30. Halo

Aweek later, I'm wrapped up in Arianne, our legs entangled, and I'm fucking exhausted. We went on the first run, which led to intel which required a longer run. Knowing who my brother really is has given us a trail. But every lead we pick at is a dead end in finding Daryll West.

We know so much more about him now though. Beyond his real name and place of birth, we know he was adopted after his mother died. Seems my dad slept with a woman who OD'd when he was seven months old. There's a sealed file in his juvenile record that Vex can't seem to crack yet. We know he bounced around, not living with any family for more than two years.

While I don't agree with his course of action, I can understand why he feels so disenfranchised by the whole system.

I got home at three this morning after a six-day run to Texas. Two solid days of driving there, two days of trying to find him. Two days of violence and bloodshed that led nowhere. The two days straight to ride home.

We can't take the fight all the way to Texas every week. King called three other chapter presidents and they've started to build a plan to take out the Brotherhood infrastructure down there.

Catalina moved in here with the girls while I was away. Four of the old timers set up a two-person patrol of the exterior.

But I feel like we're sitting ducks, waiting for him to decide he can strike in New Jersey.

The blessing was the end of the trip. To shower the road off, then climb into bed with Ari. She barely woke. Just curled up against me and let me hold her as my body ached from twenty-four hours over two days on the bike.

So, when there's a loud knock on the front door, I'm pissed.

I had plans to wake Ari slowly, then use some of the toys I picked up in a sex shop on the drive home. Some anal beads and three butt plugs of varying sizes. Given how tight she is, we're going to need to work her up to taking me.

"Fuck," I grumble, reaching for my phone. It's eight in the morning. Too fucking early for company.

"I can get it," Arianne says, patting my chest.

As she rises and pulls on one of my hoodies, I check the cameras. "Not sure I want the world to see you dressed like that," I say.

Arianne blushes. "I'm sure whoever it is won't even notice."

"Shit. It's the cops." I jump out of bed, pull on my jeans and boots. I'm not meeting them half-dressed. I pull on a T-shirt and slide my legal weapon in the back of my jeans. "If they take me for any reason, call Rae and tell her to ask King to call the club lawyer for me, yeah?"

"Yes, but why would they—oh my God." Her gaze is out the window.

I move to stand by her. "Don't worry, Arianne. They're just fucking with us." I can't reassure they have no cause. I've done so many bad things it's hard to decide what they might be here about.

"No," she says as she points to the end of my drive. "That's my parents' car."

There's a knock on the door again.

Two thoughts collide at once. Thank fuck it's her parents, because it means this is more than likely a welfare check or to do with beating Patrick up. The club has a good lawyer and too many judges in their pocket. I'm not doing time for a guy who abused his wife. But a second one worms deep in my gut.

They've come to take her home.

She glances down at what she's wearing. Two seconds ago, I didn't want anyone to see her dressed in my hoodie. Now I want her parents to see she's mine.

"Don't look at yourself like that, Arianne. Like you're a mess or somehow not good enough for any of them. Straighten your crown, shoulders back. We go together, yeah?"

Arianne nods. "Okay."

I open the bedroom window. "On our way down," I shout so the pigs don't smash through the new front door Saint helped me install last month.

Ari slips a pair of shorts beneath my hoodie. We look like we just got out of bed because we did, but I pull my hair up.

Can't remember the last time I was introduced to a woman's parents. There was an old-timer, Flex, who was seventy, and I banged his granddaughter once. A sweet thing from Topeka. That's probably the closest I've ever gotten to knowing a partner's family member.

This isn't exactly the way I would have chosen either.

Arianne peeks into Lola's room. "She's still out cold. The whirling dervish wanted to play peek-a-boo for an hour straight at one this morning. Do we tell my parents about her?" she asks.

"Let's see why they are here and what they want. If they are here to stir shit, no."

When we get to the door, I open it, blocking Arianne from view. I don't want her upset.

"Gallagher." The cop and I go way back. He was several years below me in school, but he was a jerk back then, always the bully. Remember him picking a fight with Gwen and losing two teeth after King finished with him.

