Page 6 of Healed

“Concentrate on the driving!” I screamed, seeing a car in front of us narrowly avoid being hit head-on.

“You’re such a drama queen,” Dante announced, rolling his eyes.

I ignored him.

Insulting him would do no good for my newfound religion.

“Our Father who art in heaven… Father, be thy name.”

“Hallowed.”

“Pardon?” I gasped, daring to peek one eye open.

“Hallowed. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

“I’m not on a first name basis with our heavenly Father; he’s been absent. So excuse me for getting it wrong.”

Dante chuckled then. “Are you regretting your choices?”

“I regret ever getting in this car with you.”

We needed a car for Vienna. No one knew what state he was going to be in, but we were all silently agreeing that he wouldn’t be in any fit state to ride his bike. And Dante didn’t trust me enough to let me drive the car alone.

So, here I was. Stuck in a car with a maniac.

“The choice was my bike or my car. And considering the lecture I gave Vienna about getting my old lady on the back of his bike, I couldn’t exactly do the same with you.”

I frowned. “Rachel gets on the back of Vienna’s bike?”

A small wave of ridiculous jealousy rolled through me.

But that was almost unheard of.

At least in my club, anyway. Old ladies were forbidden to ride anything other than their man and his bike.

“You might have noticed something about my old lady. She tends to do what she wants, when she wants. Consequences be damned. And Vienna isn’t much better.”

“And you tolerate that?” I asked.

Dante barked a laugh in response. “When it comes to Rachel, you learn to pick your battles. Do I like seeing her wrapped around Vienna? No, of course not. But I also know my old lady, and I know she’ll have driven him half mad with her backseat driving, she’ll have hit him in his face with his own beard at least fifteen times on a two-minute journey, and then there’s the bickering. If by some miracle he doesn’t throw her off the back of his bike and they make it home in one piece, they won’t speak for at least a week unless it’s to argue over who was in the wrong.”

He shook his head, as though he was remembering that exact scenario, and then adjusted his mirrors, focusing on the black bike riding behind us.

“You give her a lot of freedom,” I said, daring to glance behind me for one quick moment, seeing Rachel on his bike, sticking her finger up at us.

“Yeah… she’s not one to be argued with,” he said, but he didn’t sound frustrated. Instead, there was pride in his voice and a gleam in his eye as he clocked the gesture I’d just seen Rachel doing.

I didn’t respond. I focused on the driving, feeling my nerves ease slightly as Dante slowed down his driving just enough so that I didn’t feel like throwing up. I didn’t comment on it, and neither did he, but I appreciated the gesture all the same.

“Question,” he said suddenly, taking a corner much more carefully than the last few.

“Shoot.”

“Why didn’t you want Rachel driving you?”

Even without looking at me, I knew his attention was on me. It was something I had always noticed about Dante—he was aware of his surroundings at all times. And I knew he’d read any lie in my face.

“I don’t like her.”