“A bullet would hurt him the most.”
“Hustle, pipe down for a second. Believe me, I want nothing more than to put this motherfucker in the ground, but Waverley is right,” King said. “Someone like him disappearing would bring scrutiny down on us. He might be working for us now, but his dad hated the club and I’m certain he’s rolling in his grave knowing his son is doing this,” his lip tilted in a smile at that. “Reinhart has friends in the mayor’s office too. Taking him out isn’t the right option.”
“I can’t believe this,” Hudson shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re even considering this after what he did. I’m not just going to sit here an-”
“You can and you will,” King shouted. “And that is an order, Hustle. You stay away from him. We’ll manage this. Waverley is right. I’m not above maiming the little fuck, which will come eventually, maybe when he’s in lock up, we have favours we can use to pull in there if necessary.”
“Fuck this,” Hudson stormed for the door.
“I’m warning you,” King said in a deep voice. “You disobey me we’ll have trouble.”
Hudson paused at the door, but he didn’t look back. I watched his shoulders rise with tension, but he nodded his head before he stormed out, slamming the door hard behind him. King sighed, and I looked back at him.
“We do this my way?” I asked, holding my breath while I waited for his answer.
“I can speak to Cassie tomorrow,” Warren said, even though his own jaw was tight. “I know we have enough going on with the Kingsmen but I’m not sitting on this. He hurt her,” he paused a moment. “And Hud,and given he approached her tonight, I’m not convinced he won’t try something again, soon.”
“He won’t be allowed back in the compound,” King said. “Let everyone know. Now get the fuck out of here. Waverley,” he got to his feet, looking a little awkward. “Get some sleep yeah and don’t worry about this.”
“Okay,” I said, not sure how else to respond.
Warren ushered me out of the office walked me back to the house. There was no sign of Hudson, I could only hope he wasn’t going against King’s orders, I hated to think of him off on his own.
We needed to talk about this. But I wasn’t sure how to broach it with him or if I had the strength to go through with it. Telling him before was more than I could handle. Warren put his hand on the small of my back, pushing me towards the door.
“Is Connor okay?” I asked, another thing playing on my mind, as we walked back to the house.
Warren blew out a heavy breath. “He won’t speak to me.”
“Where is he?” I asked, concerned.
“He went to the annex with a couple of club girls.”
I widened my eyes in shock.
“Don’t worry, he wouldn’t do anything like that. Neither of us would. And he isn’t doing it to get back at me. They mother him and he gets off on that. I know he is safe when he’s with them.”
In the brief time I’d been here, I was realizing how hard things were for him and Connor. It seemed like there was always something going on. If they just came out, would it make life easier or is most of this to do with his thought processes since his attack? It might make things easier for him and Connor’s relationship, but not with the club, it was messed up.
“Don’t worry about me and Con,” Warren put his arm around my neck and pulled me to him as we climbed the steps to the porch. “Wish you’d told me,” he said quietly, his breath stirring my hair. “If you hadn’t left, we could have fixed this. I could have helped you.”
“I didn’t know how,” I whispered back. “And things got messy that night. I was messed up, Warren. All I could think about was getting out of here. I went about it all wrong, I know that.”
He nodded, hugged me harder, then stepped back, staring down at me. “Never think you can’t come to me, Wave. I can’t go another five years without seeing this face,” he touched my chin with the pad of his thumb, and I could see he had a lot more he wanted to say to me. I waited. “Don’t tell Connor,” was what he said.
I looked at my brother with sad eyes.
“He’ll be worse than Hud wanting to kill him. We wouldn’t be able to stop him. And if we did, well, things could go sideways for… us, you know.”
I nodded. The trauma and pain I’d gone through five years ago was on the back burner. I was more worried about Warren and Connor, wanting to take his pain away.
“Warren, talk to dad. He might listen, he’s surprised me since I got back. I could go with-”
“Don’t, Wave. Please.” He cut me off.
I pressed my lips together to stop me arguing. The stark pain in his eyes was too much for me to handle. Not after everything else tonight. Warren kissed my cheek and told me to go to sleep, then he left.
It was mostly quiet inside the house, people still at the party, used to fights and uproar at these type of things, they wouldn’t have let Hudson flipping out stop them.
