Damaged & Dangerous: The Sacred Hearts MC Book VI (18 page)

“You gotta move,”
Trigger said, and I opened my eyes and let Thirteen take me outside. It took
Blue, Trigger, and Revelator to carry my area rug down to the van. Thirteen
kissed the top of my head and palmed my cheek.

“I need to go with
Reaver, you gonna be okay here with Trig and Rev and the rest of the guys?” he
asked me. I pulled on my big girl panties and nodded.

“Kiss me.” He ordered,
and I looked up into his green-blue eyes and complied. He broke the kiss gently
and kissed my forehead.

“You solid?” Dragon
asked me, leaning against the stair rail. I nodded numbly and he looked at
Thirteen.

“You and Reave head to
Point Nowhere in the van. Duracell, Blue, you follow ‘em. We’ll finish up here
and come meet you.” Dragon gave a meaningful look to Reaver. “Don’t mind if you
get carried away,” he said and Reaver nodded and I saw the most peculiar thing.
A look that was half gleeful anticipation and half crushing remorse or defeat
flickered through his bright blue eyes.

“I really want to go
wash my face,” I murmured and all eyes turned to me, “He licked it. Right
before he told me to fight him harder.” I felt queasy, and Reaver and everyone
else’s expressions crushed into dark frowns.

“Can I borrow my old,
new very favorite knife?” I reached into my pocket and held it out to him.

“Thanks.” He held it up
in front of my face.

“I give this back to
you, you know you never have to worry about him again.” I blinked, but before I
could say anything, Reaver was headed down the stairs. Thirteen let me go and,
with a final squeeze of my hand, went down the stairs slowly after him.

I went into my bathroom
and washed my face something like six times but it wasn’t good enough. Finally
I gave up, stripped down, and got into my shower, practically living in it
until I ran out of both soap and hot water. When I got out I was a prune but
didn’t care. I dried off with my towels and got back into my clothes, and when
I went out into the living room it was to find that my workbench was gone. The
living room looking very empty without it or the area rug in it.

“Feel better?” Trigger
asked.

“Yes and no.”

“We’re ready to go when
you are, Rocket,” Revelator said, shrugging his massive shoulders, his fists
buried deep in his jacket pockets.

“Did you get it all?” I
asked.

“Every damned bit of it’s
boxed and in the truck. Just waiting on you to give the word on if there’s
anything else.”

I looked around me. “I grew
up here. Just me and
my
grand-père,”
I murmured.

“You want we should take
it all?” Dragon asked from the front door. “It’d take a couple of trips, but we
can do it.”

I looked around me, “Is
it crazy that I want you to burn it? I don’t want any possibility of coming
back to this life… None.”

The president of The
Sacred Hearts exchanged looks with Trigger and Revelator before settling his
dark gaze back on me.

“You sure about that?”
he asked.

“Never been more sure of
anything in my life.”

“Go wait down at the
truck with Disney, Nox, and Rush. Rev, go with her, make sure she’s straight.”
Revelator walked up to me and nudged me with his shoulder, he didn’t grab me or
turn me or do anything, just walked up and bumped his shoulder lightly in to
mine. I turned around and went down the stairs, peeking into the shed to make
sure nothing important was being left behind. Assured that there wasn’t, I
slipped out the gate and onto the cracked sidewalk.

“That it, then?” Disney
asked, his brown eyes travelling over me concerned, noting my wet hair.

“That’s everything,” I
promised.

“You good with riding
with me or Trig or someone on back of one of the bikes?” Rev asked. I smiled faintly.

“I will gladly save one
of your male egos from having to sit bitch for one of your brothers,” Rev’s
eyes sparkled with mirth.

“Nah, I would’ve just
had Dis be my bitch, he’s used to it. Ain’t you, Puddin’!?” Disney glared but
couldn’t fight it and broke into a grin.

“Man, fuck you! I keep
telling you, you aren’t my type.” Rev laughed, and Nox and Rush shifted a bit,
obviously uncomfortable.

