7. Chapter Seven

The rest of the four-hour flight to Carlsbad goes without a hitch. Meaning, no more probing questions, thankfully. Not even half an hour with her, and she was already gleefully slicing me open with her words. It only made me want to retaliate, but physically. I want her naked and squirming while I drive her mad with my mouth. And from the pink flush in her skin, she wanted me too.

The flush that I notice as she passes by me to disembark the plane, is still on her skin.

For fuck’s sake, has she got me on replay in her head or something?

Sophie refused to give any more details about her home apart from saying it’s half an hour from Carlsbad airport, so of course, she drives while I sit stiffly in the passenger seat of the rented Impala. Apparently, the Mercedes I had waiting for us ‘isn’t an option.’ Again, she refused to elaborate further.

The moment we touched down, something about her demeanor changed. It was like she’d stepped out of a bustling street and into her own backyard. She seemed less tense, her limbs looser, and with a bit more sway to her hips. Sexier. As if that were even possible.

As she slowly maneuvers through the sparse traffic, silence stretches between us, yet neither of us feels inclined to break it. It seems we don’t do very well with small talk, as previous attempts have often led Sophie to wield her sharp wit, prompting a visceral need in me to make it stop.

So instead, I pull out my phone to catch up on updates from Dante.

Merely ten minutes after leaving the airport, Sophie drives into an old shopping malls parking lot, choosing a spot among the many empty ones.

“Feeling the urge to shop?” My question hangs in the air as she switches off the engine and steps out of the car.

I follow her out onto the side, where she stops for a moment and looks me over from head to toe, an assessing light in her eyes. “I’m afraid you need to change, Mr Vitelli,” she states, her tone suggesting it’s non-negotiable.

Why the hell does she insist on calling me that?

I gesture to my all-black ensemble. “I’d say this is rather fitting for a funeral.”

“Yeah, if you want to stick out like a sore thumb,” she retorts with a hint of impatience. “You’re welcome to wait here, but I need a change of clothes myself.”

Puzzled, I tap the trunk, where her luggage is. “Didn’t you pack anything suitable?”

“No, because I don’t have the kind of clothes I need back in Chicago.”

My curiosity is piqued. “What kind of clothes do you need?”

“You’ll see,” she spins on her heels. With a captivating strut, each step a study in seduction and command, she heads toward the shops.

I follow her to the mall, and I’m surprised to see her going into a store with more leather and chain than a BDSM dungeon.

But what is most shocking is that fifteen minutes later, I, Nico Vitelli, am dressed in a pair of tight black distressed jeans, a soft black T-shirt, a leather jacket, and a pair of combat boots. Clothes she picked out. Before leaving the dressing room, I tuck one of my guns into my boot and another into the waistband of the jeans since my shoulder holster would be rather conspicuous.

I step out of my cubicle and wait in the communal area of the dressing room. Sophie is still behind the thin partitions, only a few cubicles down—which is as far as I would let her wander in this impromptu excursion. The attendant wisely chose not to stop us both from going into the men’s changing room.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the slightly cracked mirror.

Fucking hell,I look like my own nightclub doorman decked out in his Sunday worst. Dante would laugh his fucking head off if he saw me right now. The last time I went out dressed like this in public was in high school.

This is not only ridiculous. This is fucking karma. I wonder how much penance I’d have to pay for ever conspiring to kill this woman.

And then Sophie walks out of her cubicle, and all reason evaporates as my jaw just about hits the floor.

She’s wearing black jeans that cling to her curves with an allure bordering on illicit, paired with a low-cut tank top. The top is laced up the sides with silver chains, revealing teasing glimpses of inked skin between each lace and showcasing a cleavage that could wake a dead man.

And as if that’s not enough to drive me insane, she’s traded her sensible pumps for a pair of knee-high boots with stiletto heels sharp enough to double as weapons. Her usually restrained hair is now loose, cascading in dark waves down to a point well past her waist, completing a transformation thats as breathtaking as it is maddening.

