“Please don’t ask me questions you don’t want the answer to.”
The line goes dead. For a moment, I think he hung up on me, but then he speaks up. “I can only protect you for so long if you refuse my help and insist on making things difficult.”
“How did Papa punish Dario? You can’t expect me to go anywhere he might be.”
“Alessandra.” Dad’s tone says it all. This is about family—and Family—and not so much about me. I love my father, but when you’re in his position, few decisions are your own. Still, when I think about what I’d do for Izzy, it breaks my heart that there are lines he won’t cross for me.
“You can believe me or not, but I'm protected here. I'm safe.” In a strange way, this is the first time I really realize it myself. The Screaming Eagles compound is huge, but it's tiny compared to my Family's skyscraper. Even Dad's mansion is massive, and he's got a lot of men under his command. Every officer in the Family does. But as long as Dario is walking around a free man, unpunished for what he did, I'll never be safe. People might sympathize, but a powerful man on the rise will always take priority over someone like me, a daughter whose only value is to marry and produce the next generation. I hate that it's still true in this day and age, but the Family is nothing if not traditional.
Criticizing that while hiding in an MC clubhouse is throwing stones in a glass house, but things are more fluid here, and at least the guys see me. They are here for me, and they're willing to do anything for me. And unlike my family, where I need to hide Izzy to be accepted, here she doesn't have just one, but four fathers, and they're willing to risk their lives to protect her—and me. Even Hawk.
They’re watching me closely. Bear’s bristling, like he's ready to pound whoever's on the other line making me unhappy, rolling his shoulders and loosening his neck. Snark leans back against the wall, deceptively relaxed, but one hand is toying with the hilt of his gun as it peeks out from his belt, and his dark glare is a far cry from his usually happy-go-lucky expression. In only a couple of weeks, I've found a group of men who care about me like no one else ever has.
It makes my decision a lot easier than I expect it to be.
“Dad, I love you but I'm not coming home. Izzy deserves to be with her fathers, and I deserve to raise her together with them.” The line is quiet for a long moment. “Dad?”
“Fathers? More than one? I don't understand.”
“I'll explain some other time. I have to go. Dario shot one of them, and I need to know he's okay. We have a lot of things unsaid.”
“Alessandra.”
“I have to—”
“Just know that my hands are tied so long as you remain there with them. The Family knows you're there now, and Papa’s word might give you a thin veil of safety, but they won't trust you anymore. Dario is the one who's here to tell his story, and eventually they'll believe him when you're not here to defend yourself. I will try, but… if you don't come back, you have no future in the Family. Please, please, reconsider. Piccola mia. Think of your mother.”
“I am. And I'm sorry, Dad. I have to go.”
I hang up, and draw a deep breath. I just severed my connection with everyone I grew up with, with my whole life, to be with my baby's fathers. With the men who have chosen to stand with me. With the men who have shown me what honor and integrity really look like, and it's not the inflexible Family honor that was established by a bunch of old men a hundred years ago. I've made my choice.
I wanted to prevent a war, but did I just start one?
19
HAWK
“Hawk! You're sitting up!” Alessa bursts into the room after Doc grudgingly gives her the okay, and shuts the door behind her, leaving us alone. Fuck, the way she's looking at me, like I'm a goddamn invalid. Like she cares about me. It's fucking embarrassing.
“It was just a fucking gunshot. Calm down.” I try not to wince as I shift. For being “just” a gunshot, it fucking stings.
“Are you even listening to yourself?” She stops right in front of the bed, her fists on her hips and her expression disapproving.
“You can ask Doc if you don't believe me. In one side, out the other, nothing important in between.” I shrug. The last thing I need is her to think I'm some kind of goddamn hero. “No big fucking deal.”
“Did it ever occur to you that you're important? The bullet hit you, and you took it for me.” Her face softens like she's about to fucking cry. “Why did you do it? You hate me.”