Craving Cecilia (The Aces' Sons 6)
“Why would I think that’s crazy?” I asked in amusement, everything inside me relaxing at the excited way she described the place.
“It’s next to my parents’,” she replied, drawing the words out as she looked at me expectantly.
“Oh, hell,” I muttered, the full picture sinking in.
* * *
“You ready?” Casper asked, his eyes crinkling as I slid on a helmet.
“You could enjoy this a bit less,” I shot back. “I don’t know why you won’t let me take the truck.”
“We’re goin’ in on bikes,” he replied easily. “You forget how to ride?”
“You know I’ve got a bike in California,” I bit out, looking at the bike I was using. It was a piece of shit, no way around it. The thing was a restoration project of Grease’s and I seriously doubted its capabilities of getting me to the Free America Militia compound and back.
“Then this should do you fine,” Casper said as Grease strode up to stand beside him, both of them looking the bike over.
“That’s gonna be a fine piece of machinery,” Grease said with a sigh.
“It’s a piece of something,” I muttered under my breath.
“What’s that?” Grease asked. He was failing to hide the amusement in his expression.
“Is this some type of initiation or something?” I asked. “Because I’ve already dealt with this shit before when I was sixteen.”
“Think of it as a refresher course,” Grease replied.
“I don’t need a fuckin’ refresher course.”
“We’ll see,” Casper mused, glancing at Grease with a grin. He reached up and scratched his cheek, flexing his hand as he dropped it. He hadn’t said much when the highest ranking members of the Oregon Aces’ chapter had made a quick trip to Sacramento, but I’d known what happened when he’d come back with hands so swollen they’d resembled boxing gloves. I hadn’t been a part of that trip because I wasn’t a member of the Aces, but I’d been filled in enough to know that the leak in their organization had been taken care of. If I’d needed proof, all I’d had to do was look at Casper’s broken fingers to know that the man had gotten what was coming to him. If I knew the men that had raised me, he’d wished he was dead long before he actually was.
As Casper climbed on his bike and pulled on a pair of gloves, I grimaced. The thought of riding with hands that messed up sounded like torture, but Casper didn’t even seem to notice it. The man was unnaturally calm.
A few minutes later, I followed the group of bikes off the Aces’ forecourt headed south. Nearly the entire club was headed to the FAM compound in a show of force that would make any sane person shit themselves. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure how sane a bunch of skinhead doomsday preppers were.
Leo was still in the hospital, but from everything we’d heard, he was getting better. The skin grafts were doing well, and they’d only had to amputate his pinky and his ring finger at the top knuckle. He’d still be able to ride, which had been the biggest worry after we’d known he would live.
Cecilia and I hadn’t been back to the hospital since that first night. I didn’t have any reason to go, and though she knew she’d be welcome, she chose not to go, either. She still didn’t feel comfortable with the situation, even if some of the Aces thought she’d been redeemed.
The idea that she’d needed to be redeemed still pissed me off, but I kept it to myself. I wasn’t about to make things harder for her than I had to, and if that meant keeping my mouth shut—even to her—that’s what I’d do. She was staying close to our room, only venturing out to eat or spend time with her parents, and I was anxious to get us out of the clubhouse and into something permanent.
I watched grimly as Eli passed me on Tommy’s spare bike. Asshole. I knew there were other bikes that I could’ve ridden, but Grease and Casper seemed to be trying to make a point with the piece of shit that was currently shaking so hard it made my teeth rattle.
The ride was frigid as fuck, and by the time we made it to the large metal gate outside the militia compound, my hands, face and ass were all numb. I really hoped I wouldn’t have to draw my weapon because I wasn’t even sure I could.
“Blow the gate,” Dragon ordered as the bikes idled.
I watched, impressed, as Tommy laid a charge and cleanly blew the lock off the gate with minimal damage to the actual gate.
I kept my head on a swivel as we rode up the paved driveway in a massive column three bikes wide, but nothing was moving. The place was silent, which was seriously surprising considering the amount of people that we expected to be on the property. As we reached a cluster of large buildings, the hairs on the back of my neck bristled, and I glanced to my left where Eli was scanning our surroundings, deep in concentration.