Sophie looks like she’s just walked out of my dirtiest fantasy.

She shakes her head as I look her over. “Eyes back in their sockets, Mr. Vitelli. I’m your therapist, remember?”

I want to laugh because her eyes are roaming over me as well. But my humor dies when I realize her gaze isn’t moving away from the bulge in my pants. She stares, almost as though she can’t help herself.

I slowly advance on her until I’m crowding her into the wall, bending until my lips are next to her ears. “I could say the same about your roving eyes, fiammetta, although I’m not one to complain about such things.”

The pulse at her neck beats a mile a minute as her breath hitches, “You’re my client, Mr Vitelli. So, even if I was willing to look past the fact that you’re a dangerous psycho—which I’m not, by the way—there is no way this,” she says, motioning back and forth between us, “can happen.”

I step even closer to her. There’s about a hair breath of space between us, but I’m careful not to touch her. “Didn’t you know? Rules were made to be broken.”

And if ever a rule was begging to be broken…

“Mr Vite—”

“Nico,” I growl, rearing back to stare into her eyes. “Say it.”

I see the moment her pupils dilate. Christ, this woman is fire with the way she responds to my words. “Go on,” I coax more gently.

“Nico,” she breathes, and fuck if it doesn’t feel like a lick on my cock. I lose it when I feel her small hands creeping up my abs, and my name leaves her lips again, this time on a moan, “Nico…”

I have to taste her right now. As I bend to crush my mouth to hers, a nasal voice cuts through our sensual fog.

“Did you find everything okay?”

The store attendants timing couldn’t be worse.

Sophies tawny eyes shift from a dreamy haze to wide-eyed alarm in an instant. She looks like a deer caught in the most glaring of headlights, seizing the moment to slip away. In her hurry to get away, she leaves behind not just me in the dressing room, but also her clothes and shoes, forgotten in the rush to escape.

Inevitably, it falls upon me to pick up after her—fate, it seems, has a sense of irony.

After I pay and get our clothes packed up, I meet her waiting by the Impala, her expression carefully blank.

“By the way, why the hell are we dressed like this?” I ask, since it doesn’t seem like dragging her back into the dressing room and kissing her is an option.

She remains silent, offering only a smile in response—a genuine, radiant smile tinged with a dash of slyness that I havent seen before.

Christ. That can’t be good.

Back in the car, I figure we’re in for a half-hour-long trip of stony silence, so I settle against the backrest to start up another slew of calls, but Sophie suddenly asks, “How did you and Leo meet?” Her gaze is fixed on the few cars ahead of us.

She’s going to start this again? It’s as if she knows where it hurts most and wants to keep poking at the wound.

I keep my expression light. “He sucker-punched me,” I offer. It’s harmless enough information.

Her eyebrows lift, and her gaze flickers over me, leaving a trail of heat before swinging back to the road. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Hey, we were six years old, first day of school,” I continue, recalling vague snippets of that day. “He came up from behind on the playground and punched me in the back. Next day, I walked right up to him, cocked back, and punched the little asshole square in the nose—none of that sneaking up from behind shit.”

She chuckles, a soft, warm sound with a cute snicker that makes me wish she’d do it again. “And I suppose it was all smooth sailing from there?”

I nod, smiling at the memory. “We’d worked our shit out.”

At a red light, Sophie’s gaze shifts to me, assessing, before a smile quirks her lips. ‘Boys,’ she mutters, a hint of sadness in her voice. As she refocuses on the road, her eyes shimmer with unshed tears.

Sophie is more deeply affected by this guy’s death than she’s letting on. I wonder if shes masking her grief for my sake or if, like me, she’s unwilling to let herself feel because it would be too overwhelming.

“Cade punched Rafe the first time his dad brought him—” She slams her lips shut. “Sorry. Never mind,” she says, and it’s clear by the closed look on her face that she’ll say no more.

But damn, if I’m not far more interested in finding out just who ‘Cade’ and ‘Rafe’ are than I should be.

