Innocent (The Exiled Eight MC Book 3) Read online

  He had this beautiful woman who kept the old man on his toes, and also Zoey’s daughter, Blair, who asked my dad to adopt her because of how he had watched over and protected her through a hellish few months.

  Not to mention, a couple of years ago, my half-sister, Meyah, showed up, and now she was about to give him his first grandchild.

  I had turned our small construction business into a billion-dollar company and was barely here.

  And then there was Ripley. Who I was going to make sure became my dad’s new VP in a month or so when the current one stepped down.

  The club was in my blood, but it was Ripley’s life. It was what he lived and breathed. It always had been since we were kids. It was the reason why he was so hurt by what our mom did, by how she felt this absolute disconnection from the club and everything it stood for. He didn’t understand that and didn’t know how someone could feel that way when he saw this amazing brotherhood he’d die for before he walked away.

  Which is why I was pretty sure the conversation we were going to have when it happened was going to seriously hurt. It meant admitting to him, my dad, and myself that maybe I was more like her than any of us would’ve ever imagined.

  “Don’t you have a plane to catch?” Rip announced, grabbing my spray bottle and scrubbing brush off the ground. “I guess I can finish cleaning this for you. Or you’re gonna be late.”

  I stepped back, grinning at my baby brother. “That’s the great thing about owning the plane… it doesn’t leave without you.” I backed away with a grin. “But thanks, man. Make sure she sparkles.”

  Rip cursed me under his breath, and my dad grabbed my arm before I could escape completely. “Good luck with the meeting tomorrow,” he said, squeezing my arm before adding, “There’s still a conversation we need to have, though, and it’s going to happen when you get back.”

  I swallowed the nervous lump in my throat but nodded. “Yeah.”

  There was no avoiding it.

  I’d been fighting to balance two sides of my life for almost a year.

  And there was one side that had started to pull my attention a lot harder than the other, which, if I continued to try and keep up this balancing act would, in the end, send everything crashing to the ground.

  So soon I’d have to decide.

  And no matter which way I went, it was going to hurt.

  CASSIDY

  “I’m going to miss this place.”

  The urge to twirl several times and let out a sad sigh as we walked down the bricked path was quickly squashed by Aspen’s narrowed side-eye. “We’re only leaving for the summer,” she deadpanned, rolling her eyes. “This will still be here in three months when you get back from summer vacation. Actually, if we’re being real, this will still be here during vacation, and we only live down the road.”

  “Wow, I really do love it when I’m ready to take off, and you just grab me and bring me straight back down to earth like that,” I teased sarcastically.

  She shrugged, flicking at the piercing in her lip with her tongue, unfazed by the comment. “I’m a realist, you’re a flighty dreamer. It’s why we work.”

  I grabbed at my throat, choking dramatically. “I’m sorry, did you just call me flighty?”

  Aspen suddenly started skipping, and for a second, I thought I might actually be in an alternative universe. But then the mocking began. “Flowers and sparkles and orgasms,” she sang loudly, ignoring the couple who grabbed each other and sneered at her as she spun past them. “I love it all!”

  I stopped, and she paused just a few feet away, a mischievous grin daring me to deny it. “I do like all of those things.”

  She cackled out a witchy laugh and fell into step with me again. “You’re still okay with coming to King’s on Saturday night while I’m on that Tinder date, right?” Aspen questioned casually after a few steps in silence. She pulled at her sweatshirt nervously, tugging it down over her hands.

  We paused at the street corner. I had to turn right to work, and she’d head left to the apartment we shared. “Of course,” I told her. “I’ll happily sit in the corner with a hoodie and some dark glasses, watching every move he makes, ready to leap the second he steps out of line.” I placed one hand on my hip and thrust my fist in the air.

  The look on her face was classic. With one eyebrow raised, her mouth opened just slightly as if she were trying to figure out how to not offend me. “Um, interesting. Is that your superhero pose?”

  I slumped, hands dropping to my sides. “It’s not good?”

  “Needs a little work,” she answered, scrunching up her nose.

  We walked backward in separate directions. “I’ll try to have it perfected by Saturday night,” I promised, holding up my finger to silence her when she opened her mouth to protest. “Just in case. I promise. I’m sure Benny will be a great guy.”

  “It’s Danny,” she called back, throwing her hands in the air and finally spinning on her heel and stomping in the other direction, her inaudible grumbles following behind her.

  I couldn’t help but giggle as I turned and began to jog the other way.

  Aspen and I had been almost inseparable since I moved in one day after an almost three-hour bus trip where all I did was look over my shoulder and cry the whole time.

  I was broken.

  I may not have realized it at the time because I’d spent so long in survival mode, but I knew it now. Now that I was free and thriving. I’d even braved a couple of dates in the last month, determined not to let Brian impact my ability to love.

  Though they’d both turned into one-night stands because while I was sure he wouldn’t ruin my love life forever, he sure as hell had ruined my ability to get to know someone.

  Aspen hadn’t exactly been looking for a beaten, recovering, fearful roommate the day I arrived on her doorstep at her aunt’s suggestion.