Revelator tsked, “Man,
what’d Dragon tell you two when you came on board? Shit, Grinder didn’t have a
problem with it.” He crossed his arms which, with as big and built out as he
was, was a touch awkward on his frame.

“Rev, Dude, its fine,”
Disney said and looked uncomfortable himself.

“No it ain’t, Dis…”

“Stop,” I felt my
shoulders drop and I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Just, stop right there.”
The four of them considered me.

“Grinder is the one Ace
and Deuce ran off the road?” I knew it but I wanted Rev to see my point, Rush
and Nox both nodded and the pain that weighted them was apparent. “I’m sorry you
lost your friend,” I said softly.

“He wasn’t our friend.”
Rush said plaintively.

“He was more ‘n just our
brother too. He was our
brother
. We grew up in the same foster home as
him and Archer. Rush and me are brothers by blood, but Archer ‘n Grind, they
protected us.” He bowed his head and I considered Nox and Rush, they looked the
same age, I startled breaking in to a wide grin.

“You’re twins.”

The two men exchanged a
look, “How the hell do you get that?” Rev asked.

“She’s right,” Nox
shrugged.

“You two don’t look a
damned thing alike,” Rev frowned.

“It’s called fraternal
twins. Identical twins come from the same egg that splits in two. Sometimes a woman’s
body lets go of two eggs at the same time, if they both get fertilized then you
end up with two babies, sometimes two boys, sometimes two girls, other times a
boy and a girl at the same time. They don’t look alike but they shared the same
womb so they’re twins.” Revelator looked like he was turning a little green the
longer my explanation went on. Disney started cracking up.

“Rev’s girl, Red, is
pregnant,” Disney said, and boom.

No, really.
Boom!
Something
in my apartment upstairs exploded. We all jumped, and Dragon and Trigger calmly
walked out the courtyard gate.

“Let’s roll,” Dragon
ordered and, before anymore conversation could be had, we
moved.
Revelator
climbed astride his custom rig while Nox and Rush piled into the truck along
with Disney. I ghosted up the sidewalk behind Dragon and got on his bike behind
him without a word. He handed me his helmet and I put it on as he pulled away
from the curb, but honestly my gaze was affixed to the orange flames licking
inside my bedroom window.

I turned forward and
caught Dragon considering me in his side view mirror. I inclined my head,
expression grim but determined, and he laughed to himself, shaking his head.

“You and Thirteen are
going to make a hell of a pair!” he shouted over the wind.

“How’s that!?” I shouted
back.

“You got a matched brass
pair!”

I considered everything
that had just happened and chewed my bottom lip. I could see his point. For
three years I’d been a girl who’d done as she was told, who lived in fear and
under the thumbs of mad men. Then I had met Thirteen, who’d shown me that risks
were worth taking and truthfully, I’d suspected that he wasn’t all that he
seemed. I’d certainly known he was different.

I closed my eyes. I
didn’t know the Dani I was back there. She just didn’t jive with the Dani of a
year or even three years ago. Never had I been an incarnation of myself that
had been okay with murder, let alone condoning the murder of a man right in
front of me, staring me in the face, in the eyes, as I begged someone to put a
bullet in his brain. I’d straight-up seen the bloody aftermath of what Reaver
could do with my own eyes, yet I’d gladly handed him a knife wittingly,
knowingly
and let him go off with Pig-Pen. I thought about Pig-Pen. Thought about the
flames consuming my childhood home, and couldn’t scare up an ounce of remorse
or sorry.

I felt stone cold and
empty. I felt powerful. I felt
in control
of my own destiny
for
the first time since, well,
ever
and it was all because I finally felt
supported.
Thirteen had given me more than just the gift of finding my own bravery. He’d
given me the gift of my freedom, of the ability to dream and plan and scheme
for something better for myself. His brothers, The Sacred Hearts, were the ones
backing not only Thirteen, but also myself in laying the foundation for a future
free of terror and pain at the hands of not only Pig, but The Suicide Kings.