It’s almost thirty minutes later when she swerves onto the side of the road and stops the car.

“We have to change seats,” she says, once again elaborating no further. She gets out of the car and circles around to the passenger side with the car still running.

I step out of the car as well, but I wait, my gaze fixed on her, demanding an explanation. Not that I have any qualms about taking the wheels—in fact, I’d much prefer it. Sophie’s cautious driving and overly polite approach to every roadside interaction, combined with her habit of slamming on the brakes without any apparent cause, have, to say the least, been stretching my patience to its absolute breaking point.

Still, I make no move to slip obediently into the driver’s seat. “You pick out a sluggish car, have me dressed up like a clown, and now you’re choosing your driver because what, you’re suddenly tired? Get back in the damn car and drive, Sophie.”

She rolls her eyes. “I mean it, Nico, if we show up with me behind the wheel, they’ll spend the next twenty-four hours looking for my penis and your vagina.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. Who the hell are these people of hers?

“Just get on with it, Nico. You wanted to be my ‘plus one,’ well, here goes nothing,” she mutters then she sidesteps me and slides into the passenger seat. “We’re heading to a small coastal town called Harmony. I’ll give you directions.”

I take the wheels, and in a few minutes, we arrive in Harmony. Sophie guides me through increasingly deserted and narrow streets. A flicker of concern crosses my mind that perhaps her home might be some forgotten place at the edge of civilization.

However, the reality awaiting us is a stark departure from my concerns. It’s far from the dilapidated scene I had braced myself for, yet in many ways, it’s so much worse.

“Make a right through there,” she says, pointing to an open chain-link gate at the end of a long dirt road. A smug smile dances at the corners of her lips, a hint of triumph in her eyes that she can’t quite suppress.

The entire lot is surrounded by a tall chain-link fence, and there’s a large brown-brick building with a porch near the front of the lot.

And about thirty Harleys parked in front of the large building.

“An MC clubhouse?” The notion intrigues me, and I try to reconcile the sophisticated woman I first met in her pristine office with the raw, untamed spirit of a motorcycle club—though, admittedly, she could grace any Harley poster and put the other models to shame. It explains why she seems to have a spine of steel, and the change in attitude the closer we got to here.

She simply nods, her gaze shifting toward the side wall of the building, which is adorned with an expansive graffiti mural. ‘The Reaper Druids,’ declares the bold lettering above the image of a weathered skull, with green flames melting the eye sockets and a Celtic knot proudly etched onto its forehead.

“Home sweet home,” she says, her voice quiet and caught somewhere between horror and awe. But underneath those, there’s a warmth in her tone she can’t quite hide.

Every hair on my body rises as I park in an empty space between the Harleys. Normally, in places like this, I’m accustomed to asserting dominance, dictating outcomes as men fall in line or fall altogether, serving my interests from rackets to intercepting consignments. Club presidents often align their businesses with mine as fronts for laundering and arms dealing.

But this is Sophie’s home, I’m just a visitor, an outsider. I remind myself that this isn’t about power—it’s personal, and for once, I’m on fucking unfamiliar ground.

As we exit the car, the clubhouse door swings open, revealing a scene straight from a biker archetype. A burly man, his head shaved clean, save for a long, braided beard, strides out clad in a leather vest—a president’s patch prominently displayed. By his side is the tattooed chap from Sophie’s office, the same one who showed up at her house.

Fucking great.

More figures emerge, forming a motley entourage. Among them, two appear as seasoned as the president: one, a tall man with a gray ponytail and haunted eyes, positions himself by the president’s side. His companion is a stockier version, marked by a thin, jagged scar over his right eye and a Celtic knot tattoo curling at his neck, his red hair unkempt.

Trailing them are two younger men, patch-holders too, by the looks of it, who seem only capable of ogling Sophie.

All, except for the tattooed chap, are wearing leather cuts adorned with club insignia, their appearances characterized by long rugged hair or beards. And all, except the tattooed chap, register varying degrees of surprise at Sophies arrival.

