He looked around at the remaining officers. No one said a word. Steele looked determined to do whatever Brock suggested. Garrett looked exhausted; I had to imagine the combo of being a dad and dealing with this made him the most energy deprived. Connor, as usual, looked like he was searching for the next neck to break.
It was up to Brock.
“I’m not worried that we can’t launch a successful strike,” Brock said, though I wasn’t as convinced of that. “I’m more worried that if we don’t have everyone there, we’ll lower our chances. But if we pull someone away from Lilly and Roger, or God forbid even Cole, they’ll use the opportunity to kill them. And while I know this line of work is dangerous, I’m not fucking putting Cole’s wife and son in the line of danger.”
He cursed loudly and kicked the ground.
“Tonight, we stand guard over those three,” he said. “No one will leave here, except to go to the apartment complex and stand guard. And no one had better fucking dare undermine this order.”
He glared right at Connor and me when he said that. After what had happened with Damian, I could not blame him. Though we’d ultimately succeeded, it felt like a Pyrrhic victory. We’d killed his little brother and escalated tensions far past whatever they had been before in order to accomplish this win. It wasn’t anything that we took pride in, that was for damn sure.
“Understood,” I said.
The rest of the bikers gave their assent.
“All right,” Brock said. “Steele. Take some prospects and go stand watch at the front of the apartment. They may not let us up, but we can keep an eye on any suspicious people in there. Connor, Zack, you two stand duty at the front of the hospital. If we hear bikers pulling up, we all need to know about it before they park. I will stand watch over Cole, just in case they try anything.”
“You want to do it by yourself?” Steele said.
“Yes,” Brock said without hesitation. “I’m the president of this club. I’m the one that is ultimately responsible for whatever happened. I am going to stand outside his room until he wakes, if I have to.”
“We’ll rotate,” Steele said, but Brock brushed him off.
I suppose the only person who could have said that without getting cussed out was Steele. The two went way back, even before the Black Reapers, while the rest of us were more or less accessories; a full part of the club, but not one as rooted in as before.
“Let’s go!”
With that, Connor and I hurried down the stairs and headed to a bench by the front of the hospital, taking a seat. I would have preferred to stay in the hospital to talk—and, maybe, flirt—with Justine, but given that preference, it was probably for the best that I was remaining outside. I needed to focus on protecting the Carters, not on trying to get my dick set up for later.
For a while, Connor and I said nothing. Though on the surface, we seemed to have nothing in common, we actually shared a common approach to the world. We kept to ourselves, only spoke out when we felt it was necessary, and were capable of much more than most people thought.
In short, we liked to be underestimated. Connor wanted the enemy to think that he looked the part but wouldn’t act it, and I wanted them to think that I was the dorky kid who just happened to run in the same orbit as everyone else. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Connor was obvious, because even though he kept to himself, I didn’t think anyone acted surprised when he fought. But I could brawl with the best of them. I didn’t have some deep story about getting bullied by kids, nor did I have some dark history with my parents, though I didn’t talk to them much. I simply saw it as practical and necessary for the town I lived in. I could have had the genius of Einstein, but it wouldn’t have defended me against a brawl with the Bandits.
I did admit, though, I never foresaw the struggle with the Bandits escalating from occasional bar brawl to all-out war in the streets.
After what felt like half an hour of complete silence, Connor actually was the first person to speak.
“Now would be a hell of a time to do our own thing,” he said, “but Brock’s right this time.”
“You’re worried about their strikes to Lilly and Cole?”
He nodded.
“Shit, guess having a woman makes you more of a pussy or something,” Connor said.
He didn’t add on anything more to that. But I understood it well enough. Dating Katie had not made him softer, but it had made him wiser—he wasn’t blindly looking for fights anymore; he was doing so more from a calm and calculated perspective.
“Or it just makes you not an idiot,” I said. “I take it everything is going well with you and the woman?”
Connor snorted. Again, he wasn’t exactly the type of guy to talk like he was on a therapist’s couch.
“Women can be pretty damn surprising,” he said. “Never thought that Katie would be so willing to set up the hit on Damian.”
“But she did.”
“Almost got herself raped and killed.”
