I pulled away to say, “Don’t want to see you get beat up anymore, okay? I have some cash on hand.” I always did just in case he needed it. “Wait a second okay?”
He nodded but his eyes cut over my shoulder to King. I ignored that and made my way upstairs to my bedroom where I kept Lysander’s emergency cash hidden in an old leather boot in my walk-in closet.
I knew without turning around when King entered the doorframe.
“I’m giving him the money, King.”
“Not happy ‘bout it, Cress babe, but I understand why you feel you gotta do it.”
I fell out of my crouch so my knees hit the carpet and I could turn my torso to look at him. “You do?”
His long, rangy form entirely filled the entry as he lifted both arms to hook his hands over the doorframe. The pose made his body into a piece of art, defined by ropes and lengths of hard, flat muscles from his pectorals to his groin, which peeked out from his shirt tails like sexual promise.
“I do. He’s your brother and you feel you owe him loyalty. The Fallen operates on that kind of faith, so trust me, I get it. What I don’t get and what I am one hundred percent not okay with, babe, is not knowing shit about his circumstances or how he affects your life. He comes to you for fuckin’ money? He gave you the cash to buy this house? Don’t like that, Cress. That guy fuckin’ scream bad news.”
I didn’t say anything as I rooted around in the boot heel for the wad of money then, finding it, tugged it free with a yank that send me flying backwards. King caught me before I hit the ground.
I looked back at him from upside down and said, “Thank you.”
He put me back down, stood back and slipped his hands in his pockets. “I’m this close to bein’ pissed off.”
“Okay, I get that.”
I did. His badass biker sense of morals told him that he was the man and I was the woman, therefore he needed to protect me and it was my job to let him. I hadn’t told him about Lysander and his terminal bad luck so he’d been caught unawares by a large, beaten up man on the front stoop of my house and he’d had no idea how to deal with it.
He nodded curtly, evaded my hand when I offered it to him but followed close behind me as I went back downstairs to my brother.
I gave the money to my brother without a word and watched him painfully swallow his proud before he pocketed it.
“I’ve got to get going, honey.”
“He’s goin’ with us,” King said from behind me.
I spun towards him. “What?”
He ignored me and locked eyes on my brother. “You want a job, I’ll get you a job. Want you around to keep my eye on you. My dad’s a fuckin’ brute so if you think you can pull a fast one of him, think a-fuckin’-gain. You want a chance, you get in your car and follow me and Cress to Hephaestus right now.”
God, in that moment, I loved King more than I’d ever loved anything. Even Elvis and Satan. Combined.
Surprisingly, Lysander grew pale and hesitated. “Wouldn’t want to put you out, you dating my sister and all. Looks serious.”
Before I could respond, King was handing me my school bag, shouldering his backpack and tucking me under his arm. “It is. Wouldn’t give you a chance otherwise. My Queen cares about you, I’ll make an exception.”
“To what?” I asked.
“To my rule. Don’t get involved with liars.”
My eyes flashed as I fought the instinct to defend my brother but Sander surprised me again by standing up carefully and saying, “Let’s go.”
We arrived at the characteristically busy garage, which I’d also learned was the biker’s base, something called the compound where they also had a clubhouse, the low brick building to the right of the business that had that wicked cool graffiti image of The Fallen logo spray painted on it. Immediately, the guys called out to us as we swung off the bike. From the corner of my eye, I saw Lysander’s beat up Ford truck pull through the open chain link gate.
“Wanna deal with this myself, babe,” King told me as he took my helmet off for me.
I nodded. “I’m okay with that. I’ll just go in and drop off the cookies for the guys.”
I’d made the men chocolate chip cookies the night before while I’d been waiting for King to get off work at the garage. He’d mentioned before that Maja was currently the Queen of the old ladies because she was Buck’s old lady and Buck was VP. If Zeus had a woman, it would be her or, if King had a woman, it could be her. There was no divine right to the Presidency of The Fallen, you had to work hard for that honor—bleed, sweat and let blood for your club—but there was something to be said about a biker family, especially one whose ancestors had founded the mother chapter. From what I understood, this fact coupled with King’s renowned intellect, made most brothers think that he would one day take the gavel from Zeus. Even though King wasn’t sure what he wanted to do when he graduated, I wanted to make sure the bikers liked me (just in case).