think it’s… makeup?” I hazarded a guess as I rocked back into my seat. “But why?”
“Because I think she’s up to something.”
“Like what? What could she get up to now when she’s been there for so long?” Dagger demanded.
Martin’s eyes flared. “How long do you think she’s been with us?”
“Since she left here,” Flame replied, then casting a look around the table, carried on, “What? Five years?”
“Just under,” Lucie agreed.
Martin shook his head. “Nope. She ain’t been with us for more than seven months. Around five years ago, sure, she came and hung out… was one of the sweetbutts for a while if I remember correctly, then she disappeared like they do, and we thought nothing of it.
“Seven months ago, she rolls back around. Same old story, except she goes for Hex in a big way. Wasn’t all that surprised when she turned up pregnant.”
“They think it’s the easiest way to get an old man,” Lucie rumbled, her mouth curving in a sneer.
“Yeah. Exactly. And it’s since she rolled back around that all the shit has been hitting my fan, and I ain’t happy about it.
“That run? I’ve lost my Sergeant-at-Arms, my fucking Road Captain, and five other good brothers. Brothers that, in a pinch, I’d have shoved on the council if I lost any of the councilors, which I just fucking have.” He gritted his teeth as he ran a hand through his hair.
Silence fell at his declaration, and because we all understood his pain, we didn’t say shit for a while, just processed what he was saying and where he was going with it.
Rubbing my chin, I contemplated it and decided to spell it out for everyone. “Okay, let’s run this down. What you’re saying is that Hex never beat on Kenzie, and that she’s, what? Wearing makeup to make it look like she was badly hit? All so that Keys would see it, react, and somehow magic it up that you’d let her come here?”
“Fuck, when you put it like that, it sounds like a goddamn conspiracy theory,” Martin snarled, grabbing the bottle of JD and a tumbler from the tray at the center of the table and pouring himself a five-fingered shot.
As he sank it back, Lucie shook her head. “No. It doesn’t. Can’t ever trust a sweetbutt, even if they come from good stock.”
When she sniffed, Wolfe ground out, “I told you, I never fucking touched her.”
“Well, you did something if she thinks she can say it’s your goddamn baby,” Lucie snarled, and in a flash, she was on her feet, her hands slamming into the table. “I promise you this, Wolfe, if that bastard is your baby, I’ll filet your cock and get a kick out of feeding it to the fucking pigs.”
Everyone released a hiss at the imagery, but Wolfe didn’t pale. Didn’t blanch. His eyes turned stormy, the blue darkening with his rage as he slowly got to his feet, leaned over the table, and ground out, “You really want to do this here? In front of your daddy? In front of Ink and Wheels?”
“They’re going to find out soon enough, aren’t they?” she snarled. “Especially if baby Wolfe number two is on its way.”
“Woman, I’m telling you now, you’d better fucking listen because I ain’t pulling this BS again.
“In the thirteen years we’ve been together, I ain’t touched another goddamn pussy. Ain’t licked one, ain’t fucked one. Ain’t fucked an ass or let anyone near my goddamn cock. Which part of that ain’t you hearing?”
Lucie, her eyes fixed firmly on her old man, grated out, “Then why did she think she could get away with this?”
“Go big or go home?” Flame tossed out, and I shot him a look, saw there was little expression in his face but his eyes were burning.
When I cut all of Lucie’s men a look, I saw they were all a mixture of pained and outraged. There was no guilt or shame written on their faces, and I was relieved. I had a vested interest in these guys’ lives now. The second I wifed Ama, because I was taking it all the fucking way, since I was too damn old to fuck around, these bastards would be my fathers-in-law—which either made me the bravest man in the world or the stupidest.
As brothers, as MC family, they mattered to me, always had and always would, but I was about to take this to another level.
“What do you mean?” Lucie rasped, turning to him with the question. It