AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“By the way, why the hell are we dressed like this?” I ask, since it doesn’t seem like dragging her back into the dressing room and kissing her is an option.
She remains silent, offering only a smile in response—a genuine, radiant smile tinged with a dash of slyness that I haven't seen before.
Christ. That can’t be good.
Back in the car, I figure we’re in for a half-hour-long trip of stony silence, so I settle against the backrest to start up another slew of calls, but Sophie suddenly asks, “How did you and Leo meet?” Her gaze is fixed on the few cars ahead of us.
She’s going to start this again? It’s as if she knows where it hurts most and wants to keep poking at the wound.
I keep my expression light. “He sucker-punched me,” I offer. It’s harmless enough information.
Her eyebrows lift, and her gaze flickers over me, leaving a trail of heat before swinging back to the road. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Hey, we were six years old, first day of school,” I continue, recalling vague snippets of that day. “He came up from behind on the playground and punched me in the back. Next day, I walked right up to him, cocked back, and punched the little asshole square in the nose—none of that sneaking up from behind shit.”
She chuckles, a soft, warm sound with a cute snicker that makes me wish she’d do it again. “And I suppose it was all smooth sailing from there?”
I nod, smiling at the memory. “We’d worked our shit out.”
At a red light, Sophie’s gaze shifts to me, assessing, before a smile quirks her lips. ‘Boys,’ she mutters, a hint of sadness in her voice. As she refocuses on the road, her eyes shimmer with unshed tears.
Sophie is more deeply affected by this guy’s death than she’s letting on. I wonder if she's masking her grief for my sake or if, like me, she’s unwilling to let herself feel because it would be too overwhelming.
“Cade punched Rafe the first time his dad brought him—” She slams her lips shut. “Sorry. Never mind,” she says, and it’s clear by the closed look on her face that she’ll say no more.
But damn, if I’m not far more interested in finding out just who ‘Cade’ and ‘Rafe’ are than I should be.
It’s almost thirty minutes later when she swerves onto the side of the road and stops the car.
“We have to change seats,” she says, once again elaborating no further. She gets out of the car and circles around to the passenger side with the car still running.
I step out of the car as well, but I wait, my gaze fixed on her, demanding an explanation. Not that I have any qualms about taking the wheels—in fact, I’d much prefer it. Sophie’s cautious driving and overly polite approach to every roadside interaction, combined with her habit of slamming on the brakes without any apparent cause, have, to say the least, been stretching my patience to its absolute breaking point.
Still, I make no move to slip obediently into the driver’s seat. “You pick out a sluggish car, have me dressed up like a clown, and now you’re choosing your driver because what, you’re suddenly tired? Get back in the damn car and drive, Sophie.”
She rolls her eyes. “I mean it, Nico, if we show up with me behind the wheel, they’ll spend the next twenty-four hours looking for my penis and your vagina.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. Who the hell are these people of hers?
“Just get on with it, Nico. You wanted to be my ‘plus one,’ well, here goes nothing,” she mutters then she sidesteps me and slides into the passenger seat. “We’re heading to a small coastal town called Harmony. I’ll give you directions.”
I take the wheels, and in a few minutes, we arrive in Harmony. Sophie guides me through increasingly deserted and narrow streets. A flicker of concern crosses my mind that perhaps her home might be some forgotten place at the edge of civilization.
However, the reality awaiting us is a stark departure from my concerns. It’s far from the dilapidated scene I had braced myself for, yet in many ways, it’s so much worse.
“Make a right through there,” she says, pointing to an open chain-link gate at the end of a long dirt road. A smug smile dances at the corners of her lips, a hint of triumph in her eyes that she can’t quite suppress.
The entire lot is surrounded by a tall chain-link fence, and there’s a large brown-brick building with a porch near the front of the lot.
And about thirty Harleys parked in front of the large building.
“An MC clubhouse?” The notion intrigues me, and I try to reconcile the sophisticated woman I first met in her pristine office with the raw, untamed spirit of a motorcycle club—though, admittedly, she could grace any Harley poster and put the other models to shame. It explains why she seems to have a spine of steel, and the change in attitude the closer we got to here.
She simply nods, her gaze shifting toward the side wall of the building, which is adorned with an expansive graffiti mural. ‘The Reaper Druids,’ declares the bold lettering above the image of a weathered skull, with green flames melting the eye sockets and a Celtic knot proudly etched onto its forehead.
“Home sweet home,” she says, her voice quiet and caught somewhere between horror and awe. But underneath those, there’s a warmth in her tone she can’t quite hide.
Every hair on my body rises as I park in an empty space between the Harleys. Normally, in places like this, I’m accustomed to asserting dominance, dictating outcomes as men fall in line or fall altogether, serving my interests from rackets to intercepting consignments. Club presidents often align their businesses with mine as fronts for laundering and arms dealing.
