Caution to the Wind (The Fallen Men, #7)

by Giana Darling

“It’s just you and me now, Glory.” The words ached in my throat and tasted bitter on my tongue. Cleo choked on a sob and reached up to latch onto my wrists. “But nothin’ is ever gonna tear us apart. You hear me? We don’t share blood, but I don’t give a damn. Someone tries to take us from each other, I’ll kill them. Does that scare you?” “No,” she said instantly, remindin’ me that this was a girl raised by a prostitute who’d seen darker things than most twelve-year-old kids ever had. “I know you will.”

I’d even met Zeus years ago on a trip out to visit Bat in Entrance and met a few of the men in their club. Each of them had seemed like stand-up men despite the connotation of the 1%er on their leather vests. Hell, I’d even watched Zeus take a teenage misfit under his wing just to keep him from windin’ up in jail. For a man who looked like he could rip a grown-ass adult apart with his bare hands, he treated the men in his club like family instead of underlings.

“You might drive a Harley instead of riding a white horse, but that doesn’t make you any less noble. I don’t know many men who would raise another man’s daughter better than his own. Who would sacrifice everything again and again to give her the best life he could.”

“I trust you,” she said softly, so softly I could barely hear the words. “I trust you, even if you don’t, Henning. I know you’ll always do the right thing. It’s what makes you so broody. A hero doesn’t mean being a man who never does any wrong. It means being a man who seeks truth and justice no matter the consequences.

I wanted a man to tremble as he held back his strength to touch me like I was made of glass, not because he thought I was weak, but because he thought I was precious. I wanted a man to change his career because it would have meant too much time away from me even though I’d never ask him to do so. I wanted a man who’d join a criminal motorcycle gang just to find justice for my murder. I wanted a man who would always try to save me, even when I tried to sabotage myself. I wanted what Cleo had, but not how she had it. I wanted Henning. Not as a father figure. But as a man. My man.

seen. So simple and so impossibly complicated because I couldn’t bear for Henning to know what I knew now. That I loved him. Not tenderly, not softly like a song or a poem. I loved him in all my dark places. In the way I would die for him, impaling myself on a sword intended for his side. In the way I would kill for him––a happy murder, a giggling death with blood on my teeth that tasted like love and sin.

He was the best man we knew, bar none. A white knight didn’t just come in shining armour. My knight came in leather.

Most of these men were broken beyond repair. Even the ones who found the love of a good woman weren’t miraculously repaired by their connection. That love just made breathin’ a little sweeter ’cause it gave them somethin’ to live for. We were all broken, and we didn’t try to fix shit about each other. We just stood together against all the tragedies of the world that inevitably came for us, and we tried to ease the burden as much as we could, even when it seemed impossible, even when it meant riskin’ our lives for each other.

You saw him give that snot-nosed teenager, Jonathon Booth, a chance at a different kinda life, and that man’s a brother now, good as they fuckin’ come and thrivin’ wearin’ our cut. They can give that to you, too, brother. To you and Lin and Cleo. You just gotta take that first fuckin’ terrifyin’ step and trust someone again after bein’ betrayed.”

I knew firsthand just how ironclad the bond was between souls bound together by trauma. I’d watched a normal childhood friendship between girls blossom into a relationship the likes of which I’d never seen ’til I moved to Entrance and watched King with Mute, Boner with Curtains, Harleigh Rose and Lila, Cress and Lou, Zeus and Bat, and Bat and Dane. Some friendships would never die, even when you buried them alive, and I knew in my gut Cleo and Mei’s was one of them.

You didn’t fall in love with someone simply because they were nice. Nice should be a given, a social prerogative. You fell in love with someone because they felt like the only person who could see through your skin and bones straight down to the soul, and even knowing all of you––the good, the bad, the motherfucking ugly––they still accepted you.

“And besides, you aren’t a Kay anymore, and you haven’t been for a long time. You’re an Axelsen, and we both know Axelsens are like bamboo. You might bend under harsh winds, but you never ever break.”

