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She couldn’t even be bothered to thank us for rebuilding her fucking house. It pissed me off, even if I knew why she stayed away. I glared at Wolf, waiting for him to disagree with me or override my decision.
“If I want to call my girl, ask her for a favor, I will,” Wolf said, his menacing tone daring me to argue.
Was Peyton his girl? Yeah, he’d pulled her out from a hellhole masked as a castle and raised her. Loved her like a daughter. But in all the ways that mattered, the ways that mattered to me, she was mine. She had been since that day on the beach.
A lot of time had passed since then. The timing was never right. At first it was because she was seventeen and underage. Then it was because I was an idiot and let people get into my head. It didn’t help that she’d disappeared for so long. And we’d needed that space to grow into the people we were supposed to be.
She’d been back for a while, and I thought my chance would present itself, but she’d staunchly avoided everything to do with Redemption.
“Both of you need to take it down a notch,” Dad said. He turned to Wolf. “Stop picking at him just because you can. Technically if you want to use help outside the club, it needs to go to a vote.” He jerked his chin at me. “Stop getting so damn riled about her, son. Grow a pair and fix it. Or don’t. Either way, stop this pathetic bullshit. Make a damn decision and stick with it.” He faced the bar again, bringing the beer to his mouth. “Put us all out of our damn misery,” he muttered, but I ignored it.
Wolf waited a beat before changing the subject. “Are we set for the next delivery?”
We had three deliveries scheduled over the next three weeks. “More specific?”
He rolled his eyes. “All of them. Update.”
I rubbed a hand over my face. Answering questions was one of the only things that agitated me about my position. “Botanist guy said Pete Davidson strand is good to roll out along with the others. I’ve got the schedule organized.” It took a while to get our weed distribution up and running, and the club had almost gone broke in the process, but we were making money hand over fist now.
“And the other warehouse?” Dad asked.
“It’s getting shipped out tonight. I stopped by this morning to make sure everything with Tony was squared away.” We’d pulled back on most of our illegal business dealings, but we were still in deep with the smugglers. We had boundaries though. We stuck to stolen goods like antiques, maple syrup, and cigarettes. No guns, flesh, hard drugs, or animals. It cost us money that was ripe for the taking, but so many of our brothers came from violent, drug-filled backgrounds, and they didn’t want to be a part of creating another person’s hell.
“Good. Need it to be cleared out sooner rather than later.” Dad’s lip curled. “Hate working with that smug bastard.”
Wolf hid his smile behind his beer. “You only hate that guy because he hit on Scarlette.”
Dad grunted in response and shrugged. “You’d hate him too if he came onto Jeannie.” He wasn’t wrong. Redemption men were possessive of their women.
McMillan men did take that up a notch though. Peyton and I weren’t even together and I considered her my woman. Even after she disappeared to who the fuck knows where and came back… different from before.
I’d made friends with the right people and knew more about her time away than anyone else, but not enough to satisfy my curiosity.
But all of that was just a distraction from the real problem. It was past time for me to apologize and make things right.
Peyton might ignore me, pretend like I didn’t exist, but she wasn’t going to have the option anymore. She’d run my patience dry.
I wouldn’t let her.
ChapterFive
PEYTON
Detective Griffin Mooresmiled up at the camera, waiting to be let into my office. Where was Leanne? It didn’t matter that he couldn’t get access to anything, he wasn’t supposed to be hanging around by himself.
He rang the doorbell again.
Not today, Satan.
He could stand there all day for all I cared. I wasn’t going to let him in. I knew he was here to drop off a check from Portland PD because he’d made a big show of it in the lobby.
He was a decent cop, but he saw the world in black and white. I lived my life in shades of gray, so the one time I’d given into his interest and grabbed a drink with him, I’d known we were incompatible within the first ten minutes.
I closed the camera feed and sent Betty a message to let her know he was hanging around. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with people, and the last thing Betty needed was me pissing Griffin off and straining our relationship with PPD.
My phone vibrated with a message from Aunt Jeannie, and I smiled at the GIF of Michael Scott screaming “It’s happening.” I needed to find time to drop off a bottle of champagne to celebrate her big win at work.
* * *
