Page 38 of Mile High With the Bikers
He scoffs. “That’s what makes it perfect. Salvadore and the other criminals will respect my reach and what could a motorcycle club possibly have that matters? I doubt there’s more than three computers in that entire backwards place.” Oh my God, he really just doesn't care about the ramifications of what he does. As long as he profits from it, apparently, it just doesn't matter.
“Dad!”
“Listen, I've got a shareholders meeting. Stop lazing around and prepare for tomorrow. I'm already looking forward to it.” And with that, he hangs up.
I drop my phone back into the pocket, then look up to find Bull, Shrapnel and Diesel watching me intently.
Bull wets his lips. “Something you wanna tell us about, angel?”
19
RORY
“No,”I grumble.
Shrapnel slides my coffee farther and farther away until I snatch it back. “But?”
Holding the warm mug in my hands gives me something to focus on. I swirl the coffee gently, watching it move. “Before I say anything, you guys have to realize that if my father finds out that I'm telling you any of this, he’ll… actually, I don’t know what he’ll do. A couple years ago I would’ve said that he’d threaten to ruin you. Find your loans and buy them up to kick you off the land. Stuff like that.”
Diesel bristles. “And these days he’d do what, exactly? We've gone up against tougher opponents than him, I fucking guarantee it.”
“Money can buy almost anything if you’re willing to use it in the right places,” Bull says in an uncharacteristically serious tone.
“That’s the thing. He’s always used money for money’s sake, but Dad goes through these phases. I was one of them, when he was trying to craft the perfect minion.”
“Did he succeed?” Diesel asks.
“What do you think?”
His pause makes my chest hurt. “I think we don’t know each other well enough to answer that yet.”
Shrapnel nods. “If you don’t like that answer, how about you start changing it? We’re on your fucking side until you prove otherwise, honey, but we didn’t even know your name until yesterday,Florence.”
“Oh God, can you not call me that?” I shudder. “It was my grandmother’s name. Mom only picked it because she thought it would make Dad feel more obligated to—hey, wait a second. I’m not going to get real name shamed byBull, Diesel and Shrapnel.My name is Rory. That’s the one I picked for myself and it’s what counts.”
Instead of getting annoyed, he actually laughs. “Fair. I’ll give you that one.”
“Aaaaanyway, he didn’t really succeed, but I did well enough that it kept him entertained until the next thing caught his attention. These days he’s obsessed with pulling humanity into the future. He’s pouring money into so many different fields, and some of it is really great, but it frustrates him that things could go faster if everyone just worked together.”
“And that’s bad?” Bull asks. His arms are crossed in front of his chest, showing off the thick muscles in his forearms.
“No? Yes? It’s complicated.” I take a long drag from my coffee mug, willing the caffeine to clear my head because there’s a lot to cover and not a lot of time. “Nothing I say goes past us, okay?”
They don’t look happy about that. Diesel is the one to answer. “I can promise that we’ll keep our lips sealed about anything that doesn’t threaten the club, those we’re loyal to, or the people under our protection.”
Shrapnel nods. “We know how to keep our mouths shut.”
“Think hard, angel. I’m going to be straight with you. If your secrets are going to turn around and bite us in the ass, then you need to either tell us what’s going on, or we’ll go to Eagle-eye and explain that this situation isn’t working out and send you on your way. We can’t protect you if you’re aiming a gun at our heads and we don’t even fucking know it.” Bull’s voice is steady, and I don’t doubt he means every word.
I nod, more to myself than to them. If they were the kind of men who would watch their friends get hurt because someone they just met asked nicely, I don’t think they'd be the ones I wanted to confide in. “Okay. The thing is, I have my own opinions and this pesky free will that annoys Dad so much, but my mother signed over custody to him when I was thirteen and he spent the next five years fine tuning my education. At first it was great. I loved having tutors that let me advance as fast as I wanted and didn’t make me spend all my time memorizing dates, or writing essays about pointless stuff. I could focus on what I liked: math and computers. I'm really good at visualizing advanced data structures and encryption algorithms.”
Shrapnel furrows his brows. “You just said a bunch of words, and I understood some of them.”
“She’s a nerd,” Bull clarifies with a snort.
“Thanks, I got that part.”
“More of a geek, really, but yeah.” I rack my brain, trying to explain it simply. These guys aren’t stupid, but this stuff is like a foreign language. If you don’t know Chinese, speaking slower or louder doesn’t help. “Basically, it means I'm really good at figuring out how to build certain types of computer programs. The types that are good at shredding security software.”
