2. Lamb

Chapter Two

LAMB

E very day was the same.

Men lay on worn leather sofas, cigars and cigarettes lit between one finger, and a cold beer encased in the opposite meaty paw. Half-naked girls saddled on empty laps with a full face of makeup, smelling of sex and perfume. Children ran around inside and out, shouting, screaming, and giggling along the way. It was the picture-perfect club life the brothers had carved out for themselves through long wars, fast rides, and hard work, and it was nice to feel some semblance of peace that had been scarce the last few years.

“I said,” Anna growled. “Move. Your. Ass.”

I moved the white polishing cloth around the glass, water marks disappearing until only my warped reflection stared back. Once done, I put it down and moved on to another.

“Motherfucker, I swear to everything unholy, I will strip you of your manhood right here and now if you do not fucking move.”

I sighed. I let my eyes wander far across the room, searching every meticulous square inch of the dusty, worn, and battered place we called a club before dropping them down to the bright red tomato spitting fumes at my side.

“ Oh .” I gaped. “I didn’t see you there.”

“That’s it!” Anna seethed, her forked tongue flashing from her lips, fangs sharp and ready to pounce like the little viper she was. Her bloodred boot rested heavily on the footrest of the stool I was lounging against. As her shoes now matched her cheeks, I assumed she’d spent more than a little effort trying to push it from beneath me.

“I picked something up recently,” I mused, letting my eyes wander once more. The door swung open, and I watched as a chaotic cluster of small, rambunctious bodies came rushing through the door. The children screamed and chased, but the brothers in the room paid them little mind.

A string of fervent swearing went in through one ear and out the other as small pinches nipped up and down my arms. I didn’t flinch. I put down my clean glass and picked up another.

“I don’t want to know about your STIs.” Anna’s anger ebbed quickly into disgust. She retracted her talons, her attempts to claw me not working in her favor.

“It’s not an STI.”

“Look”—Anna held up her palms—“I don’t care if it’s an STI, or STD, or any other letters; you can keep your nasty to yourself. Now get off my chair.”

I sighed, shifting on the seat, still blocking access to the red wine on the top shelf, the one Anna had said she would be drinking the moment she stepped through the door. The wine that I had no intention of letting Anna have for the pure sport of it. “It’s not a sex thing.”

Anna growled out a sigh, her eyes rolling somewhere between resignation and frustration. “Read my lips.” She pointed at the bright red lipstick. “ I do not care. ”

“How do I make it like me?” My head lolled toward my shoulder, eyes going out into the room once more.

Anna had hidden herself behind the bar while the men corralled a gaggle of children crawling on mats in the center of the room. The other women also escaped as far out of reach as possible, leaving the big burly bikers to fend for themselves against a small army of infants.

“ It ?” Anna repeated, eyes wide. “It’s alive?” One hand lunged over her heart, and the other under her eye as she wiped away an invisible tear. “The poor thing. What could it have possibly done to deserve such a terrible owner? How cruel God can be!”

It was my turn to roll my eyes now. “You don’t believe in God.”

Anna pondered that for a moment. “Is Satan a god?”

“No.”

“Dolly Parton?”

“No.”

“That bottle of red you’re purposely blocking because you’re an ass?”

“Also, no.”

“Then you’re probably right.” Anna let out a defeated sigh, as if she believed a single god would dare claim her as their apostle. The woman was walking sin—the hair, the boobs, the attitude. Hell hath no fury like Anna.

“Fine,” Anna grumbled, setting her hands on her generous hips, her blue eyes bland and bored. She gestured a waving hand toward my own. “I’m guessing they’re from your new pet?”

I looked down, following her gesture to the two long red marks scored across the back of my hand. They were thin, and though they hadn’t broken the surface, the skin was angry and raised.

I nodded.

“I love cats.” Anna grinned. “They’re little assholes.”

