I rolled my eyes and told him, “As soon as I get Harmony’s finances sorted, I’ll buy my own bike.”
His smile faded, and he said, “I’m not gonna go all caveman macho biker on you often, and if you want to get a bike, I’m good with that, but you won’t ride it around the MC. You’ll be on the back of my bike when we go to the club, or go on rides.”
I looked at him a few seconds and saw he was serious.
“I can’t ride my own bike when ya’ll go fun places?”
He shook his head, and I could see it was important, so I said, “Okay, I’ll ride on the back of your bike for a few months, at least. Beyond that, no promises.”
“A year.”
“Six months.”
“Nine months.”
Yeah, no. Time to start going backwards. “Five months.”
He chuckled and said, “Fine, six months, but talk to me before you do anything, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.” I put the lasagna in the oven, set the timer, and told him, “I worked on my business plan today, and Aaron Drake made me another offer.” I took a breath and plunged in. “He wants me to try to hack into a corporation, and if I can manage, then detail how I did it. If I can’t, then write a report of what I tried, and the results. Either way, he’ll buy me two Clydesdales once we’re settled on the farm, arrange for delivery, and pay me boarding for them for two years, as if they’re his. At the end of two years, he figures I’ll have laundered enough income to pretend to buy the horses from him.”
“Smart, and it’ll work. You interested?”
“Hell, yeah, I’m interested. He says he has a couple of jobs coming up, and can do the horse thing in payment for those, as well.” Aaron and Sophia had walked me through some kind of portal, and we’d ended up in Switzerland in a matter of minutes. From there, it was a piece of cake to collect my cash and bring it home. Aaron knew I wasn’t hurting for money, but needed a way to legitimize the cash I already had, so I could use it.
“Thought you were going to retire Ice?”
I sobered. “Yeah, I am, but this won’t be Ice. It’ll be white hat stuff, and as long as I’m not writing anything, no one’ll recognize my code.”
He nodded and tilted his head, thinking. “Okay, I have a couple of stipulations. You do nothing from home, and you set up a laptop specifically for your white hat stuff, and it never logs on from home.”
“I was going to do that, anyway. I’m not stupid, Brain. I’ve done this before.”
“Yeah, but you weren’t mine, before. Also, if you fucked up and someone followed past your proxies, you could just pick up and move to another city. You can’t do that, anymore. This is home.”
I stepped to him, hugged him, and said, “I know. I can’t wait until we can buy the farm and start living there. I won’t do anything to jeopardize our new life. I promise.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Brain
Everyone looked our way as Harmony and I took our helmets off, and it felt as if every eye was on us as we walked across the parking lot.
Her face wasn’t camouflaged here, on RTMC property, but she still wore glasses and took precautions when we were out and she wasn’t wearing a helmet. We’d tested her face on government cameras three times now — in New York again, in a small town in Florida, and in Charleston, South Carolina. There’d been no activity, but we weren’t going to relax just yet.
I walked her to the table with the food, and we put the four lasagna pans on it, and then I sat us at another table with Duke, Gen, and a handful of others. Gonzo sat down beside her, put his arm around her for a brief hug, and she leaned into him, smiled, and talked to him a few minutes. I could see and smell the surprise at this — Gonzo fucked women, he didn’t make friends with them. The only exception anyone was aware of was Gen, and now my Harmony had been included, and this just upped everyone’s curiosity about her.
People stopped by to talk to us and be introduced, and Harmony handled herself with class.
The paintball battles were a blast, and even though the men ended up beating the women, they gave us a run for our money.
And it was nice to be on the same team with my brothers, again. Duke hugged me when it was over — not a sideways guy hug, but a full-on embrace, and I hugged him back.
He told me, “Great to have you back. You leave again and I’ll kick your ass.”
“Good to be back. You hurt my woman again and I’ll kick yours.”
He grinned as he pulled away and said, “Honestly? I think I may be more afraid of her than you.” His eyes went more serious as he lowered his voice to say, “I saw the look in her eyes when she ended Ivankov. She’s a scary, frosty bitch when she needs to be.”