It was impossible not to love a man who was willing to go to prison for you, but I’d never thought about the heart of a man who was willing to go to prison for a girl. Because a man like Henning wouldn’t go to prison for just anyone. A family member, certainly. Maybe a friend who’d done or would do the same for him like Bat. But the only reason a man like that went to prison for a girl like me was because, maybe, some part of him considered her his girl. Not romantically, no, but still, something strong like family, family we’d chosen for each other.

It wasn’t only that Cleo hadn’t let anyone but Bea, Harleigh Rose, Cressida, and me touch her since the assault. Not even Lin, her grandmother. Not even Loulou or Lila or Buck’s wife, Maja. Only Bea, ’cause they were best friends, and they’d bonded over their association with the sick fuck Seth Linley. Only Harleigh Rose, ’cause she’d been assaulted by her ex-shit-for-brains-boyfriend Cricket before she’d put a knife in him and ended his life. Only Cressida, ’cause she knew the weight of staggerin’ grief after thinkin’ she’d lost King for months last year and ’cause she was Cressida, everyone in the club’s touchstone––sister, mother, friend––even to the ones who didn’t bond in the usual ways.

What’s wrong? Should I call Dad?” “No,” I said, ’cause Zeus would just laugh, probably thinkin’ this was some kinda fucked-up fate, and I couldn’t escape it. For an outlaw with a record and blood on his hands, Zeus Garro was bizarrely romantic. Then again, his romance with Loulou would turn anyone into a fuckin’ sap.

She hummed, blowin’ a pink bubble, then poppin’ it with a snap. “Unresolved history’s got a way of comin’ back to haunt us.” “Bit young to be dolin’ out wisdom, H.R.” “Hey, age has got shit all to do with it. I’m marrying the love of my life in six weeks, I’ve got a great job, a kick-ass hound and house, and I’m generally amazing. You should be begging me for life advice.”

“We’ve got eight years of secrets between us and zero trust. I get you want a brother here when I’m with Cleo. I can even pretend it doesn’t kill me to think you might wonder if I’ll hurt her or put her in danger. But if you remember anything about me, remember this…” Her eyes flashed up to me then, slicing through me like an obsidian blade. “I’d die for her just as happily as I’d die for you. No amount of time will ever change that. And no amount of hate.”

“There’s not a man in this club without demons, Axe-Man. When a man’s got a rare opportunity to exorcise them, he’s gotta take it if he ever wants a chance in hell of findin’ some long-lastin’ happiness.”

followed him up the stairs. A flicker of a smile, but he didn’t say anythin’ else, and his silence was smug. For a twenty-three-year-old kid, he shouldn’t’a been able to see so much, know so much, but from the time I’d first met him ago, he’d always been like that. Those pale eyes were scalpels, cuttin’ up human flesh and scrapin’ past bone to the heart of people. It was fuckin’ eerie.

I’d been fuckin’ relieved not to have to take up the mantle of enforcer the way Rooster’d once forced me to do. That role was taken by Priest McKenna, arguably the scariest motherfucker ever born, a man whom I knew based on my medical trainin’ was an honest to God psychopath who enjoyed dismantlin’ our enemies the way most men enjoyed dismantlin’ a good burger. Since we’d welcomed Wrath Marsden into the fold some years back, we’d even added a second enforcer. His immensity, rage, and history of violence made for a good contrast against Priest’s wraith-like, cold, and mechanical brutality. They sat side by side toward the other end of the table, as different as night and day but still somehow compatible.

“What’re you thinkin’, brother?” Zeus asked, lookin’ unruffled as fuck ’cause the man’d been to prison twice, had his wife abducted, his daughter assaulted, and his son believed to be dead for more than half a year. This shit was nothin’ to him. Which didn’t mean he couldn’t care less. What made Z not only the best leader of this chapter but the whole damn Fallen empire was his ability to give a shit about everythin’ without losin’ his goddamn mind.

