“Do it for yourself,” she said. “I’m done with it. I’ll never forgive him for what he did, but I don’t want blood. I’ve worked too hard to make a new life for myself. I don’t want to dredge up all those old memories. What he did affected me, but it didn’t destroy me like killing him would have. If I’d gone down that road, I don’t think I would have come back.”
“You saying I shouldn’t go after him?”
Naiya shook her head. “I’m saying it’s not the right thing for me, but it’s taken me seven years to get to move on and accept I am not the same person anymore, even though I didn’t pull the trigger. I had to settle in my skin, see the world through different eyes. Now I just want to live my life in peace.”
“Do you?” Holt held her lightly, sighed. “You aren’t living, darlin’; you’re hiding, and until he’s dead you’ll always be hiding, looking over your shoulder, waiting for the next time he comes for you. And he will come unless you make him pay. Justice is for civilians. Revenge is for bikers, and you got biker blood in you. I saw it when we were in that dungeon and you were pounding on the door and cursing the living daylights out of Viper. I saw it when you kept your cool when we were escaping and when you fucking drugged my sorry ass. I saw it in the bar when you didn’t back down from the ATF agent on the hunt. And I’ll bet the brothers saw it when you walked alone into a one-percenter biker bar wearing your pretty pink sweater and looking like you just stepped out of a Good Home magazine.”
“So I should just join the club and have my revenge?” Her voice rose in pitch. Secretly she’d always wanted Viper to pay for what he’d done. But more than that she wanted to know he would never hurt her again. It was wrong to want a man dead; wrong to condone violence, yet hearing Holt voice her secret desire sent a thrill through her veins. “As what? A club whore, like my mother?”
“Nah. You got too much class to be a club whore,” he said, entirely missing the sarcasm in her tone or the point she was trying to make. “You could be a house mama or someone’s old lady.”
Naiya didn’t know whether to be insulted or flattered. Yes, an old lady was the highest rank a woman could achieve in the biker world, but she hadn’t pulled herself out of the gutter just to throw herself back into another one. She had gone to college to make something of herself, and that didn’t mean taking orders, cooking meals, cleaning guns, and sitting on the back of her old man’s Harley on Sunday rides.
“I think I stick with my plan to be a forensic scientist, if that’s okay with you.” She hadn’t missed the fact that he’d said “someone’s” old lady. Not his.
“You gonna be happy working for the man?”
This time she laughed. “‘The man’ will give me a steady job that pays very well and is intellectually challenging and interesting. Plus I have another reason for choosing forensic science. One day, I’m going to find my dad.” She held out her hand, flashed her ring. “There’s a biker out there wearing the Skull Mark ring and DNA that matches mine. You found your family. I’ll find mine.”
“Lots of bikers have skull rings,” he said, his voice gentle. “Hell, I’ll bet most of the Sinners have one ‘cause we got a skull in the center of our patch.” His arms slid around her, and she thought that was a good thing. He needed comfort, and she could give him that. No one had ever needed her before, and she’d never had anything to give.
“So, what are you going to do?” She tensed, didn’t dare breathe as he formulated his answer.
“No Sinners.” His lips whispered over her hair. “I didn’t want to meet them. Tank said he’d come back in the morning. He said he’d sit in the lobby all fucking day, sleep on the floor, until I came back.”
“I’ve never had a friend like that,” she said. “Ally’s a good friend, and she’s done a lot for me, but you and Tank have something that goes beyond friendship.”
“We’re not gay.”
Naiya laughed. “I kinda guessed that from the way you … know your way around a woman. I just meant it’s a very close friendship.”
“We just got each other, always had each other’s backs. The day we met, I was just hanging around the MC, helping out, hoping they’d ask me to prospect. Tank came over and gave me some tips. Told me what I needed to do.”
“So he’s senior to you?”
Holt stroked a hand through her hair. “We’re both junior patch, but yeah, he’s been with the club a year longer than me.”
“I would have guessed you were older.”
“That’s what happens when life fucks you over.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “So that first night they sent him out to watch the bikes, and this chick comes and just sits on Zane’s saddle just to get some attention. Tank didn’t want to hurt her, but when he tried to get her off, she kicked him and he fell back, knocked over the row of bikes. Even I knew that was the end for him, so I took the fall. Took one hell of beating, and then the brothers tossed me a bunch of cleaning stuff, told me to detail every bike. Got the first bike done, turned around and Tank was beside me with a rag. It’s been like that ever since.”