“What the fuck are you talking about?” His murderous gaze slides to the two guys sitting on the couch pushed up against the wall.
Dane lets out a low whistle. “She’s telling the truth, Prez. If it wasn’t for Pretty Boy here, we might never have…”
“So what you’re saying is I should be thanking him,”—his head whips in Wes’s direction—“and not you two?”
“Does it matter?” I throw up my hands in frustration. “You’re missing the point.”
“The point?” His eyes narrow right at me. “The point, dear daughter, is that if you’d have stayed in the compound, none of this would have ever happened.”
“Fine. I screwed up.” I let out an exasperated breath. “I can admit that. But the Reapers obviously—”
“Hold up,” Wes says. “The Reapers? As in, the Ridge View Reapers?”
“What do you know about the Reapers, Pretty Boy?” Dane asks.
“I know things got messy way back between the Sinners and the Reapers. It’s why my old man wants Mayor Nixon to come down harder on the club. So nothing like that happens again.”
“Take a seat, son.” Dad motions to a chair and Wes drops into it, and I stand there in the middle of the four men in my life.
God, when did shit get so complicated?
“Come on, Prez, you can’t be serious,” Rhett protests, levelling Wes with a cold look. “He’s an outsider.”
“Rhett,” I hiss, silently pleading with him to not do this. Not here. Not when we both know his problem with Wes is much bigger than the fact that he was Evan’s friend.
“Sadie made her choice when she brought him here.” My dad sinks back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “Why exactly did you bring him here?”
“Like I said, we ran into a complication.” My gaze lifts to Wes, but he shakes his head.
Not now.
Fine.
“But it can wait,” I add.
Dane throws me a curious look that says everything okay?
I nod.
It isn’t. I hate that we left Wes’s mom there with his piece of shit dad, but he’s right. Maybe now isn’t the time.
“For fuck’s sake, Sadie Ray, sit down. You’re making me nervous.” Dad’s expression softens.
“I’m okay, Dad.” I reassure him.
“Yeah?” He swallows hard, scrubbing his jaw, and I see the sheer relief there.
“What are you going to do with Justin?” I ask.
“I’m not sure you want to know the answer to that.” His eyes darken, and I see a flash of Razor Dalton push to the surface. Dad looks to the ceiling and lets out a strained breath. “We need concrete proof this is Darren’s doing. Once we have it, I can sit down with Nolan and Ritz.”
“Then what?”
A chill goes through the room as my dad shifts in his chair. “That motherfucker kidnapped my daughter. He put his hands on you. Darren is mine.”
“Nolan will never agree to that,” Rhett protests. “He might be a loose cannon, but Darren is his nephew. He’s family.”
“Nolan won’t want war, not now. Not while he’s on his death bed. We get confirmation that Darren was working this alone, and then I go to Nolan and Ritz.”
“And Evan?” Wes speaks up.
“Still loyal to that piece of shit, Pretty Boy?” Rhett practically growls the words.
“Relax, brother,” Dane says, throwing his arm in front of Rhett to keep him on the couch. “Noble has proved himself. Cut him some slack.”
“We’ll see,” Rhett snarls.
“Enough,” Dad barks. “You can keep this pissing contest outside of club business. Evan Henley has been dealt with. He knows things will go south pretty quickly for him if he runs his mouth.”
Wes nods, but I see a flash of anger in his eyes. Whatever tenuous friendship they had, it’s over.
I don’t doubt that, not one bit. If I did, I wouldn’t have brought Wes here.
“Rhett, I want you with me when I pay our friend a visit. Stray, check in with Jax and the girls, and keep Sadie Ray out of trouble.” His eyes finally settle on Wes. “And you… can we trust you?”
“I won’t breathe a word of it to anyone, I swear.”
“Why?”
“Because Sadie has been a friend, and that means something to me, sir.”
“You look so much like her, you know.”
Wes frowns, and I’m about to ask who he means when a knock on the door echoes through the room.
“Yeah?” Dad calls, and the door opens to reveal Pacman with a grim expression.
“We got company, Prez.”
“Friendly?”
“It’s Ritz.”
Rhett shoots upright, and my dad stands.
“He’s here alone,” Pacman adds. “Says he came to talk.”
“He knows,” Rhett spits. “That motherfucker knows what happened.”
Dread snakes through me, and I suppress a shudder.
“Get her out of here. Take her to your room,” Dad barks at Dane, “and stay there. Don’t move until one of us comes to get you.”
“Seriously, Dad, I’m not—”
“What about him?” Rhett flicks his head to Wes, glowering.
“Two pairs of eyes are better than one. You good with watching my daughter while I deal with this?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I am right here, you know,” I mutter, but no one pays me any attention.
“It could be a trap,” Rhett whispers, his stone mask already fixed in place.
Cold.
Cruel.
Untouchable.
“Let’s go find out.”
Neither of them look back as they storm out of the office to greet the VP of the Ridge View Reapers.
9
Dane
I follow Sadie and Wes out of Prez's office, noticing that the second the door closes behind the three of us, Sadie reaches out and threads her fingers through his.
Neither of them look at each other, but I can still feel the connection they share crackling between them. Most people would probably be jealous if they saw their girl with another guy, and I guess there is a part of me that is. But mostly, it just gets my cock hard thinking about watching her with him.
I squeeze my eyes closed for a beat as I remember her face last night as she came on my fingers. The way her cheeks heated and her lips parted as she sucked in heaving breaths. I probably shouldn’t have done that while she was recovering from what happened, but my self-control is non-existent around Sadie. Besides, I needed to be close to her, to know she was okay. And I was pretty sure she felt the same.
Reaching down, I rearrange myself before overtaking them, unlocking my door, and throwing it open for them to enter. "It's nothing like your mansion, I'm sure," I mutter as Wes looks around at the small space.
"Big houses aren't all they're cracked up to be,” he mutters.
I keep my eyes on him as he takes in the posters on the walls and the crap that's strewn about everywhere, wondering what he's actually seeing, what he thinks about all of this.