to bringing Amaryllis back, to returning her to the fold.
Trouble was, as Prez, I couldn’t give her what she wanted.
I couldn’t share my old lady. If I did, then that would undermine me to the men. But my brothers deserved her just as much, if not more, than I did.
Pressing a hand to her shoulder, I stepped closer and was stunned when she snapped her arms out, curved them around my waist, and burrowed into my embrace. It was kind of awkward considering she was straddling Dagger like she was about to give him a lap dance, but then, was it really?
We’d gone past awkward a long time ago, hadn’t we?
I mean, hell. I’d seen my brothers’ cocks so many times that I pretty much knew them like I knew my own. Not only because we’d gotten into the habit of fucking Lucie as a group except for the first time she’d seduced us all individually, but because after she’d gone, we’d tried to replace her, to replace those feelings, that euphoria of sharing a bitch, but it hadn’t worked.
No woman could compare to Lucifer Steeler.
I glanced at Dagger and saw his jaw flexing as he studied Lucie. Her distress was hitting us both, but the worse thing was, everything was in the past. There wasn’t a fucking thing we could do to help her. Shit, if Bomber was still alive, we couldn’t do shit either. Bomber was our Prez, which meant he had carte blanche to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.
Even if that meant offing his old lady who’d cheated on him and had been lying to him about his daughter for years.
Technically, even the Prez was supposed to get a vote from his council when it came to murder. Mostly because we had to be prepared to deal with any backlash from a murder investigation. Also, we dealt with getting rid of bodies on the regular—that wasn’t something the council handled on their own. Once you had power in the MC, dirtying your hands died a death.
But Bomber always had been a wild card, and it was something we all just dealt with because he was one of the Originals. The founding member who’d herded five other brothers together to form the MC back in the day, before spearheading it into the brotherhood it was today.
Because he was a nutcase, there were some messed up rules that, in my time as Prez, I intended to eradicate. Like the way prospects got in by making a kill for the MC. Sure, after you were tied to the Rebels’ for eternity, I had no issue with getting brothers in on murder-for-hire jobs—it was how we’d made our money all these years. But just to get in as prospect? Nah. That was hardcore, but then, that was how Bomber had always rolled.
I couldn’t stop myself from running my hand over her hair, tangling my fingers in the silken locks that I’d missed seeing mussing up my pillows. Shit, you knew you were smitten over a bitch when you even missed all the fucking hair that got clogged in the goddamn drain, or missed seeing her panties sharing space with your laundry.
Christ, how had I lived without her?
My eyes closed of their own volition as need and want and love for her rammed its way home inside me. Like a punch to the gut, I was reminded of all the crazy that Lucie brought to my world. My days had never been predictable when she was around, had never been boring or bland when she was there to fuck shit up for me.
She was my personal Pandora, except I welcomed the chaos, and there was no point in fighting that. No point at all.
“Lucie, baby,” Dagger rasped, when she just sat there shivering on his lap, her arms around me.
We both knew she was crying, but Lucie just didn’t cry. That wasn’t something that was supposed to be in her repertoire, but it figured that after these past couple of months, this news was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.
At that moment, I really wanted Ryan to be here. But he’d gone now, and he’d left Lucie in our care.
Our shitty care.
Fuck, if there was ever a time in my life I’d had to man up, it was now. Today.
I had a kid, and her mother needed me. Even though she gave off the impression she needed no one, Lucie was one of the loneliest people I’d ever