Puck’s Property by Monique Moreau

ChapterTwenty-Two

It was already past seven o’clock and Puck was dragging his feet about heading home. After Church, he’d gone back to the bar with several of the brothers to clean up. He’d been ignoring Ava’s texts throughout the day. Couldn’t pretend something monumental hadn’t happened but wasn’t ready to disclose what had transpired, either. The cell phone in his back pocket buzzed. Ava would worry, this late in the day. Tearing off his work gloves, he pulled out his cell and shot off a text that he’d be home soon.

“I’m heading out,” he said as he handed his gloves to Whistle and shrugged on his leather jacket. Fifteen minutes later, he was rolling down Ava’s street. With a heavy sigh, he turned off the engine and sat for a moment, inhaling the crisp, cold air into his lungs. Here goes nothing.

The door swung open before he was halfway up the path to her house. Ava was wrapped in her cute little robe, the one that showed off her curves. Her hair was mussed up like she’d been lounging on the sofa, reading a book or her e-reader. Lit from behind, her hair was a halo fashioned out of burnished mahogany. Stomping up the pathway, he took her into his arms, breathing in her comforting tropical fragrance. Her fingers unzipped his leather jacket and burrowed their way around his waist to the small of his back. Her warm lithe body snuggled up to his; the simple gesture tilting his world on its axis. A balmy languidness swept over him after surviving the stress and frustration of the day.

“What happened today? I could feel something was wrong. Then you didn’t reply to my texts,” she chided softly, although it came out muffled against his chest. His muscles tensed, and a weight the size of an elephant settled on his chest. He didn’t want to distress her. He’d sworn to protect her, but here he was, once again, torn between two allegiances.

“I’ll tell you. Let’s go inside.”

They walked in together, and he stripped off his jacket before following her sexy, sashaying ass into the kitchen. Pressing him down into a seat, she asked, “Are you hungry? I made lasagna.”

“That’d be perfect.”

She refused to let him when he raised up to help her. Shooing him back down, she flittered about the kitchen, making his plate, and retrieving a bottle of beer from the fridge. Once everything was settled in front of him, she took a seat.

“I’d rather be eating you out, right now,” he said in full disclosure. He was kind of hungry, but the stress weighing on him suppressed his appetite. He was dead serious about where he’d rather be at that instant.

“You need to eat,” she prodded. “Go on, eat my lasagna. I’ve gotten much better at it over the years. Perfected my grandma’s recipe.”

“Alright,” he said and did his best to dig into the meal she’d prepared. “You crushed it, baby girl. It’s fucking delicious,” he commented. Ava’s cheeks blushed in a pretty way that made him want to snatch her up and carry her off into the bedroom. Once he was halfway through, he placed his knife and fork down against the porcelain lip of the plate and dove into what happened. “The bar got trashed.”

“What?” she replied in genuine alarm. “Was anyone hurt?”

“No, the place was empty when it happened. I found it a fucked-up mess this morning. It was a crazy-ass day, angel. Busy trying to figure out who did it, getting on the phone with the police, filing a police report for the insurance company. I was on the phone for hours with an insurance agent. Then there was the club. We had emergency Church. It was stressful as fuck, to say the least.”

“Oh my God,” she breathed out, her hand covering her mouth. “Who would do such a thing?” Her hand moved over the expanse of the table and grabbed his. Yeah, she understood how invested he was in the bar, how many hours he’d poured into trying to make it a success. Besides running the damn place, he’d set up social media accounts and strategized on other marketing projects.

“That’s the thing. Ava.” He paused and ran a hand through his hair. “It was the Renegades.”

“W-what?” she stuttered, and her eyes blinked rapidly. Her finely arched brows slashed downward. “You’re kidding, right? The Renegades aren’t those kinds of bikers. They’re neither violent nor vengeful. They’re a bunch of middle-aged men who spend more time looking at their bikes than riding them.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought…at first.” Staring straight into her eyes so she understood how serious he was, he stressed, “We have proof. Undeniable proof. It’s them, Ava.”

