“Shutting your fucking mouth. Wanted to get the club’s opinion on something before coming down here,” he says. That cocky grin is back now. “And you’re going to feel like a Grade-A bitch when I tell you why.”
“Well, you picked me,” I mutter and pout like an insolent child. Calming myself down, I place my hand over the new patches on the front of his cut that have replaced the PROSPECT patch. He’s a full member of the club now and is entitled to everything that comes with that. I wanted this for him, even tried to pray for it once, and now that it’s happened, I barely know what to do with myself.
“You deserve this,” I say with a definitive nod.
“So do you,” he says quietly. “That’s why the night I was patched in, I asked your dad for permission to make you my old lady. So don’t you dare fuck this up for us, because you’ve been on the clock since yesterday.”
“You—” I stop. Now I really am speechless. I can’t be angry with him for that. My head spins around to my dad, who smiles down at me. “You did that? They voted on me?”
“Please,” he says with an air of confidence that’s almost suffocating. “Leo told us how you handled him in the woods. You think any of my brothers were going to say no to you?”
“But Dad?” I say in a half question, half statement. But my dad voted yes?
“Well, yeah. You’re a handful, and he’s got another one on the way. Had to unload you somewhere.”
“Fucking asshole,” I say and grab the sides of his neck and bring his lips to mine.
He’s a fucking asshole, all right. But he’s my Forsaken asshole.
EPILOGUE
June
2 months after Mancuso’s downfall
The farther we get from the city, the hotter the sun beats on my skin. I suck in a deep, greedy breath and revel in the feel of my girl’s arms wrapped tight around my waist. Chey’s been riding her whole life, even in Layla’s stomach before she was born, but her grip is murderous right now. Her tits are pushed into my cut, and her face rests between my shoulder blades. Her body is so relaxed, but she’s squeezing the fucking life out of me. Still, I can’t bring myself to tell her to lighten up. If she needs to hang on to me like this to know I’m here and I’m real, then she can break a fucking rib for all I care.
Because as much as she needs to know I’m real, I need to know she’s real possibly even more.
The last two years have been rough. It seemed like we’d made the decision that she would go to school on the spur of the moment, in the shadows of chaos and trauma, and that after the dust settled, one of us would tell the other it was a mistake. That she shouldn’t go.
“My little girl ran into a war zone today,” Grady said once we’d gotten back to his house that night. “Do the right thing and let her go.”
I looked him in the eye and tried to be as strong as he was when I said, “I can’t let her get hurt because of me. She has to go.”
We’re nearing town, having just left Willits, and the road is winding down through Jackson State Forest. The sun is blocked by the hills and trees above us. The memories of how we got here flood my mind. Grady’s given me a wider berth since that day, treating me more like an equal than some punk kid he’s forced to tolerate.
The day the club patched me in, over a year ago now, he said, “Don’t undervalue the gift I’m giving you, son. It’s the greatest thing you’ll ever get.” I remember shaking my head and asking to speak with him privately. When we were alone, I went right for it.
“Proud to have my patch, but I can think of a gift more valuable than your brotherhood.”
He looked away and was silent for at least a solid minute. “You’re doing this now?”
I nodded my head. “I’m not whole without her,” I said. It was the truth then as much as it is the truth now. “I’d like your permission to ask the club to consider voting her in.”
“I fucking hate you,” he said. He didn’t mean it, because he gave me his permission and then called the guys back into the chapel for the vote. It’ll be another year yet before she can be voted in, but she’s earning her place at my side. Hopefully soon she’ll share my name.
“One day, Grady, I’m going to ask her to marry me again,” I told him to prepare him for it. I’ve found that the more prepared he is for something, the less angry he gets when it happens, even if he disapproves. That was about three months ago. He shrugged it off but pulled out his gun and took off the safety.