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“It was Emmett,” I announced, wiping my hands on my jeans. “He had it on his hand. Jesus Christ, he really is trying to make me pay.”
Though it seemed like this wasn’t just about making me feel guilty or trying to put me in jail.
This was about making me dead.
And anyone else who got in his way.
Maybe Emmett was more like Brian than I realized.
DRAKE
“You need to take a breath,” my dad ordered as he pushed the door to his office shut behind me.
“I’m gonna find this asshole—”
“No, you’re not,” he cut in as he stepped past me and rounded his large desk. “You’re gonna slow down.”
“If any other man in this club had an attack on his old lady, we’d be riding out of here now,” I snapped at him. “What the fuck is so different about this?”
“Because you have more to fucking lose,” he roared, slamming his palms against his desk before he fell back into his chair. “Goddammit, Drake.”
I shook my head, spinning on my heel and taking a step toward the door.
“Sit down.”
I paused.
Huntsman was two men.
He was my father.
And he was my president.
Sometimes it was hard to figure out who I was talking to, but there was one thing I knew about both—they had my best interests in what they did and said, and whether I liked it or agreed with it, not listening to what they had to say wouldn’t just be disrespectful but also fucking stupid.
So I inhaled deeply and turned my ass around, taking a seat opposite him and clenching my jaw shut so I could listen to what he had to say before I ran my fucking mouth.
“Are we gonna sort this shit out with Cassie? Fuck, yes! I see the way you two are together, how strong your connection is,” he said.
The acknowledgment that he could see the spark between us already making me breathe a little easier. “I never thought I’d find something so strong with someone I’ve only just met,” I admitted, running my fingers through my hair and pulling it back from my face. “I just want to make sure she’s safe. And happy. And protect her.”
“Like I didn’t do for your mom.”
My muscles tightened, and I couldn’t look away from his hard stare. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to,” he countered. “And honestly, I don’t blame you. You don’t want to make the same mistake I did.”
“Not everything is about Mom.”
“But a lot of things about you are, Drake, no matter whether you want to admit them or not,” he argued, leaning back in his chair and stroking his hand over his beard. I’d spent most of my life avoiding any conversations about her. Her story was one that wasn’t fun to replay.
Mom and Dad were forced to get married by their parents—a weird, arranged marriage of sorts, I guess—the idea being that the club wanted to keep bloodlines intertwined within the club for strength. Only, my mom didn’t want anything to do with the club, with being married or being an old lady. Her father, though, the grandfather I shared my legal name with, he basically made it so she had no other choice.
My dad tried to help her leave. He didn’t want her to be stuck there, hating him and her life but he was only newly patched and couldn’t stand up to a member like my grandfather. Her connection to the club just wasn’t there, and since my dad took over as president, he made sure there was no way any child or person within the club felt like they were forced to be there.
But it was too late at that point.
My mom’s pain became too much and when we were just kids, at six years old, Rip walked into the bathroom to find her dead in the tub.
