“What am I looking at? Time wise? It would be manslaughter, right?” I sniffled, teetering on the edge of sanity.
“Ayda,” he said quietly, losing all his breeziness as his tone slipped from casual to cautious in an instant. I felt his arm reach out, and when his fingertips brushed my wrist, I saw him lean against the bar. “Do you honestly think I’d let you do time?Ever?” he whispered.
I dropped my hand into his, twisting, so our fingers linked, and brought his bruised knuckles to my lips. “Do you honestly think it’s going to be that easy to get out of this?”
“Yes,” he said confidently. “I do. You need to trust me. I love your honor, baby. I love your fight. I love the way you’ve brought me to life and loved me like no other living, breathing thing has ever loved me before. I love watching you grow from this shy, unsure woman who used to look at me like she was afraid I was going to bury her, to this woman who now looks at me with instruction—a woman who now tellsmehow to live. A woman who has become my moral compass for life.” His fingers dug into my palm as he pulled me closer. “But if you think for one fucking minute that I would let my future wife go to jail before I did, then you’re mistaken. I would take the fall a thousand times for you. I would die for you tomorrow. Tonight. Right fucking now. And if you think this is up for debate, then you’re mistaken, Ayda, ‘cause I love you so fucking hard, I’d rather die right now than see you suffer. So take those words I’ve just spoken, taste them, let them slip down your throat and sink in. You’re mine. I protect what’s mine. Your future is safe. Let me worry about mine.”
There were no words for the way my heart beat in my chest. I couldn’t describe the feeling that ran through my body. If they could bottle my emotions and sell them, we’d bemillionaires. It was an odd high that had my knees trembling, and not one part of that was from the shock.
“I love the way you love me, but I think we’re at an impasse.”
“No, you think we’re at an impasse. I know what I’m doing,” he whispered, bringing my hand to his lips and closing his eyes as he spoke against it. “Please. Just for once. Fucking trust me.”
I smiled at him, my hand releasing the bottle and reaching out to run through his hair. “Jesus, Drew. I think I proved how much I trust you when I shot you.”
“That was so hot, by the way.” He smiled against my hand. “Got a little hard when I saw that look in your eyes.”
I started to laugh. It was inappropriate and a little hysterical and drew the attention of the men closest to us, but I couldn’t have cared less. “I am so in love with you, you crazy ass.”
“I know.” His eyes peeled open as he looked up at me. “I love you, too. You wanna know why?”
“Always.”
He sighed heavily, his breaths washing over my knuckles as he brought both hands to hold mine and ran his thumbs across my skin.
“Words are easy, Ayda. Actions are harder. You never fail to act.” Drew looked up at me, wearing the most, sincere heartwarming expression I think I’d ever seen. “You just don’t know how to let me down when I need you the most.”
I’d gone the entire night without crying. I’d had a man shot point blank in the face beside me, I’d watched Autumn get beaten before she’d gone badass and taken a bite out of a guy, I’dshotmy future husband, and I’d been arrested, but I’dmanaged to keep my composure through all of it. All it took was my gorgeous, rugged, and smooth-talking man to say something so genuine to spark those tears in my eyes.
“Bastard.” I sniffled, just as The Hut door was thrown aside and Sutton stormed in.
“Hold that thought, wifey,” Drew whispered, dropping another kiss to my knuckles before he winked, spun around and turned his attention to the chief of police storming through The Hut.
Sutton had always had confidence. Even when he’d come back from the disaster at the warehouse, and he was the prey among the predators, he’d held his own until Drew had been fit to walk out into the middle of his brothers and announce that Howard was now a friend of the Hounds.
But as he stormed through The Hut, it wasn’t confidence that shone from him.
It was fear.
Worry.
Desperation.
As soon as Drew saw him, he pushed up from the bar, straightened his spine and stood tall. Gone was my man with the smooth tongue and all the wonderful words he was about to speak to me. The president had taken over. The difference in his posture as he took his position always astounded me, no matter how many times I saw him shift from man to warrior in the blink of an eye.
“Howard?” Drew said roughly.
Sutton’s eyes were frantic at first, but when they eventually landed on Drew, his whole face and body sagged.
Nothing was said as a thick silence descended over the entire building. Sutton’s eyes zoned in on Drew’s, and it wasthe little flickers and flinches of his face that told Drew, me, and everyone who was watching, that whatever news Sutton had to deliver, it wasn’t good.
It wasn’t bad, either.
It was fucking catastrophic.
“Drew,” Howard said quietly.
Drew somehow stood impossibly taller as he pulled his chin back to his chest and scowled in confusion. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
