She had finally realized her life was in danger and decided Brage was the only one who could keep her safe.
She'd taken responsibility for the Moroad attack without anyone asking, and Brage no longer believed she'd instigated the meeting. Slag had gone after Moroad and expected retaliation before she'd arrived.
"You can't argue that she doesn't do her job. She fits in at The Fire Ring as much as Lizzy, Coco, Heather, and Monica." Brage inhaled deeply. "There are three hundred members we can use to watch her. I have no problem with that. And, if she wants to come and go, I'll go with her. For her protection and the club's."
Roar studied him, thumping his thumb against the table. Their friendship spanned years; his word golden. He saw no reason to keep Dinah under lock and key at night.
He'd never claimed a woman before. Though he wasn't making that declaration with Dinah, he also wasn't going to let her go out on her own and walk out of his life. Not yet. Her safety came first.
"Despite everything, she is a good worker and gets along with the others at the bar." Roar exhaled loudly. "Lizzy's been telling me Dinah's a good woman lately, despite the trouble."
He dipped his chin. He'd lived with the woman for a while now. His opinion went from self-beating himself for bringing danger to Slag to wanting to help Dinah. There was more to her story, and he had a feeling once she learns the people she always thought of as family wasn't blood-related to her, she would remember what happened to her before the age of six.
There was more going on with her than being mixed up with Moroad and coming after Slag.
Roar looked around the table. "Go ahead and vote."
Marcus, Elling, Joel, Peer, and Viktor voted on Brage's side. He nodded with respect.
"I'll inform the other members." Roar remained sitting. "For future plans, we need a crew together to make a visit to Brikken next weekend."
"I'll have names for you in the morning." Brage pulled on his beard. "Do you still want to intercept them on their run?"
"For now, that's the only way we'll make contact with them. They have their compound closed up tight. They match us man to man. There's too big of a risk going in shooting. We need to put some worry on them, not point a fucking bull's eye on our back. We've already got Moroad targeting us." Roar thumped the table. "Meeting shelved. I need to go meet with Finn about Dag."
"Is he having problems?" asked Peer.
Brage waited to hear about Dag's condition. Wrapped up in Dinah's problems, he could've missed something.
"Ja." Roar tapped the side of his head. "He's stubborn."
"Good thing he is." Brage whistled softly. "We could've lost him to Moroad."
"Ja," came the group answer.
With every member of Nordic descent, they all fell back on speaking Norwegian on occasion.
Leaving the room, Brage walked out to the main room. There were still a couple of hours left until Dinah needed to go to work.
He found her sitting at the table with Heather and Monica, right where he'd asked her to wait for him, knowing the other women would make sure her needs were met.
Dinah noticed him before he'd reached her. He wanted to touch her and get some kind of reaction, but she simply watched him, waiting for what he needed her to do next. Her lack of emotions bothered him.
He'd admired her strength and independence when he'd first noticed her at the party. Loved the fact she wasn't throwing herself at him or bending over backward to get him to notice. He'd rather work for her attention.
It killed him that she'd checked out, physically and mentally.
He held out his hand. "Let's walk outside."
She ignored the offer to help her out of the chair and stood on her own. He nodded at the other ladies and walked with Dinah out the door.
In the alley, he kept going. There were members hanging around the motorcycles, and he needed privacy. He had a feeling, they'd both had enough of the bedroom lately.
Near the back door of the bar, he stopped and leaned against the wall. "Are you feeling okay to work tonight?"
She nodded.
"Did you eat lunch?"
She gazed down the alley, avoiding any eye contact. "Yes."
"What?"
She looked at him. "What?"
"What did you eat?"
"Oh." She crossed her arms and cupped her elbows. "The same thing as everyone else. An open sandwich and a slice of cantaloupe."
"Ja...good," he murmured, glad she wasn't refusing to eat.
"Do you speak Norwegian? I mean, beyond saying ja," she asked.
"When I call my family." Encouraged because she questioned his life, he wanted her to keep talking. "Why?"
She shrugged. "Some of the other members do."
"A lot don't." He lit a cigarette and found her eyeing him. Holding out his pack of smokes, he offered her one.
She shook her head. "I quit."
"Good for you." He exhaled in the air. "I started smoking when I was fourteen years old, thinking it was an occasional thing, and here I am, down to a half a pack a day."
"You need to chew gum. Any kind and flavor. It helps."
His cock pulsed, remembering how she always chewed gum when he'd first met her and tasted like cinnamon. He was partial to cinnamon.
"Slag has decided they are no longer holding you at the clubhouse." He inhaled on the cigarette, needing to relax.
She raised her perfectly arched brows. "You believe me?"
"There are a lot of holes in your story, Dinah. I don't think your brothers are who you think they are, and I have a feeling you know that. But I don't think you came here to destroy Slag. You came to protect your bro—Tony Reed. Luckily, Slag doesn't discuss business with outsiders, and there was no chance
