He bent to kiss me again, and murmured, “I’ll be sure to take that under advisement, too.”

And then he left us, and both Magan and I stared after him until he started his bike, at which point she looked at me, and said, “Holy shit, you scored big time.”

I led her into my kitchen. “We’ll see. He’s a little shy about letting down his wall, if you know what I mean, so I feel there’s a lot of work ahead of us.” Eyeing her, I asked, “Why are you here so early?”

“I wanted to come over and see if you were thinking of visiting Mum today. I’m going to head to the hospital this morning if you want to come with me.”

My stomach knotted with panic. “I can’t…not today,’ I said softly, willing her to leave it at that and not try to force me into going.

“Do you think you’ll ever give her a chance?” Her words held no accusation; it was simply a question. One I didn’t know the answer to.

“I’m honestly not sure.”

She nodded. “Okay, I won’t bug you about it again, but if you decide you do want to go, just let me know and I will go with you. She and I are getting close, and I can see how much she has changed.”

Worry filled me. Her words revealed the truth of the matter – a truth a seventeen-year-old girl, desperate for the love of a mother, couldn’t help but miss. How could she possibly see how much a woman had changed when she never knew her in the first place? I squeezed her hand and smiled. “I’ll let you know if I change my mind,” I promised, unable to burst her happy bubble. I hoped like hell our mother would not disappoint her again, but deep down, I doubted that would happen.

18

Griff

I walked the distance between my bike to the meeting point, surprised to see Blade waiting with Scott for me, but I should have realised this was the meeting point we set up when the three of us plotted to take down Marcus, so it was only natural for Scott to choose it if he was bringing Blade into something now. But what the fuck did Blade have to do with anything going on between Scott and me?

“Morning,” I said as I approached.

The set of Scott’s shoulders and the hard expression on his face led me to believe he was still angry with me. He jerked his chin, and said, “Morning.” Although everything else about him seemed tense, his voice had lost the hard tone to it from yesterday.

Glancing at Blade, I asked, “What’s going on?”

“Blade knows about your past. I needed to talk it out with someone and I didn’t want that to be anyone from Storm,” Scott filled me in, and I sucked in a breath. The more people who knew, the more chance of shit going south at some point. “Actually, I was just going to bring it up at Church, but Harlow picked up that there was something on my mind last night and suggested I talk to Blade.”

Fuck, I had no clue where he would take this, so I nodded and waited for him to lay his cards on the table.

“What you told me yesterday, that shit stays between us…the three of us. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but Blade helped me to understand that life isn’t all black and white, and that sometimes the deeds of the past shouldn’t be a reflection on the person of today. I get why you did what you did. I mightn’t like it or agree with it, but one thing I do get is loyalty to family with no questions asked and no stone left unturned.” He took a breath before continuing. “You’re my family, Griff, and the shit I said to you yesterday was in the heat of the moment. You’ve proven yourself over and over to me…you don’t have to prove yourself again.”

His words hit me in the chest, and I took a minute to recover. “Fuck,” was all I got out before Blade stepped forward and spoke.

“That being said, you’ve got a problem where Ricky is concerned. He knows your identity and I’m guessing he knows your involvement in the Bond case. That means he’ll use that to his advantage, and fuck knows his agenda these days.”

Scott nodded in agreement. “Yeah, so we need to move on him. And we need to move fast. Fuck waiting for the club to have its shit together to deal with the fallout…we need to do this today.”

My mind was still trying to wrap itself around Scott’s acceptance of my past, but I pushed that to the side to focus on our revised plan to deal with Ricky. “You got any ideas?” I asked.

“Yeah, we’ve come up with something,” Scott said and we spent the next twenty minutes going over the plan.

Today was shaping up to be a good day – by the end of it, Storm would have one less headache.

* * *

As I sat back in position, watching Ricky’s house from a few houses down and waiting for Blade’s signal, my phone buzzed silently with a text from Nash.

Nash: We have the details for tomorrow’s drug deal.

Me: Good. We’ll go over it later.

Nash: How’s our friend?

Me: Twenty minutes tops and he won’t be our friend anymore.

I shoved my phone back in my pocket. Nash, Wilder and Scott weren’t here for this part of the plan. They were out with the rest of our boys raising hell and giving Storm an alibi for this murder. Blade, J and I were taking care of Ricky with the help of Blade’s boys.

My signal from Blade came – a flick of his wrist – and I started the Range Rover, and drove it down the street. It was Ricky’s Range Rover that I’d ‘borrowed’ from his driver while said driver took a rest. Pulling up outside Ricky’s house, I asked the woman in the back, “You ready?”