Hell Hounds MC: Welcome to Serenity

Chapter Eleven

Gus had reservations as he pulled up to the rescue. Fixing the mess Staples left was a much more time-consuming task than he thought it would be. Not only was Staples guilty of the theft, but it was clear he hadn’t been maintaining the other accounts either. It was becoming a tangled web and Gus was beginning to think he might have to hire a professional auditor to untangle it all. He was good a keeping books, but trying to figure out this mess was becoming more of a headache.

Thankfully, no one else noticed since the payroll remained unaffected. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have the funds to cover the losses themselves, but it was important to know where and how the money was allocated or else it would only get uglier, especially if the IRS decided to hit him with an audit.

In the back seat, Diesel whined. Gus reached back and gave the canine a pat before looking at the rescue door. He still didn’t know why he was there. Well, that wasn’t true. He knew exactly why he was there.

Nailah.

Just when he thought his heart would never love again, when he thought he would be consumed by betrayal and hate for the rest of his life, she appeared. He had decided he needed companionship, someone who would never betray him. Driving by the rescue, he had impulsively stopped. In the end, not only did he walk away with Diesel, but also Nailah’s phone number.

At first, he tried to talk himself out of calling her. She was more than ten years his junior, there wasn’t any way she would be interested in him. Their background was too different. He tried to come up with a hundred different reasons only for Rubble to shut them all down with one inquiry.

What are you so afraid of?

So, he took the leap and, by god, he fell in love with her the very first day. They dated for a year. He wanted to take his time, determined that eventually he would find an end to his attraction. But he never did. She just snuggled more firmly into his heart. After a year it was clear, he couldn’t live without her.

When he finally got the courage to propose, she laughed, “What the hell took you so long?”

Certainly, their union hadn’t come without some bumps in the road. There was her ex-boyfriend, for starters. In the beginning, he had sensed some hesitation on her part as well and eventually earned her trust to learn about the man who was harassing her.

Gus lost count of the number of times he warned the other away. The son of a b***h wouldn’t take the hint. His mind went back to the night it finally came to a head.

* * *

“Here’s to the happy couple!” Rubble shouted, raising a bottle as the room full of Hell Hound Brothers toasted their president.

Gus smirked, leaning on the bar, one arm possessively wrapped around Nailah as she perched on the barstool and leaned against him. Her engagement ring glinted in the neon lights of the bar. She smiled at the Brothers without embarrassment as she snuggled with their president. Though she had been nervous about meeting them at first, she now felt comfortable and relaxed.

She didn’t know how other MCs acted, but the Hell Hounds certainly left an impression. Sure, they were a bit rough around the edges and maybe the younger ones needed to mature a bit, but they were good men at heart. And it seemed they all had their eyes on her, ready to assist her at a moment’s notice.

Just the previous day, she had been struggling to load several bags of dog food into her car when a pair of them unexpectedly showed up to help. Not only did they load up her vehicle, but they also followed her back to the rescue to unload it all. They had even given her a name: Madam Prez.

At times, she felt like a den mother. Some of the younger ones certainly weren’t shy about coming up to her asking for a woman’s opinion. In particular, Mad Dog was extra polite and well-behaved in her presence. She didn’t know all the details about his past, but she did know his mother abandoned him when he was young. Gus had become something of a surrogate father and, even though she was not that much older than Mad Dog himself, she was now his surrogate mother with hers and Gus’s relationship advancing to the next stage.

“Nailah!”

She jerked at the harsh shout and turned to the door to see the last person in the world she ever wanted to see again. Tristan stepped into the bar still wearing his uniform that she once thought so dashing. Nailah could kick herself for being so naïve. One should never judge a book by its cover, as Tristan and Gus both taught her.

“What do you think you are doing in a bar?” Tristan boldly stepped inside as if blind to the fifty members of the MC gathered to celebrate their President’s fortune. “Get your things. I’m taking you home.”

“No,” Nailah stood, facing him. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Excuse me? You’d rather embarrass me by hanging out with this—riffraff.”

“That’s all I ever hear from you; how embarrassing I am. My rescue embarrasses you. My aromatherapy candles embarrass you. My crystals embarrass you. Well, if I’m so embarrassing, why don’t you go find someone else?!”

“We are not having this conversation here.”

“Why not? Why not get it all out? Tell them how much I embarrass you! You’ve already told everyone else you meet because god forbid you take my feelings into account! You don’t think it hurts when someone calls you an embarrassment? When they criticize every little thing you do and nitpick you apart until you don’t know if you can find all the pieces and put yourself back together? Well it does, and I’m sick of it!” Nailah shouted as several Brothers nodded their heads in agreement.

They glanced at their President, trying to gauge his reaction to this confrontation. He had warned them about the man lingering around her and that they should protect her should he show up. Everyone was ready to follow through with whatever action the President deemed necessary.

Didn’t Gus promise that he would always be there? Didn’t he say he loved all of her idiosyncrasies? Didn’t he say that she would always be safe, that the Brothers would never let anything happen to her, even if he wasn’t at her side?

Wasn’t he still wearing the black good luck, seven-knot bracelet she wove herself and gave him on their one-month anniversary? Yesterday, she gave him a triple protection bracelet of hematite, obsidian and tiger’s eye, explaining the benefits of each stone, and he hadn’t laughed once, not even a chuckle. He held out his hand and insisted she put it on him. Then he sank to his knees and proposed.

Never once did he snicker or nitpick or belittle her. When she moved into his home and started arranging her crystals, he didn’t complain or stop her. When she suggested moving the furniture to be more in tune with feng shui, he called Rubble to help, as he didn’t want her to strain or hurt herself while they followed her instructions. She never felt judged. She never felt she was a burden.

When she burned their first breakfast after moving in together and was practically in tears. Gus was immediately at her side. Turning off the stovetop, he gently wiped away her tears and held her, swaying and stroking her hair. Before she knew it they were dancing. He twirled her and dipped her with the most mischievous grin on his face. She forgot all about breakfast. They both did.

“Gus loves me for who I am,” Nailah declared. “He loves me! Not some idea he’s concocted in his head! He doesn’t think I need to change! He thinks I’m perfect the way I am! And we’re getting married!”

She proudly flashed her engagement ring. It was only half of the set Gus had bought. The second half he would give her once they said I do. Both were engraved, and the full message wouldn’t be legible until both were together. Gus couldn’t wait for that moment.

“How can you be so stupid!” Tristan sneered, grabbing her arm and tugging toward the door. “We’re leaving!”

“No!”

Suddenly, Tristan came to a halt as a searing pain ran up his arm. He turned around to see Gus had a firm grip on his wrist. With a cold look, Gus twisted it, forcing him to release Nailah.

“Rubble.”

“Yep,” Rubble stepped forward and placed a protective hand on Nailah’s shoulder.

“Let’s talk, Tristan,” Gus said, shoving him toward the door.

Nailah moved to say something, but a gentle squeeze stopped her. She looked up at Rubble, who gave her a small smile, “Sometimes, you have to let them settle their matters on their own.”

Tristan stumbled outside as Gus gave him another shove. Catching himself, he smirked, “I hope you know the repercussions of accosting an officer of the law.”

He turned only to meet a fist. Pain surged through him as he fell backward and sprawled out on his back. Tristan managed to sit up, gripping his bleeding nose, and looked to see Gus standing over him.

“The only reason you’re still breathing is because you never touched her,” Gus said. “Remember that.”