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CHAPTER SIX

BULLET

Shocker’s eyes meet mine from over his beer. Why he chooses draft beer over bottles, I will never fucking understand. Lifting my bottle to my lips, I take a pull to clear my throat. He watches me without saying a single word, and I’m about to demand that he fucking tell me what is going on.

“Shade fell in fucking love thirty years ago. The bitch came in and swept him off his feet. The problem is that she didn’t tell him how old she was. Sixteen years old. Something he didn’t find out until she was in the goddamn hospital giving birth to his kid. A girl. Child Protective Services were involved.”

Shit.

“It took Ivy’s dad some doing, but he was able to skip prison and having to register as a sex offender. I don’t know the details of that shit, but what I know is that the bitch took the baby out of that hospital, and none of us saw her or the kid again. Gutted. That’s what Shade was. He loved that girl, but beyond that, he loved the baby.”

“She took the kid to live a live in a commune in Oregon,” I grunt.

Shocker’s eyes widen. “You’re telling me she’s been found? The baby?”

Nodding once, I lift my beer to my lips and take a pull. “Baby is thirty now and here to collect her estate.”

Shocker whistles, then almost immediately after clears his throat. “Can’t say it’s the baby’s fault. She literally knew nothing about Shade, I’m sure. The teenage bitch, I want to blame her, too, but she was a kid. Probably embarrassed and scared. Told everyone she was eighteen. Shade shouldn’t have been sniffin’ around her, even at eighteen, but he fell hard and fast. Not hard to do. Seemed like a sweet girl.”

“Sounds like you seriously don’t give a shit Dakota is here to take what she thinks is hers.”

Shocker snorts. “You got that wrong, man.”

“Do I?” I growl.

“Yeah,” he says. “She’s not here to take what she thinks is hers. Shade gave it to her.”

Standing from the barstool, I lift my hand and extend my finger toward him, pointing right in his fucking face. “Shade didn’t give her fucking shit. He didn’t know anything about her, and she sure as fuck didn’t know him.”

“So knowing him makes someone somehow worthy of his worldly possessions?”

I almost laugh in his face, but I decide against it. Instead, I just smile as I look across the bar at him. I need to get to the shop, but right now, I can’t even fucking see straight, let alone ride. I’m so goddamn pissed off.

“Yeah, I would fucking say so,” I roar. “That fucking cunt doesn’t deserve a cent of his money, of our business, or of any fucking thing that belonged to the man we love. The man that was our president. She doesn’t deserve a fucking thing. She’s earned nothing.”

If Shocker is… well… shocked by my words, he gives me zero indication. In fact, he only smiles before he speaks.

“You might be over forty, Bullet, but you got a lot to learn in this world. Maybe you should talk to this girl because, odds are, she missed out on a lot of shit from Shade that you had. Stuff ain’t gonna replace that, brother.”

The anger doesn’t dissipate at all. Not in the fucking slightest. I don’t give a fuck that I had the best parts of Shade while she had nothing. Just because his blood runs through her body doesn’t mean that she deserves his stuff.

His legacy.

Walking toward the door to the clubhouse, I’m only stopped when I see Exorcist. She reaches out, wrapping her fingers around my forearm. My feet freeze, and I turn my head, looking down at her hand on mine, then slowly lift my gaze to meet hers.

“What?” I demand.

“Take the frustration out on me. Come fuck me.”

I think about her offer and her demand, and part of me wants to go for it. The other part wants to tell her to fuck off because there is only one cunt I want to take my frustrations out on, and that’s Dakota’s.

“Not right now, babe,” I mutter. “Maybe later.”

Exorcist squeezes my arm, then releases it as I continue toward the door and step outside. The sun is shining, but there is a cool mountain breeze that hits me, and I tilt my face upward, allowing the sun to warm me for just a moment.

Making my way over to my bike, I climb on, straddling my machine before I start the engine. It rumbles to life. Without even thinking, I ride straight to the shop—Thunder Rock Security Supply.

We don’t actually do any security work ourselves in any way. That would be a fucking shit show if we even tried. We sell supplies around the area, up and down the East Coast, really.

Among other illicit things.

In all truthfulness and transparency, the shop is a front for trafficking stolen shit. We have stuff coming and going at all hours of the day and night. It works for us, and it’s our main source of income.

What we don’t need is Shade’s long-lost daughter coming in and fucking shit up. That’s what we don’t need. So, as a club and business owners, it seems as though some decisions need to be made.

And as much as I want to just run the bitch out of town, I’m confident that Shocker wouldn’t allow it, especially after talking to him today, and Ivy will throw some legal mumbo-jumbo at me about it, too.

Parking in the back of the shop, I disengage from my bike and make my way toward the door. Stopping, I look around, over my shoulder, and at the door in front of me. All is quiet, a little too quiet. There is a stillness in the air that is unnerving.

