had everyone, Wheels included, grunting under their breaths. It was very hard to be mean to Ama, mostly because she was so amicable. Of course, they hadn’t seen the real her. I didn’t even think her parents had seen that side of her though. But I had. And not just last night, either.
Last night, she’d burned me with her fire, but that inferno was there all the time. Except it only raged around certain people. She didn’t have to be Flame’s biologically to have inherited the low-key fire that burned deep in her soul.
“Let me deal with her,” Lucie ground out, “and you guys deal with getting anything vaguely contraband off the premises.” She cut me a look. “Take Ama to your place in Jonsson.”
My nose wrinkled at the thought—I hadn’t been back there in years. Not since I knew Ama needed me.
“Okay.”
“Keep the boys there too,” she stated. “If anything happens to any of you, Ama won’t—” She broke off, blew out a breath. “You can’t be involved in anything that happens tonight. I’ll drop off Seamus and Matty as well once I’ve handled Kenzie.”
“Fuck that,” I growled. “You need all hands on deck.”
“Ama will lose her shit if anything happens to the three of you,” Flame agreed.
“And what about you? Her goddamn family? Think she’ll cope without any of you?”
Lucie’s eyes were soft as they danced over each of her men. “She’s got her own support system now. She isn’t a baby. Ama’s needed you and those boys more than she’s needed us for a long while.” Her gaze cut to me, and when she pierced me with that look? I had a feeling she knew exactly how long Ama had been sneaking into my room in the clubhouse.
That she’d allowed it at all was incredible. That she hadn’t threatened me was a miracle.
“You’re looking after all our kids, Ink,” Flame rasped. “That’s the most important job there is.”
I wanted to agree, but it just didn’t feel like it was enough. Martin, sensing my dilemma, rumbled, “Just go with the flow, Ink. I’ll pick up any slack, okay?”
Because that went some way to making me feel better, I dipped my chin, and the conversation turned onto evacuating our ‘contraband,’ as Lucie had called it. Like a million dollars’ worth of hardware was small fry.
Had to love her ability to understate shit.
❖
Ama
“What the fuck was that about?”
I’d known exactly what I was doing when I’d kissed Ink farewell. Not only because I wanted to stir a reaction in Saint and Keys, but also because sometimes, and it killed me to think it, but sometimes brothers went off and didn’t come back.
Emergency church?
That meant shit. In our world, when that happened, it was the shit hitting the fan, and I wasn’t about to let my man go without kissing him goodbye.
I twisted on my heel after I watched Ink’s bike roar off into the distance, and when I turned back, sighed at just how pretty my men were.
I either had to be the luckiest woman in the world or the most doomed. I’d seen how my mother had fought, and fought hard, to make sure my fathers didn’t stray. I’d watched her get nastier with the womenfolk at the clubhouse, watched her turn into more of a bitch around the sweetbutts.
Knowing I had all that to come and more, I embraced it. It was worth it to have these two in my life on more than just a friendly basis. Being their friend was important to me, sure, but I needed more from them, and I was old enough for my wants to be realized.
It was time they knew it too.
Arrogant of me? Perhaps. But Keys had been with me pretty much since the day I’d arrived in Rutherford as a little girl. He’d been my companion throughout everything. Until this last run and barring the kidnapping, I didn’t think there’d been a day that passed where I hadn’t seen him. That was how close we were.
He’d been my shield at high school, my rock at home.
And Saint? Well, he’d been with me too, apart from the fact he’d been on more runs. Saint was my sounding board. The one I went to with my problems. Who would sit with me in silence when I just needed to draw. He’d even let me do that without bitching, unlike Keys, the shit, who rarely let me sketch him.
Being without any of them just wasn’t going to happen. I didn’t know why