“Donovan.”
I jumped to my feet.
“Let’s go.” The guard smiled. “I’ve got your get out of jail card.”
If anyone cheered at my departure, I didn’t hear them through the buzzing in my head. The guard ledme to a dressing room. I was given the clothes I’d had on when I was arrested and allowed to change.
In a couple weeks, I’d lost weight. The jeans and shirt McKelle had bought me were loose, but it felt so good to wear street clothes. I sat on a bench and traded the plain canvas slides for my steel-toed black boots.
After I’d signed papers, promising to contact my new PO within seventy-two hours, I was given the twenty-three bucks remaining on my books, and escorted to the door.
I had no ride and no phone, but I didn’t care. I’d walk to the MC to get to McKelle and Cruz. Streetlamps illuminated the parking lot directly out the doors of the jail.
A car door opened, and Willy stood in the open driver’s side door. “I think you have somewhere you’re supposed to be.”
I walked toward his luxury vehicle.
“Can’t have you missing church.”
Chapter Fourteen
Cruz
McKelle was off her game. She was down sixty bucks, but at least she’d dried her tears.
While Vega leaned over the table, lined up his shot, and sent the cue ball spinning toward the racked balls, she sat on my lap. I kissed her bare shoulder, and she leaned into my chest.
Vega dropped balls into the pockets.
“He’s going to clear the table.” I kept one arm around her with my hand on her hip and sipped a longneck bottle of beer.
We both had a habit of checking our phones, hoping for a call that wasn’t going to come.
“We don’t have to be here,” I said to her. The board had already convened, and club business had concluded. Music blared through the speakers. Patches were drinking and playing cards.
Everyone was having a good time…except us.
“I don’t want to be anywhere else.” Not the same as wanting to be here. She took my beer from my fingers and tipped it to her lips.
“Your shot,” Vega said. He stepped away from the table.
McKelle stood and walked around the table. Her hair was still braided from our earlier ride. It swished across her back as she flipped her head, bent over the table, and took her shot.
“Look who showed up for church?” Tank stood in the main doorway to the chapel with his arm around a guy.
The older man, sporting a tightly cropped beard, had a bit of a gut from too much of the good life, judging from the cut of his suit and the diamonds and bling decorating his fingers. He pointed to the bar. “Who’s buying me a drink for getting this guy out?”
Only he wasn’t talking about getting Tank out of jail. I couldn’t breathe. Ryatt stepped around Willy and a cheer went up in the MC. Kiss squealed, but Blue wrapped an arm around her to keep her from rushing to him.
Ryatt’s gaze locked with mine, and then he quickly shifted his gaze to the woman standing next to me. She rested her hand on my back and took a step closer to me.
Romeo stood from the president’s table, but Ryatt was already weaving through the crowd, coming toward us.
“Why am I scared?” McKelle whispered. “Why is he here?”
“He’s here for you.”
Ryatt’s gaze hadn’t left McKelle. Time seemed to stop as he approached. He looked good. The bruising was gone leaving only the sharp angles of his face and a clean-shaven jaw. Jeans hung low on his hips, and his shirt clung to his tapered, muscular torso.