“Oh.” I mock shivered. “Is the big bad biker going to hurt me?” His grin was a wedge of white, wicked teeth in the pink-tinged shadows. “You’d like that too much, I think. No, I’ll just forbid you to see Cleo.”

That man was more than a man to me and always would be because he was also my hero, and no matter what ending they got, the mythological Jason and Hercules, the superheroes Batman and Spider-Man, they lived on eternally for the impact of their good deeds. And Henning’s goodness lived on inside me. I’d grown around it.

Really, how little the club knew about the histories of any of its brothers. Zeus knew the most, bein’ Prez, but sometimes, I fuckin’ marvelled at the trust he had in us. This ragtag group of criminals who each had hearts of gold under all the tatts and records and bad attitudes. How did he sense it?

The only reason we’re meetin’ is ’cause you rolled into my motherfuckin’ town and threatened my motherfuckin’ townsfolk and my goddamn motherfuckin’ brother. So quit the act and settle up.

“The Fallen MC isn’t for sale, now or ever. You want what isn’t yours, you better be prepared to die for it.” “This didn’t go well for you last time, trying to stop our progress,” Jiang reminded me. “No, but I got a whole different brotherhood at my back, and they’re the kinda men who are happy to live free and die hard for what matters. Now get the fuck outta our town.”

I tugged the sleeve of my tee over my wrist, suddenly acutely aware of the art I’d stolen from him already. As an artist myself, I’d always known it was highly unethical to steal his work the way I had, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop. Once I had the koi fish inked around my belly, I was addicted. Now, I had twenty-two tattoos all over my body, each of which had originally been drawn by Henning’s hand.

“Well, I believe it of Cressida.” “Yeah, she was actually King’s teacher when they first met. She used to be kinda judgy back in the day, but she’s been through a lot since then, and now, I don’t think she has a cruel bone in her body.” “Teacher in college?” I clarified. “High school,” she admitted, then laughed again at my expression. It was rusty, still, a little broken like the clang of a cracked bell, but God, it was precious. “I know, it was quite the scandal. Cress was fired, or maybe she quit, but they’ve been together ever since. You should see them together, it’s like…” She sighed, eyes dreamy. “It’s like the most epic love story in real life.”

“And I take it Loulou is Loulou Garro, Zeus Garro’s wife?” “Yep. Another scandal, another epic love story.” At my look, she expanded. “Zeus is like nineteen years older than her, and they got married when she was seventeen.”

“Listen, I get you’re new here and everything, but we’re The motherfucking Fallen. No one hurts one of ours without serious retribution. Especially when it’s one of our women.”

“You might be the girl who sent Axe-Man to prison, but you gotta understand something. I was the girl who stabbed my now-fiancé in the chest. Bea was the girl with her own stalker psychopath. Loulou was the girl who shot a rival biker in the head.” She shrugged as if such things were normal, a rite of passage, and maybe in the biker babe handbook they were. “If Axe-Man forgives you, who are we to hold the past against you?”

“I’m not worried you’ll fuckin’ faint. I’m worried you’ll get on your stupid excuse for a bike and hunt them down yourself. Never thought you were a damsel, Mei Zhen. You’ve always been a dragon.”

She was twenty-five years old, still sixteen years my junior, but it was hard to hold the same prejudices I’d used to have around age gaps when there were so many healthy examples in the club. Zeus and Loulou were nineteen years apart in age, but they’d clearly been made for each other. Even with two newborns, a preteen foster kid, and a club to look after, they acted like newlyweds.

Lila and Nova had twelve years between them, and I bore witness every fuckin’ day to the chemistry between those two. Lovin’ Li had changed Nova, taken him from somethin’ like a caricature to the truest, best version of the man I’d met on my first visit to Entrance when he was just a punk-ass graffiti artist.

King and Cressida were the heart and soul of the club in a lotta ways, always the listenin’ ears, the thoughtful friend, and I figured it was ’cause of the bounty of peace their love produced. So much, ...

