“Viper must be suffering from the loss of the ice house if he’s trying to take over our arms trade.” Zane swatted at a branch overhead. “You know what the dealers are like when they don’t get their stuff.”
“Small consolation.” Jagger kicked at the leaves as they passed a broken fountain, two cupids entwined, their bows broken, bodies covered in moss. “What about Banks? Did you offer him a place as a prospect?”
“He told me to shove my head up my ass.”
Any other time he would have chuckled. Instead, he scraped a hand through his hair and sighed. “I’m not giving up. I want him in the club. He said he was Special Forces, and Sparky told me he had six of our boys groaning on the floor of his apartment in under five minutes. I think he let them take him, just so he could check up on Arianne. He’s not a man who goes anywhere he doesn’t want to go.”
“So how are you going to change his mind?” Zane whistled and Max bounded over to them. Jagger bent to ruffle Max’s fur before continuing down the path.
“I told Cade to call in a coupla marks and send a construction crew over to his bar to fix it up. And I’m sending Doc Hegel over to check him out after he’s finished with the six Banks beat up.”
“He’s a fucking fighting machine,” Zane said, his voice laced with admiration.
“And I want him.” Jagger rubbed his brow. Banks wasn’t going to come to them easy, especially after what he’d done, but with the truce broken, he needed good men and Banks had skills beyond those of the average biker. “I’m going to lean on him until he caves,” he said, with a confidence he didn’t feel in the least. “Man like that would be an incredible asset for the club. He knew what was going down with Arianne the first time I hit him. He knew it was all for show. He played the game because in the end, we both wanted the same thing.”
They paused at the steps to the clubhouse and Zane twisted his lips to the side. “You ever wonder what a guy from Special Forces is doing running a bar in Conundrum?”
“Already checked him out. The car, bar, and his apartment are all in the name of Joe Banks, but except for those three records, Joe Banks doesn’t exist. He has no history, pays no taxes, and has no bank accounts.”
“And soon he’ll have no bartender.”
Jagger gave his friend a cool warning glare. “Don’t go there, Zane. It fucking killed me to do what I had to do, but it was the only way to keep her safe. I had to make her hate me enough that she’d leave Conundrum and never look back. That picture T-Rex brought back did it for me. With the Black Jacks putting a mark on her, it was Christel all over again.”
Zane sat on the top step, resting his elbows on his thighs. “This situation is nothing like what you faced with Christel. She was a sweet girl, but she wasn’t cut out for this life. She didn’t have the edge or the street smarts to stay alive. She needed someone to take care of her, but you were already spread too thin. I’m sorry you lost her, but there was a reason you never made her an old lady, and that’s because you knew she wasn’t right for you.”
“Zane…” But the usually reticent Zane was on a roll and didn’t heed his warning.
“Arianne isn’t anything like her. She can take care of herself. Would Christel ever have tried to escape out a window, stand up to Viper, or shoot Leo when he busted up her party? Would she have hit you with a pool cue when she thought you’d crossed the line, and fucking dare you to take her life? Arianne’s the kind of woman who will always have your back. If she thinks someone’s sneaking outside her house at night, she’s not gonna call you a hundred times, sobbing into the phone. She’s gonna pull out her gun and shoot the fucker in the nuts. She’s an asset, not a liability. She’s probably the only woman I’ve met who is worthy of you. A woman to stand by your side instead of in your shadow. She makes you stronger, not weaker.”
Jagger sat heavily on the step beside his old friend. “I thought you didn’t like her. You accused her of being a spy. You’ve spent the last two months trying to push her out.”
Zane shrugged. “I changed my mind. Seeing her today, all bruised up, her arm bandaged, and she’s still telling you off, whacking you with a pool cue to knock some fucking sense into you, doing everything she could to protect the people she loved—even you. She changed my mind.”
Max trotted over and settled beside Jagger, resting his head on Jagger’s shoe. He felt another tug on his heart. Loyalty. One of the fundamental tenets of biker culture. Arianne had it in spades. But he hadn’t been loyal to her. Yes, he’d wanted to protect her, but he hadn’t given her his faith or support. He hadn’t trusted her judgment or respected her wishes. Instead, he had pushed her away, long before this latest plan to keep her safe.
Just as his dad had done to his mother. He was his father’s son, after all. Ironic how history came full circle.