“No. It isn’t.” I leaned down and pressed my forehead to hers. “We’ll get through this. Just give us time.”
“Time? That’s all I’ll have.” She sighed. “At least I can get the factory set up. It will take a while to get all the parts. Some of them are monitored by the Feds, so I’ll have to find a way to get them to us.”
I frowned—she hadn’t told us that. “Which parts?”
“Ryan developed two ways of producing guns. Each one had a purpose.”
“Like?”
“If you knew you’d need to dispose of the weapon, he developed a gun that can be 3D printed.”
I blinked at that.
“How do you dispose of it?”
“You need something like acetone to break down the plastic we’ll use.”
“What’s the other route?”
“Smithing. We have to make them from scratch.”
For some reason, the idea of Lucie dressed in blacksmith gear had my cock hardening.
She snorted. “Do you have an erection?”
“Just imagining you in a workshop.”
A laugh escaped her. “I know my way around a forge, but I prefer the other route. I’ll be glad to teach that part and let someone else take over.”
“I can’t believe Ryan taught you all this shit.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think he wanted to, but…”
When she didn’t continue, I pulled back so I could look at her. “But, what?”
Her lips quivered before she firmed them. “I think he had headaches for a long time before he finally caved in and went to the doctors.”
Fuck.
“He was trying to keep a low profile?”
“We were always moving until we reached Lubbock and found this place where we figured no one would find us. Hell, it was in the middle of nowhere. Even if someone had, he set up all these alarms that would warn us, and by the time someone could approach the property, we had an escape route planned.”
“Jesus,” I bit off. “You lived like that for years? But who did you think was following you? I mean, fuck, we didn’t know about the cartel, so how did you?”
“We didn’t. At least, I didn’t, but...” She tensed, but deep in her eyes, I saw the truth.
“No fucking way.”
Her swallow was all the answer I needed.
She and Ryan had believed the Hell’s Rebels were a threat to her as well.
For a second, I couldn’t even process what she hadn’t said, then I pushed away from her and began to stalk off, my intention to find a bottle of Patrón at the bar.
Then I heard her, heard her broken voice. “Axe, please.”
And I staggered to a halt.
Clinging to the rail that ran down the stairs, I froze in place, trying to get myself under control. But this wasn’t on Lucie. This was on her fucker of a father.
I couldn’t turn around, didn’t have it in me, not when I felt like she’d betrayed me even if she hadn’t. I just needed a drink, just… Hell, I needed something to clear my brain.
So, instead of turning around, I raised my arm. I heard the tap of her feet in her heels, and when she clung to my side, I curved it around her shoulders.
I needed to get shit-faced, and I was pretty fucking sure she did too.
❖
Dagger
A laugh escaped Lucie as she clung to my waist. One strong arm settled against my belly, the other one, still in a cast, was a hard and cold presence at my side, but her laughter more than made up for the discomfort.
With the wind in our faces, the open road ahead of us, I wanted to carry on driving.
It was a temptation I couldn’t follow through on, no matter how badly I wanted to.
We were heading to the doctor’s office together to get the cast taken off, not pulling a Bonnie and Clyde without the final scenes. But getting her away from the Guerrera Cartel’s reach felt imperative. Every single one of my instincts was roaring to life alongside the gnarly growl of my hog.
Me, my woman, and my machine.
This was how it was supposed to be.
Simple.
But, as always, shit was complicated. Whenever Lucie was involved, things always turned crazily complex, and I should have remembered that, but I hadn’t.
None of this was on her, none of it. But that didn’t make me want to wrap her up in cotton any less. Not that she’d let me.
She hollered as I revved the engine and upped my speed. I needed the blast of the wind, the scream of the engine, and the change of pace to shift my focus. Thinking about this messed up situation wasn’t going to get me anywhere.
We had a plan.
We had to stick to it.
And it was beyond fucked up that I was about to take Lucie to the doctors for one injury, while returning her back to the clubhouse to sustain another—one none of us had figured out how to tell Amaryllis. Our current plan was for it to happen, then explain after the fact because there was no way in fuck we were going to go into details about this messed up shit. Not with a little girl who was still traumatized from her daddy’s death. Hell, not even if she was nineteen with a kid of her own would we clue her in to the rat’s nest the past had thrown our way.
As Rutherford beckoned in the distance, I eyed the town. It was small fry, but it was home. The place was too tiny to sustain schools or much of a working town center, and that was why most of the businesses were based in Jonsson. Before Bomber had even established the clubhouse here, he’d set up links in the larger city, which was a thirty-minute ride away.
We had several businesses that laundered our cash and added to the club’s coffers, but they pulled in nothing like the runs or the hits.
Still, Johnson was large enough to have a doctor’s office, and even then, it was because of all the cattle ranches in the vicinity. I’d worked at one the summer before I turned eighteen—fuck, I’d never seen so many weird injuries in my life. And I’d been raised in a goddamn MC.
Dust flew as I powered down the byroads to reach the town center where the office was, and all the while, Lucie clung to me with a trust that never seemed to have died.
It was like it had only been in stasis. Like her love had been too. I guess a lot of people might have found it weird, her being that loyal to a bunch of guys who’d let her down in the worst possible way. Guys who’d declared they’d loved her with one breath then turned their backs on her the next, but loyalty was bred into the club.
We were nothing without brothers, nothing without the ties that bound us together. We weren’t all blood related, but that didn’t matter. We didn’t all like each other, and that mattered even less.
But we’d been living a lie. Bomber was the biggest traitor of us all. We had a leak in our ranks, one who was feeding shit to the Guerrera Cartel as well as our rivals, Satan’s Knights MC, and apparently, some dumb fuck who was following around one of our sweetbutts’ kids with intent to harm.
What the hell was going on with my MC?
As I braked to a halt, Lucie was practically bouncing with excitement behind me.
“Been a long time since you rode bitch, huh?” I teased, as she clambered off the back and after I cut my engine. The silence of the parking lot let me hear her reply.