Page 48
She settles back into the leather seats, her body pressed against mine as she looks up at me. “You think they will?”
I swallow, leaning my head back against the head rest. “I think it’s a given. Can you imagine telling any of them they can’t patch in?”
She snorts, the sound both cute and somehow sexy. And that’s a dangerous thing to think about when we’re just friends. “Nope.”
We sit in silence for a moment. The drive is a long one, almost an hour and we’re alone in the car. I did ask if anyone wanted to carpool, but it turns out that everyone and their Ol Ladies wanted the celebrity treatment.
“OK, I think I know the kids reasonably well,” she says, “let's take bets. Who do you think will take officer positions in the next generation?”
“Ohh,” I blow out a breath, “that’s a damned good question.” All the kids flash through my mind. And there’s a lot of them. “I guess it would be natural to think Niko and maybe Judge’s boy Jax would take Prez and VP.”
“Oohh, I feel a little but coming on,” Willa says, wriggling her little ass in excitement and grinning up at me.
I screw up my face a little. “I kinda think Cove might have one over them.”
Willa whoops, clapping her hands and laughs, “I immediately thought Cove for Prez! She’s organized, reads the room well, and is a little diabolical.”
“Yup, all of the above. If Cove is Prez then obviously Jovie is VP.”
“Obviously,” Willa says, still chuckling. “Although, they might do a Sage. Marry into a badass MC.”
“That could happen, too.” I think for a moment, at what my boys have taken over after me and me and my buddies set the DRMC ball in motion. “I think whatever they all decide to do will be fine with us. They’ll all find their way, and the MC will always be there for them.”
“You do know that those kids are badass, right?”
“A little too badass at times,” I mutter.
“Have you seen their booby traps at my house?” Willa side-eyes me.
“Nope. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have an inkling that they’ve done something.”
Willa looks out the window, a smile playing on her plump lips. “Let's just say if Diesel tries something, he won't be trying for long.”
I can't help the way my grin stretches across my face. I’d love to see whatever it is the kids have come up with, even if it does mean that fucker Diesel has to turn up to Willa’s and scare her. The thought of her scared in her home makes my gut drop. I just have to keep reminding myself that Willa isn’t a damsel in distress.
“When did you realize you were tougher than Diesel?”
Willa looks taken aback. “What do you mean?”
The creak of the leather seats sounds loud in the silence of the car as I adjust my bulk to look at Willa. “You don’t need to tell me what living with Diesel was like. It’s written all over you.” She lets out a sigh. “It’s just at some point, old Willa decided she’d had enough. You decided that you were tougher than the shit he threw at you.”
She’s quiet, gazing out the window, the street lights illuminating Rose Grove. “I didn’t.”
“Huh?”
“I didn’t think I was tough. Or strong enough to leave. I just kept surviving shit that I was sure would destroy me.”
I nod in the dim lighting of the car. “And eventually you realized you were stronger than he’ll ever be?”
Her plump lips tip up and she glances up at me with a sparkle in her eye. “No. Eventually I realized I’m pretty damn hard to kill. And that if it was a fight between me and Diesel? I was going to win every fucking time.”
My grin matches hers as we sit in the backseat of Roman’s fancy car heading to a fundraising gala attended by a bad motherfucker, and there is nowhere else I would rather be.
“Mad Dog?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“I wouldn’t be mad if you kissed me tonight.”