“Sparrow?” The president, his face etched with lines of experience, lights up at the sight of Sophie, but the warmth quickly fades as his attention shifts to me.

I keep my face devoid of expression but my eyes are trained on him. The president’s stance shifts slightly, hands edging toward his waist with the practiced ease of someone who is no stranger to conflict.

“Who’s this?” he demands tersely, his words directed at Sophie but clearly meant for me. His glare is cold and assessing—like a guard dog sizing up a potential threat.

A familiar heat surges through me, an instinctive response not just to the challenge in his posture, but the blatant dismissal in his tone.

They’re either very unfriendly up here, or somehow they sense who I am.

“This is Nico—he’s a friend,” Sophie links her fingers through my left hand as though she senses my rising anger. She curls her other hand around my biceps, pushing her breasts into my side in a clear show of intimacy between us.

My irritation disappears, and without even thinking, I put my arm around her waist, then I incline my head to the bikers in a gesture of respect that costs me more than they’ll ever know.

“Really, Sparrow? A friend?” The one with the gray ponytail challenges, a deep scowl of displeasure on his face.

Sophie’s tattooed chap remains silent but from the glare directed at me, he echoes gray ponytail’s sentiment. There’s something else in his gaze—a glint of recognition. And disbelief. I peer at the tattoos on his arms and don’t see anything familiar.

Gray ponytail continues testily, “Considering how Rafe felt, Soph, you really think it’s appropriate to bring your ‘friend’ around here today?”

The need to assert control is nearly overwhelming. But before I can respond, Sophie jumps in, hands curled into fists, fire in her eyes.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate that we’re burying your son at all, Grease, so I’m not about to split hairs over the details of the guest list,” she snaps back, her fury so palpable it cuts through the tension.

“Leave it alone, Grease,” the president intervenes, his voice commanding yet weary as he strides across the lot to us. The moment he reaches us, he grabs Sophie up in a bear hug, lifting her clear off the ground. “It’s good to see you and to have you back home, Sparrow,” he murmurs, affectionately kissing her forehead.

“You too, Daddy. I’ve missed you so much,” she hugs him back. When she rests her cheek against the man’s chest, I see a flash of a different side of her, a side that’s soft and sweet—innocent, even.

Christ, the woman has more sides to her than a prism. It makes me wonder which one is the real her, and once again, I’m surprised by how much I want to find out.

“We didn’t know if you’d show today,” Sophie’s father continues, still hugging her as if he doesn’t ever want to let go.

“I, ah, of course, Daddy, I had to come say goodbye to Rafe.”

Her father looks about to argue but thinks better of it, finally releasing her. Sophie straightens, then returns to my arms before introducing me.

“Daddy, this is Nico Vitelli,” she gestures to me. “Nico, meet Phoenix, my father and the president of the Reaper Druids MC.”

Our handshake is firm, but I can’t resist holding his gaze just a beat longer than customary, letting my eyes do the talking. Phoenix’s eyes narrow for a fraction of a second in silent recognition. He instantly understands that I’m not just any visitor.

Phoenix’s attention shifts back to Sophie before he signals to one of the younger patchholders. “Fang here cleared out his room when Mags mentioned you might be swinging by today. The brothers, of course, were skeptical, but it seems Mags was right on the money.”

“It was supposed to be a surprise, Daddy. Mags shouldn’t have spilled the beans,” Sophie interjects, her tone a mixture of affection and mild irritation.

“If I were any more surprised by your arrival, I’d be on the floor with a heart attack. Anyway, why don’t you and Nico settle in with your things before Rafe gets here?”

Sophie acknowledges that with a somber nod, then shares warm embraces with Grease, the one with the gray ponytail, and Razor, the stocky biker with shaggy red hair. As I gather her luggage from the trunk of the Impala, I notice the other guys are wise enough to keep their distance, satisfied with good-natured teasing and back thumps. All the while, the tattooed chap watches me warily, his posture rigid.

That son of a bitch isn’t happy.

