After the Fall (The Fallen Men 4)

I dropped my hold on him and stood back before Gibson could pry me off him. Cress was already waitin’, purse in hand, for me to reach for her so we could walk together from the holding room.

Mr. White followed close behind, his short legs strugglin’ to keep up.

“Normally, I wouldn’t advise brutality against the police, King.”

“I’m a biker, White. What else did you expect?” I countered with a cheeky grin.

“You’re a good man too,” he said quietly, pushin’ his glasses up his nose. “I sincerely hope you don’t lose that now you’ve joined your father’s business.”

I slung an arm around Cress and curled her into me so I could kiss her forehead, but I maintained eye contact with the lawyer over her head. “I have my North Star, if that’s what you’re worried about. She’ll always right my course, even when I could do wrong.”

“Always,” she agreed proudly as we walked around the corner into the front hall.

My brothers still stood there, arms crossed, legs braced like men ready for war at the whim of their commander. It was the first time they’d done that for me, held position while they waited for my orders, and it was a heavy thing to realize men like that—dangerous, intelligent, fuckin’ incredible men—respected me enough to do as I asked of them.

Zeus stepped forward, his face set to stone, eyes flashin’ like a lightning strike. “Good?” he asked Mr. White.

The man must have nodded because his face softened slightly, and he continued forward to kiss Cressida’s head and clap me on the shoulder.

“You okay, teach?” he asked my girl, dippin’ down so he could look her in the eyes and read what she might be hidin’ there.

“Unfortunately, it’s not my first time in the police station, and it probably won’t be my last,” she quipped with an easy, one-shouldered shrug.

I chuckled and tucked her further into my side. “Don’t you know, Dad? Cress is a biker babe now.”

Zeus’s smile was a slow, wide evolution across his face, and then finally, he laughed. “Gotta thank God or whatever else for puttin’ women like Cress Irons and Loulou Garro on this earth, eh, son?”

“Every fuckin’ day,” I agreed.

The air in the room went static suddenly, and I knew without turnin’ around who would stand behind me just by looking at the expression mirrored on the faces of Nova, Bat, Buck, Curtains, and Axe-Man.

Staff Sergeant Danner stood at the mouth of the hallway, hands fisted at his sides, mouth screwed up like a twist cap over shaken soda. He was about ready to explode, which surprised me because SS Danner had always been more of a cold, edge of the blade kind of crazy than a hothead. I’d heard from H.R. that his wife was divorcin’ him, and I knew despite whatever cold heart lay in his chest, that man had a soft spot for his wife, so apparently, he was takin’ the divorce hard.

It was near on impossible to believe the man standin’ in front of me, painted red with hatred for me and mine, could ever have opened up his home to H.R. and me as kids when Lion had taken us in after Zeus had gone to prison. There was no trace of that man left in the villain who faced us, so I let there be no trace of remorse in my heart for the ways in which we’d end him.

“That woman is under arrest. You can’t leave with her,” Harold Danner demanded.

“I think Mr. White proved that you really don’t wanna play that card, given what went down today,” I argued, my voice a long, low drawl just to piss him off.

“The entire lot of you are criminals. Don’t think that just because my father and his father before him couldn’t bring The Fallen to their knees that I will fail too.”

Objectively speakin’, Harold looked a fuckuva lot like his son, Lion, but the two Danners couldn’t have been more different if they tried.

SS Danner was about power at any cost, about what he felt was right and wrong over what he could have known in his heart to be true.

Lion Danner was everythin’ moral, courageous, and good. He’d read the Harry Potter books with me when I’d lived with him, and he had always seemed to me the definition of Gryffindor, a hero through to his very bones.

It was both sad and fuckin’ ironic that he’d have such a father.

“You’ve got a vendetta that’ll burn you up faster than you can aim that fire at us,” I told him, calm, cool, so collected I could see it infuriate him further with the tic in his jaw. “This isn’t about justice for you, Danner. It’s about wantin’ to be the biggest man in town. Hate to break it to you, but you’re in bed with a bigger man. When Javier Ventura’s done with you, he’ll stomp you out. And as for us?”