Yeah, you did, but I didn’t. She was safe with me, but she wasn’t happy. She was made to be ours, and life got in the way of that. But she’s back where she needs to be and that’s all that matters.
“Miss you, man.”
I miss you, too. More than you fucking know. Was hard being without you guys.
We’d gone to school together, had been raised together, had prospected together, had even been inducted into the MC together.
Losing him had been hard, and the only thing that was worse was losing Lucie at the same time.
I licked my lips as I walked down the empty hall toward the office. I knew Wolfe was working out, Dagger was learning how to fabricate the guns so he was probably back at the Shed, as we were calling the factory, and Flame was, undoubtedly, somewhere near Amaryllis. He was pretty much her shadow, and had been ever since Lucie had told us her biological father had threatened to abduct her.
Didn’t matter that the Satan’s Knights hadn’t been seen for three months around these parts. Flame believed in long term planning.
Ensconced in the office, in private, I pressed my back to the door and spoke to the voice in my head, “Is she safe?”
Wouldn’t be going if she weren’t.
There was a finality to his tone that settled me. “What happened, man? Do you know?”
Found Bomber hiding the drugs in Lucie’s room. Took a picture of it. When he exiled Lucie, I knew some shit was going down and that she needed me with her. When I went to leave, he told me I couldn’t. I knew then that he wanted her isolated. I showed him the picture, told him I’d sent it to someone I trusted and that if he didn’t let me go, I’d show the club. The rest is history.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell us? Show us that picture?”
Because you had to stay here.
“What? Why?”
This was Lucie’s home. She was always coming back here, and she’d always need to come back to you. You weren’t ready for her. Weren’t ready for what she needed. She’d already told me she was pregnant, and I knew you fuckwits couldn’t deal with that.
I’d already seen the way you were starting to get interested in the sweetbutts, and I saw heartbreak on the horizon. I made sure to limit that, made sure that you were a safe haven for her to come back to. If you’d cheated, she’d never have forgiven you. She isn’t the sort.
My throat worked as I thought back to that time. We’d been in our early twenties, and yeah, had been thinking with our cocks. We still did to some degree, but over six years of fucking whoever we wanted whenever we wanted, of being without Lucie, had pretty much soured me for anyone else. I knew the others were the same too.
If he’d been alive, I’d probably have beaten the shit out of him for his presumption, but I didn’t. I didn’t know how long he’d be able to talk to me like this, and sure, maybe I was losing my mind, but Ryan seemed to have answers to questions that we were all dying to know.
One day, before all this shit went down, I heard Bomber on the phone with someone. He was concerned. He’d been skimming from the shipments and the cartel had just figured it out. When, a few days later, I caught him planting that shit in Lucie’s room? I knew what was going to go down, knew he was going to let her take the fall. So, I blackmailed him with the picture. I made him let me go, but also, made sure that he cut a deal with Ramon to keep her safe from the cartel’s reach. Plus, I got the kilo of coke and used that to fund our new life.
Kid had always been a clever bastard. Even as respect for him filled me, I questioned, “Who did you send the picture to?”
A neighbor of my sister-in-law. The one who lived in Graceville.
I frowned. “What the fuck? Why her?”
She was an old lady of a Satan’s Knight.
Fuck.
“She showed Lucifer?”
Figure as much. Knew we had Knights tailing us.
“Do you know why he let her go? Why he didn’t keep a hold on her?”
You think you’re the only one I talked to? Been haunting that man since I died.