on his way out. Even if he makes a recovery, he might still wanna step down. I know you won’t deny him a well-deserved retirement by voting against it and it’s no secret you’re next in line. Those are big shoes to fill, use every advantage you got. You and Liv are both forces to be reckoned with on your own, if you play off each other’s strengths instead of battling it out at every fucking turn, you’d be unstoppable.”
He let his best friend’s words sink in for a minute. Zed the fucking Love Guru, who would’ve thought? Maybe he really was making this shit a lot more complicated than it had to be.
What he actually needed to do was go find his woman. He stood up and shook the dirt off his jeans. “How’d you get to be such a wise motherfucker?”
Zed followed him to his feet and slapped him on the back. “Oprah.”
Torch chuckled. “Love you, brother.”
“Love you too, asshole. Now go get the one who loves you and has a pussy to park your dick in. She’s at the safe house, I had Biff track her phone. I’m gonna go check on Grimm and make sure he hasn’t killed our hostage by accident.”
: 17 :
| TORCH |
He heard a succession of gunshots all the way from the gate. If he hadn’t already figured out that she was letting off steam with a pile of ammo, he might have been worried. Then again, he really had no idea what was going through that head of her, she was probably practicing blowing his dick off. He grimaced at the thought but punched in the gate code and rode through anyway. Fuck it, they had some shit to set straight.
As he pulled up in front of the safe house, he saw her out in the clearing, setting up empty beer bottles on a wooden ledge next to a silhouette target. This was where they all came to keep from getting rusty
Their eyes met as she walked back to her spot, but she averted hers and got to work loading what looked like a 9mm. He knew the misery on her face was mostly his doing, she wasn’t the one who couldn’t keep up her end of their bargain. But his word didn’t mean fucking dick right now and that ate at him more than anything. His woman brought out all the good in him, maybe the only good to be found, and she deserved better.
He cautiously approached her from behind. “You picturing my face on those bottles?”
She took aim and fired off eight rounds in a row, hitting every bottle from left to right. “I probably should be,” she answered flatly, her back still to him.
Well, at least she wasn’t practicing her kill shot. Considering how precise that fucking aim was, he’d take it. He reached out and touched her back. “Babe, you gotta talk to me eventually.”
Blatantly ignoring him, she loaded another magazine and held out a bottle. “Throw it.”
He did what he was told, only because this he had to see. She aimed up and followed the arch of the bottle, firing as it reached its peak. And, wouldn’t you know… she hit the goddamn thing, blowing it right out of the air. The shot would’ve been impressive enough with a rifle, but a handgun?
She always carried and told him she’d been trained, but this was the first time he was seeing it for himself. He really didn’t want to fucking admit it, but she was a better shot than a lot of his brothers. Shit, she was probably better than him judging by her accuracy with that last round. It was starting to make sense why she got so frustrated with his attempts to shield her from his reality.
Why was he so determined to hold her back? A lot of organizations had females near the front lines—hell, he knew of at least three cartels with downright scary bitches at the top—and the MC had never used that as a reason to refuse working with any of them if it benefited the club. Frankly, he should’ve been thanking his lucky stars one of those groups hadn’t pulled her in during the eight years he’d been pining away for her. Liv wasn’t asking for power within the club, to make decisions, or to tell them how to handle their business, she just wanted to help the cause. A cause she loved—not just tolerated—because she loved her man.
Seriously, what more