Page 65 of Harmless
“You okay?” I spoke next to her ear.
Rori’s hand slid down my arm to clasp my hand. She pulled in a shaky breath and nodded her head.
“I’ll, um, decide on the others soon,” she said, voice raising to reach everyone. “But this man, Torrance Knight.” She looked directly into my eyes as she said, “He’s my vice president.”
22
RORI
Ihad a couple phone calls to make and decided I might as well get the toughest one out of the way first.
It was unbelievably awkward explaining to my aunt Kyrie that I needed the two safe houses for a little while longer because, well, I was now president of a brand new MC and we didn’t have a clubhouse yet.
She, on the other hand, couldn’t stop laughing.
“Oh, they really ambushed you with it?” I could just imagine her wiping tears from her eyes. “That’s incredible. Wait until I tell your uncles.”
“Val probably already has,” I muttered. My cousin was yacking on the phone earlier, and I swore I heard T-Bone’s booming cackle through the little speaker.
“Have you told your parents?”
I rubbed my eyes. “Not yet. They’re my next call.”
“Well, best of luck, darling. Don’t put those fathers of yours in too early of a grave.”
“Wait, before you go.”
“Yes?”
I blew out a breath and wished again that I had something to drink. It turned out the fighters had gone through what little alcohol we had on the first day. And now I had the privilege of babysitting them full-time. Fan-fucking-tastic.
“What should I tell Val if she wants to stay with me?”
“If you want her in your club, tell her yes, of course.”
“Aunt Kyrie,” I groaned. “She’s a kid. She’s only twenty-one.”
“And you’re twenty-three. Your point is?”
“She’s your only daughter, and we’re riding into the heart of a cult. If she was my little sister, I’d be shipping her back home right now.”
“Let me tell you a story, my dear niece.” I heard a creaking and shuffling noise, like my aunt was crossing her legs and assuming her tall, regal posture. “You know how your uncles and I first met?”
I had heard this story dozens of times. “They were your bodyguards.”
“That was the second time. The first time, I had been kidnapped and they rescued me.”
Nowthatwas news to me. “Holy shit.”
“Exactly right. I walked right into a kidnapping plot because my father kept me so sheltered that I didn’t know how to look out for danger at nineteen-fucking-years old.”
“Whoa.” All I had known about Kyrie’s father was that he’d been the first governor of Four Corners.
“I decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t shield my children from the world to that degree. I would protect them, of course. But Val is grown now, and while of course I worry for her, I’m confident in what her fathers and I taught her. And you know what else?”
“Huh?”
“I know she’s safe with you, Rori.”
