Time to get out of here; this woman might be turning me on, but everything about her screamed pure, and I was far from the kind of man who should be trusted with pure. Taking a step away from her, I spoke a little harder than I meant. “No, I can assure you we’ve never met.” I jerked my chin at her. “Have a good night,” I added before turning and striding back to the bar.

Once inside and settled back on my stool, I finished my beer and ordered another. And attempted to put the blonde out of my mind. She was not the type of woman I pursued so it should have been an easy task.

It was far from fucking easy.

She’d stirred my deepest primal desires. From her easy smile to her trusting nature to the sense I’d gotten from her that she was untainted – it was like waving a red flag at a bull, and I was the bull, ready to take and bend and break.

Just as I was envisioning a long night being taunted by not only the ghosts of my past, but also the blonde, my phone rang, distracting me. And fuck, the number flashing on caller ID stunned the hell out of me.

“Danny,” I answered, wondering what the hell my cousin was doing calling me out of the blue after two years of no contact.

“Michael,” he greeted me, his voice clear of emotion.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I asked as I took a swig of my drink.

“I’m giving you a heads up…the Bond case is finally going to trial and you may be called as a witness. I couldn’t find a way around it.”

“Fuck,” I muttered as I ran through scenarios in my mind of how this could play out. Any way I spun it, not good.

“Yeah, I thought you’d want to know, especially since it seems as though the media is all over this.” He paused for a moment. “Michael, if they call you, your name and identity will be splashed all over the media in Australia. There will be no way for you to avoid it.”

I threw the rest of my beer down my throat and slammed the bottle down on the bar. “I fucking realise that, Danny,” I snapped.

“Don’t take this shit out on me. I told you to get out of that club years ago. You had what you needed from them so I never could work out why you chose to stay. The boys and I can try to protect you from them if this all comes out, but there’s only so much our badge can do for you. Storm has a long reach, and if they want you dead over this, I’ve no doubt they’ll go to every length to make that happen.”

I drew in a slow, steady breath, trying to keep my anger in check. “I am fucking Storm, Danny. I know how far our reach goes and I sure as fuck know how we deal with shit like this, so don’t try and tell me what I already know. I never wanted anything to do with that Bond case all those years ago, and I damn sure don’t want a thing to do with it now. You need to find a way to make it go away, and you also need to make sure nothing else comes back to haunt me. I’m done with that part of my life, and mark my fucking words, if you don’t fix this, you won’t like the ramifications.”

Before he could respond, I ended the call. Then I paid my bill and stalked out of the bar. Staying here drinking was not a good idea in this frame of mind. Taking my frustrations out on a punching bag, however, was a fucking good idea.

2

Griff

I walked into the clubhouse early the next morning with a pounding head and aching muscles that I’d thrashed last night during a brutal training session. I’d pushed myself to the brink with exercise, needing to feel the burn – needing to forget everything else for a few hours.

Not many members had arrived by the time I got there, but I found Scott in the office going through paperwork. He glanced up at me. “You look like shit.”

Dropping into the chair across from him, I rolled my shoulders in an attempt to unkink some of the knots there and grimaced. “That about sums it up. How was the party?”

“Madison outdid herself. You missed a good night, brother, and by the looks of it, you possibly would have had a better time at the party.”

“Highly likely,” I mused, “but I wouldn’t have been good for the party; not in the mood I’m in at the moment.”

His brows pulled together. “You got something going on that you need help with?”

Guilt flashed through me. Jesus, where the hell was all this guilt coming from? Not an emotion I was used to, I shoved it away. “No, I’ve got this. A week, two at the most, and I’ll be done with it.” I shifted in my chair to try and find a more comfortable position. “Where are we at today?”

He leant back in his chair and scrubbed his face. I’d been watching Scott for weeks now and the stress the club had been under was written all over him. Dark circles sat under his eyes, his clothes hung a little looser on him from the weight he’d lost, worry lines creased his face, and he’d taken to not shaving which was something he’d never done in all the time I’d known him. “Ricky wants to meet today. Just you and me.”

“Why? We’ve already met with him and come to an agreement.” After Marcus’s death, we’d agreed not to deal drugs in Ricky’s territory and he’d appeared happy with that arrangement. Of course, while we intended not to deal drugs, we’d been working towards ridding the world of that scum; we just needed a little more time to get the club ready for any blowback. Trust in Scott still sat low for a lot of members so he was building that back up, but it was a slow process. It felt like we were walking a tightrope of keeping Ricky at bay while repairing club ties. We were aware of Ricky’s playbook, and figured it was only a matter of time before he came for us.