Page 32 of Demon's Angel

“Another drink, Prez?”

As soon as my empty bottle touches the wood, Dan appears to offer me a fresh one. Yup. Prospects know their role and make sure they do it if they want to get patched.

“Nah, thanks. I’m calling it a night. Hey, grab Vi’s suitcase out of her car, will you? Leave it outside her door.”

Glad I remembered, I walk up the stairs to my own room where I take a quick run through the shower. As I collect my clothes from the floor to throw into the laundry bin, I pause as I inhale a waft of faint musky perfume.Must have been from when Vi was hugging me earlier.

A final thought.Perhaps I should have called a whore to my bed, or at least jerked myself off in the shower.For some inexplicable reason, now my cock decides to come to life.Oh fuck. Admit it. It’s Violet.Sooner we can get her situation sorted out, the better. Just look at the state of me, all I can think about is her.

The wrongness of the thoughts I’m having about Violet make me wary of being alone with her. At the back of my mind is the thought that Nathan would probably have put a bullet in my head if I laid a hand on his little sister. Not that he’d have thought I wasn’t a good enough man, but he knew my lifestyle. It would be a crime to draw someone like her into this life, particularly as I wouldn’t be able to make a long-term commitment.

Why can’t life be easy? Why has she taken this step into my world? Why hadn’t she stayed in New York?But if she had, our paths wouldn’t ever have crossed, she wouldn’t have Theo, and I wouldn’t be planning the death of the man who raped her and fighting this insane attraction for her. Instead I’d be fucking a sweet butt without not a care in the world. Well, only those of an MC prez.

The following morning Vi surprises me yet again. She emerges from her room, seeming to take a biker compound as much in her stride as she has anything else life has thrown at her. She’s not nervous or scared, but interested and, despite the circumstance, upbeat and cheerful. Whether she’s had a good sleep, whether it’s that she has someone else to share her burden, there’s a new confidence about her, and an obvious joy in being able to spend time with her child. I gain a new respect for her, which for some reason, makes me even more wary of spending time alone with her.

Instead I watch from afar. Jay’s happily been out spending my money, and the floor of the clubroom now has baby toys strewn around. There’s an elephant which flaps its ears and sings some fucking song that gets stuck in my head. Doesn’t take long before my brothers have an intervention and restrict its use to times when men weren’t around.Thank fucking God. If I ever hear a song about ears hanging low once more I swear I’m going to get out my gun and shoot that toy.There’s a colourful mat that can be placed on the floor and something that’s apparently called a baby gym. Even I smile when I see Theo kicking at it and giggling.

Jeannie, I’m pleased to see, has taken Vi under her wing. Identifying she has a need to be useful, she has her helping in the kitchen. I suspect Vi needlessly thinks she’s found a way to pay us back for our hospitality. She’s wrong in that, she owes nothing to us. I owe her.

So I apply no pressure. For four days I give her space to just be a mother.

If I’ve been avoiding her, she’s likewise kept a distance from me. Word’s reached me she’s not going to be leaving anytime soon, has accepted at least for now, here is the safest place she can be. But if I pocketed her keys to her car, well, that was just a precaution.

I tell myself I’m just giving her time to settle in and time for me to put my attraction back into the box where it belongs. At the back of my mind, and, I suspect in hers as well, is the understanding we need to face up to her problems. Angel might have lost her, might believe she’s disappeared, but she can’t hide forever. He’ll be doing all he can to find her. The only way I can keep her out of his clutches is to keep her prisoner. As a temporary solution it’s fine; long term, it would be ridiculous. The kid will have doctor appointments, at the very least.

The options, as I see them, are either facing him in court and clearing her position legally or starting somewhere far away from his reach with a new identity. The former seems unlikely. The latter? Well, that’s something I don’t want to face.

When I’d brought her here, Violet had taken extreme action because she couldn’t see any other way out. Since Theo had been born—even before that—she’s been dealing with one thing after the other. Here, she has support, even if it’s just another pair of hands more than happy to take Theo for a moment. That first day I’d seen a reduction in the stress lines on her face and had been unwilling to remind her of the problems she’s facing. While evading her issues and giving her space isn’t a permanent answer, I’m loath to remind her of the shit she needs to face up to.

Each day she’s here, she relaxes a little more, and each day it becomes harder to worry her. I’ve been unable to give her help before; providing her with a safe haven, putting her problems in abeyance for now, is what little I can give her. Doesn’t mean I’m not doing the worrying and planning on her behalf, though.

Before I know it, Wednesday has come around. I enter the kitchen to find my father already there.

“So how do you want to play this, Prez?” Hellfire takes a piece of toast and starts to slather a low-fat butter substitute onto it, while I’m tucking into a full fried breakfast Jeannie’s just prepared.

“You already eaten at home, Hell?”

He grins but shakes his head. He also takes a cup of coffee and foregoes his usual cream and sugar.

Seeing how much his habits have changed drives me to point at the meagre plate in front of him and ask, “Is it worth it?”

This time he grins wider, having no need for me to explain I’m referring to him having given up smoking, cutting down on the whisky, and now taking more care over what he eats. “Hell, yes,” he replies, chomping on his toast as though it’s the tastiest snack he could have. “Yeah, I get to…” Whatever he was going to say, he decides better of it, and makes do with a shrug.

The smile I notice more on my mom’s face nowadays could provide a pretty good clue as to what he’s alluding to, but this is my mom and dad we’re talking about. If I’ve jumped to the right conclusion, I don’t want to have confirmation. Mom’s certainly been happier lately.

Hastily, I return to his original question. “We go meet the don, suss out whether someone just needs to be given the facts of life or whether they have deliberate intentions.”

“What if Angel is there?” Thunder walks in, catching our conversation. He, too, takes a loaded plate from Jeannie. “Had any more thoughts about letting him know Violet and the kid are here?”

“Definitely not. Won’t show our hand unless we have to.”

But I will be very interested to meet the man if he turns up. Up to now, I’ve dealt mainly with Lucio. Sure, Angel’s been around in the background, but it’s only recently he’s become the underboss. I have several reasons to regard him as more than part of the furniture. Now I need to get the measure of the man, or reptile, that he really is.

“The product? What if they’re doing it deliberate? Yanking our dicks to get a reaction?”

“We don’t react,” I tell Thunder, firmly, remembering he’s new at being my VP. As sergeant-at-arms he’d have stayed back, watching, listening, his posture showing he had our backs. Now he may well need to interact. “In that case, he’ll put forward a proposal. We don’t comment other than anything needs to come back to the table.”

“That’s what he’ll do,” Hellfire confirms. “I’ve known him long enough to know the rules he plays by. Way he’ll play it, if he’s gonna step on our toes, he’ll stomp until we take notice, then admit it was him doing it. From there he’ll take it to where he wants to go and leave the ball in our corner.”

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