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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

DAKOTA

Lainey watches from over her coffee cup. Her concerned gaze is focused on me. She doesn’t say anything. She didn’t last night, either. But I know she has a million questions swirling inside of her head, and I should probably answer them or at least explain myself. I don’t do either, at least not yet.

“Thank you so much for letting me stay here last night,” I whisper.

That’s the first thing I need to get out before I say anything else to her. Lainey smiles. Her presence is nothing but kindness, and I want to wrap her around me like a warm blanket.

“Any time at all. I have to admit it was kind of nice waking up and having someone here to talk to. I spend so much time alone between the bakery and here that I forgot what it was like to have someone close by.”

It’s my turn to smile. I knew Lainey was good people the moment I met her at the bakery. She didn’t deter me away from Bullet, but I could tell by the way she reacted to me being with him that she was cautious.

I’m not sure what to say. How to begin. So I decide to start at the beginning, well, at least the beginning of last night. I don’t tell her every detail, though. I omit the part where I was kidnapped and held for days by a rival motorcycle club, where Bullet killed a bunch of people and exploded a building. I don’t think it would be a good idea to tell her all of that, so I just start with last night.

“My friend came here from Oregon to check on me. You know, with all of my dad’s things, she just wanted to make sure I was doing alright,” I tell the somewhat truth. “So, last night, I say good night to her, and I’m walking to the bedroom that I share with Bullet when I hear a noise. I turn to face said noise, and it’s one of those club women, and she’s blowing him.”

“Bullet?” Lainey hisses.

“Bullet,” I confirm.

Her eyes widen before they shift to the side, and then she slowly brings them back to meet mine. She nods once, clearing her throat. “And you’re engaged now?” she asks in a whisper.

“I was,” I state.

I hate that I can’t answer that question without feeling like an idiot. Because I do. I feel stupid. Also, I’m going to have to admit to Briana that she was right in her hesitations, and just hours after I told her that I wasn’t making a mistake. That is such a big and embarrassing pill to swallow and the main reason why I didn’t just go back to her room but instead left the whole property.

Lainey looks at me with what I can only describe as pity, and again, I hate that and feel like a complete idiot at the same time. “You know, my brother is one of them,” she says in a whisper.

“What?” I practically screech.

That’s when she lets out the cutest freaking giggle on earth. She shakes her head a couple of times, then lets out a sigh. “He gave me the startup capital for my bakery, but otherwise, we don’t really see one another too much.

“They call him Piggy,” she continues. “He’s a policeman in town, but he’s also one of the Vicious Reapers. I stay away from all of that. He’s older than me and never let me go around there. All my friends would try and go to parties there in high school, but I don’t know…” She shrugs her shoulders as her voice trails off. I don’t know what she’s thinking about, but it’s definitely got her mind shifting to a different place. Maybe even a different world.

“I’ve met him. He seems really nice,” I say.

It’s the truth, but also, I’m not sure what to say to her to bring her back. Thankfully, it works, and she shifts her attention to me. She gives me a small smile, still very much filled with pity, but I try to shake it off.

“Their world is different,” she says.

I nod because, boy is it different, but at the same time, it’s not so different from how I grew up, also something that I omit telling her.

“But just because it’s different doesn’t mean that he gets to cheat on you. He doesn’t.”

I chew on the corner of my bottom lip for a moment before I release it to speak. “No, he doesn’t get to,” I whisper.

“But you love him.”

Her words are definite. And they are true, too. I don’t verbalize them, though. Instead, I just dip my chin in a single nod. I don’t know what to say, how to say it, or how to feel.

“I think you should talk to him,” she whispers. “You don’t have to. But I think you should. Those guys are dumb as hell down there.”

They are. But then again, I’m not that smart myself, so I’m not sure if I should even judge them. Any of them.

“But for the day, you can hide out at the bakery while you think about it all.”

I thank her for that, and twenty minutes later, we’re headed downstairs to her bakery. Because, like any really cool young chick, Lainey lives in an apartment above her shop. I didn’t know these kinds of places existed, but I love it so much.

I’m glad I came to her.

She didn’t offer me advice other than to talk to Bishop. She didn’t make me feel bad for loving him. She just listened, and if she judged, I couldn’t tell. She is someone who I would love to call a friend, and hopefully, I will one day.

BULLET

The phone buzzes in my hand as I stand in the middle of the empty motel parking lot. I don’t want to fucking talk to anyone right now who isn’t Dakota. Pressing my lips together, I glance down, noticing that it’s Piggy.

