"Careful, Danny," Fallon warned, voice just as cold. "That sounds a fuckuva lot like a threat from where I'm standing." And everyone gathered around knew we were just looking for a legitimate reason to go to war with them.
"A threat? Sounded more like words of advice to me," Danny said, holding Fallon's gaze for another minute. "Seems like you might need some if you are getting these guys to answer to someone half their age," she said, looking over at the OGs, then turning on her heel, moving through her men. They waited until she was across the street before they followed.
"Well, that was fun," my father decided, shooting me a smirk. "You little fuckers get the good liquor or the cheap shit?" he asked, clamping a hand on my shoulder as he moved past, making his way into the clubhouse.
"Your bike," Repo, one of the original four members of their generation, called to my father.
"What's the point of having kids if they don't do your chores for you?" my father called back as I tucked away my gun, moving through the gates to get his bike.
"I'll see if I can get your father or uncle," Repo said to Fallon, "let them know it's not an emergency anymore."
"Yeah sounds good. We should probably escort the non-members and the girls out of here," Fallon added. "I don't think they're coming back. Danny just likes to flex that she can show up at any time. But better to get them out, so the Vultures don't start looking into their connections here."
Because if they found someone who was at the clubhouse who didn't have any real loyalty to us, they might be able to simply charm some information out of them.
Granted, they'd had a mole once upon a time before he was taken care of. But it had been a while now. Things had changed. Security measures had switched up. Our general plans as a club had changed as well.
We'd busted our asses finding and charming new importers, getting them to trust us, to agree to work with us. We didn't need the fucking Vultures finding that out and stealing them out from under us as well.
Within the next ten minutes, the rest of the OGs were back, Reign barking out some orders even though we were already carrying them out.
"You," Reign said, stopping to look at me. "You're not doing anything. Take the girls home."
"Which girls?" I asked, looking around, trying to see who was left. I'd seen Brooks and Finn take off with two of the clubwhores.
"Gracie, Hope, and..."
And Andi.
Shit.
Of course.
"Hope can handle herself," Hope broke in, giving Reign an eye roll. "I have never needed a babysitter. And Gracie's dad drove her home already."
Oh, I was going to kill Hope.
Because I knew her well enough to know she was doing this shit on purpose.
I tried to catch her eye, but she kept her gaze on Reign, avoiding eye-contact with me.
She was making me take Andi home.
Because, like her father, she liked to butt her nose where it didn't belong.
"Fine. But text your father when you get home," Reign demanded. "Niro, bring Andi back to her parents'."
And there it was.
"Right," I agreed, exhaling.
I tried to catch up to Hope, but she ducked out the front door just as Andi reemerged from the kitchen.
I tried not to notice her wide, worried eyes, the way her gaze sought mine even after I'd been a dick to her. I knew what she was looking for. A shoulder to lean on. Calm reassurances. All the shit I used to be able to offer to her.
I couldn't afford any of that anymore.
There wasn't enough left of me to loan parts out anymore.
"I'm taking you home," I told her, jerking my head toward the door, not waiting for her, just moving forward without her.
"Ah, Niro," she called, rushing up behind me.
"What?"
"I, um, I'm in a dress," she said as I made it to the side of my bike, and stealing an extra helmet off one of the others parked beside it.
"I won't look."
I wasn't going to say the urge to look was gone, but there was still that small part of me that I'd never been able to kill off that wanted her.
But I was never going to have her.
"Right. I mean, of course not. It's just that..."
"It's what?" I asked, tone sharper than I intended, but I needed to get this over with. I needed to get her on the bike and back at her folks' home as soon as possible because if I didn't, I would start thinking about it too much, would start to let my mind wander to how she would be scooted up against me on the bike with her bare thighs on either side of me, her chest pressed to my back, her arms around me.