So many eyes sought mine. So many faces were looking at me and waiting for some answers. I knew as soon as thename Hernandez had been mentioned that frowns would fall upon their faces. The only people that knew were Harry, Slater and Jedd. As if on cue, I glanced at each one in the know, looking for some kind of go ahead to tell everyone what had happened. When I saw them all giving me their silent approval, I took another step forward, so we were in the middle of a circle, surrounded by the most comforting black uniform that existed.
“I have something to tell y’all,” I started, dropping my chin to my chest for just a single moment before glancing back up and clearing my throat. “As you know, Chester Cortez came to our yard looking for his man, Hernandez. He’d gone missing and we made out as though we had no clue where he was.” Pausing, I stared every man in the eye, spinning my head around enough to catch them all before going on. “I lied to every one of you by remaining silent. Hernandez is dead because of me. I killed him. I killed him with my own bare hands.”
Slater took a small step forward, pushing himself out of the circle with his arms across his chest as he began to shake his head slowly. “You didn’t kill him alone, Drew.”
A half smile tugged up on one side of my mouth. I loved him in that moment for a lot of things, but mainly because he was still doing then what he’d done since I was in kindergarten. He was taking a bullet for me—or trying to, at least. “Yeah, I did, Slater.”
“I was there. I could have stopped you.”
“Not even God himself could have stopped me and you know it. Take a step back, this isn’t your fight.”
His mouth opened to argue before he saw the look on my face that told him I wasn’t about to be weakened. Iwasn’t about to let anyone take the fall for anything that was my doing. I’d never done that in my life. Stepping back, he inhaled sharply, dropping his chin to his chest and keeping it there when I spoke up again.
Shifting my hand farther down Ayda’s arm, I tried to get a good enough grip on her, but nothing felt enough. “All I’ve ever brought this club is trouble. I know what I am and I know what I do. But I assure you, none of it is done with intention. I love you as my family, I love y’all as my brothers and I love every single one of you as my pack. Five years ago, I did you wrong in too many ways. I took us underground. I got us into illegal boxing. I got us into debt. I made us try to pay off that debt by tapping into things we’d never believed in before. Drug running, hit man territory. I made all the good men of this club dig into their deepest, darkest corners and pull fucking outlaw rabbits out of their helmets.”
“Tucker, stop.”
“Don’t, Harry.” I turned to him, shaking my head. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t anything other than certain. “I know what I did and I know who I became. It’s why I took the fall and it’s why I made that deal when the cops came circling. Pete died because of me. Our brotherdiedbecause he put his life in my hands and I was careless with it. That’s not something that can be argued; it’s a fact. It’s why I’m the way I am today and it’s why Ayda, Tate, Deeks and K-dog almost died tonight.”
Ayda’s voice was almost lost in the shuffle of leather as they moved from one foot to another. It was only on her second try I actually heard her. “You can’t accept responsibility for the choices of others. You didn’t send those men to set fire to my house.”
It was typical of her to look for the best in me. I was slowly coming to realize that that was who she was, and what she just told me in the kitchen was only a fraction of the love she was capable of giving. All I could hope was that one day, I’d be enough of a man to earn the rest. Until I felt like I deserved it, I wasn’t willing to take anymore from her. Pulling my free hand up to the back of her head, I drew her to me, burying her face closer and breathing her in before looking back up at my men.
“I spent so many nights alone in my cell. I thought so many thoughts. Each one of you appeared in them, except this woman right here. For some reason, she believes in me and us more than anyone, and I’m not about to let her down. I’m not about to let any of you down again. But I’m also not willing to walk away from this.”
Jedd cleared his throat beside me, his head falling into one hand as it rubbed at his temple. The rest of the men muttered their approval of my last words under their breath. There were quiet cries that sounded like the troops were ready for battle and not a single moan of protestation from any one of them. I was telling them I’d fucked up, and all they could do was ignore me and await their next instruction. Only I wasn’t in charge right then. There was one more thing I needed to do before I asked them for anything.
Glancing up at the man who had covered my role and taken my seat while I’d been away, I angled my head his way and whispered.
“Jedd…”
“Take it,” he said quickly and quietly, half turning to face me. “Take it back. It’s always been yours.”
“I didn’t plan on this.”
“Look at the way your men are looking at you, Tucker.” Our eyes turned to them all in synchronicity as we both began to scan the pack in front of us before we fell back into place. “I was only ever keeping your chair warm. This is your club.”
“I need you at my side,” I hit back, swallowing quietly as my blood seemed to roar through my body like it was finally coming back to life again. “I need you by my fucking side.”
“There isn’t anywhere else I would rather be,” he muttered before he straightened himself back up, slapping me on the shoulder.
My heart was hammering in my chest like crazy when I finally raised my own chin. The heat from Ayda’s body was keeping me upright. There was something about her that made me feel stronger just from having her nearby. But the looks of all those expectant men staring back at me was what made me feel like a warrior again, and it felt good to have both.
Turning to drop a kiss to her head, I let my hands fall to the back of her hair before I looked up to make my final plea.
“No one disrespects The Hounds of Babylon, boys. No one. Especially not the club responsible for killing the man who was the heart of this pack. They took one light out back then. They dimmed mine while I was away. I’m not willing to see anymore darkness on this side of the fight.” I turned with Ayda in my arms, the sound of my boots hitting the wooden floor being the only noise around us, as I made sure I looked at every member of our club. “I fought back for Pete on a whim. For that I apologize. What I’m asking you now is to stand with me and bring those fuckers down the way we should have done from the start. This is it. No going back. The only option we have left now is to destroy them, and I will do my best to keep y’all safe. But I’m not going to lie, what we’re aboutto enter is going to be dangerous. It’s gonna try and tear us apart. It’s gonna try and break us and it’s gonna try and kill us. That’s what happens when you go to war. And I’m about ready to declare war on the Emps. All I need to know now is, who’s with me?”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Ayda
Ilike to think of myself as an eternal optimist, and to a large extent, I tend to live up to that. I look at all angles and possibilities of a situation before assessing them, and I generally seek out the good rather than the bad. Standing in that circle of men, I didn’t have to look for anything other than what was in front of me. I didn’t have to look for the good in one of the worst situations I’d ever been, because the good stood as a six-foot wall of leather all around me, my brother, and this guy that I suddenly couldn’t imagine not loving.
I didn’t know when it clicked for me. Whether it was all the times I’d stayed at The Hut and I just hadn’t paid attention, or if it was something I discovered in the chaos of that night, but standing pressed against Drew’s side, but I realized Tate and I had gained a family. One made up of more loyal and trustworthy people than I could have chosen for myself. It was a baptism of fire, but looking into the face of each of those men, I knew I had nothing to fear. Not here, not in this circle.
The respect they each had for Drew, as a person and a leader, was almost overwhelming, and the way he came to life in front of them was something I could never put into words without them sounding corny and cliché. Together, they wereunstoppable. Formidable. Brothers in both arms and souls.
The war cry as Drew asked them for their loyalty was deafening. The hammering of feet on the floor and their movement made the place vibrate like a tornado was approaching. As the circle closed in around us, the first of the howls went up, and Drew’s grip tightened on me. He wasn’t going to let me slip away. Not then. Not when the shift of power was going on and a deeper sense of brotherhood and family seemed to circle us.
