug, and Blade’s words swim in my head.

“Randy, he mentioned if we help her, he’ll stay at the garage.”

My jaw ticks, my body tense, and yet again, I allow my anger to run my mouth, the hurt between us spreading further with the omitted truths.

“Oh so your just acting down to be a bitch then huh, to get Daddy to convince me to give you my cut so he’d stay at the garage,” I snap and instead of cursing myself out and retracting I double down as I glare at her, pissed she’s not taking her father’s concerns seriously, not allowing him to help her and see she’s not herself.

I’m fucking pissed she’s wanting to quit med school.

Fuck she hasn’t even told her father, her friends, that a woman was suing her.

The woman whom I fell in love with would have asked for help.

She doesn’t reply, but she does tense, her whole body that I have kissed all over tightening, and I dig even further, but more to get a reaction out of her, to get that anger out and accuse, “You're exactly like your mama, aren’t you? A liar and a whore.”

And that does it, Lake turns her head sharply my way and snaps, “And you're nothing but a manchild who can’t take responsibility for the lies you told. Instead blaming everything on me, and I’m beginning to see you never even loved me to begin with, that it was all a lie!”

Her words hit me straight to my chest and the need to hold her consumes me but I know we can’t, not after everything and lie, “It was all a lie, I could never love a whore, especially one who thinks it’s okay to spend all of Daddy’s money on a degree you’re now dropping all because you’re not smart enough to follow through with it,” hoping it will put a fire under her not to quit.

I can’t be the one to save her from whatever she’s going through. We’re too toxic at the moment, and I can’t control my anger but I won’t allow her to quit something she clearly finds a passion in.

Her eyes widen, tears filling them, but I ignore her reaction to my words and walk away before the argument gets more heated. I go to Tate, silently hoping it gives her the motivation to work harder in med school, to prove a point.

“Okay, sweetheart, I need you to say bye to Lake. Your Grammie is waiting for you,” I say as I pick her up out of the sandpit, and she grins widely before rushing over to Lake, throwing herself at her.

Lake catches her and holds her tight, squeezing her eyes in the process.

My heart breaks knowing we’ll never have kids together, never have a future, my fucked up mind not allowing me to see her as the woman who loved me and didn’t want to bring me into her situation with Cherri, but a woman who wanted my patch.

Yeah, I’m going nomad for a while, maybe even permanently because watching Lake move on will fucking destroy me.