The game was over and so, unfortunately and fortunately, was my relationship with Reece. He’d taken one look at me after the game, at my swollen mouth and remorseful eyes and known.
“Wish I could say you’ll regret dumping me, but I have the feeling you won’t,” he’d said and then because he was one of the best guys I’d ever known, he’d hugged me. “It was a hope and a dream that I could tame a wild one like you.”
“You were the one who taught me to be wild.” I’d laughed wetly, because for some reason I wanted to cry. It felt like the end of something, like I was shedding the last vestige of Louise. At least, the last part of her life that I actually liked.
Reece’s beautiful face screwed up as he tugged on my ribbon-tied ponytail. “It was always in there, babe. Just needed a little coaxing.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered past the lump in my throat.
He nodded. “Not more than me. Listen, you need anything, I’m here and I won’t even ask for a kiss as payment, okay?”
God, he was amazing.
I wondered briefly if he’d ever stood a chance with me, even if Zeus hadn’t sucked me into his life and planted me there for good. I looked over at the crowd of people leaving the gym and immediately caught the back of Zeus’s dark hair, head and shoulders above the people around him. There was a break in the flood and I caught sight of the wicked skull and flaming wings across his leather jacket and knew without a flicker of a doubt, that I’d never been meant for anything or anyone else.
Reece had read the resolve in my face, squeezed my hand and shook his head ruefully before walking off to join his celebrating teammates.
I’d felt like shit but also strangely relieved. It was one thing crossed off the laundry list of obstacles threatening to take down my man and me.
Speaking of obstacles, my parents took the time to find me after the game and walk me to the car. Phillipa had her arm around my waist, her head bent close as she giggled about the gossip she’d learned that day. It wasn’t that she wanted to share it with me particularly, it was that it made her look younger, our blond heads together like sisters instead of mother and daughter. People looked over as we passed and praised my mother for being just that, a mother and a good one at that.
The irony made my teeth ache.
Benjamin had Bea under his arm but they both looked uncomfortable, especially when a local reporter stopped to take a picture of them and ask them some questions. Dad didn’t know how to bring Bea into the conversation because he didn’t know her at all, and Bea didn’t know what to do because she rarely had the opportunity to shine alone.
It was vaguely depressing, but I was still riding my orgasm high as we stopped at the curb of the parking lot and stood talking with random family friends like the school was our home and we were thanking people for coming to visit.
In a way, we were.
EBA was my parents’, grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ high school. It was the seat of youth in Entrance and so now, Bea and I went there and with us as a viable connection, my family could rule there too.
It wasn’t that I didn’t understand the appeal of that power, of having men come up to my father in search of endorsements and political favours, of my mother raising and lowering women in her society with the twitch of an eyelid or the flip of a hand.
It was heady stuff, that kind of power.
But as I understood it, being Queen and King of Entrance was hollow. Mayors were elected out of office, society queens grew elderly, old families moved out of town and new ones moved in.
No, I wanted power but the real kind, the kind that was deeply rooted in fear and reverence, power and genuine cleverness that kept you at the top of the greedy pile of bodies that had tried and failed around you.
Zeus’s kind of power.
The kind built on blood, sweat, threats and tears in credence of a lifestyle based on freedom of expression, brotherhood and defiance of the man just because he was the fucking man.
That was real power worthy of sacrificing your kids, their health and dreams for.
I was willing to play the power game, but only if I was doing it by Zeus’s side and playing it his way.
I was distracted by my rebellious thoughts when I heard the piercing scream.
One second, I was in the parking lot of EBA about to get into my car and the next second I was on the ground, my face crushed to the rough pavement and my hands and knees scraped up from the fall.
“You slut!” a girl shrieked from where she dug her knees into my back. “You disgusting filthy slut.”
Um, okay, what?
I tried to wiggle out of her hold but she was strong.
“Who the fuck are you?” I asked even though I had a horrible sinking suspicion.
How many girls would blindside someone with a side tackle in a parking lot and call them a slut for everyone to hear?
A biker’s girl, that’s who.
“Harleigh?” I asked, straining to turn my head in order to look at her.
It was at least half an hour after the game had finished but these sorts of things were a social occasion in Entrance as much as anything else and people still lingered, mingling. People, including my parents who were frozen in horror at the scandalous sight before them.
“It’s Harleigh Rose, bitch,” she said as she pushed my head back into the ground. “And if you think you can fuck my dad and get him in trouble with the cops or something, you are so fucking wrong.”
“Harleigh Rose,” I tried again as the asphalt rubbed my cheek raw. “Let me up and let’s talk about this somewhere private.”
“Fuck private. You want the world to know you’re fuckin’ my dad so you and your dumbass family can attack The Fallen. Why the fuck else would you disappear under the fuckin’ stands for everyone to see?” she hissed in my ear, thankfully low enough for only me to hear.
I was officially tired of this. Despite the cancer, I was still strong. A lifetime of ballet dancing gives you the kind of mean strength that’s hidden in long, lean muscles. I used it to buck up to my hands and knees then toss Harleigh Rose off me.
Immediately she got back to her feet, her thick blond-streaked brown hair a crazy mess around her sneering face.
“I don’t want to fight you, be reasonable here,” I told her, holding my hands up in the universal gesture of pacifism.
She spat at me. “Touch him again and I’ll do more than fight you. You probably think you’re too good for the likes of us but it’s the opposite way around.”
I shook my head at her and spoke in a low voice because people were converging on us and I knew there were only bad endings in store for Harleigh Rose.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about and if you’d just give me a second to explain or find Z—” I tried.
And failed, because the next second she was slapping me across the face, one of her rings cutting me across the cheek. “Don’t you dare say his fucking name when you’re trying to con him!”