Her breath hitched.

“My father?” she squeaked out.

Puck’s hands yanked at his hair again. “We don’t have enough details, yet. No idea if he was involved, but I know for sure he wasn’t there. I checked the footage from the cameras myself to make sure. The men were covered and masked, but no one had his body type or moved like him. I can rule him out on that end.”

A pent-up breath blew out of Ava. “Oof, what a relief.”

“I don’t know about that. Your father is the only link between the Squad and the Renegades.”

Ava’s hand slipped off his and tucked into her lap. “What are you saying?”

The crackle, pop, and bang of the old-fashioned radiators hissed and popped in the tension that descended as Ava waited for his response. There was no sugarcoating what he had to say. “This is club business.” He gave her a hard look. “Normally, I don’t talk club business, but in this case, I was given the go-ahead to tell you the Squad will retaliate.”

“Retaliate how?” Her voice rose a few octaves, eyes wide with alarm.

Puck gave a small one-shouldered shrug. “Cutter said it best: tit for tat. We’re gonna hit the Harley store.”

Ava inhaled sharply. “No, not the store,” she breathed out. Shaking her head forcefully, she pleaded, “The store means everything to him. And to Kat. Especially to Kat. She doesn’t only work there part-time; she practically lives and breathes that store and those bikes. That would crush her little heart.” Her hand jerked out and gripped his. “Puck, you can’t let this happen. Please, you need to stop this. People are going to get hurt, and I can’t have my father and Kat mixed up in this somehow.”

“The decision has already been made. The best thing you can do is make sure that neither of them are in the store when we come in to wreck it. Doubt anyone will be on the premises that late at the night, other than guards. At this point, it’s the only thing you have power over.”

“No, no, no,” she said on repeat, her voice inching towards hysteria. “This is my family. You can’t do this.” Her eyes bulged out with panic. “What if I told you I was planning to sabotage Sammi’s business? What if I was going to do something that would hurt the Squad? You wouldn’t stand for that. The difference is that I would never put you in that position in the first place.”

The strain and tightness surrounding his head pressed in harder, the pounding more intense than ever. He didn’t answer. None of her questions were worth answering, because they both knew he’d never allow anyone to touch his family. And, yeah, she was right when she declared she’d never put him in an indefensible position. That was the difference between them. He’d pledged his loyalty and life to the Squad. Outside of Sammi, that was his family. Like a good soldier, he followed orders. Only now, looking across the table at her glistening eyes bleeding fear mixed with disappointment, he realized he might’ve made a misstep.

He was reluctant to admit it, but it hadn’t occurred to him how this would affect Kat. Ava was upset about her father, for sure, but this mess touched Kat, and that was no fucking joke. Kat was to Ava what Sammi was to him. By taking on Ava, he’d taken on Kat. Only he’d forgotten about her, and there was the rub. By not taking up for Kat, he wasn’t taking care of Ava. Without thinking, he’d simply gone along with the rules of engagement as defined by club. The wheels had been set in motion, and he couldn’t see a way to derail them.

Ava broke into his thoughts. “Puck, you have to do something. Go back and talk to Kingdom and the brothers. Figure out another solution. Maybe the Renegades can pay for the damages to the bar. I know they have money.”

It was Puck’s turn to shake his head in denial. “Too late. Shit is already in the works. There’s no stopping them now.”

“You could try,” she countered, a bitter expression on her beautiful face.

He remained silent, the answer to her statement.

A high-pitched screech echoed through the kitchen as Ava scraped her chair back. Slowly, she got to her feet. Standing tall, she stared at him, hands trembling by her sides.

“You’re choosing them over me. Again. After your promises of never letting it happen again… you’re putting me second,” she whispered. “The fact that you won’t even consider changing their minds for me—” The rest of her sentence was choked off.