“ Cat? ” I mimicked. Their face came to mind; the way they were always guarded, fought any approach or touch, and near enough hissed at me anytime I got close. My cheeks tightened and fought to hide the smile threatening to show. Maybe her guess wasn’t too far off.

“So stray, shelter, or breeder?”

I let the question simmer. “Stray.”

“Of course.” Anna smirked. “There’s no way you’d have passed a home check.” The smug smile on her face folded into a frown, a rare show of concern. “You’d better get those checked then.” She gestured back to my scratches. “It could have diseases.”

“Health check. Right.”

“A stray, huh?” Anna mused, rolling the words over her tongue, deep in thought. “Is it young? A kitten?”

“Adult,” I corrected. “A young adult.”

Anna’s nose scrunched. “That’s going to be harder then. A lot of strays are already set in their ways. Most have never known kindness, especially not from humans. Surviving day by day has been their only priority. Getting them to trust you will be difficult.”

“I figured as much.” I feathered my fingertips over the marks; they weren’t painful, but they ran deeper than they looked.

“ Lamb .” A deep voice silenced our conversation.

I turned to see a familiar mountain standing on the other side of the bar. A small boulder fit snugly in his arms, dark head turned into the wide nape of his neck. Wolf’s rich brown eyes flickered between us, a suspicious glint devouring any crumb of insight into our conversation.

“What are you two up to?” The Russian lilt of his accent still hung on his words, but it had drastically faded from the deep brogue he’d had when they’d first met all those years ago.

I was amused by his expression and let a grin show on my face. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“That’s why I asked, dipshit,” Wolf grunted, shifting the dead weight in his arms. The small child nuzzled deeper into his neck, his hands squeezing small fists full of his shirt. Wolf’s single large palm cupped the infant’s bottom, allowing the child to work on the stain of drool around his father’s collar.

“Tell you what?” I leaned forward over the bar, offering Wolf a wider smirk. “Why don’t we make a be—”

“Not happening,” Wolf cut me off, immediately shifting his gaze to Anna. “Take Dimi.” He shuffled the child from his shoulder and down into his arms. The overgrown baby didn’t even make a stir as Wolf extended him easily out toward her.

“Nuh-uh.” Anna wagged her finger at him, taking a step back. “It’s your turn.”

Wolf rolled his eyes. “It’s always my turn.”

“I carried him for nine months and shoved his huge head out of my vagina,” Anna snipped. “Do you know how many stitches I had to get because of your monster genes?”

“Six.” Wolf sighed.

“ Six !” Anna hissed. “Six stitches! And what? You can’t even look after your son for five minutes?”

“Look, this is cute and all”—Wolf gestured with his free hand all over Anna’s body—“but I got business, so are you going to take him or not?”

“He’s your spawn, too.”

“He—”

“Fine,” I interjected, having seen this go on long enough. “I’ll take—”

“ No .”

“ No .”

I frowned. “That’s rude.”

They gave me a horrifying glare as Anna reached out to heft the child toward her. The monstrous six-month-old now looked like a giant in Anna’s small arms, but she miraculously managed to cradle him against her with some effort.

“He may be a spawn”—Anna ran her fingers through the small cow licks curling around the sides of Dimitri’s head—“but he is still my spawn. I won’t let you affect him with your ...” Anna’s eyes narrowed, raking along the length of me. “ Evil .”

“Wow,” I deadpanned. “How motherly of you.”

Wolf rolled his eyes, glancing toward me instead of acknowledging her antics. “Come with me.”

“Yes, boss.” I stood from the chair, ready to follow my president. My first step, however, was punctuated with a shower of metal rattling onto the wooden floor. I looked down. Three screws rolled toward my feet, bouncing off my boots. Only a single screw sat haphazardly in its hole, the sole support holding the chair together.

Anna didn’t even spare us a glance. She turned with her child in hand and sashayed away.

“Should’ve just let her get the wine,” Wolf grumbled, looking at his wife’s sabotage efforts.

I grinned. “Never.”

