“What do you think?”

“I think the last thing I need is my president losing his shit over his old lady being here without permission.”

Things are still hot with Lucy’s assassins, but so far, we haven’t turned up shit on Hank. If he’s dirty, he hid it well. So far, no one has come here looking for Lucy, so we’ve let down our guard a little, relaxed the reins, but we haven’t relaxed it enough for Sasha to be here.

“Ty would keep me locked up forever if he could—killer assassins on the loose or not. I want to see Lucy, check how she’s doing.”

While I love that she cares, her being here when things are so unsettled is dangerous, and I won’t let anything touch her—not again.

“Lucy’s fine,” I tell her. “Where’s Lily-May?”

The little girl is the spitting image of Sasha, but she definitely has her father’s temper. I’ve seen the tantrums she throws and they ain’t pretty. Even so, I want even a fraction of what they have. Family is important as fuck to me. I grew up with a big one—both blood and club. I want that for my kids, too. I’d love a daughter or a son to follow in my footsteps.

“Briella is looking after her.”

Briella is Levi’s little sister and is a total motormouth. Getting her to stop talking once she starts is impossible. She’s also barely nineteen and has a habit of getting into shit she usually needs the club to get her out of.

“Bree’s trouble.”

“She’s just young. We’ve all been there.” She dismisses my concerns. “I need to see my best friend.” There’s a pleading tone to her voice that begs me not to snitch on her. She knows I can’t do that. Rav is not just my friend, but my President, and my first loyalty is always to him. “She nearly died, Nox. I can’t leave her to deal with this shit alone. Lucy was there for me through everything.”

That’s something I’ve always loved about Sasha—her unfaltering loyalty. It’s why I never believed she cheated with Sin. It just never made sense to me. She wasn’t that kind of woman, never had been. Plus, the way she was with him just felt off, wrong. If they’d legit hooked up she would have been less volatile towards Sin.

She sighs and holds up the bag she’s carrying. “I stopped at the shop and bought her some clothes. They’re not perfect, but they’ll do until she can get her own shit.”

“She’ll appreciate that.” I like seeing her in my clothes, but Sasha’s right. She needs her own stuff.

Our conversation is cut off as Melody steps out of the common room in shorts that barely cover the globes of her arse and a shirt tied under her tits that exposes her midriff. On her feet are bright red high heels that make her long legs look even longer, shapelier. She’s a beautiful woman on the outside. Too bad she’s a rotten bitch on the inside.

She smiles at me, but that smile fades when she sees Sasha and I don’t like that it does. Sasha’s family. Melody is here by invitation.

I watch as her nose wrinkles, as if she’s smelt something unpleasant, but when Melody turns back to me, she’s all smiles again. Fucking cunt.

I know her type. I’ve seen them time and time again coming through the clubhouse doors. Bitches who want just one thing. To bag themselves a patched brother. Becoming an old lady is the ultimate goal of all club bunnies, but Melody’s desperation is always so obvious. She thinks she has Titch and Whizz wrapped around her little finger, but I know both brothers would drop her like a ten-tonne anvil if Rav told her she was gone tomorrow. I don’t like her much, which is why I haven’t parked my dick anywhere near her for the past six months. I don’t do crazy.

“Nox, are you busy?” Her voice is pitched high, annoyingly so, and she curls a strand of red hair around her finger as she glances at me beneath her fake eyelashes. The coy thing might work on the others, but I’m not so easily swayed by snatch.

Sasha scoffs, folding her arms over her chest as she glares at the woman, which has Melody snapping her gaze towards her. There’s no love lost between them ever since Melody tried to get her claws into Rav. She’s lucky Sash didn’t scalp her that day.

Melody meets her gaze and bites out a nasty, “What?” at Sasha, who either doesn’t notice it, or doesn’t care. Probably the latter. Sasha is a ballsy bitch, and her tongue can be fierce at times.

“The desperation is really pathetic, sweetheart,” Sash tells her, her lips curving into a smirk.

Before shit can erupt, I step in, moving between the two women. Not that I think Melody would go off on Sash. She’s not that fucking stupid. Touching an old lady is a fast track to out of here, but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the years, it’s that bunnies can be unpredictable as fuck.

“Time to get gone,” I tell Melody, who scowls at Sasha before giving me a radiant smile. She knows better than to argue with a patch, especially an officer. I could have her out of here in seconds.

Melody’s smile is thin as she realises I’m not going to take her corner. She flicks her hair over her shoulder, then sashays up the corridor, glancing back to give me a beaming grin. I ignore her, turning my attention back to Sasha.

“I hate that bitch,” she mutters, watching Melody turn the corner and disappear. “She’s a parasite.”

She is, but I’m not interested in Melody or any of the shit that spews out of her mouth.

I bring the conversation back to what we were talking about before. “So, Rav has no idea you’re here.”

“Of course not,” Sasha waves a hand at me. “He’d never let me come to the clubhouse, not with all this shit going on.”

And that is a good decision. Lucy’s attackers haven’t come here yet, but that’s not to say they won’t. She’s on their radar now and we have to be careful. Sasha being here is an unnecessary risk.

“You know I have to tell him, right? And you know he’s going to be pissed you ignored his orders.”

“I don’t take orders from Ty or anyone, Nox, so you do what you have to do. I’m going to find Lucy.”

I watch her stride into the common room and fire off a message to Rav, telling him Sash is here. A reply comes back a few seconds later with three words—“For fuck’s sake”.

Yeah, he’s pissed.

I don’t blame him. We all feel a little protective towards Sasha these days. She’s been through so much, and not just with Sin, but with getting Lily-May well again. The transplant from Fury was a success, but that doesn’t stop us worrying about that little girl, or the toll her being sick took on Sasha.

But Sash is good for Rav, even though she pushes his boundaries. She keeps him on his toes and she doesn’t roll over and give him his way all the time. I’ve never seen my best friend as settled as he has been since Sasha came back. The demons that always lingered on the edge of being unleashed are buried deeper, even though he gained new ones from what he had to do to his brother. Those scars will take longer to heal, but Sasha keeps Rav level, something I’ve never been able to do.

I pocket my phone, then step into the common room.

Daimon is sitting in the corner, a cigarette between his lips, flipping through a newspaper. As Treasurer, he likes to keep an eye on the business market in Kessington, see who is up and coming, see who we need to clamp down on, who we can use to gain a profit. Every day he sits and reads the papers from cover to cover, seeing who we can move in on.