  I’d even seen the ad she was using to try and find a roommate.

  Bedroom available for a female college student only. No weirdos.

  I was a bit of a weirdo.

  But thankfully, she made an exception because she kind of is too.

  The situation was practically perfect.

  I enrolled at Boston University a couple of days after I arrived since the campus was close to our apartment. That place was beautiful, and I wasn’t joking when I said I’d miss being there over summer break. Thankfully, though, we had to walk through it whenever we wanted to go to our favorite coffee shop—which was the only reason Aspen had gotten out of bed this early.

  She was probably headed back there now, while I hurried down the sidewalk, my bag bouncing on my back as I attempted to powerwalk the four blocks to the small flower shop I worked at—Leaf It To Me.

  Flowers kept me sane at a time when there wasn’t a lot of beauty in my life. Once the controlling started with Brian, he slowly eased himself between me and everything I loved. He forced me to cancel so many catch-ups with my friends that they just stopped asking, he made my friends and family seem like the villains for always questioning bruises, and he guilted me into quitting work when a young, attractive guy started working, and suddenly, I must have been cheating.

  Losing my sister, though, hurt the most.

  Eden was my big sister and my best friend.

  The one who constantly refused to quit on me.

  I knew that every time I needed her, all I had to do was call, and she’d come running. But after the third time, the fourth time, the fifth time, I stopped calling her. I couldn’t keep seeing the pain on her face, the utter devastation when I’d go back to him. Not only did I know I was hurting her by forcing her to see me like that, but it got to the point where I was quite simply embarrassed.

  I felt weak.

  I felt worthless.

  Like I didn’t deserve her support even if I knew she’d give it to me over and over again.

  And even now, I still didn’t.

  Flowers became the one thing I had to hang on to.

  Our neighbo
r had the most beautiful garden I’d ever seen. I’d sit and stare at it out the window for hours, studying the leaves, the colors, and watching the flowers bloom. They gave me something to focus on. Something beautiful that he couldn’t take from me.

  They gave me life when I felt like I was losing mine.

  And I knew if they helped me that much, I needed to use them to help others too.

  A car horn blared, and I jumped, grabbing hold of the door to Leaf It To Me with one bead of sweat dripping down the side of my face. “One minute to spare,” I huffed breathlessly but with a smile, unlocking the old wooden door and pushing it open. “Sandy, I’m here!”

  Sandy, the owner, has had the place for more than ten years. She’s older, well into her sixties, but it was her dream, just like mine, to spend her days surrounded by the beauty and the smell, and to use my passion to help other people spread joy and say the words or share the emotions that maybe they find hard to express. I skipped through the packed store, full of arrangements, potted plants, and a carefully organized array of balloons, knick-knacks, and decorations that were the perfect accessory to a stunning bouquet. Sandy stepped out of the slim doorway leading to the back room, her green apron tied around her waist and her hands in the front pocket. “Morning, dear, how are you?”

  I placed my bag behind the counter and grabbed my apron off the hook behind me, pulling it over my head and wrapping it around my waist, thankful for how my heart was beginning to slow. “Sorry, I’m a little late. I went to get coffee with Aspen before work,” I explained, shaking my head. “She hates doing it by herself. Are you all done?”

  Sandy came in early to take the deliveries and prearrange a few fresh flowers for the early-morning-before-work rush that would start in about ten minutes. Then she’d head home, and I’d use the small counter in the corner of the shop to make more during the day to replace the ones we sold or make personalized requests.

  Sandy really relied on me and another employee, Jessa, to keep things running. Because while she followed her dream of owning her own shop, it was only a few years after she bought it when arthritis settled in her hands. She struggled most days to cut, hold, and work with her fingers for more than an hour or so before she needed to rest because of the pain. Some days were better than the others, but it broke my heart to see her struggle to do the one thing she loved.

  I didn’t want that to be me.

  Brian stole two years from my life, and now I was ready to fight to get them back.

  “Excuse me?” I spun around to find an older man with salt-and-pepper hair standing in the corner of the store, a heavy frown on his face.

  I stood a little straighter, and Sandy gave me a quick wink before ducking out the back door, trusting me with her business—her baby. “Sorry, sir, how can I help?”

  He seemed to spin in circles, trying to make sense of the array of different choices. “My daughter just got a promotion at work,” he explained, looking over at me, the confusion on his face actually softening. “I just want something that says I’m proud of her.”

  I pressed my hand to my heart. “That’s beautiful. Can I make a suggestion?”

  “Please do!”

  I reached for a small bouquet a few feet away, shaking off the water and holding it out to him. “Dahlias often represent inner strength and change,” I explained, watching his eyes light up as he held them in his hands. “It’s not a massive bouquet, so it’s also good if she doesn’t like a big fuss made over her.”

  “Wow,” he murmured, laughing softly under his breath. “That’s her to a T. I’ll take them, please. You’re so young, how do you know so much about flowers? It must take a lot of work.”

  I shrugged. “When you love something this much, it doesn’t feel like work.”

