“Fuck,” I roar as I turn down the street toward the clubhouse.
Space.
I need some fucking space from all of them to get my head together.
If I have to see one of them touch her, tease her again… If I have to watch her punish me by forcing herself on them, then one of us is going to get hurt.
“Savage, I just got—” One of the guys calls from the shop.
“Around the table, twenty minutes,” I bark, cutting off whatever he was going to say and delivering the orders from our prez.
The second he’s back here, he wants to talk. To all of us.
I swear to God, he’d better have some answers because now he’s bent to Sadie’s plea about going to school tomorrow, she’s going to be wide open for that psycho to get to her again.
I know school should be safe. But we’re not talking about some fucked-up kid here. Darren Creed is dangerous and clearly holds a serious grudge against our club. We need to keep her safe. River too. And letting them go to school is the wrong fucking move.
Ignoring everyone who so much as looks my way, I storm through the clubhouse and march behind the bar, swiping up a bottle of whiskey. I don’t give a shit that it’s not even lunchtime yet. I need something to take the edge off, and it’s going to be this or some club whore I can lose myself in. And it can’t be the latter.
I’m still swigging from the bottle when the others emerge.
“Prez is here,” Micky says, heading toward the doors that lead to where we’re all about to learn the latest and agree that we need to find and kill this cunt for even threatening to come after our princess.
With a nod, I follow him through and take a seat around the edge of the room.
Ray fills everyone in on the events of the weekend before moving on to explain his plan to work with Ritz to find Darren and take him out before he causes any more damage to either club.
“The Reapers are happy for us to take him out?” Pike asks with his brows pinched.
“Ritz’s biggest concern is his father and the future of his club right now. He doesn’t need a manhunt for someone who’s going to threaten that. We’re on the same team right now, and until that cunt is dead, he’s a threat to all of us.”
Working with the Reapers gets voted in before Ray turns to club business, specifically a gun shipment that’s due soon. But before he dismisses us all, his cell rings.
He pulls it from his pocket and stares at the screen. Clearly, whoever is calling is worth interrupting Church for, because he lifts it to his ear.
He listens for a few seconds. “Motherfu— Yeah, yeah. Fine. Get him to put some fucking ice on them.”
He hangs up, blowing out a breath, and then looks at each of his brothers around the table.
“Do what you need to do to get rid of this cunt. No one gets that close to my daughter and gets away with it.”
“On it, Prez,” Pike says before they push to stand.
“Rhett,” Ray calls when I move to follow them. “A word.”
I stand at the end of the table, waiting for the others to disappear, seeing as he doesn’t want to say whatever it is he’s got to tell me with them listening.
“There’s a situation at the house.”
My heart jumps into my throat.
Sadie.
“Pacman and Jax caught Sadie trying to escape.”
“Stupid little—”
Ray raises a brow at me and I slam my lips shut.
“She was trying to get out to see you, apparently.” His eyes hold mine, a million and one questions swirling within them.
“Me?”
“Something I should know about?”
I swallow down my apprehension. If he found out what’s going on with all of us, he’d lose his goddamn mind.
Sex might be free and easy when it comes to the club, and relationships between numerous members isn’t all that unusual, but having it involve the club princess sure makes it more complicated. Especially for our Prez.
“Probably something to do with the fact that I killed the man who was going to rape her.” I force the word out, my fist curling as I think of what I walked in on Friday night.
“Yeah… maybe,” he muses, clearly not believing a word of it. “I need my daughter safe, son. I need you, Stray, and anyone else to put her safety above theirs. But I need you to know that there’s no one I trust with her more than you.”
Guilt floods me. If only he knew the truth…
“Go to her. Find out what she wants. But if you do anything to hurt her, to make this situation worse, I won’t hesitate on resolving it myself.”
“I won’t let anything happen to her, Prez. You have my word.”
He nods once, dismissing me.
I swing by my room to change before knocking on Dane’s door, but I don’t get an answer. I’m assuming he left Ray’s house after me, because if he were there, I have no doubt he’d have been able to keep Sadie in line.
I shake my head, thinking of Pacman and Jax trying to take charge. Sadie Ray barely listens to her father. There’s no way she’d listen to a word that comes out of their mouths. But she also knows how serious this is. I saw it in her eyes on Friday night. The fear. So the fact that she’s trying to break the rules tells me just how badly she wants to see me.
I’m still amused with the whole situation as I get back on my bike and repeat the journey I made not so long ago. The sun is beginning to set as I make my way across town, casting everything in an orange hue. I breathe in the early fall air and try to get myself under control before having to deal with that crazy bitch.
I know it’s not working the second my cock twitches in my pants. She might be fucking insane, but hell if I don’t need her. If her brand of crazy doesn’t talk to mine.
There’s no movement as I pull up at the house, and I can’t help but wonder what they finally did to keep her inside.
“Hello?” I call as I unlock the front door and step inside.
“Kitchen,” a pained voice calls.
“What the fuck happened to you?” I ask when I find Jax laid up on the couch with a bag of fucking frozen peas on his dick.
“The princess happened,” he grumbles. “She pulled a fucking knife on me, man.”
I smother a laugh, because he looks less than amused by the whole situation. My eyes drop to the peas again and he continues.
“Pacman managed to disarm her, but she kicked me right in the nuts.”
“Beaten up by a girl, Prospect. That’s not going to look good when your patch decision comes up.”
“She’s fucking lethal.”
“She’s been trained by Ray, what did you expect? A soft fucking puppy?”
“You lot are fucking crazy, I hope you know that,” he says, holding my stare.
“What are you—”
“Oh, shut the fuck up. I know you’re all banging her. It’s fucking obvious. What I can’t work out is how Prez hasn’t figured it out yet.”
I take a menacing step toward him. “You need to keep your fucking mouth shut, Prospect.”
“Wouldn’t utter a word,” he says, holding up his free hand in surrender. “Just… you know, try to keep her calm. This job is hard enough without injuries.”