What should have been a short walk through an open common room and down a narrow hallway turns into a fifteen-minute-long reunion. The older men and women in the clubhouse feel the need to wrap their arms around Sophie, and it doesn’t escape my notice that a good number of the younger men, even with scantily clad women hanging onto them, can barely keep their tongues from lolling out of their mouths at the sight of Sophie.

When we finally make it through the crowd and disappear into a sparsely furnished bedroom halfway down the hallway, she pauses right inside the door, looking around with a slight grimace.

“Stay here,” she instructs, “We’re going to need pillows— Fang doesn’t believe in them.” She turns to leave but pauses in the doorway. “Just don’t… sit on anything yet,” she wrinkles her nose more.

The room might be bare but it doesn’t exactly smell bad.

She disappears before I can ask why she’s grossed out, but she’s no sooner taken a few steps into the hallway when I hear a male voice hiss at her.

“What the fuck is that piece of shit doing here, Soph?”

Her reply is hushed and firm. “Keep your voice down, Cade. He’s my guest.”

“You know who he is, right?”

They’re both whispering but to me, their voices are clear as day.

Being trained to listen for drops of shell casings—which, many a time, makes the difference between life and death—hones your hearing. The man’s gritty voice is unlike any of the voices from outside or in the common room. Must be the tattooed chap. That fucker is really starting to irritate me now.

Sophie scoffs, “You’re seriously going to stand here, in the middle of fucking Reaper Druids’ clubhouse—the very one that was built on guns and dirty money and all the other illegal shit you can think of—and give me flak about an organized crime family?”

So, Sophie knows exactly who I am. No shock there, given Maria’s tendency to overshare when she’s anxious.

The Cade chap retorts, “You didn’t choose this life, Soph. You were born into it.”

“So was Nico,” Sophie replies.

“Oh, so you think that gives you two something in common? That it somehow makes you allies? Wake up and smell the coffee, Soph. That man in there is a different breed. He’s a cold-blooded killer. His loyalties lie solely with his family. And last I checked, you don’t wear that badge.”

“Really! Enlighten me with something I don’t already know.”

“Sophie—”

“He’s human, Cade, and he’s hurting. Unlike you and me, he doesn’t have the luxury of walking away. We managed to escape this life. Rafe didn’t, and look where it got him—and your father, too.”

It’s both jarring and humbling to hear Sophie say that. The irony of that isn’t lost on me, considering I was going to kill her. I probably still am.

Cade’s sudden derisive laughter fills the silence, “I thought you said you knew who that bastard is.”

“What do you mean?”

“You think he’s like one of those stray cats you used to drag home because you felt sorry for them? Sophie, this one is a different beast altogether. You’ve brought a tiger within mauling distance of your family.”

“Let’s not overdramatize, Cade. So he’s from the Chicago Outfit—”

“He’s not from the Outfit, Soph. He is the Outfit. Nico Vitelli is Don Vitelli. He’s entrenched in that life in ways you can’t imagine. He’s the one calling the shots, ready to pull the trigger on anyone who betrays him. And if you think he’s here simply as your ‘date,’ you’re grossly mistaken. Someone like him wouldn’t step one foot outside without an army and a hidden agenda. For all we know, there could be a few hundred snipers trained on this clubhouse as we speak.”

A few hundred snipers? What a fucking drama queen.There’s just about half a dozen.

Sophie remains quiet for a long time, apparently absorbing that bit of information, until Cade sighs. “He’s the last man you should be within fifty feet of, Soph, considering the choices youve made in the last ten years. You’re determined to leave this life behind you.”

“I know that, Cade. It’s just a casual fling.” She pauses, then adds, “But even if I wanted to be with him, it’d still be my choice to make.”

“Dammit. You’ve always been too fucking stubborn for your own good.”

“And you can’t help being a nosy jerk, can you?”

“Don’t look now, Soph, but you’re sounding an awful lot like Rafe. Rafey.”

“Fuck you, Cade,” she snaps in response to his taunts, then apparently storms away in resounding clacks of stiletto heels down the hallway.

