Page 54 of Vengeance

“I love you, Dallas. I love you so much it hurts.”

“Let’s get married.”

The words make her heart race, and she feels happier than she’s felt in a while. “Really?”

His fingers wipe her tears. “I need another chance at being the husband you deserve. Whatever you want, we’ll do.”

“Courthouse. Tomorrow. Just us.”

“No kids?”

She shakes her head. “No kids. They’ll just tell us we’re stupid and not show up anyway. I don’t want anything to dampen our day.”

“Whatever you want, Kimmy.”

“You. I want you.”

“You have me. Forever.”

Chapter Seventeen

Griffin’s Beach

Ashley

Ashley Short looks at her phone while she talks into the headphones in her ears.

“Lex, are you crazy? I have a prospect named Booker from Black Valley slowly walking with his motorcycle as I walk down the street to find this building Grayson sent me to. You just told Beckett to stay back and went and kicked some old lady’s ass?”

“I’m going to be fine,” Lex says and laughs. “And yes, I did. It was amazing. Lily brought the papers to this bitch, and she was saying how she planned to file charges because I hit her with the butt of her own gun.”

She stops walking as she arrives at the address and looks up at the pale, beige building downtown. It’s part of a large complex, and it’s one of the ugliest buildings in Griffin’s Beach. But even more, she can’t figure out why Grayson asked her to meet him here.

“Did Lily have to get you out on bail?”

“No, she reminded Lenetta that they have enough evidence to get her locked up for child neglect, and there’s a strong chance she’d be in prison right alongside me. The crazy, old bat has some sense because she decided not to press charges and just opted to stay the hell away from us for the rest of her miserable life.”

Laughing, she shakes her head. “You’ve got balls, that’s for sure. But I gotta go. I’m meeting Grayson, and I can’t figure out why. Maybe he’s finally lost it and decided to off me in an old abandoned building or something.”

“Doubtful. He’ll probably have you screaming for other reasons, though. Bye.”

Hanging up, Ashley sighs. She still worries about how her boyfriend is dealing with being fired from the police department. Grayson Tate has always been a man of the law. Even growing up, he and her brother, Ky, were never friends. The only thing he had in common with anyone in the club was how much he loved Alexis Dalton. Alexis Nichols, now. Even from the very beginning, he was on the right side while her family was on the wrong.

Falling in love with her cost him his dream. He always dreamed of becoming the Chief of Police one day, and it was an attainable dream. Until he fell for her. He denies it, but she feels like she messed everything up for him. She’s a one-woman wrecking ball, and she always has been.

When she was seventeen, a rival club murdered her mother, and she was the one who found her body. Just like that, she was the one looked at to take over the maternal responsibilities of her house, even though it was no secret she never had any intention of being part of the club. She wasn’t going to date or marry a biker. Old lady would never be her title. Her dreams were bigger than that, and in an instant, she found herself shoved into this little box she knew would suffocate her if left inside too long.

She should have been focusing on finals and prom and graduation and colleges. Instead, she became the person expected to keep the house running. Washing the clothes, preparing the meals, and making sure Ky got up and made it to school on time. The hardest part, though, was watching her father crumble into a shell of his former self. Seeing the man she always saw as larger than life fall to his knees, unable to get back up, broke something inside of her.

While going through the medicine cabinet one day, Ashley stumbled upon a bottle of medication her mother had been prescribed, and just like that, she fell into an addiction. One that spiraled into harder drugs when she could no longer get her hands on pills, and when Diesel found her with a needle in her arm, he kicked her ass to the curb. It took almost twenty years later to return and learn it was highly likely she bought drugs from the same men who killed her mom.

A prison stint forced her to get sober, and she knew it was time to kick the habit for good. Living a shell of her life for decades wasn’t working anymore. It was time to start actually living her life, and she came back to the one place she always planned to leave behind. She rented a house next to Grayson, and for the first time in her life, she felt like her addiction wasn’t the most dominant thing about her. With him, she never felt judged. Hell, he told her that he was proud of her for how far she’d come when her own family kept asking if she’d failed yet. To this day, he has no idea what that meant to her.

“What the hell are you doing here, Grayson?” Ashley mutters as she walks up the steps.

She walks towards the door with the suite number he gave her and pauses. Grayson took a bullet meant for her months ago, and it cost him his job. He saved her life, and his dream disappeared. Now he’s in this ugly building, and for what? What in the world is this?

“Surprise!” Grayson shouts when she opens the door and steps inside.

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