I wasn’t surprised when she ducked out from under Keys’ arm and squatted on the ground, before falling back on her ass and leaning against the reception desk.
He crouched down in front of her and I did too. Bookending her on either side, letting her know we were here, and we weren’t going anywhere.
“You’re ready,” I repeated.
“I’m not.”
“You went to Vegas,” Saint called out, and that he’d sat up and was scowling told me how much he hated being out of this. I got it too. She needed the three of us less than she had before, but more in a different way now.
She had the nightmares still, but the night terrors were fewer and far between. She could nap without hiding out under the bed, and had developed a mouth on her that would rival her momma’s someday.
But she was still our Ama.
Still our saint cloaked in a sinner’s clothes.
“I did, but this? I mean, it’s so far, and I’m happy here!”
“You can be happy here again after,” I countered, reaching out and grabbing her hand. I fiddled with her rings as I said, “We’ll come back after you graduate. It ain’t forever.”
“What about the MC?”
“What about how we live says that the MC is more important to us than you are?” Keys rasped.
“It’s four years!”
I shrugged. “So?”
“What about this place?”
“It will be here when we come back,” I repeated. “And nothing says we can’t open something up there too. We’ve been getting international attention, babes. I think they’ll follow us wherever we go.”
Her eyes were wide, startled, and unsure as she stared at me. “When did you do this?”
“A few months back. We explained the situation, and told them we understood the scholarship was no more. Showed them your portfolio, asked if they’d let you in again. They said yeah. We have the money, and your fathers gave us the okay to take a step away so you could attend—”
“It’s too much,” she breathed again, staring down at the acceptance letter. “Rhode Island is so far away.”
“Ain’t you realized yet, baby girl? Home is where we are,” Keys growled.
She stared at him for so long I started to worry, then her breathing leveled out. “You’re right. You’re my home. Not Rutherford, not the MC.”
“That’s right,” I told her gruffly.
And I wasn’t surprised at the clunking noise of Saint’s cast as he finally scrambled off the bench in the booth and made it over.
She stared up at him. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” he replied.
“One-hundred percent,” was all I said.
“Without a doubt,” Keys murmured.
She gulped, looked down at the letter, and her eyes moved as she read the acceptance note once more.
Then, her smile appeared, and like the sun peering out from behind the clouds, she bathed us in her warmth as she whispered, “I’m going to college.”
The End … Or is it?
Read on…
Lucie
Present Day (ALL SINNER NO SAINT EXCLUSIVE)
“Stop that.”
My lips twitched as Flame tried to shove my hand away, but I persisted. “If you cleaned your cut from time to time, I wouldn’t have to do it for you.”
He squinted at me. “Cuts are supposed to be dirty.”
“Since fucking when?” I rumbled, glaring at him. “Is that in the MC code?”
“Yeah. You don’t get to see it because it’s for dick-owners only.”
“You mean just dicks?” I retorted, but I carried on soaping down his leather cut. “There’s no way in fuck I’m letting you go to this goddamn ceremony with blood spatter on the leather. Ama wants this to be special. You covered in a corpse’s lifeblood doesn’t scream special to me.”
He huffed. “You’re going to ruin it.”
“I’ll oil it later,” I promised, keeping my chin tucked down as I worked a little too hard on cleaning him up.
Smartass figured out there was a reason behind my mania, though. His hand came up to my chin. “Hey.” When I didn’t look up at him, he rasped again, “Hey.”
My throat was a little thick, and it was stupid because I wasn’t a watering pot, but fuck. Ama was already married, so I had no idea why this ceremony was getting to me as much as it was but… God, they’d been through so much already.
“This fucking life,” I whispered, and uncaring about the small suds on the leather, I pushed my nose into it, burying my face in him. When his hands came up to grip me around the waist, I heaved out a breath, and let my arms move to circle him.
“They’ll be okay.”
“I know they will. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“This was your path and it’s hers.”
My brow puckered. “I hate how you know me so well.”
I could feel his lips quirk up against my cheek. “That’s not supposed to be a bad thing.”
“Well, in this instance, it is.” I heaved a sigh. “I can’t help but think—”
“Think, what?” Dagger whispered, slipping behind me and sandwiching me between both my men. “Think that this shouldn’t be? That we, as a unit, shouldn’t have come together? That the boys shouldn’t exist?” I tensed at that. “That’s what you’re saying,” he rumbled. “You’re saying that if you’d stayed away all those years ago, hadn’t come back to Rutherford, that everything would have worked out differently. But you were always destined to come back here, and she was always destined to meet her men in the MC.”
“Couldn’t she have married a fucking lawyer?” I half-cried. “Instead, she has to go for our trigger man?”
“Ink’s good with a gun. Be it ink or rifle.” Flame shrugged. “But he’s even better with her. You know that. You know how she depends on him—”
“I do, and that’s what scares me. I know she can’t sleep without him. Hell, all those years of her sneaking around just to get some rest?” I shook my head, feeling my ponytail whisper against Dagger’s cut behind me. “She depends on them all more than I ever depended on you.”
Wolfe snorted. “Since when don’t you depend on us?”
Peering out from my space, I glowered at him. He was on the sofa, on his laptop going through some work before we headed into the ceremony.
My mania was triple fold.
Things were getting complicated in our world.
After things had gone to shit with Ama in Rhode Island, we were now at war with the Famiglia in New York, and as a result, we were tied in with the Five Points’ Mob. Eoghan, Aidan O’Donnelly’s son, was actually attending today’s ceremony with his wife, and we were using the celebration as a means of discussing business.
Ten years Wolfe had promised the Five Points we’d work with them. But for the help they’d given us? We’d have done anything.
Crossed every fucking river, climbed every mountain.