Viktor bought a house built into the cliffs near my nanna’s care home. It was small and cute, but the grounds held a concealed helipad that scared the shit out of me. “If you land wrong, you’ll fall in the fucking sea.”
“I will not land wrong.”
Viktor kissed my neck and went inside.
I stayed out in the wild wind, scanning the horizon—the ocean, the sky, the beach. Jean’s bedroom window. If I squinted real hard, I could just about make out the Rebel Kings compound in the distance. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the orange groves Vik had given up to be here.
Didn’t miss Lida, though. Didn’t have to. She was right here at my feet, sniffing the air like she had been since Viktor had brought her home last night, signalling an end to the first time he’d left me since the port raid three months ago. Two nights without him and I’d nearly died from missing him so much. Wasn’t sure when I’d shed my lone-wolf skin and become a co-dependant sloth, but that’s who I was right now.
Viktor came back with the keys to the Rebel Kings vehicle Cam had loaned us while I couldn’t ride.
I feigned surprise. “We’re not taking the wankbird and landing it on the clubhouse roof?”
“Not today.”
Viktor moved to the car and slid behind the wheel while I secured Lida in the back and took the passenger seat. I hadn’t driven or ridden in months. I probably could now my eyeballs were reliably pointing in the same direction, but Vik seemed to like taking care of me, and I hadn’t got round to flipping that dynamic on its head yet.
Unless I was fucking him.
Which happened as often as he fucked me.
“What are you thinking about?” Viktor reversed down a road that wasn’t much different to the one that led to his house on the island. “Are you worried about taking Jean out of the home?”
“Nah, I was thinking about sex. But thanks for adding my nanna into the mix.”
“You are welcome.”
Viktor was quiet until we reached civilisation, paying the steep roads more attention than he had the cliffs when he’d landed his chopper last night. At least it seemed that way to me. I still wasn’t over the fact that he flew those fuckers. Or that living through him being in the air without me had damn near given me a heart attack.
“Are you going to tell me?”
“Hmm?”
Viktor rubbed my thigh, one hand on the wheel while he navigated through Whitness. “What you were thinking about. It did not look like you had sex on your mind.”
Maybe I hadn’t. But I still had trouble filing my thoughts properly, my short-term memory not recovered from that shitty concussion. Whatever I’d been thinking about to put that concern in Vik’s bright eyes, it was long gone.
Viktor drove us to Jean’s home. He waited outside, keeping a necessary low profile, like Alexei, but that ended as soon as Jean was in the car, in the front seat, me relegated to lounging in the back while they chatted up a storm.
Jean thought Viktor had a pretty voice. I’d told her until she was sick of hearing it that he was pretty everywhere.
We drove on to the Kings compound and the inaugural record fair they were hosting. Couldn’t say I gave much of a shit about vintage vinyl, but my nanna loved these people, and so did I.
Viktor parked round the back with the lorries, out of sight, so we could slip into the throng unnoticed.
The place was packed, full of enough outsiders to set my teeth on edge, but the boys had security covered, and I trusted them as much as they trusted me.
Nash whisked Jean away. Out of all my club brothers, she’d chosen him to be besties with, and I was okay with it. Besides him being a stand-up dude who treated my nanna like a queen, it made the fact that Viktor naturally gravitated to Locke mighty convenient.
Pretty sure Orla was sick of my face, though. Or maybe my mouth. The Rebel Queen washugelypregnant. Like, beach-ball sized—a comparison she didn’t appreciate, but Lida’s arrival caused enough of a stir to save me from serious harm.
“LIDA!” Ivy and Liliana burst from the clubhouse, tearing across the yard to where we had barely made it through the side gate. Flashbacks to when these kids had last rushed me invaded my mind, but the Doherty clan were long gone. Didn’t know where. Didn’t care.
The kids drew closer. Then stopped a few feet back, like Folk had taught them when Lida had first come to the compound so long ago, to wait for the dog to come to them on her own terms.
Viktor let her go. The reunion was sweet, but Lilliana broke away and came to us, stopping in front of Viktor.
She said something Spanish.