“ S o, boss …” I followed his heavy steps away from the clubroom and toward the president’s office, my eyes examining the familiar worn and faded leather cut I knew like the back of my hand. The skull’s wings branched over the wide expanse of his shoulders and rippled with each easy swing of his stride. I noted the new creases, scratches, and stains of the sun-bleached leather. It had aged. “What do you need me for? Other than my amazing good looks.”

Wolf didn’t respond.

He swung open the door to his office, leaving it wide open, and stepped around the small room, toward the beat-up desk. I followed him in, and with another look at his stiff posture circling his chair, I closed the door behind me.

Wolf took his seat, the chair creaking in protest at his mass, hands steepling on the desktop. Varnish peeled away from the wood, curling with age and abuse, leaving little more than a thumbprint of space that wasn’t scratched, chipped, or burnt.

“Are we calling church?” I probed, eyeing up a small crack on the base of the desk; a bullet had once lodged itself there and, to my knowledge, remained.

“No.” Wolf released a strained sigh. “The less people know, the better.”

My attention was piqued.

Wolf stood from his chair, on the move again, circling to the front of the desk. His thick thighs blocked the view of the crack as he purchased himself there. The furniture gave a creak of protest, but otherwise held up the enormous man’s weight.

I explored Wolf’s face—his furred brow, shadowed eyes, and the tightness of his lips. His jaw ticked with untapped frustration, and his fingers hooked tight around the lip of the desk, knuckles white and arms braced. “You seem … mad?” I proffered, pursing my lips. “No … disappointed?”

“Both,” Wolf growled, the anger sharpening that steely glint in his eyes as they leveled on my face. I traced my finger along the edges of my jaw, cogs moving.

“At me,” I concluded.

Wolf’s expression didn’t change, but it was enough confirmation.

“Why?”

“I’m not playing this question-answer bullshit,” Wolf growled, unwinding one hand to rub across the overgrowth on his face. It had once been a well-cared-for beard, but with the arrival of the new baby, there had been little time to manage the beast making home along his jaw. “You know why I’m pissed.”

“Ah,” I gasped in mock surprise, clapping my hands together. “So, you have noticed .”

Truth be told, I’d known I’d been made the moment Wolf had approached me. I knew it wouldn’t take long for word to reach him and had chosen to make myself available at the club rather than risk the rhinoceros busting down my door. It wasn’t time for that yet.

“Of course, I noticed!” Wolf finally snapped. He launched himself from the desk, and the robust furniture screeched back a few inches along the floor. Pitiful thing. “What the fuck are you playing at?”

The small office suffocated inside the man’s raging aura, and I kept my distance, cautious about getting caught up in it. Combat with Wolf required careful precision not to get clubbed by those huge paws, and it was wiser to avoid it if possible.

“I told you I was managing it.” I shrugged and watched the smoke rise out of his ears.

“ Managing it ?” Wolf spat. “I know you can be oblivious to some things, Lamb, but you’re not an idiot. So, stop playing and get her gone. I want her as far away from Fellpeak as possible.”

“You haven’t even asked me why.” I frowned, bunching my lips.

“Lamb,” Wolf growled, struggling to rein in his anger. “This isn’t some game of yours.”

“I know.” I sobered. “But you asked me to handle it. I’m handling it.”

“ Handling it shouldn’t mean bringing the danger magnet right back to our doorstep. I thought I was finally done with this problem, and you brought it straight back!”

“She’s a loose cannon. I need to keep an eye on her.”

“You can keep an eye on her from a distance, Lamb,” Wolf growled, his anger ebbing into frustration. “You’ve done it the last eight months. I don’t see why things had to change.”

“It was always my plan to bring her back.” I shrugged. “I just needed the right timing.”

“And how is this the right time?” Wolf spread his arms out around him, his fingertips close to reaching either wall.

“Our guise wore off.” I allowed the truth to spill. “Changing her identity was only going to last so long; organized crime families all over Western Europe and North America have been spreading the word; Rothwell’s only daughter isn’t as dead as he thought she was.”

