Silas (Dirty Aces MC #4) - Lane Hart Page 0,64

you, why aren’t you there with her?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask him.

“It’s a one-hour drive and thirty-minute ferry ride. You could be there before dinner, so what’s the problem?”

“Huh?”

“I think what Malcolm is asking is, do you want to make shit right with her or not?” Devlin explains.

“Do you all have temporary amnesia?” I ask, looking around the table at each of them. “I put Cora through hell. She found out I lied about who I was for weeks, then I got her pregnant, before crushing her when she lost it.”

“Is there a chance she’ll eventually forgive you or not?” Malcolm asks.

I start to say there’s not, but hadn’t she forgiven me for the lying and all when we were together in the hospital?

In fact, when she got out of the car, I think she was pissed because I wasn’t going with her. That had to be why she told me to grow a pair.

“I guess there’s a small chance,” I admit.

“Then go! What the fuck are you waiting for?” Nash yells at me.

“How the hell would that work, though? She has to live there, and I have to be here for the MC.”

“It’s ninety minutes, man,” Malcolm says. “Anyone opposed to Silas being ninety or so minutes away if we need him?”

“If it’s life or death in two hours’ time, then we’re all fucked anyway,” Wirth mutters.

“Agreed,” Devlin says.

“We hardly ever have any last-minute meetings,” Nash replies. “Long as we give you a day’s notice, you can be here; right?”

“I guess, but…”

“Not like you have a job with the MC,” Malcolm adds. “I always wondered how you made ends meet. Had no clue you were some sort of trust-fund baby.”

“Hey, man, can I maybe borrow some money?” Fiasco asks straight-faced and serious.

“Yeah, Fiasco. Let me know what you need, and I’ll write you a check,” I say with a shake of my head.

Cora

* * *

“Hey, boss,” Tiffany says to me when she finds me sulking in the kitchen, eating icing out of a container with a spoon during the slow mid-morning shift.

“What’s up?” I ask with as much enthusiasm as I can muster.

“There’s this guy out front who insists he needs to talk to you.”

“I’m not here,” I say.

“I told him that, but then he sat down at a table and refused to leave. He pulled out a knife and…”

“A knife?” I exclaim as I sit down my can of icing to stand up. “Did you call the police?”

“I wasn’t sure if I should or not.” She peeks out the door to the dining room. “I think he’s carving something into the table now…”

“What? On my brand-new tables?” I exclaim. “I’ll kick his ass!” I say, happy for the distraction and ability to yell at someone to get it out of my system. Anything is better than the soul-sucking depressing.

I storm out into the dining room, eyes searching the few tables for the asshole. When I spot him, I almost turn around and run the other way. I hate how my heart lurches at the sight of him in his leather vest, wanting him even after the hell he’s put me through.

Marching up to the table he’s vandalizing, so focused he hasn’t even looked up to see me, I yell at him, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The knife scrapes across the wood before he lifts his dark eyes and then grins at me.

“Hey, baby.”

“Don’t you dare hey baby me!”

“You prefer when I call you Red?” he asks. “That term of endearment doesn’t really work with your hair brown.”

“Why are you here, and why are you destroying my property?”

“I told you I’m going to keep showing up, even when you tell me to leave,” he says, folding his enormous knife and slipping it back into his pocket and getting to his feet. “I packed up my things and dropped them off at the house before I came here. I’m moving in with you.”

“You’re what?” I gasp.

“Moving in with you. The house is technically in my name,” he reminds me.

“Then I’ll move out!” I declare.

“No, baby. Don’t say that,” he says when he grips my arms. My body is such a traitor for responding to even that innocent of a touch from him. “I’m here because I want to be with you. All my truths, good and bad, are laid out on the table now. There’s no more lies, I promise.”

Speaking of tables, I glance down to see what filth he carved in mine.