"Flynn. I'm going to need to speak with Arianne Osborne."

I stand to one side and let Arianne show herself. "I'm Arianne."

"Could you step outside, Arianne?" Gallagher asks.

Arianne looks up to me for the answer. I love how that's her default, to get my advice. "Step outside, kitten. I can keep an eye on you from here."

Gallagher stares down his nose at me. It might be intimidating if he weren't half a foot shorter than my six-four. Instead, I smirk at him and lean casually on the edge of the open door.

Gallagher leans close to Arianne, a move that I'm sure he intends to chap my ass, but I remain calm.

"How are you doing, Arianne?" he asks.

"I'm good. Really good. Why?"

"Can you come down to the station with me? I just need to check a few things with you."

Ari shakes her head. "Unless it's a legal requirement, I don't want to."

"Are you here under duress?"

Arianne glances my way and smiles at me. "Absolutely not."

"Your parents were worried about you and would like a word with you."

"I have repeatedly told them, via messages, that I am fine. As you can see, I am fine."

Gallagher takes her arm roughly enough to lift her elbow and put her on her toes. And suddenly I know how Spark felt when the federal agent knocked Iris over, possibly hurting both her and their unborn child. Only I'm a hair calmer.

"Get your hands off her before I work with the club's lawyers to have you charged with assault," I tell him as I come to stand by Arianne's shoulder.

Arianne snatches her arm out of his grasp and steps away so that her back warms my chest. I put my arm around her waist and hold her to me.

"You're interfering with a?—"

"With a what?" I challenge him. "You're here for some wellness check or some shit. She's fine. She told you herself, and it's available through my camera footage if you need evidence of that."

Gallagher eyes me carefully. "You're not doing yourself any favors clinging on to her like that."

"And you are now trespassing on my land," I say. "Check complete. If Arianne's parents want to talk, all they have to do is walk up the driveway to speak to us. It's not that hard. You, on the other hand, need to get the fuck off my property."

Gallagher puffs out his chest. "Are you threatening an officer?"

I can't help but laugh. "If I were threatening you, there'd be no question. Nice gold tooth by the way."

His tongue licks over it out of what I'm sure is habit, and I hope he remembers how the original one is probably still under a bank of lockers at our high school after King punched it out of his mouth.

He turns back to Arianne. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine. If it puts your mind at ease, I left my husband who beat me," Arianne says with a new confidence in her voice. She looks up the driveway to where her father has gotten out of the car. "Jackson took me to the hospital to get checked out. There should be a report. My parents have always favored him over me, so they are likely here to convince me to come back home to him, which I will not be doing because he beat me most weeks for the last year. I'm happy to come to the station at some point to report that. But if they call you again, please be assured I am here because I ran here, not because I am being held here."

Gallagher's face changes. It softens. And it might be the one move that will save his life somewhere down the line. He hates the idea of a woman getting beaten under his watch as much as I do. "We can help. We could file a restraining order against him and your parents. I can walk you through the kind of evidence we'd need to get a conviction."

Arianne sighs. "His brother is an influential man back home. I called the police to report what was going on, but his brother made the reports disappear. As you can imagine, no evidence was collected."

"Fuck me," I mutter and reach out to squeeze her shoulder. No wonder she's got an issue trusting anyone. "You deserved so much better."

Gallagher nods. "And we're never going to regain public trust until the morally bankrupt cops and city officials are out of jobs. Drop by the station anytime. Mr. Flynn knows where it is. We've had the pleasure of hosting him many times."

"Speaking of Mr. Flynn, do you know where the investigation is into the murder of Mr. Flynn senior and my sister, Mercy Osborne?"

"I don't because I wasn't assigned to that case, but if you want to come down to the station with me, we can check."

Ari folds her arms. "Please just let the detective in charge know I'm waiting for an update."

"I will." With that, he takes his ass off my property.

"You okay?" I ask, turning Arianne to face me.

"Seems to be the question of the day. ‘Am I okay?'"

