Roan (The Henchmen MC 17)

"A big bouquet of flowers?" West asked, tone hopeful.

"A giant bottle of lube and a copy of Sheep! Magazine. From that little convenience store down the block," she specified, not wanting him to be able to go to a self-checkout, wanting him to have to deal with the disgusted look on the cashier's face as he or she drew conclusions from his purchases.

"Don't you just want tampons or something?" he asked, eyes wide.

"Nope."

"Go on, man. Hop to," Pagan demanded, smile cruel, probably disappointed that he hadn't thought of it himself.

He was just making his way to the door, feet seemingly weighted, when Cam came in from outside, jutting his chin to the door, making Reign pop up.

"Is someone here?" he asked, brows furrowed.

Cam nodded even as Cash moved inside with another man at his side.

It took me a long time to place him. It had been years. We'd only seen him briefly. And it had been during a time of intense upset, fear, uncertainty.

That and, well, time had aged him up a bit, carved his features sharper, made his body wider.

"Who's that?" Mack asked, tone hushed.

"Vance. That's Vance."

"Who is Vance?" she asked.

That was both a short and long story.

Vance was the brother of a friend of Reign's only daughter. He was the guy she had been crushing on because he was older, more experienced, interesting, in a band. It was catnip.

He had been there the day she had been kidnapped, had beat himself up over the fact that he hadn't been able to protect her, save her from her attackers.

From what we learned, he'd been a mess in the days that followed, down in a hole.

Then Ferryn had, well, saved herself. Like she had been trained by so many people to do. Everyone in the club, all the girls too, the people up at Hailstorm.

And what had she done?

Gone to her friend's house, shaved her head, gave into the demands of her crush, kissed him, then ran away from home.

Not to be seen since.

We hadn't seen Vance since then.

Yet here he was.

And just the sight of him had Reign on edge, had him thinking about his still-missing daughter, what he had lost.

"Vance," he said, voice an unusual croak.

"Reign," Vance greeted, giving him a little nod.

"Are you here to call in your marker?" he asked referencing those years back, when he said he would owe Vance one for what he had tried to do to save his daughter.

"Yeah," he agreed, nodding, shifting his feet slightly.

"Are you in some kind of trouble?"

"No."

"Then what do you need from me?"

Whatever it was, Reign would do it. Money, protection, shelter, anything. He was a man of his word. He didn't give our markers easily. And he never put limitations on them when he did.

"A spot."

"A spot," Reign repeated, brows furrowing. "A spot where?"

"In your club."

Reign's head jerked back slightly. "You want to be a biker?" he asked, shaking his head a little. "Since when?"

"Since now," Vance said, clearly not wanting to confess to his reasons. At least not in front of a crowd of people.

It was clear that he didn't want to agree. Not because there was anything wrong with Vance, though he had no criminal background at all, which made him a little less experienced than a lot of the other guys in the club. But, that said, not all of us came from those backgrounds. Renny, Cyrus, and Reeve came to mind. Not criminals in the past, but valuable in their own ways.

No.

His hesitation had nothing to do with his lack of experience. Sometimes, that was preferable. It was a new piece of clay you got to mold however you wanted to.

He just knew that having Vance around would be a daily, constant reminder of Ferryn.

I mean, I was sure he thought about Ferryn daily as it was, even though she was in touch, she sent letters, he knew she was alright. But there had to be times when he was able to just live life, move forward, not be plagued by her absence, by what he likely saw as a failure in his parenting that she felt she had to leave. For years.

But Vance being in the club would take away that progress he had made toward moving on a bit.

That said, Reign was nothing if not a man of his word.

"Have you given this thought? Because once you're in, you're in," he told him. "If you want time to think-"

"I don't," Vance cut him off, making my brows furrow, wondering what had him so anxious to join, to start an entirely different life than the one he had likely been leading. "I want in."

"Alright," Reign agreed, nodding, clapping a hand on his shoulder as he led him outside, wanting to have a word with him in private.

"I feel like something big just happened," Mack mused, brows furrowed.