Chapter 8

It is the one thing that wasn’t supposed to happen.

From the moment Michael Kessler called me and said he needed a favor concerning Nadia, I had a feeling it would lead to some kind of trouble. I’ve known Nadia since she was born. We were kids back then, but we’re grown men now.

And Nadia is all woman.

A beautiful angel with a dirty soul has the three of us hooked, wrapped around her finger like we’re nothing more than puppets. We spend our nights buried deep inside her and our days trying to keep trouble from the clubhouse.

Nobody knows, not even Paddy. Nadia is our secret, and we intend to keep it that way for as long as possible.

When Orion told us that he was her first, I have to admit, I felt a jealous pang. I would’ve wanted to be there. Kai, too. But it’s all right. We more than made up for it when we claimed her together.

Nadia may have come to us a virgin, but her spirit is the feistiest I’ve ever come across. I want to peel away at her, one layer at a time, until I know all and conquer all. And I am well aware that Orion and Kai are just as befuddled, just as hungry. How can they not be? Fucking hell, a woman like Nadia only pops up once in this lifetime.

Unfortunately, she picked the worst possible time. “More wine?” Michael asks when the waiter stops by our table.

“Yes, please,” I reply with a kind smile.

Once a month, Nadia’s father and I meet over lunch to talk business outside the MC. I have some investments to make, and I need his advice on certain accounting aspects where his expertise comes in handy.

I may be an Iron Horse, but there’s more to me than just running the club. I’m the numbers man, and I’ve made a ton of money with this brain of mine. My old man hated me for it. He tried to beat it out of me.

But Quicksilver protected me. He helped me when I was on my own and when I needed a way forward. Thanks to his support, I emerged from a dark era. I was able to pull through for Orion and Kai when they needed me.

One man helped another, and the favor shifted until the whole of Iron Horse MC came back into the light, ready to face a new decade and a new direction.

“How’s the club?” Michael eyes me intently.

I take a sip of my wine, briefly staring at the half-eaten medium rare steak on my plate. “Good,” I say. “We’ve had better days, but that’s the downside of changing a company’s business profile altogether. I’m sure you understand.”

“It takes a while to go legit,” he replies. “But I’m glad you boys decided to do that. Your fathers wouldn’t have agreed, but as long as you have the members’ support, Paddy’s included, you’re golden.”

“We have that, yes,” I say. “It’s the suppliers who keep giving us a hard time.”

He nods in understanding, his gaze wandering around the restaurant. It’s a sprawling terrace overlooking the Pacific Ocean, nestled away from the hustle and bustle of midday Anaheim. It’s nice and quiet, and they have one of the best grass-fed Wagyu steaks on this side of the continent.

Quicksilver is also one of the owners, so he conducts most of his out-of-office business meetings over a plate of pasta and a glass of wine while still pouring money into his own pocket. He”s a smart man. There’s a lot I’ve yet to learn from him, which makes me all the more uncomfortable sitting across the table from him while also rabidly fucking his daughter. The mere thought of Nadia’s voice, the sound she makes when she comes, is enough to tighten my pants. I need more wine.

“The suppliers will always be expensive when your goal is to no longer pay them in the long term,” Michael says. However, if you pay them off and manage to send new business their way, they will leave you alone.”

“Colton Harrow isn’t making it easy,” I say.

The guys and I originally agreed not to tell Quicksilver about him, but I’d rather he hear it from us than see it on the news. We’re in charge of his daughter’s safety, and his trust is one I would hate to shatter. Michael’s frown tells me he’s been thinking about the Black Devils, too.

“What’s his latest move?” he asks.

“Nothing last week, but we’ve seen a few unknown bikes ride past the clubhouse over the past few days,” I tell him. “Rest assured that Nadia is perfectly safe. The clubhouse itself is impenetrable.”

“I hope so. You didn’t spend all those years in the Navy for nothing,” he scoffs. “How is she, by the way? Nadia.”

“You two don’t talk?”

He chuckles dryly. “Nadia is Cassandra 2.0, Drake. Hard-headed and proud. We argued a couple of weeks back, and she is still avoiding me.”

“Don’t get mad, Quick, but she sounds more like you than Cassandra. Hard-headed. Proud. That’s a Kessler thing,” I shoot back. It makes him laugh. “She’s good, though. Nadia’s good. Hard-working girl. Sticks to her job. Stays out of trouble. I couldn’t ask more from a bartender.”

“Glad to hear it,” he says, exhaling sharply.

The years have been good to Michael Kessler despite his troubles. Losing Cassandra to illness took its toll, as evidenced by the abundance of white hair overtaking his once blonde mane, but his blue eyes remain as bright and sharp as ever.

“Does she seem happy to you?” Michael asks.

“What are you trying to find out, exactly?” I reply.

