Page 113 of I Will Revel in Glory (Death by Daybreak MC 3)
I’ve been to two such occasions on this compound—one of them for Queenie—and I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
I exhale.
“Don’t remind me of that,” I say, and Sin grins down at me.
“Anyway, if you do well with your lesson today, not only will I fuck you—”
“So completely generous of you,” I interject dryly as he ignores me and continues on.
“—but I’ll let you drive my bike again.”
He moves away and picks up the screwdriver.
“Lesson one: do you know what this is?”
I narrow my eyes on him and pick up the nearest thing I can find—a random screw—and I chuck it his way.
“Alright, dickhead. Let’s dig into this.”
And then we squat side by side together so that he can explain to me how, exactly, one goes about repairing a hundred-plus year-old engine.
Later in the day, when the air is cool and clouds have rolled in to cover the sun, Sin grants me the use of his bike. This time, however, he makes me climb on the bike and drives us up one of the old logging access roads into the thicker part of the woods. The roads are maintained because, as I’m sure you know, there are all sorts of hidden operations and nefarious things that go on inside the safety of these trees.
Sin seems to know where he’s going, taking me to a fairly empty portion of the compound.
Any initial fears I had about mafia interference were squashed when we skirted by the fence, and I saw exactly how many patrols my father has put on perimeter duty.
It’s a testament to Grey’s skill that he was able to get out of here at all. Unfortunately, he has yet to contact me since the night of the hit; I’m starting to get worried.
Sin parks in the middle of the road and trades places with me, taking hold of my waist and pressing his large form against me as I struggle with the change in balance. It’s different, riding with someone on the back of the bike, isn’t it?
I manage okay, but only at much lower speeds than before, and we end up at the end of the road in another of those strange empty cul-de-sacs. Not the one I found last time, but an entirely different one. There’re the bones of an entire house rotting in the rain.
Creepy.
We take a break there and climb off to stretch, removing our helmets and then pausing as fat raindrops spatter on our exposed faces.
“What timing,” I remark, but I’m too exhilarated from the drive to care. I can see why these men put such stock in their motorcycles, in the feeling of freedom that comes with riding such a glorious hellhound into battle. It’s not the same as a car. A car is safe, enclosed, predictable.
Riding a motorcycle is anything but.
There’s a hint of danger there, the promise of the open road, a sense of rebellion.
I hang my helmet over the handlebars and then move beneath the canopy of the trees with Sin trailing behind me. Even here, the rain manages to find us, dripping through the branches and plastering my hair to my head.
I turn around and there we are, me and Sin, in the rain on an ashy day, tucked beneath a tree.
“Oh,” I say, and he smiles sadly, putting one palm on the trunk of the huge tree and looking up at the waving branches. Water slides down the sides of his face, sluicing between his lips as he parts them slightly in awe as the slow, lazy drops melt into a cool deluge. “Here we are again.”
Just like the day of the funeral.
“Here we are,” he agrees, dropping his gaze to my mouth. Is he as fascinated by the water collecting on my lips as I am by his? His lower lip is so full that it catches its own little pool of rainwater before he licks it away. “They’d both be proud of you, you know? Queenie and Posey.”
“I don’t know about that,” I offer up, but my heart swells anyway. Sin is my best connection to my sisters, the person who knew them best besides me.
“Well, I do. Because I know that they only ever wanted you to be happy.” He reaches out and cups the side of my face as the rain spatters his bike and the empty cul-de-sac, our tree providing only a relatively small amount of protection. There are better trees nearby with thicker canopies, but I think we’re both enjoying the sensation of the storm on our skin. I know I am. “Are you happy, Gidge?”
I look at him, blinking raindrops from my lashes as I think about that question.
Am I?
I think about Carol Briggs’ mother and how I wish with my whole heart that I could’ve saved her. I think about Cat and how he killed his own son. I think about Gaz and our fight in the office that easily could’ve ended in my death.
