Page 101 of Savage

He nods. “Yeah, I thought about that, arsehole. That girl may be every shade of fucked up, but she’s still family. Of course, I fuckin’ thought about that. Why the fuck do you think she isn’t in Kick’s care right now?”

“Maybe ’cause he has some other bitch to contend with.”

“Yeah, she’s a problem, but not one he couldn’t handle. He’d take on both women if I told him he had to, but he isn’t what she needs right now.”

“And I am?”

He stares at me for a long time and nods. “Yeah, brother, you are. That girl doesn’t have a single living soul in the world that’d see this through better than you can. You’re exactly what she needs. That cabin is exactly what she needs, and as long as you keep her there, she’ll be fine. No more fuckin’ field trips, you got me?”

“You’re watching me?”

Prez’s eyes are glittering with rage when he says, “In all the years I’ve known you, have you ever needed to doubt my trust in you?”

“No.”

“I didn’t have you watched, motherfucker. Grim caught sight of the two of you leavin’ that fancy lingerie store as he was comin’ back from my place. Said the bitch was all over you like a gold-diggin’ whore on a carcass.” Prez smirks. “Ivy’s always been the kind of girl who wants what’s bad for her. Maybe it’s a condition of her upbringing, maybe it’s just fuckin’ stupid female logic. I don’t fuckin’ know. But either way, you want her on the back of your bike permanently? You gotta nail that bitch down. Show her that she’s yours and only yours. Right now, with you is the safest place she can be. When her old man is out of the picture with the Russians, we move in and take that fucker out. But he’s been there a long time, brother, probably as long as you been jonesing for his sweet daughter’s pussy, and I don’t see it changin’ anytime soon. For now, we don’t make a move until this Ryzhanov headfuck has blown over.”

“This is bullshit,” I say and lash out at my overturned chair, unleashing my anger. I kick the fuck out of it for several moments, and all the while I feel the weight of my Prez’s stare.

“We don’t make a move until I have the Cold King’s balls in my hands, you got me? You hearing me loud and fuckin’ clear on that, arsehole?” Prez says, getting up from the table. He stops beside me and leans his head in real close. Too fucking close. “We leave the fucker alone until I say he’s all yours. That’s an order, Tank.”

“Yeah, Prez, I hear ya,” I snap. “Loud and fuckin’ clear.”

“Good. Now get your arse back to that cabin. I got another mark for you in the next few days, and I’m gonna need surveillance on a residence—”

“Someone else can’t take it?”

“Don’t you think that if I had someone else to take it, I wouldn’t be callin’ you in here, motherfucker? I told you yesterday I got every spare man I have wrapped up in this bullshit with Kick’s bitch. I got Feds crawling all over my arse trying to track down our men for questioning, and this shit with the Russians ain’t gonna fix itself.” Prez walks back to his seat and picks up his coffee. He’s not that much older than me, but today he looks haggard.

“I need you on your fuckin’ game, brother.” He runs a hand down over his face and leans back in his chair. “I know this shit with Ivy is doing a real fuckin’ number on ya, but right now my priority is keeping every single member of this club safe and away from a holdin’ cell.”

“Yeah, Prez. I got it,” I say, and pinch the bridge of my nose. Only I don’t got it, because I need that fucker strung up like a pig on a meat hook. I need to make him pay, and I can’t wait for this thing with the Cold King to blow over, because it means playing fucking Russian Roulette with Ivy’s life, and I reckon she’s done enough of that shit to last a lifetime.

“Good. Now get the fuck outta here. I got shit with the fuckin’ bitch wife that needs straightening out.”

“Looks to me like you got some shit with pretty little Raine to sort out, too.”

Prez shoots me a look full of venom and says, “There’s the door, motherfucker. Walk through it before my piece goes through you.”

I chuckle half-heartedly and make my way over to it.

“I mean it, Tank. You slow your fuckin’ roll on that cunt, you hear? I don’t need the Russians up my arse ’cause you couldn’t control your fuckin’ temper.”

I sigh and don’t bother to turn around.What’s the fuckin’ point?He’s just going to stare at me with that pissed off expression, and I’m just going to glare back twice as fucking pissed off because it’s my old lady’s life on the line.

Prez and I are too much alike. Both stubborn and pig-headed, neither one of us are real keen on being told what to do, and we’re both going to disagree on this front, because even though he may claim that Ivy is family to him as well as to my club brothers, she’s more than that to me. She’s not just family, and she’s not just someone I want to fuck—she’s my woman. That makes her more than family, and I’ll stop at nothing to keep her safe.

The question is: can she handle that?

She doesn’t talk about her father, ever. She won’t let anyone in on that front. The most I think she’s ever told anyone was to Kick, and even he’s too fucked up to really comprehend the kind of gift she was giving him.Kick didn’t care that Ivy loved him enough to entrust that information to him, Kick only cared that he finally had someone to indulge in his pathetic little fantasies with.Sick fucker.

It tears me apart knowing she’s in love with him, and he doesn’t even fucking see what he has. I guess we’re not so different, him and me. We both tried to save the women we loved, and we’ve both found ourselves miserably fucking short when it came to making shit right. I’m going to change that. I’ll save this bitch if it’s the very last thing I fucking do. And she may hate me, but I don’t give a shit, because at least she’ll be alive to do it.

Kick doesn’t care enough about Ivy to help get her clean, and he certainly doesn’t care enough to seek out her father and kill him. He’d more than likely track the fucker down just to watch the expression on Ivy’s face when he revealed what he was hiding up his sleeve.

He’s not all bad, just seriously fucked up. Despite this colossal fuck up with the warehouse and saving the stray, he’s usually a good man to have at your back. I trust him with my life. I just don’t know if I’d trust him with my woman. I don’t know what it is about the little fucker—I’ve always liked him. Always felt a brotherly bond beyond the one the patch gives us. I betrayed my first club because my loyalty was more tied to him than the patch I wore, or the Prez I’d pledged loyalty to. I even fucking went against what my new club Prez would have wanted me to do when it came to keeping that bitch in the warehouse alive.People are gonna think I’ve gone fuckin’ soft.

Maybe I have. Between Kick and this shit with Ivy, I feel as though my balls have been shoved into a vice and squeezed until they fucking exploded all over the goddamn room. This is why I don’t get attached to anyone or anything. Because you become a liability.Love makes you a liability.

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