lady.
I shot Dagger a glance and saw he was grinning just as widely as Flame.
Fuck. I hadn’t seen either of them smile like that for a long time.
Six years, three months, two weeks, and four days to be precise. And yeah, like a pussy, I’d counted. Knew how long she’d been out of our lives, and had hated every fucking moment without her.
I’d never say any of that shit to my brothers, but fuck, to myself? Why the hell would I lie?
The second Lucie had walked that sweet ass out of the gates, the sun might as well have stopped shining. For all of us, Wolfe too, even if he wanted to deny it.
Amaryllis growled under her breath, arguing, “Ladies defend themselves. And their mommas too.”
“She’s got you there,” Flame said with a chuckle.
“Not helping, Mason!” Lucie snapped. Then, to her daughter, grumbled, “I didn’t need defending, baby girl. But I appreciate it. Daddy Wolfe can’t help that he’s a grouch. What have we always said? That he’s called that because he tries to huff, puff, and…”
“Because he wants to blow all the houses down,” Amaryllis parroted, her face still screwed up with anger as she glowered at her birth father. “Like the wolf in the story.”
I had to cough to hide a laugh, but Flame and Dagger weren’t even trying to. “Who were the three piggies in that scenario, Lucie?” I demanded, curious as fuck.
She shrugged. “You, Flame, and Dagger of course.” Then, she winked. “Naturally, it’s not their houses Wolfe wanted to—”
“That’s enough!” Wolfe growled, but his cheeks were pink, his ears too as he glanced around the lot.
No one was watching. I knew that because Flame had demanded everyone fuck off inside when he’d gone to help Lucie with her bags.
There was a reason he was the Enforcer.
Everyone who was sane was terrified of him.
And that was why Lucie wasn’t. She wasn’t sane. She was fucking nuts, and that was why we loved her.
She smirked at him then hauled her daughter up and around. It was something both girls were used to, because Amaryllis instantly clasped her mom’s hip with her thighs, sitting there with a pout as she cuddled into her.
“Seems you have a little protector,” Dagger whispered, his eyes glued to Amaryllis’s angry features.
“Born and raised in her parents’ image,” Flame agreed. “You always were so angry. I wonder why Ryan didn’t rub off on her more.” He had a point considering Ryan had been the most chilled of us all, relaxed to the point of always being horizontal.
“He did,” Lucie stated, but this time, the words were sad and her eyes were haunted. “In so many ways that it’s a joy to see now.”
“She love reading?”
Her gulp told me that was a yes.
“What about the piano? He teach her that?”
She nodded.
“We always gave him shit for that piano,” Flame whispered, and I didn’t even have it in me to slap him upside the head for cursing.
It was true.
Ryan wasn’t the average brother of an MC.
Sure, he’d earned his patches like any prospect had to, and with a knife? Fuck, he made Cujo look like he killed clean. But he played the piano thanks to his grandmother who’d insisted boys learn that and ballroom dancing of all fucking things, and he’d done more than just graduate high school—he’d been clever enough to head off to college if he’d wanted.
But he hadn’t.
Unlike most of us, Ryan hadn’t been raised in the MC.
He’d come from the regular world. His parents were churchgoers, his mom stayed at home and raised the kids, and his dad worked at a boring insurance job. They were older though. Ryan had been a late baby, and when his dad had died the day before he was due to claim his work pension and they’d refused his mom’s petition?
That was it.
He’d lost his shit, and that was when he’d become a prospect for the Hell’s Rebels.
Of course, by that point, he’d known us since kindergarten, and if we hadn’t influenced him already, it hadn’t been for lack of trying. But what regular old society had done for his family had taught him that this way of life was better.
You made your own luck in this world, and you did it with a family of three hundred at your back.
“Why are you here now, Lucie? Why not two months ago?” Dagger’s question was softly posed, and Lucie pursed her lips as she pressed them into Amaryllis’s hair.
“After he… went away, things were tough.” From