His smile grew as he watched her. It was a little threatening from the outside looking in.
Not to me.
I knew he was eyeing her much the same way I had the first time I saw her. She was a magnet. A shining beacon of goodness in this dark, dirty, fucked up, grease-filled world we were stuck in.
“You’ve brought a new lease of life to this club.” He paused, his smirk growing. “So I hear.”
Ayda offered a small, cautious smile in return. “Not really. Just cleaned up a bit and fed them some square meals. Drew’s been the life to them. He’s a leader they can get behind. A leader they love.”
“I do love that protective spirit of yours.” Eric grinned.
Considering he’d only just met her, I frowned harder.
“With all due respect, Mr. Tucker, I don’t think you’re qualified to make that assessment.” She squared off against him, rolling her shoulders back, and lifting her chin again, not allowing him to even begin to intimidate her.
“Your bullets sure don’t take corners. Straight shooter.”
Ayda frowned at him, her hands rubbing on her thighs. “Funny. I’ve heard that before.”
Bullets don’t take corners was always one of his favorite things to say growing up. Whenever I had a gun in my hand, he expected me to make the shot count. I glanced between Ayda and Eric. Something about the way she was glaring at him made my spine tingle.
“I know you have,” he said calmly, staring straight at Ayda.
“How?” she challenged.
Dad glanced back at me, his eyes cautious. “I know she’s stubborn and hard-headed, Drew, but there were times when she really shouldn’t have been left alone… no matter what fight she put up.”
“I don’t…” I frowned harder and shook my head before something clicked. “You’ve been in Babylon a while, haven’t you?”
“Long enough.”
“It was you. All this time I thought it was Jacob trying to goad us and it was you,” Ayda gasped.
“What was him?” I asked, snapping my head to her.
“I got a few random notes that didn’t make much sense. Just notes scribbled on paper. I threw them away and ignored them. I thought it was just another stupid game of Jacob’s and I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of reacting to them.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
Ayda’s eyes moved slowly to me. “I forgot them almost as soon as I threw them away. I didn’t think anything of it. Not to mention something always came up between the time I received it and when I saw you.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, not wanting to think anything even remotely bad about her. She’d donewhat she needed to do, that’s all I had to keep thinking. I reminded myself of the freedom she gave me to fuck up and remembered how much I wanted to be like her. To not take so much control.
But I couldn’t help thinking that if I’d known about that one note alone, I’d have figured out that my father was lurking in the shadows.
I just couldn’t figure out if that would have been a good thing or not.
“Why were you sending her notes?” I asked him with as much control as I could muster.
Eric released a weighty breath. “There’re a lot of things I need to tell you. Both of you. All the brothers, too. But ten years is a long absence, Drew, and there’s no starting point for me. There’s nowhere I can begin that won’t bring more questions, probably more hate, definitely some resentment.”
My eyes flew open as I turned my head his way and took an angry step forward. “How about you start with thetruth!Something I seem to have spent my whole fucking life without. How about you tell me why you’re back after ten long years of me thinking you could be dead for all I fucking knew. How about you tell me why the man who was there for me is now on his way to Babylon Police Department to take the fall for a crime he didn’t commit? How about you give me something, Dad, Eric, Mr. Tucker… whatever the fuck I’m supposed to call you now you’ve risen from the dead. Tell me something real. Tell me something true. Or get the fuck out of my Hut.”
He stared at me, and I saw the flash of respect in his eyes. But Eric Tucker didn’t flinch. He never flinched, which is why it had always sat badly with me that he’d ever run at all.
“Your Hut,” he said softly.
“You’re goddamn right it’s my Hut. My club. My patch.” I jabbed my chest, refraining from ripping my T-shirt wide open for him to see the tattoo on my skin. “My goddamn brothers. The ones I would bleed and die for. Not run away from.”