“I don’t think she wants to work for me. I don’t think she wants anything to do with me,” he lets another long sigh out of his chest, then pushes a piece of meat around his plate with a fork before he bites into it. “She keeps saying she’ll only spend a summer at the clubhouse, but it’s already August, and she has shown no intention of leaving that place.”

“Quick, what’s the rush, if you don’t mind me asking?” I reply. “If she likes it there, if it makes her feel like she’s doing something with her life, why not just let her?”

“Because Nadia isn’t supposed to rot behind a fucking bar,” he says, his tone clipped. “She’s destined for bigger and better things. I don’t want her involved with the MC, Drake, and I’m merely entertaining her whim. If her mother were still here, she’d know how to talk some sense into Nadia’s head. I’m not good at that.”

“You need to calm the hell down,” I say. “As long Orion, Kai, and I are there, Nadia is safe and well taken care of.” Besides, I don’t want him to take away our lover, our woman. Not when we’ve only just found her. “I’m sure she’s still finding her own way through life, Quick. And the more you push her, the harder she will push back. This is one of those moments where you really do need to let your baby go. Besides, she’s not a baby anymore. She’s a grown woman. And she’s carving her own path.”

“What about the other guys? The members. The prospects. You three aren’t always around,” Michael mutters.

I laugh again. “Dude. We’re not fucking animals. You were an Iron Horse once. You should know better. We have rules and hard lines. The boys have nothing but respect and admiration for Nadia. Even the prospects. They know not to even think about trying something.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear that.”

I can’t help myself. I’m indebted to Michael to the point where I am compelled to tell him every other truth except the biggest and most shameful one. “We had a prospect who overstepped his bounds, but he was swiftly kicked out of the club and banned from the premises altogether.”

“Okay,” Michael replies, his gaze darkening for a split second.

“Orion beat the shit out of him,” I say, reading the old man’s mind. “I told you, she’s safe with us. She will always be safe with us. And should the shit ever hit the fan, she’s been made aware of the possibilities. She knows when to hightail it out of there.”

Michael takes a moment to consider this whole situation, and I can tell he’s frustrated that he can’t reach out to his daughter more. Ironically, they still live in the same house, yet they actively avoid each other.

They do have a healthier relationship than what I had with my dad. My father was a fucking monster. A worshipped man among the Blackthorn Riders, but a fucking monster at home. Nadia had it better. I want to make sure she’ll always have it better.

“How close is Colton Harrow to the clubhouse?” Michael asks after a while. “What is his next move, Drake? I tried to talk to Paddy about it, but he keeps telling me not to worry.”

“Listen, we don’t know enough about the guy at this point,” I tell him. “We’re still digging, trying to figure out who he was before he came to Orange County as Colton Harrow. Our contacts in the federal government are actively searching for him. His fingerprints haven’t popped up anywhere, which is interesting.”

“It means he didn’t have a criminal record prior to coming here.”

“Yeah, or at least he was never caught. It begs the question, why did he assume a new identity? And how do we prove it? From what I understand, he’s already provided the local authorities with the appropriate documentation, but I’m certain it’s fake. Without reason or proof, however, we can’t push it legally.”

“Who do you have working on him now?”

“Garcia, from Social Security, and Clarkson, in the DEA. They’re higher up the food chain than our other former teammates,” I say. I could use a contact in the NSA if you’ve got one.”

Michael starts going through his phone, brows furrowed as his eyes dart across the screen. “I can think of a couple of people who might be able to point me in the right direction at least,” he says. “I’ll shoot them an email and see where it leads.” He pauses to look at me. “I’ll keep you posted. Tell me about that shady prospect you kicked out. Who is he?”

“You don’t need to worry about him.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t give me that, Drake. It’s my daughter we’re talking about. My only daughter. I’m not gonna sit idly by, but I’m not gonna jeopardize my business and my livelihood, either. I just want another set of eyes on that fucker, that’s all. Just in case.”

I can only exhale sharply, not hiding my frustration as I text him Kyle’s details. “He lives somewhere up in Anaheim. You’ve got his last known address and phone number there. Do with them as you wish, but I’m telling you, we have this covered. Nadia is safe.”

“I trust you. I trust Orion and Kai, too. It’s everyone else that I can’t trust. This is a wild and evil world, Drake. You know that. You’ve seen the worst side of it. I have a duty as a father here.”

I get it.

But I’m sharing his daughter, along with Orion and Kai. Naturally, I’m more subjective in anything involving her. I will do whatever it takes to keep her safe and happy, though. I never lied to Michael about that.

The shadow of Colton Harrow has been stretching more and more lately, filling me with a quiet kind of dread. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this way, and my instincts are never wrong.

This man is the worst kind of trouble, and the minute he walks through the clubhouse doors, it’ll be a declaration of war.