My frown grew even deeper as I stared at him and tried to ignore the painful ache that was pushing up against the inside of my jeans. “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked quietly.
“I’m talking about trouble. We’ve got trouble, bro. The Emperors are back.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Ayda
The interruption came at the most inconvenient of moments, and though I lay there staring at Slater upside down, I felt the moment Drew changed gears and moved from the intimate man to the brother in arms. He was on his feet in a second, his hand pulling me onto mine behind him as he headed through the bathroom, into his office, and towards the door with Slater.
I could see the halls alive with people moving around on high alert. If it had been a submarine, I’d have expected a tinny voice shouting ‘All Hands, Man Your Battlestations!’ It was regimented, rehearsed and everyone seemed to know what it was they were supposed to be doing.
I was the only odd person out in this scenario. I had no idea where I was supposed to be or what was expected of me. I looked between Drew and Slater as I gripped the two sides of the leather together over my bra and squeezed the hand he was holding.
Drew ran his fingers over the top of his head as he smoothed his hair down and tried to straighten out his T-shirt. The way he was walking, the motion of his body as he charged down the halls, it was all a side of him that I knew even less than the man I’d just left behind. It was hard to know what Iwas feeling. It happened so quickly and all at once, I felt as though I’d left half of myself on Drew’s bed as the twinge of pain jacked in my gut at his sudden switch of moods.
Slater marched beside him, his spine straight, his chin raised high with his arms almost swinging down by his side as they both rounded the corner and headed out into the bar area.
“This is all we need,” I heard Drew mutter.
“You think they know?” Slater asked, glancing around to make sure no one was listening.
“Fucking hope not.”
“They rode in quietly.”
“We still should have seen them coming.”
“I know.”
“How many?” Drew asked sharply.
“Three that we can see.”
“Cameras showing anything else?”
“Nothing. Harry’s going through all the screens now. Warehouse is clear. Pawn shop’s clear. There’s nothing but them out in the yard, and from the looks of things, the roads are empty,” Slater answered quickly and accurately, his body shifting to the side as he tried to fit through the swarm of people, while also somehow silently communicating with every man that passed that they were all needed up front.
They were moving so fast it was hard to keep up with them. No matter how much I rushed, I felt as though I was slowing them down and tripping over my own feet. I had one hand in Drew’s and the other holding the leather together. As my hair started falling in my face, I felt like a fool, blowing and shaking my head from side to side in an attempt to get it out of my eyes.
The closer to the front of The Hut we got, the more I wasaware of the stares I was getting. My initial thought was that people were looking to Drew and Slater for guidance, and to a certain extent, that was absolutely true, but as rushed as they were, I felt their glances roll off me and come back a second later. It was only when we approached the open door that I realized exactly what had their attention, but I was helpless to stop at that point. I was in Drew’s grip, and he only released me as his foot was out the door, sending me stumbling out and grabbing for the railing.
My head dropped immediately as the men already out there turned to look at me. I wanted to back up and head inside, but by that point, I was trying to decide on the lesser of two evils, while Drew simply rolled his shoulders back and leaned against the porch post, his ankles crossed, looking like nobody but the mailman had rolled up.
I wasn’t even sure that he was aware I was there at that point. Slater and he had gone into some kind of automatic defense mode, and even though I’d been dragged along, I couldn’t have felt more misplaced if I’d tried. Looking at the back of the one man I knew I could find some comfort in, I shuffled my feet on the spot and burned holes into his shoulders as I tried not to think of this being as dangerous as it felt.
“Two visits since I got out, Chester? Anyone would think you’d missed me,” Drew practically sang down the steps to the man with the heavy glasses as he made his way towards The Hut.
Slater’s body twitched, and his feet moved two steps closer to his brother, like he was about to take a bullet for him. My stomach rolled at even the thought of anything like that going down, even though the reality of the situation was thatI was standing in the middle of a bloodthirsty MC and bullets were fired all the time.
“What can we do for you?” Slater asked.
“Easy, Slater,” Drew said through an obvious grin, even though I couldn’t see him. “Chester is just paying us a friendly visit. Isn’t that right, Cortez?”
The man they were calling Chester dropped his head to his chest, pulling his glasses from his face before looking up and resting a foot on the bottom step. His eyes scrunched tight to fight off the sun, and at first, his gaze fell straight to Drew.
But then I must have moved. I must have made a sound or twitched or done something— something I wasn’t even aware of—because from one blink of his eyes to the next, Chester’s head had turned to mine and his gaze fell straight to the leather I was wrapped up in.
When his eyes roamed over my flesh like I was a prize heifer at market, I felt the cold finger of fear run down my spine. The flash of his tongue over his bottom lip seemed to drag everyone on the porch’s attention directly to me. I’d always thought the feeling of my blood draining from my body would be a slow thing, but all it took was me pulling the edges of the leather tighter around me like a security blanket for it to hit my feet and leave me feeling completely vulnerable. To this predator, I was prey and I saw it as the side of his mouth curled up in humor.