“Don’t be naïve. You know that’s not how the world works. You start something, you gotta finish it. Those are the fucking rules, Ava. When the Renegades broke into the bar and busted everything up, that was an act of war. I can’t go back to my brothers like a fuckin’ pussy. The Squad can’t appear weak in this town. Once our reputation slips, everything else goes to hell.”

His heart was slamming against his chest bone, black fuzziness eating up the edges of his vision. The deed was fucking done. Why couldn’t she understand that? Yeah, he got that he could’ve fought for her at Church, and that was on him, but the time to negotiate was done. There were rules—specifically, rules of engagement. Only weak-ass clubs went back on their word.

“We voted in Church. We don’t go back on a vote,” he attempted to explain again.

The band around his chest cinched hard; he was having trouble pulling enough oxygen into his lungs.

“I call bullshit,” Ava said, a tremor in her voice.

Aww, Christ, her temper was rearing its ugly head. He had to get out of there before everything went to shit. Nor could he hit rock bottom in front of her, because all signs pointed to an oncoming attack. Grinding his teeth and curling his hands into fists, he held on tight. The panic was bum-rushing him at full speed, like a marauding bull, but he had to keep his shit together until he was out the door.

“I gotta go,” he muttered as he pushed his plate away and stumbled to his feet. His head felt like it was in a vice, getting tighter and tighter until it popped. Patchy jumped on the table, circling between them, and mewled pitifully. Fuck, even the cat was upset.

“What do you mean you’ve got to go? We’re in the middle of a serious discussion,” Ava snapped. Whack, whack, whack. Jesus, my head. “You can’t just leave. It’s bad enough that you didn’t call me when you found the bar in disarray. You called Kingdom and your brothers, but not me. You attended Church and voted on something that directly impacts my life and the people I love, without a thought to what it’d do to me.” Is she talking really loud, or is it me? “Instead of confiding in me, you avoided me. Didn’t answer any of my texts. Here I was, fretting about you being overworked and cooked lasagna, baked a cake.” Her hand flung in the direction of an iced chocolate cake on the center of her countertop. He tried following the direction of her hand, but his head was swimming and his vision was shaky. “Did you consider my peace of mind? Or did you just go full speed ahead the way you usually do? Are we a couple, or are we not? Because this is not how couples communicate.”

“I can’t handle this bullshit right now,” he declared, gripping his temples.

“I see.” She cocked her hip and slammed a hand down on the table. “This is bullshit to you. When it comes to my life and the safety of my family, you’re just going to walk out? Run out on me like you ran out on your PSI? Are you planning to avoid me like you avoid treatment?”

Her questions assaulted him like a flock of vultures, each one pecking away at his patience and self-restraint.

“Fuck this, I’m out,” he declared in a tight voice. It felt like a bullet had blown a hole into his head as stabbing pain swarmed over him.

Shoulders back, Ava lifted her chin in a stubborn tilt as she cautioned, “If you walk out that door, you better never come back, Puck. I won’t be abandoned a second time. I’m warning you, I won’t tolerate it.”

“And I don’t take kindly to ultimatums,” he shot back, practically blind with pain.

Eyes fluttering with unshed tears, her voice cracked as she asked in a small voice, “Are you really leaving?”

“Sure fuckin’ looks like it,” he snapped.

“Don’t do it,” she implored, but he was too far gone. He could barely talk through the screaming agony in his head, much less admit he was having an attack and needed to get a grip before he could say another word.

It was too much. Too much. Clawing at his throat, he pushed away from the table and propelled himself out of the kitchen. Stalking across the living room, he flung the door open and pounded the sidewalk.

He couldn’t think straight as he sprinted down the street and turned the corner. He could barely see more than a few feet of sidewalk in front of him as he pumped his arms and put more distance between himself and Ava. By the time he stopped, he was many blocks away from her. Crouching down on his haunches, forearms on knees, he heaved in gusts of air, sweeping his head from side to side until his vision returned.

Burying his head in his hands, he shuddered. Christ, what the hell did I do?