His smile grew, but the sadness lingered in his eyes. “I’m sorry I ever thought badly of you.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I told him. “I’ve thought badly of me, too.”
“You’re a good man.”
“In bad clothing.”
“The wrong clothing. Not bad. Just wrong… for now.” He blew out a breath and began to walk forward again.
“Chief?”
He stopped and turned to face me, his hands falling to their default position his belt. “Yeah?”
“Cuff me here instead of the station. It’ll help you at your end. If we go there as friends, they’ll see right through you, and all of this will be for shit. They’ll dig deeper. They’ll interrogate you and the girls. If we’re gonna do this, let’s do it right.”
“Fuck, Tucker.”
“You know it makes sense.”
I couldn’t look back at The Hut. If I saw her, I’d break, and right then I was focusing on all the men who’d brought me up. The men who’d stood by me and loved me when I wasn’t lovable. The men who didn’t deserve to pay for my crimes. The men who’d only ever done what I’d asked of them, including covering up Hernandez’s death. I’d killed him. I was responsible. And if anyone was going to pay, it was going to be me. In the process, my sentence would get the heat taken off Ayda. The world would forget about Jacob Hove within weeks. Sometimes things were bigger. Sutton was right. Thiswas bigger, and the mayor and whoever he’d crawled into bed with over on the Navs’ side of life needed to make someone pay.
I’d known playing with matches around the Navarro Rifles would eventually cause a forest fire. I’d known the risks. You didn’t mess with them without getting burned.
I stepped up, pushing my hands behind my back and staring at the ever-rising sun as Sutton clicked my cuffs into place.
As soon as they were on, he guided me to the vehicle and slid me into the back seat. My breathing turned heavy as all the memories of going to prison the last time assaulted me.
You’re the president,I told myself on repeat.You’re the leader.
Before he closed the door, Sutton leaned in, his hands resting on the hood as he pushed his face closer to mine.
“Can I ask you one thing before we go?”
“Yeah,” I answered, looking up at him.
“Before Jacob died, did you hurt him?” His face turned to stone all at once, the softly spoken sad man soon disappearing as his daughter’s assault lingered in his stare. “Did you make him suffer?”
I stared into those eyes of his. I searched them. I watched his chest grow heavy and hard. I could feel the tension in his spine as he waited for me to put his mind at ease.
“I fucked him up, Chief. He paid. Death was an escape for him, don’t you worry about that.”
He held my stare for a while before he eventually sagged and let his face scrunch up real tight.
His quiet sobs of thank you came thick and fast before he caught himself, wiped his arm over his face and stood awayfrom the door.
“If I can get you out of this, I will,” he assured me.
Then he slammed the door in my face.
I stared back down at my feet and waited for him to climb in the front, but he didn’t. Not as quickly as I thought he would, and after a few minutes, I looked up, expecting to see Ayda beating him with a stick and begging him to release me.
It wasn’t her standing by the police car, though.
It was Harry.
His sad face was staring up at Sutton. His body and face were calm as he gesticulated with his hands and spoke to the chief up close and personal. I couldn’t tell what was being said. I couldn’t hear a damn thing. All I saw was my pack of brothers and Ayda standing on the porch, while Harry spoke to Howard alone.
It seemed to take forever for them to finish and for Howard to press a hand to Harry’s shoulder and grip it tight.