Wolf swore through clenched teeth. His body tightened into a white-knuckled, quaking tension. He folded his head into his palms, fingers clenching his hair. He was quiet for a long moment.

“When?” Wolf lifted his head, voice finding steady and even footing. His fiery attitude was locked down under calm, hard control.

“Rumors started two months ago, spreading up and down the American West Coast,” I revealed. “A month later, suspicions about her death had spread its way across the continent. Three weeks ago, word of a reported sighting touched British shores.” The weight of my phone resting against my chest and the intel inside it felt heavier. “There are more than a few looking to get into the good graces of one of Britain’s most secretive and influential crime families. Confirming that the daughter he’d personally shot dead is very much alive will either earn you a place at his table or become the fitting warfare to take them on.”

“A war is brewing.” Wolf’s brows furrowed tight; I wondered if he’d ever be able to undo them. “And we’ve got the detonator.”

“I have a plan,” I announced, though little relief reached my president’s face. Instead, his expression seemed to deepen.

“What is it?” Wolf asked, looking worn and aged beyond his many years. It didn’t surprise me.

A war he had thought had ended had, in fact, only just begun. It’d tire even the most hardened of men.

I didn’t answer straight away. The words rolled around in my mouth, my eyes cataloguing every tick and twitch in Wolf’s face. The longer I let the silence linger, the more sour his expression became. His shoulders bunched around his neck, and his hands threatened to meld to the edge of the desk.

I confirmed my suspicions. “The less details you know, the better.”

Disbelief fractured Wolf’s expression. He stared at me with a hollowing, wide gaze. Ice skittered across my skin at the unfamiliar face. In the many years I’d known him, and through the many trials I had faced at his side, I had yet to have seen the face he now had.

“You’re not going to tell me?” Wolf spoke slow and soft, barely able to hear his voice at all. “You’re going to keep me in the dark.”

“You always act in the best interest of the club, but right now, we need to pretend that absolutely nothing is going on. We haven’t seen Ash. We haven’t heard from her. She’s dead. If I tell you too much, you’ll try to protect the club, and they’ll know, and the thing we need the most is time. ” I took a breath, straightened my shoulders, and looked my president straight in the eye. “I need you to trust me.”

That final sentence had lingered long in my mind. The moment I had put my thoughts into action those many months ago, I knew I’d have to say this to him eventually. I knew what it would demand of him. What it would mean for him to agree. As my president, my brother, and my ally, I knew that everything would balance on the ten years we had withstood side by side.

Would it be enough?

The doubt had easily sunk into my mind and found a place to latch. I was betting on our friendship, partnership, and trust; something I myself had little understanding of.

Wolf’s expression darkened. The tightness of his brow, the tuck of his shoulders, and the death grip on his desk were firm in position. The intensity behind his gaze, however, had vanished. Instead, ghosts of cold winds ran through the room.

“You’re asking me to put the club at risk. The safety of every woman, child, and brother who walks these halls. You want to blindfold me to the danger right under our noses.”

“I don’t want to,” I corrected, holding my brother’s gaze as I shook my head. “But to make this work, I need you to act like absolutely nothing is going on. Like she isn’t here. Like she doesn’t exist.”

“But I know she exists. I know you have her.”

“But not where I have her, nor what I plan to do with her,” I countered. “If I tell you my plans, you’ll act in accordance to do the best for the club. The brothers will soon learn the truth, and it will only cause more harm. If confirmation gets back that she’s alive and that we have her, the first place they will come looking is here. And the first person they will target …” Lamb let the words fall in the air between them.

Wolf turned his head to the closed door, and to the person he had just left beyond them.

Anna.

“If they decide they’re going to use her as bait to draw Ash out”—Lamb tore Wolf’s gaze from the door, wild and defensive heat flashing through them—“we won’t have the power to stop them.”

Wolf’s jaw ticked, his tongue worried at his cheek, and his lips pressed together into a thin white line.