  He hummed quietly to himself as he paid and thanked me more before slipping out the door just as another customer stepped in—this one looking a lot more concerned.

  “Um, are you okay? Can I hel—”

  “My girlfriend caught me with her sister,” he rushed out, though, for a second, I wondered if I’d heard him right. “I need something that says I’m sorry, please don’t leave me.”

  It wasn’t my job to judge.

  I was here to help.

  To make people’s days better.

  And this guy needed lots of help.

  “Tulips, we’re gonna need bunches of tulips.”

  DRAKE

  “Greg’s gonna love this,” Reed boasted, flicking through the proposal in front of him, one we’d worked on for months with surveys and projections and meetings with the locals. “That man has really started to lean into the science and technology stuff.”

  Sometimes investors were merely rich men looking to make themselves richer.

  They were helpful, usually willing to hand over large sums of money and see the benefit in the return they would make at the end.

  Sometimes, though, it was also about finding someone who was passionate about what you’re trying to build. When the profit margins are lower, it helps when the investor is happy to see smaller money in return for something they can see bigger potential in than simply the dollar signs. And that was the kind of project I was attempting to pitch today.

  The new building would include a small Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics or STEM—as most people called it—space with funding the high school next door had raised, along with a ground floor that would become retail space and small, affordable apartments above. It was a type of plan we hadn’t done before, but in places like Boston, there were so many more opportunities to create these kinds of unique spaces and buildings.

  Much more so than in Vegas.

  And it was these things that kept me here more often than back home these days.

  These things which had me considering buying something and moving out here permanently.

  “This meeting room is nice for a rental, but wouldn’t you love to have your own place here, receptionist outside, your office just down the hall?” Reed described with a smile as he placed the paperwork on the table and leaned back in the cushy leather recliner.

  Reed Lawson and I had been friends for years.

  We were around the same age, and he was one of my first investors when I stepped out of business school, took the club’s reasonably well-known construction business, and decided to make it into something bigger. At the time, Reed was just starting out in business, and so was I—the two of us trying to make a name for ourselves. We were on a mission to prove we could be something more than what people saw or thought they knew about us. And we were going to do it by building empires with pure hard work and determination.

  The first project we took on was a gamble.

  And a flop.

  But we learned hard lessons and didn’t make the same mistakes twice. Less than four years later, we were both on Forbes 30 Under 30 lists.

  “You just need to make room for me in your building,” I scoffed, raising my brows. “I know you’ve got the space.” I had been taking Reed to meetings with me while I was in Boston. He lived here, and I’d found a little more confidence in having him back me when talking to business associates or future investors. Maybe that was a club thing, though—the strength that fills you knowing your brothers are standing behind you, ready to have your back in a second if you need them.

  Before he could come up with some shitty excuse about why he didn’t want to share his office building with me, the door to the meeting room opened, and three guys walked in, taking seats opposite us at the table.

  Though not one of them was Greg Barlowe, who I was expecting.

  The man in the center was much younger, maybe in his forties, his hair slicked back with so much product that it looked like it could possibly be snapped off at the root. While the other two who sat on either side of him appeared as if they should have retired about a hundred and fifty years ago.

  “Hi, my name’s Elton,” Mr. Slick Hair announced, holding his hand out across the
table. Reluctantly, I leaned forward and shook it. “I’m Greg Barlowe’s son-in-law. I’m starting to help out with some different parts of his business, including major investments. Mr. Barlowe is eager to invest, but I’d like to really narrow down on the different projects he’s looking at. I want to make sure he has a solid portfolio.”

  This guy was talking, but all I could hear was complete and utter shit falling from his lips.

  “My name’s Drake Shaw, and this is my friend and occasional business partner, Reed Lawson,” I introduced, and Reed raised his hand just slightly, but I could tell he was getting the same vibes from this guy as I was.

  “Huh,” Elton said, the little bit of skin between his eyes pinching together as he flipped through the pile of papers in front of him, yanking out one in particular. “Sorry, I just wanted to make sure I had all the information right. You introduced yourself as Drake Shaw.”

  “That’s my name.”

  “Huh,” he said again, this time a little higher pitched than the last and had me clenching my fist at my side. He held the papers up in front of his face and leaned back into his seat. “But here on these forms it has the signature of Hudson Shaw.”

  The sound of that name made every muscle in my body tighten like it was preparing to see the person who I was named after, ready to drive my fist through his damn face.

  “That’s your legal name, isn’t it?” he prodded further, though he already knew the answer to the fucking question.

  “Hudson was the name I was given the day I was born,” I answered through clenched teeth.

  “And Drake is your… biker name?”

  “It’s the name everyone has called me since then.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because Hudson was my grandfather’s name, and he was a misogynistic, holier-than-thou bastard who forced my mom to marry my dad and promised to make her life a living hell if she ever tried to leave,” I announced, getting to my feet and slamming my palms down on the table between us. “Except she already felt like she was there and figured the real hell couldn’t be much worse, so she slit her wrists in our bathtub where my six-year-old brother found her.”