I staggered back, blinking rapidly so I missed the chaos as men erupted out of the gym doors and flooded the scene. I bent over to plant my hands on my knees and blink the tears out of my eyes when two hands lifted me up and spun me around midair so that I was deposited on a broad, hard back.
Mute.
He stood strong with his booted feet spread apart, glaring forward at the scene but keeping me at a distance from it. Officer Lionel Danner, my parents, and Zeus argued with each other while King Kyle Garro held back his struggling sister.
“Mute, put me down, I need to get in there,” I told him, trying to wriggle out of his hold.
His hands were iron shackles around the backs of my thighs. “Stay.”
I stopped struggling because it was fruitless, my cheek hurt like a motherfucker and I didn’t want to miss anything else.
“Your daughter is a menace, Garro,” my dad was claiming, his finger pointed like an ineffective weapon at Zeus. “This is what happens when you raise girls in a gang.”
“Girls get worked up over boys all the time, Mayor. Not sure this is anythin’ to write home about,” Zeus drawled.
“Danner, aren’t you going to arrest this girl?” my dad demanded, turning to Lionel when he failed to rile up Zeus. “She assaulted my daughter.”
Lionel’s usually stern face looked years younger when he fought a smile as he did then. “Mayor, I understand you’re angry, but really, I think this was a harmless bit of teenage drama.”
“Detention then, at least!” my mother tried, her hands shaking as she pressed one to her heart and one to Bea’s shoulder to bring her even closer to her side. “Your daughter needs to understand there are consequences to attacking someone. Maybe in your… home or wherever it is people like you live…you encourage behavior like this but in the real world, it’s completely unseemly.”
I thought it was funny that my parents were so staunchly defending me when they didn’t even know I’d been saved and piggybacked by one of the very bikers they hated so much.
I rested my cheek against Mute’s shoulder, my chin in his neck. He stiffened for a second then rested his head lightly against mine. My heart melted even in the midst of this chaos.
“H.R., you gonna do somethin’ like this ever again or have you learned your lesson?” Zeus called to his daughter, his voice mild like he was bored with the conversation and was only placating my parents.
They noticed and both their jaws went tight with anger.
“I’m on my period,” Harleigh Rose admitted with a defeated scowl.
Zeus nodded like that explained everything. “Look there, my girl’s on the rag. ’Course she’s feeling emotional. I think we all can understand that, can’t we, Officer?”
I laughed into Mute’s neck.
Officer Lionel looked about ready to laugh himself, but he schooled his face admirably and frowned at Harleigh Rose. “I’ve picked you up more times than I care to count for minor offenses. Let’s not level up to a bodily assault charge, okay?”
To my surprise, H.R. blushed and ducked her head so that a soft curtain of hair partially hid her expression. “Yeah,” she muttered petulantly. “Whatever.”
“Looks like this thing is all cleared up, then. I’ll just be takin’ my daughter home and we’ll let you folks get on your merry fuckin’ way,” Zeus said magnanimously, already moving his family to the other side of the parking lot. “Okay, Mute, let Louise go.”
I giggled again as I slid from Mute’s back and made my way back over to my parents who stared at me in horror.
“Louise,” my mother breathed. “Are you… friends with one of those men?”
I smiled at her, pulled a highly entertained Bea into my arms and started walking toward the car. “Yes, Mum. Mute’s been one of my best friends for ages now.”
“Ages?” Phillipa echoed as she followed us to the car, casting a fearful glance over her shoulder at Zeus and King, standing so fierce and proud on the other side of the lot beside their huge motorcycles.
I understood her fear. They were like gargoyles, horrifying at first sight in their ferocity but utterly beautiful up-close, intricate with detail and gruesome because their role as guardians called for them to be so.
I was glad my mother feared them. She had cause to.
Men like that only protected the innocent and the loyal, and my mother was no such thing.
“Yep,” I confirmed as I pushed Bea into the car and then opened the door of the Lexus SUV for my mother. “He’s been over to the house nearly every day for the past few weeks.”
“Oh,” she said as I closed the door on her after she’d gotten in.
“Dad,” I called to Benjamin who was arguing with poor Officer Danner again. “Come on!”
They ignored me and as I walked closer, I caught sight of the utter disgust on Lionel’s face as my father spoke.
“You better get on board with things here, son,” my dad was threatening, his habitually immaculate hair gone slightly astray in the ruckus. It was a small thing but it reminded me of my father’s fallibility. “Your father is always vouching for you but I’m beginning to doubt your investment in this.”
“I’m invested, Ben, and I don’t have to answer to you,” Lionel said.
“I’m the mayor,” my dad said as if that explained just how wrong Lionel was.
“And Javier is the one with the money and the connections. My dad is the one with the intel, Jack and Ace are the ones with the inside track and Mitch is the one with the dealers. That makes us equal.”
“Fuck,” my dad swore viciously, so unlike him I stayed frozen between two cars, only a meter away from them. He ran a hand through his mussed hair and looked, for a moment, utterly lost. “I don’t know how it got to be this way, Danner, I really don’t.”
Lionel squinted at him. “As a cop you learn pretty quick what motivates people and you know what it is 85% of the time, Ben? Greed. Plain and simple.”
“I have money,” my dad muttered.
“Vengeance and pride work a close second,” Danner retorted. “Garro hurt your daughter, undermines your respect and makes more money than you do each year in around about a month with the operation he’s got going. Trust me, Ben, you’re chin-deep in shit and it stinks of greed.”
With that parting shot, Officer Danner inclined his head and prowled over to his personal vehicle, an old Mustang convertible.
My dad stood there for a second, looking so lost that I almost didn’t recognize him. All I knew was that my dad was doing more than his usual bit to incarcerate The Fallen, and in his quest, he might end up precariously close to incarceration himself.