Even Priest and Bea, night and day, the couple no one hardly saw comin’ made a strange and beautiful kinda sense, like the oddly love...

Hell, we were gearin’ up to celebrate Harleigh Rose and Lion Danner’s weddin’ next month, and the whole fuckin’ town seemed excited about the union between the bi...

She’d infiltrated my life like a fuckin’ disease, and I was gettin’ worried there wasn’t a damn antidote.

I waited for everyone to chime in on my behalf, but for outlaw bikers, these fuckers believed way too fuckin’ much in romance. Hell, King literally called his woman his Queen and wrote her poetry. Nova’d secreted love notes into Lila’s tattoos years before he even admitted he was into her. I was fucked.

Even though you stabbed me through the fuckin’ heart, it can’t fuckin’ forget how to care about you. Even with my blood on your teeth, I can’t fight the mad urge to kiss you. Maybe especially with my blood on your teeth, your little claws in my chest. I’ve always had the bad habit of wantin’ what wasn’t good for me.”

When he was within reach, he clamped a hand over my hip and traced the Chinese characters he’d once drawn of my name now inked on the outside of my rib cage. “You little thief,” he snarled, tracing another design up to the lower curve of my small breast before he harshly pinched my nipple and toppled me to the bed. “You have me all fuckin’ over you.”

Only, Axe-Man wouldn’t let me go, wouldn’t let me pretend I was anyone else but Mei Zhen Marchand. The girl who’d loved him too young and abandoned him when it mattered. The girl who’d come back but wasn’t forgiven. The girl he wanted, but wouldn’t let himself like.

“Let’s do it here.” I glared at him, digging in my heels. “That’s Axe-Man’s station.” “You don’t say,” he said, unperturbed, still tugging me forward until I reluctantly followed him. “It’s better lightin’ over here.” “It’s nighttime.” “Right.” He stroked a hand over his chin. “Comfier chair?” I shook my head on a snort. “You’re trouble. Has anyone ever told you that?” His grin was wildly beautiful. “My fiancée does all the fuckin’ time.” I’d met Lila for the first time two days ago when she’d come into the shop to pick up Cleo for lunch at Stella’s Diner. She was just as glamourously beautiful as Nova, a Latina with long dark hair and exaggerated curves inked all over with gorgeous floral tattoos. She’d been Nova’s muse long before they were even a couple, and I thought there was something so beautiful about that.

I hissed at the tenderness on the thin skin, at the new knowledge that it was Axe-Man tattooing me and not Nova. That it was Axe-Man who’d put the final finish on my canvas of his artwork. That I’d wear his art done by his hand for the rest of my life.

“But I don’t fuckin’ care. You got your teeth and claws in me, it’s only fair I got my ink on you. Even when I hate you, you’re mine.”

I went upstairs for bed and checked beneath the gauze on my ass to see what note he’d written into my skin. Property of the Off-White Knight in the same small black, gothic writing of the tattoos love and loss on his knuckles.

The human heart was a sadistic thing. Somehow, the same woman I’d hated had become the only woman my battered heart felt whole and enlivened by.

“’Cause I might’a been wrong ’bout the look on your face, but anyone with eyes can see she lives for you, and she’d die for you in a second.”

She looked like an angel of death, something dangerous and capable, someone whose very kiss might be lethal. And it was. Lethal to my willpower. Destructive to every single wall I’d constructed around my heart over the hard years of my life. I wanted her to burn me down to ash and raise me up like a phoenix, reborn in the fires of her all-consumin’ love.

“How about we’re both forgiven?” I suggested, brushin’ my thumbs over her sharp cheekbones. “I think at this point we can agree, we’re more than enemies.” She smiled, and I didn’t resist the urge to press my thumb into the divot of her one-sided dimple. “Enemies with benefits, I hope?” “No,” I growled, leanin’ forward to nip her bottom lip. “We were never enemies, Rocky. I’ve loved you before, and I was foolin’ myself thinkin’ I ever stopped.”