I really don’t want to talk to him right now, but I don’t think I have much of a choice, either. If he’s calling me when he knows that I’m occupied with tracking Dakota down, then it must be important.

Sliding my thumb across the screen, I hold my phone to my ear before I greet him. “Piggy.”

“I know where Dakota is. She’s safe,” he murmurs.

Closing my eyes, I let out a heavy exhale. I want to freak the fuck out right now. I don’t, but I want to. However, I also know that it is not Piggy’s fault she bounced in the middle of the night after whatever the fuck happened happened .

I am not taking the full blame for this situation until I know what the fuck actually went on between me and Exorcist. And even then. I never said I was some saint, so shit fucking happens sometimes. This isn’t one of those cases, though, because I don’t remember a fucking thing, and I was not drunk enough to black out.

“Where is she?” I’m trying my hardest not to sound like a demanding asshole.

I am a demanding asshole, so I come off sounding exactly like that even if I don’t mean to. It is what it fucking is at this point. I need to know where the fuck Dakota is, and I need to get to the bottom of all this shit. Exorcist is locked in a room at the clubhouse, and I want to deal with her before we leave for Oregon, so I’m on a goddamn time crunch.

Piggy snorts, then clears his throat. “She’s at the bakery with Lainey.”

“With your sister ?”

He hums but doesn’t clarify how that happened. How they even know one another, let alone how Dakota ended up at her place sometime in the middle of the night. Without asking those questions, mainly because I want to hear the answers from her, not Piggy, I end the call.

And the moment that call ends, I watch as the bitch I’ve been trying to avoid barrels into the motel parking lot on two fucking wheels as her brakes screech to a stop only a few feet from my bike. I would like to say my heart doesn’t jump into my throat at the thought of her wrecking my machine, but that would be a lie.

Arching a brow, I look down at her car, then flick my gaze to meet hers as she throws the driver’s door open and stands. I don’t show her just how much she fucking terrified me over the safety of my bike. That would be a weakness, and I’m never showing this bitch shit.

“What the fuck? Where is Dakota, and what in the hell is going on?” she snaps.

I don’t respond to her because I don’t respond to anyone talking to me that way, especially this bitch. Even if she kind of has a point in being pissed. I still don’t give a fuck.

Tilting my head to the side, I look at her, waiting for her to calm the fuck down when she’s talking to me. Call me whatever the fuck you want, but I don’t tolerate that shit, ever.

“Where is she?” she demands again.

I should tell her to fuck right off, but I don’t. The simple fact is that I need her to help me in Oregon. I don’t know the lay of the land there, and she knows more than Dakota does. I also don’t have a problem with hanging her ass out there to dry, but I do have a problem with Dakota being hung out.

This is the only reason I didn’t turn her ass around yesterday when she started in on her bullshit and made Dakota feel bad about falling for me. About wanting to marry me. About being my woman. And I guarantee she’s now swimming in the fact that she feels vindicated in her opinion.

Which only pisses me off even more.

“She’s at the bakery in town. I’m going to get her. You can go back to the clubhouse, and I’ll bring her there. Then we need to get our shit together to leave on the trip.”

“I’m going with you,” she announces.

Rolling my eyes to the sky, I wonder what Dakota would really do if I just cut this bitch’s throat so I didn’t have to hear her voice for another minute longer. I’m sure she’d be pissed at me, and since I’m already in the doghouse, I decide against it.

“You want to go, that’s fine. But all you’ll see is me picking her up, putting her on the back of my bike, then riding away. I’m not getting into a discussion with her or anyone else in public, and I sure as shit am not getting in one with you standing there watching, wishing you had fuckin’ popcorn.”

Her eyes widen, and she jerks back as if I’ve physically assaulted her. “You’re an asshole,” she seethes.

“No fuckin’ shit.”

Without saying another word, I walk over to my bike, climb on, and then start the engine. I ignore Briana’s existence as I make my way toward downtown Thunder Rock and my woman. I’m not even mad that she walked out of the clubhouse last night. I’m just grateful as fuck that she’s safe.

After those bastard Bloodhounds took her and the bullshit with the cartel, I was thinking the worst possible scenario all over again. We’re hoping to steer clear of them completely, but who knows if they’ve got eyes on us or not,

The bakery isn’t far away from the motel, just a few streets, and as I pull into the parking spot right in front of the shop, I see Dakota. She’s standing behind the counter, her head turned to the side as she talks to Lainey.

Her lips are curved up into a smile.

She’s safe.

Relief floods over me.

I know that Piggy told me she was okay, but there is something about seeing her that makes it all real.

I’m going to spank her ass.