“It does. Wheels and Rodeo.”
He nodded. “Cool. Young council, man.”
Wolfe shrugged. “I’m a young Prez. Let’s take this place out of the Dark Ages and into the modern world.”
He whistled. “This ghost gun shit has most of the MC talking. All good stuff.”
“Really? No arguments?” I queried, cutting Flame a look—he’d stopped flicking his lighter so that was as powerful as the world fucking quaking beneath his feet.
“Nope, none at all. Especially not with our distribution lines all set up for the cigarettes.” He rubbed his hands together. “Got a lot of people wanting to learn how to do it, wanting to take part in the fabrication, not just the distribution.”
“What about the reaction to Lucie being back?”
Ink winced. “Not so great. But I’ve always liked Lucie, and I never believed the shit that was spread about her.”
“You don’t have to say that because you’re Secretary now,” I commented.
“I’m not.” Ink raised his hands. “Look, at the time, sure. It was funky as fuck. But that’s just it. Bomber was funky. He was my Prez, and I’d have fucking died for him. But he was nuts, man. And where Lucie was concerned? He was even crazier.”
Wolfe scraped his hand over his jaw. “Well, that ain’t no lie.” His gaze darted to Flame who nodded—brother needed to catch the fuck up and sniff out our rat.
“Can I ask about the other shit?” Ink asked softly. “I assume I’ll be making arrangements for the other stuff?”
“Soon as we get the ghost gun production underway, we’re stopping that line of work. Wet work is too high risk,” I told him, aware that his shoulders relaxed at my words. I cocked a brow at him. “Not a fan of it?”
“Stinks of doing other people’s dirty work. Don’t get me wrong, man, I appreciate what you guys did. Know you got the club out of a lot of shit with the fees, but—” He pulled a face. “Prefer your ass here where it should be instead of rotting in a high-security jail because some pussy Bratva boss couldn’t take out his own man.”
I snickered at that. “Thanks. I think.”
Ink grinned, and I knew Lucie had been right in her reading of him.
“You went to school with Lucie, didn’t you?” I queried softly.
Ink nodded.
“Figures that’s how she knew you well.”
“Not really.” His tattooed arms shifted as he raised one and ran it through his faux hawk. “Mostly because I knew she ran with you.”
Wolfe frowned at me, obviously wondering where I was going with this, but I ignored him. “That last year, did she act out in class or something?”
Ink scowled, not at me, but in thought. “Not really. She’d calmed down actually.” He cleared his throat. “In fact, it made sense when I saw one of you kissing her at school one day. Figured that was what had calmed her down. Everyone knew she was in love with you guys.”
Everyone had?
Well, ironic then that we hadn’t picked up on that great a change from her. To me, she’d always been like a kind of demonic butterfly. Impossible to pin down, dark and edgy, capable of burning me and making me love her for it.
But, I’d think on what he’d had to say later. “Thanks, Ink.”
“No worries. Fuck, I’m pumped. My shift at Black Ink doesn’t start until later. I can get to grips with my duties now if you’ve got time to instruct me?”
I tuned out and let Axe get started. We’d already told Rodeo and Wheels about their new roles, but that had been early this morning. Rodeo and Wheels both worked at the garage so they were coming back later to talk about their new positions.
Uninterested in teaching Ink the job, I sat back and watched Axe and Wolfe instruct him on his new position.
It took a good couple of hours, but I was content to just relax and watch. I was caught up with my work, and from the look of it, Flame was too. He didn’t move from his armchair either, but he was on his phone.
I hoped he was hard at work catching the son of a bitch who’d infiltrated the MC. I’d slaughter the bastard myself.
We were fooling ourselves thinking we could get away from the network. It ran hand in hand with our world, but going out and seeking a life sentence was definitely something I was looking forward to dropping from my life.
The guys I’d killed had all been bad men, but I’d have killed them if they were good men too, so there was no saving my soul. No atonement either, because I didn’t give a fuck about what I’d done.
Flame didn’t either.
Some men were born with a gift. Our gift was death.
It was why Flame and I were close, why we understood each other.
A knock sounded at the door, and when it opened without waiting on us to reply, my brows lowered in irritation. Seeing Amaryllis, though, my heart rate soared and when she walked over to me? Fuck, I felt like running to the next room.
How the hell could I be friends with death and be terrified of this little girl too?
Wolfe snorted, and I glared at him, saw he was amused by my terror, but wasn’t about to help me out.
Bastard.
“Daddy Dagger?” Amaryllis rasped.
I tried not to frown at her, because I’d been known to make grown men piss themselves if I frowned. “Y-Yeah?”
“I hurt my leg.” Her lip quivered, and sweet fuck, were those tears in her eyes?
Cutting my brothers a desperate look, seeing that even Ink was silently laughing, I knew I wasn’t about to get any help from them.
Clearing my throat, I asked, “Show me?”
“Daddy Dagger’s good with blood,” Wolfe mocked, rocking back in his chair and obviously loving every fucking moment of this. “He’ll know how to make it better.”
I licked my lips, wishing I could flip him the bird, but knowing I couldn’t in front of her.
How Lucie dressed Amaryllis confused me. Lucie had existed in shorts and a t-shirt. Until she was fourteen and her tits had grown in, she’d looked like a boy. Had blended in well except for the delicacy of her chin, the fine detailing of her bones, and the almond curve to her eyes.
Amaryllis, on the other hand, wore frilly, girly dresses that were somehow more terrifying than a gun being pointed in my face.
She raised the hem of her skirt about three inches and I saw the blood. Should have seen it first, if I were being honest. It was a bad cut, and I reared up off the sofa and acted as though I could totally handle a crying five-year-old, when I didn’t have a fucking clue how to handle any of this.
Lifting her carefully into my arms, I tensed when she wrapped her own around my neck and clung to me. When she started weeping, her body shaking, the amusement died in the room, and the others cut me looks.
“I got this,” I told them gruffly, and headed out of the office.
Seeing someone getting their cock sucked in the kitchen by one of the sweetbutts who was supposed to be making fucking lunch, had me quickly moving upstairs to my bedroom where I had some stuff I could use to get her cleaned up.
Fuck, Lucie wasn’t wrong about Amaryllis not needing to grow up around this place.
Heading down the hall, I hovered outside Lucie’s door. “You want your momma?”