Tugging the door open, I step inside and not only close it but lock it behind me as well. Then I go in search of Viking, who is supposed to be working the counter and phones today. It doesn’t take me long to walk to the front of the store, and when I do, my gaze lands on Viking.

He’s right where he’s supposed to be, and I wonder if it’s just all in my head because of Dakota’s sudden appearance in Thunder Rock. Viking’s gaze finds mine, and he jerks his chin toward me.

“You good?” he asks.

“Just came in to do some inventory.”

He grunts but doesn’t say anything else. Making my way to the storage room, I flip on the light and grab the iPad. Everything is hidden and encrypted, but it still has to be logged because shit is going out on a truck tomorrow night, and then it’s going to fall off, and we’re going to get paid.

DAKOTA

As I pull into the driveway, my car moves forward at a crawl. I don’t know what to expect as the car inches forward. In fact, when I reach the house, I slam on my brakes as if I’ve been flying down the street when I’ve been driving at the slowest crawl.

It’s a house.

A real one.

I don’t know what I expected, but this was not it.

A two-story house with cream-colored siding, an attached garage, a full front porch, along with square pillars. Complete with black rocking chairs and black shutters. My hand shakes as I shift the car into Park , afraid that my foot will slip off the pedal.

I’ve never seen anything so picture-perfect in my entire life.

This is a family’s home.

This is my dad’s home.

Something that I don’t recognize fills me from the inside out, almost bursting out of me. I’m not sure if it’s pride or sadness. Tears stream down my face at the sight of this amazing home. It’s mine now, but even sitting here in the driveway looking at it, I know it’ll never be mine.

This will forever be his and, at the same time, better than anything I’ve ever laid eyes on in my entire life.

Taking the front door key out of the envelope, I open the car door and unfold from the front seat. I walk slowly toward the door and climb the three steps to get to the porch. Reaching out, I glide my fingers over the arm of one of the wooden rocking chairs.

Shoving the key into the bottom lock, I twist it, then I do the same to the dead bolt, but I don’t push it open. Not yet. I’m not sure what I’m going to find when I open the door. It could be a complete disaster. It could be perfectly clean.

I just don’t know.

But also, I’m scared to death.

I feel like I’m invading his world. I don’t belong here. I know that I don’t. Bullet is right. I don’t deserve any of this. And with a decision made, I twist the knob and push the door open. Stepping into the small foyer, I close the door behind me and lock it.

Before I turn the lights on, I inhale a deep breath, taking in the scent of my father’s home. Leather and oil. Much like Bullet, except Bullet had a sandalwood scent mixed in with it. Lifting my hand, I touch the side of the wall next to the door and flip the light on.

The room becomes illuminated, and my breath hitches.

The brown leather furniture is warm and inviting, with a matching recliner and a sofa. There is a solid wood coffee table in the middle of the room, a stack of magazines in the center. The television takes up most of the wall, and there is a cabinet beneath it with doors that I assume hide DVDs and whatever else is needed for TVs to do their thing behind them.

Pressing my lips together, I roll them a few times. I feel like I’m doing something naughty. Something bad. Like I’m breaking into his home, invading his space. Forcing my feet to move through the house, I step into the kitchen.

It’s warm, and the colors are all yellow and white. The cabinets are white, and the floors are light yellow. I’m sure they aren’t anything a man would choose, but I could think of a million ways to make this cozy.

It feels weird to open any cabinets, so instead of doing that, I make my way down the hall and toward the back of the house. Reaching for the handle of what I assume is the master bedroom door, I drop my hand at the sound of a noise in the living space.

I turn my back to the bedroom door, slowly move through the hall, and stop at the sight of a man standing with his back to me. My heart skips a beat, my breath hitches, and then I realize who it is.

Slowly, he turns around to face me as if sensing me, and his eyes meet mine. I can see the anger swirling in his gaze, and I hold my breath as I wait for him to tell me off again. But he doesn’t. Instead, he just watches me for a moment in complete silence.

“Bullet,” I breathe when it almost feels excruciating to stay in this oppressive silence for another minute. He jerks his chin, his gaze searching mine, still staying so unbearably quiet. “What are you doing here?”

He shakes his head slowly, his gaze never leaving mine. Slowly, he moves toward me. My feet shift backward until I slam against the wall. He doesn’t stop his approach, and then he slams his palm against the wall next to my head.

He dips his chin slightly, and his nose slides alongside my own before he speaks, his lips so close to mine that they’re practically touching them with each word he says. My heart beats faster and faster, and my breathing comes out in short pants.

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here, babe. But I can’t stay away from you.”

“I thought you hated me,” I whisper, my lips brushing his with each word. In turn, a chill shimmies up and down my spine because each touch of his lips feels like little electric shocks that tingle and zap my skin.

“I fucking do,” he grunts before his lips slam against mine in a hard— perfect —kiss.