I lifted my head. “Tack—”
“Babe. No.” Two words, firm. And he went on just like that. “You are who you are and I’m with you because a’ that. I am who I am and you’re with me because a’ that. What we got, it works. Phenomenally. We do what we do, we are what we are and we get off on it, no holding back. But this is us. That’s the Club. That’s a brother. The same does not hold true with the brothers. You got your place in the Club. I got mine. We know our places, Red, and we don’t deviate. So until a brother makes somethin’ our business, it’s none of our business, yeah?”
“I’m worried,” I shared.
There was a vein of amusement in his gravelly voice when he muttered, “No shit?”
“Tack.” It was a lame snap.
He pulled me deeper into his arms and held me close.
“High and me have not seen eye to eye on numerous occasions over the years but that don’t mean he isn’t Chaos. He’s Chaos, down to the bone. He’s a brother of my soul. So what do you think he’s gonna do?”
There it was.
Exactly what I needed.
“Take care of Millie,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” Tack whispered back, starting to stroke my hair. “Now, you gonna relax and go to sleep?”
“I’ll try.”
He sighed.
Then he rolled into me.
Once there, he muttered, “Know a way to make you relax.”
He knew about seven thousand of them.
Before I could say a word, he dipped his head to me, took my mouth, and set about making me relax.
High
THE NEXT DAY, High was back at Millie’s to be there when the men he called replaced the glass with another thick, bevel-edged sheet.
Due to the fact that he swiped an extra key, he was also there three days later when the men he called installed the alarm system, which meant all the glass, windows, and doors throughout her house were wired for break-ins.
And he took the call when Brody told him what hotel she was staying at in Paris. He also took more calls when she used a card so Brody could tell him where she had breakfast, lunch, dinner, got money, what tours she went on, where she shopped and what she bought.
Last, Brody told High when she’d be back.
Two weeks.
He had to depend on his gut for two weeks.
He applied for an emergency passport anyway.
Just in case.
Millie
Twenty-one years ago...
“Brother’s bummed,” Dog stated.
I looked from the recruit behind the bar at the Chaos compound—a recruit who was no longer a recruit and that was why we were all partying since he and his new brother Brick had been fully initiated into the fold the day before—to the couch where Dog’s eyes were aimed.
Boz was slouched there, deep in the seat, legs splayed wide, eyes aimed across the room.
Dog was right.
Boz looked bummed.
Someone had to do something about that and I decided that someone would be me.
I turned back to Dog and grinned. “This is a party, so that can’t happen.”
He looked to me and winked. “Go get ’im, girl.”
I slid off my barstool, grabbed my beer, and said, “Tequila. Stat.”
Dog turned, nabbed a bottle of tequila from the back of the bar, and handed it to me.
I lifted it. “Perfect medicine.”
At that, he smiled and muttered, “No doubt.”
I tipped my head and smiled back, then moved through the room, past the pool tables, toward Boz, my feet in biker boots, my ass covered in cutoffs, my top barely covered in a halter.
As I approached Boz, he didn’t even look at me.
The guys looked. They hugged. They even touched, a hand or a waist, sometimes a tug of the hair. I was a girl. I was showing skin. They were men in the sense they were men. This happened.
But I was an old lady, so it happened in a certain way that would not communicate anything that Logan wouldn’t like.
It was respect to him.
It was also respect to me.
It was Chaos.
I finally got Boz’s attention when I threw myself onto the couch beside him and declared, “Know a boy who looks like he needs a buzz.”
He smiled a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, then tipped his head to the bottle. “You gonna take care of that for me?”
I extended the tequila. “Absolutely.”
He grabbed it, murmuring, “Gratitude, sister.”
Sister.
I sighed happily and slouched next to him, our bodies touching from shoulders to knees.
He uncapped the bottle, flicked the top, and it flew then skidded across the floor, unheeded, several feet away.
I watched as he took a healthy tug.
When he dropped the bottle, I asked, “You okay?”
“I’m good, Millie,” he told the room.
And he lied.
I looked from him to the room and I saw the party.
I also saw something else.
I was an old lady, so I wasn’t let in on a number of things. If the boys were at our place and conversation turned to something that wasn’t mine to know, Logan gave me a look I knew and acted on without question. I then would get out of earshot, going upstairs to listen to music in our bedroom or going to the second bedroom to study.
That didn’t mean I didn’t hear things or see things.
And right then I saw things.
What I saw was Tack, Brick, Hop, and Black standing in one corner, huddled and talking, beers in their hands, none of this happening in a way that seemed they were at a party.
I also saw Naomi, Tack’s old lady, sitting at a table with Keely, Big Petey, and Bev, a new girl who was hanging around that Boz normally, if he wasn’t in a crappy mood, would be paying attention to. Keely, Bev, and Big Petey were shooting the shit. Naomi had all her attention focused on her old man and she didn’t look happy.
The woman rarely looked happy but in this instance, she looked less happy.
And last, in another corner, I saw Chew and Arlo talking with my man.
They stood with Crank.
Crank was Chaos’s president. Crank was a decent guy but he was also the only one who kind of freaked me out.