“Playing bikes.”
Rider’s girl wore pretty dresses but loved being around the garage, sticking her little nose into every part of the shop. She loved being on anyone’s bike. A daredevil who loved candy and laughing. Every person in the club would take a bullet for her.
Not so long ago, the club didn’t have one kid… not that anyone was claiming, anyway. Parties got wild back then, and groupies notoriously came in hope to bag and tag a patched brother. Tag fucked no one without a condom. The last thing he wanted was to get trapped with a random hook-up.
Now though, most of his hitched club brothers had kids or ones on the way.
The dynamic might have shifted, but a brotherhood was a brotherhood.
They could murder and then come home to read their kid a bedtime story.
Some would say having a family made the Renegade Souls the most dangerous men in the country to fuck with. What Tag knew as gospel, his brothers would fight the devil himself to protect their families.
It kinda stunk he didn’t know how that felt.
Harper, holding a toy scale Harley bike under her arm, lifted both up for him to carry her. He grinned and hoisted her little body, then popped his head around the office door.
“This belong to you?”
“Daddy!” She yelled like she hadn’t seen Rider in months. She scrambled down Tag’s body. He watched the pair and felt a pang in his chest again. For a guy who always thought he wouldn’t have kids because of how he was raised by two irresponsible drunks, he got hit with a longing every time he was around his brother’s kids.
He’d probably be a fucked-up dad.
“You wanna go get some ice cream from the kitchen, doodlebug?”
“Yay!” She was almost at the door when Rider whistled and got her little feet skidding to a stop. “What’s the rules?”
In her cute baby voice, Harper held up five fingers. “Don’t tell mama I had ice cream. No touching the stove and… and… what’s the ‘nother one, Daddy?”
Rider smirked, proud as could be. “No jumping off the fridge.”
“Oh, yeah. That one. Can I go now, daddy?”
“Sure, baby.”
“Love you! Love you, Tag!”
“She really jumped off the fridge?”
“Fuckin’ hell, she about gave Zara a stroke. She nearly had me carting out everything taller than two feet, so Harper couldn’t do it again.”
Tag laughed as he parked his ass in the plastic chair in front of Rider’s desk.
The prez rarely stood on ceremony, so he got to the point.
“I’ve had another call from New York, that makes four this month. Cristian Bianchi has a hard on for you, brother. How do you feel about selling your ass?”
FOUR
“Selling a champ to the highest bidder.” – Tag
“How much is he offering?”
Not for the first time, someone saw dollar signs in Tag’s fighting career.
Until last year, when a grueling cage fight disfigured him and almost lost him the only thing he was good at, moneybags from every underground corner offered him sponsorship deals.
Infamous Cristian Bianchi, known mafia boss of New York, was the biggest name to come forward yet.