Her body folds into mine when I open my arms. "Sorry you had such an utterly shit run in life, Arianne. But I promise you that no matter what happens between the two of us, I'll always be on your side."

She steps up onto the tips of my boots, lifts to her toes, and kisses me softly. "Thank you."

"You wanna kiss me like that again while I carry you upstairs, strip you naked, and fuck you in the shower, or do you want to deal with your parents?"

We both look down the driveway, where both Arianne's mother and father are walking toward us. "I'd much rather be getting fucked in the shower, but I need to deal with them, or this won't stop."

"Then invite them in, and I'll pretend I give a shit about two adults who aren't there for their kid."

The words make me think about Lola for a moment. I owe her an apology.

As if on cue, I hear a cry. "About Lola. She's awake, and we can't pretend she isn't. I'll follow your lead, but if you don't want them to know about her being Mercy's, just say she's mine, yeah?"

"Arianne," her father says when he reaches us. "You've caused a lot of people a lot of worry."

"I don't know why," she replies. "I've communicated with you about my plans."

Her mother reaches out to Arianne and touches her arm. "The worry is that this isn't like you, to suddenly decide to leave your husband, home, and family to come here and…"

She looks up at me, a wrinkle in her nose, as if I'm something she stepped in.

"Mom," Arianne snaps. "This is Jackson Flynn, Navy SEAL and recipient of two silver stars. You'll show him some respect. Jax, this is my mom and dad. Jo-Ann and Marshall."

"You found them?" I ask, ignoring her folks. Those medals are in the cupboard in the family room.

She glances up at me with a sweet smile. "I needed evidence you weren't a serial killer when you first let me stay here."

I bark out a laugh. "Not sure that's going any distance to reassure your mom."

"I wasn't trying to reassure her; I was trying to reassure you."

I touch her cheek, and her father coughs. "Is this where you are living?" he asks, and I want to punch him in the face for looking down on a house I've renovated and that the realtor estimates is worth $750,000.

"It is."

There's another cry from inside the house, and this one catches Arianne's parents' attention. "I need to go get her," I say. "Make your folks coffee to prove to them we aren't heathens."

Once I get to Lola's room, she's on her feet, holding on to the edge of the crib. "Hey, Lollipop. Look at you standing up."

Her bottom lip flops out, and her eyes are red and blotchy, but she calms when she sees me. The little pout shifts into a smile as she reaches out her arms to me and then promptly falls to her butt without support.

"‘Nana?"

"I'll get you a banana when we get downstairs. And some yogurt."

I scoop her out of her crib and hold her close, and while I've always loved her as my sister, I realize I love her. I love her like my own. And I make a decision right then and there.

She's my daughter.

"I'm gonna raise you as my little girl, Lo. How do you feel about that?" I lay her down on the changing mat and then blow a raspberry on her tummy that makes her giggle.

Her fist goes into her mouth, and I wiggle her wrist to playfully take it out again. "I'll take that as a yes. I'll tell you when you are older who you really are, and I'll tell you about our dad at some point too. But you're going to have a normal childhood, kid. And I'm going to protect you from those cunts downstairs, which, if I ever hear you say the word ‘cunt,' you will be grounded."

"No, no, no," Lola replies with a smile that tells me she thinks she's agreeing.

"Exactly. So, do we have a deal?"

Lola grips onto my pinky finger.

"I'm gonna take that as a pinkie promise. I promise I'm going to be the best dad I can be. And Ari is going to be your mom. Can you say ‘mom'?"

"Mom, mom, mom, mom," she says.

"Yeah. Your mom. And we're going to love you so hard, you never have to worry we don't accept you." For a moment, I think about the two kids in our raid. Jax and River, wondering what would have happened to the two of them if they'd had other options. I hope they changed their ways. I remove her onesie and open her diaper. "Jesus Christ, Lo. For a pretty girl, you sure do nasty poops in the morning."

At that she laughs. And I realize if this is the way I start my day every day, Arianne making coffee, and Lola and I taking a minute while I change her, then I'm going to be a very fortunate man.