I thought about all of this on the ride back to the SHMC’s
club house. When Dragon pulled up into the drive he turned right, into the
expanse of parking lot and around the club’s building, waving Disney to follow
him. He pulled around the building and down a blacktop lane wide enough for
just one car. We followed that around the expanse of grass and pulled up in
front of a tall, corrugated metal building with three big, roll-up garage bay
doors. He cut the engine on the bike and put down the kickstand. I got off and
unbuckled his helmet from my head and handed it back.

“It’s illegal in this state to ride without one, you know,”
I said with a faint smile.

“Do I look like I give a fuck, Pretty Girl?” he asked,
grinning. I laughed and turned to look up at the building.

“What is this?”

“Well that far one there is a garage bay, the middle one is
mostly storage, though we ain’t got nothing in it, and this one,” He said,
waving a gloved hand at the bay door in front of us, “Is yers now.” I turned.

“Mine?” I asked.

“We’ll get you set up in here so you can do whatever it is
you do. No charge, nothing like that. You get yourself back on your feet with
what you got. Get some money in your pocket. Figure things out with our boy on
if you’re going to stay or if you’re going to go… just do us all a favor?”

“What?” I croaked, my voice very nearly betraying me.

“Thirteen is a good man. He’s a boon to this club, a better
brother none of us could ask for and he risked his ass for you in a big way.
Now if you can’t handle it, I get it… but just do us all a favor and really try
before you do anything like try to make him choose, because I know enough about
Thirteen to tell you if you asked, he’d probably hand in his cut, and it would
be a damned shame if he did.” Dragon’s dark gaze held mine and at the same time
held such sorrow.

“I wouldn’t do that…” I said, deathly quiet. The bay door
was raising and the men who had stayed behind at the club were coming out to
help unload. I was surprised to see Archer among them. Nox and Rush standing
aside with him, talking to him. They looked in my direction.

“Wouldn’t do what, Honey?” I turned back to the Sacred
Hearts President.

“I wouldn’t make him choose. I would just… I don’t know… I
would just go away, disappear. I know this life, the bonds that you’re supposed
to have with your club. The Suicide Kings don’t have it, they just have this
violent, perverted, half-assed facsimile of it. I see it here, though. You all
had no reason to help me. To come to my house, to put yourselves in danger,
burning it down simply because I asked. No reason at all except…” Dragon’s
mouth quirked up in a one sided grin, “Except for Thirteen. You didn’t do it
for me. You did it for…” I stopped because it was scary to say it out loud.

“Let me ask you something, Dani?” I nodded.

“You ever give yourself willingly to that son of a bitch?”

“Who? Pig-Pen?” I very nearly physically gagged. “No!” I
said, horrified.

“Listen here, you’re a lot like my late wife, like a lot of
the fine women we have attached to this club.  You belong to Thirteen, you’re
Thirteen’s woman because you
choose to be.
” He poked me in the chest
with a gloved finger, “You ever choose not to be anymore, that’s up to you. But
as long as you belong to Thirteen, as long as he stands strong and takes on all
comers in your defense, well then you belong here with us too. Anything happens
to Thirteen, you still belong with us. Bein’ a part of an MC is more ‘n just a
bunch a guys wearing black leather lookin’ and actin’ badass on the back of a
Harley, drinkin’ and fuckin’ and generally tearing it up. You get what I’m
sayin’ here?”

“You just described The Suicide Kings to perfection there;
you realize that, don’t you?” I mused.

He snorted, “Just one in a long list of mistakes those
assclowns have made, and look where it got them.” His dark eyes blazed with an
absolutely unholy light, and it was a scary look. I swallowed hard.

“I thought for sure you were going to kill me, when I
brought Thirteen here.”

“I know.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Honestly? The old version of us, the misguided, cocky, and
just generally arrogant version of us would have.”

“What happened to that version? If you don’t mind my
asking…”

“It wised up in a big God damned hurry about six, seven
years back when it got my wife, Dray’s momma, killed.” His expression clouded
with a long held deep… just… sorrow and grief.

“I… I’m sorry that happened to you.” I swallowed past a hard
lump that developed in my throat.