Page 66 of Riding Bare

“When we get outside of Vegas, I’ll get us a burner,” he states.

Gauge doesn’t stop walking, and I’m trying really hard to keep up with him, but the heat starts to pound down against my skin. I’m starting to sweat, and my breathing is becoming labored. I don’t remember the last time I struggled to just walk. I feel ridiculous.

Opening my mouth, I start to tell Gauge that I need him to slow down when he abruptly turns left and tugs open a door. He walks into a building, and I happily follow him, biting back the moan as soon as the air conditioning hits my skin.

I don’t even care where we are, because there is AC and a chair for me. My feet shuffle toward the chair, and I sink down on the seat as I close my eyes and attempt to catch my breath. I could use some water, too, maybe a snack.

Cracking one eye open, I look up to see Gauge standing at a counter. We’re at a car rental place. He grunts before speaking. If I had kept my eyes closed, I could have sworn it was our dad.

“Only renting a truck, babe, so find me something good.”

The woman giggles, and a few moments later, she slides a set of keys and a card across the counter to him. He laughs softly, murmurs something I can’t quite understand, then turns to me.

“Let’s get the fuck going,” he barks.

I roll my eyes to the ceiling, but with a smile, because this moment right here makes me forget all the scary shit. This is normal and typical. I’m glad I’m here and on the run with him. I just wish Amos were here, too.

CHAPTER

FIFTY-TWO

DARE

“How in the fuck are we supposed to get that asshole to The Site in time and make sure he burns alive?” Wrath asks.

I’ve told him the half-baked plan that Hippie and I just came up with. Hippie’s left my office. He’s got some other shit to take care of, like ordering some serious goddamn gunfire for this war that I may or may not be starting.

“Got not one single clue,” I admit.

Wrath shakes his head a couple of times and runs his fingers through his hair, tugging on the ends slightly. He clears his throat as he stands, then turns away from me for a moment. I expect him to walk over to the window, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just takes a step away from the chair that’s across from my desk, then another, until he’s standing in front of my father’s picture.

If he were still alive, my dad would be seventy-two. He had me when he was twenty. I didn’t know him well. He might have been here at the club, the president and all, but I couldn’t tell you a single fucking thing about him.

Couldn’t even tell someone what his favorite food was. He died a few years ago, and I don’t regret not knowing him. I’m indifferent to the father-son relationship we had. It makes me think of the baby Chassis is carrying. I don’t want our relationship to be indifferent. I want family dinners, laughter, and a real life together. All of us.

“Do you think he’d be good with that plan?” he asks, staring at the picture.

My lips press together, and I roll them a few times before I clear my throat. Leaning back in my seat, I stare at the picture with him. I ignore myself and only focus on him. He’s probably my age in the photograph. No smile, and his arm isn’t around me. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else than posing for a picture.

“The plan or the reason behind it?” I ask.

Wrath turns his head and looks over his shoulder at me. He smirks then chuckles. “Both maybe?”

“He’d hate the reason behind the plan,” I simply state before I continue. “Starting a war over a woman? That would never fly, not even if someone came in and hurt an old lady. My dad wouldn’t give much of a fuck. He’d never start a war about that. It would have to be about something bigger.”

“Yeah?” Wrath asks, even though he knows.

He, of all people, knows exactly who my father was on the inside. He might say that family was everything and old ladies were protected by the club, but inside, he didn’t give a fuck about women, especially not the ones in his family… like my mother.

“He might start a war over principalities,” Wrath murmurs.

“Now that he would do.”

I almost ask him why he gives a fuck what my father would do. He’s not here, and this isn’t his club anymore. He wouldn’t be working with the Russians at all to begin with, so he wouldn’t be in this situation.

“I’d love to do the exact fucking opposite of what my father would do,” I say. “Mainly because that’s what I’ve always done.”

Wrath’s lips twitch into a smirk. “Your gut calls you to defy the man, protect your woman, and start a war by burning that sonofabitch and listening to him scream.” Yes. That’s exactly what I want.