Sophie returns to the room a few minutes later with an armful of pillows and tension snapping in the air around her. I lean against the far wall, watching her as she gets fresh sheets and a mattress protector out of her suitcase.

“Hold these,” she says, still a little terse from her confrontation, as she drops the bedding into my arms. Then she strips the sheets off the bed and covers the mattress with the protector, bending her body in ways that give me killer views of her heart-shaped ass.

Fuck. My dick is already throbbing, and she’s not even halfway done.

When she’s finished with the mattress protector, she takes the sheet from me and makes the bed.

I’m not quite sure why she’s remaking the bed, but at the moment, it feels like it has something to do with payback for the last two days. Surely, this is some sort of torture tactic. I don’t think she realizes what she looks like. Or how close I am to laying her across that bed and fucking her senseless for the way she jumped to my defence out there.

It’s an alien feeling. To have someone—a woman that’s unrelated to me—have my back.

Calm down.I tell my raging hard-on. She fancies herself your therapist. Of course, she’ll be sympathetic to you.

When she’s done, she picks up the discarded sheet between two fingers, opens the bedroom door, and drops it in the hallway.

She closes the door and turns to me, and then her brow furrows. “You’d be doing the same thing if you ever went through one of these rooms with a blacklight.

Ah. And I suddenly get the reason behind her actions.

Sophie continues, “Not that it matters for you. You get the floor.”

I glance at the scuffed hardwood floor, knowing there’s no chance in hell of that happening, but I don’t argue about that. Instead, I ask, “Why do you want your family to think we’re together?”

She responds with a nonchalant shrug. “The Reaper Druids are wary of outsiders. How else am I supposed to justify your cross-country trek to attend the funeral of a man you’ve never met?”

I can’t help but drawl sarcastically. “Surely, this isn’t the first time you’ve brought home a stray tiger.”

“Shit! You heard that!” She flushes, and her composure appears to slip a little.

I don’t bother with words; I just let my gaze roam over her. She really is beautiful.

“Nico, Cade is…, shall we say, well known to the police and the authorities. He’s used to crawling in the underbelly of Chicago, so he knows who’s who in the criminal underworld. That’s the only reason he knows who you are.”

“Interesting.” I expected her to be afraid when she discovered that I’m not just a member but the head of the Outfit. But no, instead, she’s worried about this guy.

“Nico, I assure you, Cade means no harm,” she pleads.

“Are you asking me for something in particular here?” I push off the wall and slowly stalk toward her, satisfied by the widening of her eyes and the way she takes a few steps back until her back hits the wall.

“What do you think?” she tries to snap but her voice comes out breathy.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I smirk, inching closer, “It’s all in your voice, your rapid speech, the pulse thrumming in your neck. Are you asking me not to kill him?”

“You weren’t meant to hear that conversation,” she admits, cornered.

I put my palms on the wall on either side of her head, caging her in. “I know.”

She continues, hastily, “And—and, Cade isn’t stupid. And he’s not a rat. I think if he had to choose he’d never side with the rebelling factions.”

Her words spark a blend of irritation and an unexpected respect for her insight into the machinations of the Outfit. “What exactly did Maria tell you about me, Sophie?”

“Very little. She only spoke about Leo. I didn’t know who you were until after you left my office. And I certainly didn’t realize you were—” she pauses, swallowing hard, “Don Vitelli.”

Gently, I trace the rapidly beating pulse at her throat before my hand cups her jaw, my thumb lightly caressing her plump lower lip. “Are you afraid?”

The silence stretches between us as our gazes lock in wordless dialogue. She wants me against her better judgment. I, on the other hand, shouldn’t even be here. And neither should she, for that matter, had I gone with the initial plan. But none of that holds water against the desire beating down on us.

Eventually, her lids flutter closed, and she whispers, “Should I be afraid, Nico?”

“Hell, yes.” My words are barely out before I weave my fingers through her hair and crush my lips to hers.