The smell of coffee filters up the stairs, and I'm dying for a cup. I'm running on fumes. I finish cleaning Lola up quickly and dress her in a pretty yellow sundress.

"Ball?" she asks.

"Later, sweetheart."

"I think you'd better start from the beginning," I hear her dad say as I walk down the stairs with Lola in my arms.

"This shouldn't be complicated," Ari says. And I'm glad to hear her standing up for herself. "I left Patrick because I'm done with the beatings and the lectures and the verbal abuse. I left without talking to you about it because you've always taken his side, because you rely on him so much at the truck stop that anything he does to me is simply collateral damage. And I came here because Mercy died, which I've noticed you haven't even mentioned yet. Your daughter died, and you haven't even asked how. So where, in all that, would you like me to start? Because it's pretty clear to me."

Her mother leans forward and grabs her cup from the counter. "Please don't speak to your father like that."

Ari rolls her eyes. "Then don't speak to me like a child."

"We wouldn't have to if you weren't behaving like one," her dad says. "You know better than to agitate Patrick. And who is this Flynn man you are living with?"

Ari smiles when she sees me and pushes a steaming mug of coffee in my direction. Ignoring her folks, I kiss her. "Thank you."

Then, to her parents, I say, "Mercy lived with my dad."

Her mom wrinkles her nose. "He must have been twenty or thirty years older than her."

"Probably," I say. I take a gulp of my coffee, and it burns the inside of my mouth. But the sensation is preferable over talking with Ari's parents.

"They were murdered," I continue. "Ari and I met at Mercy's funeral and became friends while trying to make sense of their estate. I offered her a safe place to stay because her face was black and blue after she dared to tell Patrick she wanted to go to Mercy's funeral. This is my daughter, Lola. I'm a single dad and asked Arianne to stay as a live-in nanny for her. She'll earn more doing that than she did at the diner, and because I'm not an asshole, I won't be stealing her earnings from her."

Her mom flashes a look at Ari. "What does he mean?"

"To get me to come back, Patrick went into my account and stole my salary this month so I couldn't even buy food."

Her dad leans forward and rests his hands on the kitchen counter. "Someone beat the heck out of Patrick. Guy can't work right now because of his injuries. We've had to help him out financially." He looks over at me.

"If someone hurt Lola, I'd like to think that as her father, I'd get the pleasure of beating the shit out of the man who did it. I certainly wouldn't be giving him a handout while lecturing my daughter about how she should keep her face away from his fists. And if you are here for anything other than Arianne's future happiness, you need to get the fuck out of my house."

Her dad stands. He's not a small man, but he underestimates me. I hand Lola to Ari, then walk to the hall, grab my cut, and put it on. The effect when I walk back into the kitchen is immediate. Running a truck stop, her father must have met his share of men like me. And he immediately reaches for her mom's hand. "We should go."

Ari's mouth drops open. "You can't sit here and even pretend you want to know how I am?" she asks, and it grinds my gears to hear the hurt in her voice.

Lola wiggles in her arms, and I wrap Ari in mine.

"I'm not sure you know what is best for you right now," her dad says. "Do you even know what will make you happy?"

"It sure as fuck isn't living with a guy who beats her or listening to parents who defend him," I say. I'm getting ready to toss them from my home when Ari puts her palm on my forearm.

"Living in a safe house, without fear." She looks up at me. "With a man who will protect me at all costs. Helping him raise his daughter so she knows she is loved for exactly who she is. Remembering my sister and accepting her as the human being she was. Making friends with the other old ladies of the club. That's what will make me happy."

"Do you love him?" her mom asks.

She turns back to her parents. "More than I ever loved Patrick. And more than either of you love me."

It's the closest she's come to saying that she loves me.

"You've got fifteen seconds to get out of our house," I say. "Another fifteen to make it to the end of the driveway. Otherwise, you better be ready to get your face out of the way of my fists."

Ari's father grabs her mom by the elbow and hurries them out without so much as a goodbye to their daughter.

And when Ari shifts in my arms and cries, I wish I'd hurt them both.