Her lips curved in a knowing grin, before she turned around and showed my brothers. “Proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
Axe cut me a look, but I saw he was just as startled as I was. Ryan had set Lucie up well, and fuck, she’d had no need to come back here. If I’d thought it was because she needed support, I was wrong. Well, kind of. She didn’t need the financial kind, but the emotional? Yeah, she needed that.
Lucie was a pretty cold woman, but where we were concerned, we were her kryptonite. I knew that. Knew that she needed us as much as I’d trained myself not to need her.
Having her around was making these past few years of denying my feelings for her seem all the more fucking pointless. And when I thought about my disastrous marriage? I felt like an even bigger dumbass.
Axe’s voice was thoughtful as he stated, “I think the brothers will be interested in what she has to say.”
No shit. With that amount of money backing her? Jesus would be interested too. Maybe for different reasons, though…
While I bitched about it, I ultimately agreed to having the pain in my ass approach the brothers at church.
Watching her walk away, Axe’s arms slung around her shoulders as he guided her out of the office, was enough to make it worthwhile though. I could sense her excitement, could read the hope she had that this would be enough to appease the rest of the club.
But I wasn’t so sure. Bikers had long memories, and Bomber had fucked up her rep over the years. For her sake, I hoped this was enough, and that I wasn’t lynched when my brothers saw who I’d brought with us for the meeting.
Church took place in the basement, which replicated the floor plan of the stairs above. It contained a large, custom-built table that seated thirty brothers, with the rest herded around it on other seats.
Knowing the rest of the MC would be inside by now because we were running late, I hauled her back when we reached the door. “Don’t come in until we call for you,” I told her, surprised when she just nodded and stayed back without argument.
As we walked in, the chatter of two hundred men died down. The act was respectful, but I’d heard what they were discussing like a bunch of old hens before they’d shut their traps—Lucie’s return and why we hadn’t tossed her out.
Dumbfucks.
Ignoring them, I went straight to the table and took my place. I was at the head, Axe, as my VP, was at the other end. Dotted around were Flame, who was my Enforcer, and Dagger, who was my Treasurer. The positions of Secretary, Road Captain, and Sergeant of Arms had yet to be established as the previous holders of said roles had all died in the same gunfight that had killed Bomber.
We were currently at war with the MC behind that mass slaughter, but we’d had to retreat to lick our wounds as we tried to find a new equilibrium.
In truth, Lucie couldn’t have returned home at a worse time in that we were all unsettled and on edge. But, with her proposition, she might well save all our asses.
The basement was illuminated starkly with bright white lights that made me feel like I was being interrogated by the cops, but it was a dark as fuck space without them. I hated being down here, but I didn’t have much say in the matter. Church was church, and holding it down here was more than just convenient, since it fit the three-hundred strong brotherhood, but also, Bomber had stacked the place with supplies in case we were attacked.
I’d always thought the fucker was paranoid, until he’d been shot down by Satan’s Knights MC. A piss-poor excuse for a club who was trying to snatch our territory out from under us.
Thinking about having Amaryllis and Lucie in the midst of this chaos set my heart racing, and knowing that she wanted to live outside the clubhouse? Fuck. That just wasn’t going to work, even if I understood her logic. I wasn’t happy about my little girl being in contact with these motherfuckers every day. I didn’t have many paternal instincts, but having her see the shit that went down in the clubhouse was more than even I thought I could stand.
With the hiss of Flame’s lighter punctuating every word, I listened