This was life, this was home, and this was family.
It was only now when I realized how much that had opened up, and I was glad, so fucking glad, especially for Ink and Keys who didn’t have much of a family anymore.
“We gave them this, didn’t we?” I asked quietly.
She hummed. “They’re never gonna be alone again.”
“You little fixer,” I teased.
“Hardly,” she scoffed. “Can’t fix someone else when you’re broken.”
“You ain’t broken, babe. You’re just a little wonky.”
Laughter snorted out from her, and she began choking on the sip of Coke she’d just taken. I slapped her on the back, scowling down at her amusement. We caught a few glances from our families, but they turned away when they saw she was just coughing her guts up.
“What’s so funny?”
She giggled when she stopped choking. “Nothing. Nothing.”
I pshawed. “Doesn’t sound like it to me.”
“I’ll take being wonky over broken is all,” she replied, winking up at me. “In fact, I think I might get that inked on me.”
“You an addict now?” I teased.
“Hell yeah. Three pieces and counting.”
I grinned, then nuzzled my cheek into hers. “You gonna get a tramp stamp?”
“You want me to get one?”
“I’d like my eyes on it while I fuck you in the ass.”
When she shivered, I grinned.
“That can be arranged.”
“Glad to hear it.”
❖
Ink
Six months later
“What the fuck?”
I twisted around as Ama dashed past me like a whirlwind. One second she was standing at the bar, talking to her momma, the next, she was rushing past me. I followed her trajectory, wondering what the fuck was happening, and saw the clubwhore next to Keys.
It was his patch-in party. Normally, that meant shit got hot and heavy for a brother. It was a rite of passage that I really didn’t want Ama knowing about. Not considering Saint and I had done it—the rite was we fucked every clubwhore in the house and took three shots of tequila per pussy. By the end of the night, we didn’t want to touch a bitch or liquor for a week, but it was a hell of a laugh.
Because Keys was tied to Ama, and because her daddies would have killed him if he’d even thought about going through with the rite, his patch in party had consisted of a lot of drinking.
A lot.
He was on the sofa, more out of it than awake, and his head was tipped back as he snored, the party forgotten, his newly patched cut completely slipping from his mind.
Being absolutely hammered didn’t stop a sweetbutt though. The vicious, vindictive cunts were all as bad as each other, and I totally applauded Ama as she grabbed the bitch whose hands were on Keys’ junk by the hair and hauled her off her man.
In her skin-tight short shorts and vest, I could see each of her claims on us. With her hair high in a scooped-up bun that reminded me of a ballet dancer, Key’s tat was clearly visible from behind her ear. A keyring loaded with keys, the holes of which were shaped into hearts. It traced down to the side of her neck. My tat, around her arm, a tribal pattern that I was renowned for, curved around her bicep like a snake. From the top where her arm joined her body and down to just before her elbow, the lines were delicate, not densely black, but whenever I looked at it, I knew she bore my finest work.
Only fitting.
Saint’s mark, she wore on her thigh. It was a pair of angel wings wrapped around his name with a halo topping it. Not the most original idea, maybe, but the way she’d designed the wings? Holy shit, it looked like it could take off from her thigh and start flying around the room.
Everyone knew she was ours, more importantly, the sweetbutts knew we were hers.
“The fuck do you think you’re doing, Natalie?” she snarled at the clubwhore who was squealing about her extensions.
At my side, Dagger and Saint sidled up to me. Saint looked as wrecked as Keys, and I knew I’d be the one driving us back in a club cage tonight because, call me an old goddamn man, but I wanted to sleep in my bed not a random one in the clubhouse.
Dagger was alert, but that didn’t surprise me. He hadn’t been in the Forces like me, but he had the instincts of a killer. That meant never letting your guard down. I knew, like me, he’d probably be able to count the number of times he’d ever gotten drunk.
“I recognize that move,” he said, his head tipping to the side as he watched his daughter slam the sweetbutt into the ground and a cascade of bottles shattered all around them as she knocked over the coffee table.
Lucie, having stepped closer to see the show, laughed, and she hooked her arm through Dagger’s. “You didn’t think I’d fail to show my daughter how to fight, did you? Jesus, Dag, what kind of a mom did you take me for?”
He winced. “Jesus.”
I chuckled. “Of course! I remember. What was that bitch called again?”
“Fucking Jenna. I remember that skank. All over Axe like the whore she was.”
“Only you’d remember her name,” Dagger said dryly.
Saint, leaning into me heavily now, mumbled, “Catfight.”
I shot him a wry look. “Yeah, bro. Catfight.”
“How much has he had to drink?” Lucie asked, amusement lacing her words as she stared down at her son-in-law.
“Too much by the looks of it,” Dagger retorted, sounding less amused.
I cut him a look. “She’s safe.”
“So safe she just started a fight,” Dagger shouted over the noise of the cheers as the brothers finally figured out what was going on.
To the chants of ‘catfight,’ ‘bitchfight,’ and a shit ton of ‘meows,’ I watched my woman whoop clubwhore ass.
“Her form’s awesome,” I said, more to Saint than her daddy who, quite naturally, punched me in the arm. I shrugged. “It is. Look at how she punches.”
Saint mumbled, “I taught her that!”
Lucie grunted. “Didn’t. That was me.”
It was a testament to how much he’d drunk that Saint’s face crumpled up and he leaned forward so he could see her better. “Nope. She fought like a girl.” He sniffed. “I made her fight like a boy.”
Dagger grunted. “Something to be thankful for, I guess.”
“Just not when she’s smacking the shit out of one of the women,” Flame replied, slipping between us and heading into the fight.
“No fair,” Lucie called out. “Natalie was feeling Keys up.”
Flame cut her a look that had her lips curving and her eyes flashing wickedly—didn’t need to know what kind of fucked up message that was to know that Lucie was about ready to pounce on Flame. Not like Ama had Natalia either.
“Ama! What the hell are you doing?” he ground out, detangling his daughter’s fingers from the bitch’s hair.
“She was groping my man, daddy,” Ama hissed, her hand managing to reach around him so she could grab more hair.
Why the hell sweetbutts wore extensions in this club was beyond me. Sweet fuck, talk about giving another woman extra ammunition.
“Since when did you fight with your fists?”