I wasn’t going to tell them we were worse.
And even worse than us would probably descend on Babylon at some point in our futures. The only guarantee with MC retaliation was that they never played to a certain set of rules. There was no timeline. No dates or predictions to be made.
But it would happen. Whether it was The Navs or The Emps from other charters who sought us out, our futures were always going to be based on a shaky foundation of when, not if.
It had been hard for me to leave Ayda when she started work again, but eventually, and after much, much, so much fucking talking and persuasion from her about how safe she was, I’d agreed to loosen the leash a little and let her have some semblance of normality back. After everything she’d suffered because of me, I had no right to ask her to become a prisoner in her own home. Even if that thought appealed to me more than I could ever explain to her or the men in the club.
My eyes were still trained on the road when Harry’s cough let me know of his arrival beside me.
He didn’t speak as he copied my pose—me standing there in my loose sweatpants and a white T-shirt, Harry in his long-sleeved Hounds hoodie and cut. I liked to feel the sun on myarms more than ever. Harry seemed to be getting colder and colder the older he became.
“She’s up to something,” I eventually said, still looking out through the gates as though she and Sutton were going to ride back through them any minute.
“You think she’s fucking Sutton?” Harry croaked, smacking his fist on his chest as his laughter tried to break free.
“I think he’s already been too close to death to find himself there again.”
“True. The chief just isn’t that brave.”
“He was brave when it mattered, and that proved he had heart,” I said through a sigh, remembering the gun that had been aimed at my head and was about to kill me before Sutton took care of the enemy for me, switching his allegiance and siding with right instead of wrong at the very last second. “Never underestimate a man who has heart, Harry.”
I could sense his grin. “Sound advice.”
“Someone important once gave it to me.”
“I knew you loved me, kid.”
“Always, brother.”
I tilted my head in his direction, smirking as I made eye contact. Harry suddenly looked fucking old for his age. I wasn’t sure if it was the smokes, club life, the stress I’d put him under the last ten years, or the fact that he just wasn’t aging all too well, but his skin was gray, and he’d lost that spark in his eyes.
“How’s the chest?” I asked him, trying not to rattle that particular snake too much. You only had to patronize Harry once and he wouldn’t speak to you for the rest of the day.
“Fine.”
“Liar.”
“Doc isn’t concerned.”
“You know what you need to do.”
He nodded and stared off into the distance, shoving one hand in his pants pocket before he pulled out a packet of smokes, took one out and hung it on the end of his mouth.
“And you call me a child?” I laughed without humor.
Harry shrugged and rolled his shoulders in his cut, lighting his cigarette and taking a slow, long drag of it before he blew all the air out in a cloud in front of him. “Doc taking away the one thing I enjoy from my life would be like Sutton taking Ayda to another state entirely and putting her in hiding, just to save her from you.”
My head snapped in the direction of the road again, the panic rising in me at the very thought.
“Not so fun, right?” Harry wheezed through puffs of smoke.
“No,” I answered quietly, my jaw setting tight as I worked the muscles there.
“I’d rather die tomorrow than quit. That’s my decision. She’d rather live this life and die bleeding out next to you in some backstreet warehouse. That’s her decision.”
I remained silent, staring out through the gates as the rays of sun beat down on my bare arms and face. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so warm despite that sunshine in my life. She wasn’t going anywhere. I knew that. The entire club knew that, and so did the whores. It was hard to imagine a life before Ayda around here. She was the beating heart of The Hut, and we were all her puppets. Her feet were wedged firmly under the door.
That didn’t mean there wasn’t a safer life for hersomewhere else in the world. I knew that, too. What I had to work toward was taking both of us there one day. Taking everyone I loved there. But I was one man, and I didn’t have that much of a grip on life to know for damn certain how I was going to make that happen.
