Sebring

So he also knew Nick had some of the skills he needed to get the job done.

And she’d taught him patience.

He’d acquire the skills he didn’t have. If it took him a decade, he’d do it.

Then he’d get the job done.

* * * * *

Five Months Later

Nick stood by the river, its banks covered in tiny but bright bursts of wildflowers, the spring thaw of the mountains having subsided, the rush of water still heavy but also soothing.

He felt him coming before he came to a stop at Nick’s side.

“Me and Cassie are glad you showed,” Deacon Gates said to him.

“You put a pink bow on your dog,” Nick replied.

“I didn’t,” Deacon returned.

“Your woman put a pink bow on your dog,” Nick said then turned to look at the man at his side. “And that dog is a German shepherd. It’s a wonder every shepherd breeder in North America isn’t rushin’ this location to put a gun to your head to demand payback for that dog’s dignity.”

Deacon grinned at him, shrugging one shoulder. “It’s a wedding.”

It was.

That day, in a gazebo by a river in the middle of fucking nowhere in the Colorado Mountains, the man known throughout the dark, harsh, fetid, hostile underbelly of this great United States as Ghost got married to one of the most beautiful women Nick had ever laid eyes on.

She was also one of the most down-to-earth.

Nick had been around Cassidy Swallow-now-Gates a number of times since it all went down and that day was the first he’d seen her wear makeup.

Even made up, her hair done in big, soft curls, pulled back at the top and sides, pins hidden with fixed daisies, she still got married in a long white cotton dress that had a two foot deep hem of lace at the bottom but other than that it just looked like a seriously fucking pretty sundress.

“Happy for you,” Nick muttered, looking back to the water.

“Worried about you,” Deacon responded.

Nick returned his attention to Deacon.

“See it in your eyes,” Deacon went on quietly.

He would. Deacon had seen the same in the mirror for years.

Nick knew Deacon’s story. Nick knew Deacon descended into that foul underbelly to find his missing wife. Nick knew Deacon stayed there after what he did but especially after what he found when he located his wife. Nick knew this not because Deacon shared this information liberally to anyone who might listen. Deacon didn’t say much to anyone, except the woman he loved, the woman an hour ago he’d made his wife.

But in the past months Knight had rallied the troops to try to pull his brother’s shit together. To yank him out of his grief. To steer him from the path he was determined to tread, even if Nick had not shared that shit with anyone either.

But Knight knew.

Deacon knew.

Rhash, Raid, Marcus, Sylvie and Creed—Knight’s closest friends and strongest allies, now Nick’s friends—they all knew too.

If the same happened to them, this was the path they’d be on.

With no chance of veering off.

“I need you to teach me,” Nick said straight out.

A muscle jumped in Deacon’s cheek.

“You know I need you to teach me,” Nick pushed. “You know if you don’t, I’ll get someone else to do it. You know, Deacon.”

“Your brother wants—”

Nick shook his head. “Love my brother, means everything to me how he’s kicked in. How he’s given me his family to help me get through. But sometimes Knight can’t get what he wants. You know this is one of those times. Fuck, he knows this is one of those times.”

Nick looked beyond Deacon to the wedding-goers milling about the wildflowers, the streamers, the balloons, the tables laden with food and booze, to a band setting up well beyond the gazebo.

He looked back at Deacon.

“Enjoy your wedding. You deserve it, man. Enjoy your honeymoon. You’re in, we talk when you get back. You’re not, no hard feelings.”

Deacon moved closer.

Nick braced.

“You just looked at what I got,” Deacon’s voice rumbled low. “I thought I lost it all and you just saw all that behind me. Streamers. Balloons. A fucking German shepherd with a pink bow around her neck. And a woman tied to me I couldn’t even build in a dream. You can move on. You do not need to do what you think you gotta do.”

His voice suddenly raw, Nick whispered, “I had my woman I couldn’t build in a dream. And I sat, tied to a chair, powerless to do anything, looking right into her eyes when they blew a hole through her head. That mission is not complete. Our mission. The one I had with her, our fucking mission. It isn’t complete. There’s work to be done. For her.”

They locked eyes.

They didn’t move.

Deacon broke it.

“I’ll teach you.”

Nick nodded.

Deacon drew breath into his nose.

Then he lifted a hand and slapped Nick on the arm before he turned and walked to the woman that was now his wife, a woman who was beyond even a dream.

Chapter One

His Girls

Olivia

Four Years Later

“Liv, you need to come…now.”

I lifted my gaze from the electronic ledgers I was entering numbers into in my computer to see Tommy, his scarred but still handsome face tight, standing in the door to my office.

I knew that look so I didn’t delay in rolling my chair back, pushing to my feet and moving swiftly across the floor his way.

I didn’t give anything away in any way, not ever. I didn’t raise my voice. I only allowed the minutest reactions to show on my face, to leak from my eyes, to set in my frame.