“I hate this,” Wolf snarled. “But you’re right. We barely got out of it alive last time, and that was because he let us walk. I’m not stupid enough to walk into a death trap. I risked the lives of my club members once to keep that girl alive. I won’t be doing it again.” Wolf looked me dead in the eyes, holding my body hostage with the overwhelming pressure he possessed. “No matter the cost.”

“The club stays out of it,” I confirmed. “They’ve given enough.”

Wolf nodded.

“I’ll do this alone.”

Wolf stood to his full height, his seven feet of Russian prowess domineering easily over my five-ten. “Don’t even think of making this a suicide mission!” His tone was tentative, but the fury building beneath it was anything but subtle.

“Not exactly.”

Wolf shook his head, a hand reaching to clasp my shoulder. The grip was painful. “She’s not worth it.”

My attempt at a shrug was smothered beneath Wolf’s grasp. “No, but giving up isn’t a choice either,” I spoke. “We could have left her out in the wild, and I’m sure someone would’ve picked her up eventually and delivered her on a silver platter to the highest bidder. But right now, there is a small window of opportunity.”

Suspicion raised Wolf’s brow as his voice dipped into a deep rumble. “To do what exactly?”

I smirked. “To solve all of our problems.”

Wolf scowled. “To cause a war?”

I smiled. “Ideally, I’d be stopping one.”

I saw color sink away from his face.

“Trust me,” I cut in, reaching to grasp the hand tightening on my shoulder. “We will win, Wolf. I’d bet my life on it.”

Wolf’s face fell. “That doesn’t comfort me.”

“How about a hug?”

“I will literally shoot you.” Shaking his head, Wolf’s hand fell from my grip. His longer hair brushed his cheeks as he settled back on the poor desk. “Is there anything you can tell me?” He sighed, his eyes burning holes into the floor.

I mulled over the questions. “There is something …” I rubbed the top of my finger under my chin, letting my eyes roam over the exhausted man. “But I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

Wolf grunted, his eyes rolling upward to glower at me. “I already hate it. What more could I hate?”

“I’m going to make Ash fall in love with me.”

I watched Wolf’s soul ascend through the ceiling. I’m not even sure the thought was fully processed before the words burst from his lips. “What the actual fuck is wrong with you?” He threw his hands against his face as if to smack the disbelief from him. It didn’t seem to do much good, judging by the violent swinging hands that soon followed. “I thought you were being serious,” he growled, running a hand down his face as steam deflated out of his chest.

“I am being serious,” I spoke. “For this plan to work, I need my own bait.”

“ Bait? ” Wolf scoffed. “You want to use Ash, the most uncooperative person alive, for bait ? And by seducing her, no less? You of all people?”

“I need her absolute trust,” I responded, unsure as to why I was a matter of concern. “There’s only two ways of getting that—learning loyalty and devotion as a member of the club—”

Wolf snarled at the idea.

“—or she falls in love with me.”

“And if ,“ Wolf stressed again, and I frowned, “she falls in love with you, then what?”

“Then I can start my plan.”

“The plan you won’t tell me about.”

I nodded.

Wolf frowned, the idea seeming less palatable with the extra information. Perhaps I should have just kept it to the bare bones. I knew Ash was the crux of the matter for him. Even if I could get Wolf to trust me, Ash was like a delicate explosive—mishandled her once, and it could destroy everything. She was too unreliable.

But that wasn’t the reason Wolf hated her.

“Wolf,” I earned his attention. The shadows gripped his face, the weight I had determined was necessary heavy on his wide shoulders. “I’m not asking you to believe in Ash.” I reached out, extending my palm. “I’m asking you to bet on me.”

“And if you were me,” Wolf growled, “what would you do?”

I shrugged. “I know where I’d put my money.”

Wolf considered it for a moment longer, and just as I thought he’d resist, a rough hand took mine. “I don’t like this,” he growled. “But you better not make this the first bet you lose.”

I looked at my president, a confident smile across my face.

“Yes, boss.”