“Then what’s with the—?”
He cut me off, holding a hand up for me to shut the hell up. “Don’t ask me to stop caring or worrying when I see that look in your eyes, Tucker.”
“What look?”
“Stupid men ask stupid questions,” he whispered underhis breath. “You know the look. You feel it. It’s tingling your toes, ain’t it? Making you feel sick, like the only cure is hitting something real hard. Hurting someone. Twisting someone’s dick so he can’t ever use it again. It’s burning you, whether Ayda tries to press it back into your chest or not. I know you, boy. I know you better than you know yourself. I’m not asking you not to react. All I’m asking you to do isthinkbefore you lash out.”
Ayda stepped closer still. I knew she respected the hell out of Harry, but she was as agitated as I was. We were feeding from one another with nothing to tether us down. Sucking in a breath, she looked between Harry and me, gauging whether putting her nickels worth in would change a damn thing.
“This situation is a new one for all of us,” she clarified. With her hand still on my back, she started making circles, and I wasn’t even sure she realized she was doing it. “We don’t even knowwhois responsible, and maybe, for now, that’s a good thing. We can sit down and figure out how to go forward. We can tell Howard, and try to stop Kenny from doing something on his own. Drew knows what needs to be done. We just need to absorb this first.”
I was pretty sure she mumbled something about her gun at that point, but I wasn’t sure.
Harry’s beady eyes turned to her. “With all due respect, Ayda, and God knows I fucking love you, but I’ve been with this boy since he was in diapers. I know the way he thinks, the way he reacts, and how everyone will pay if he flips his switch and flies off the handle. It’s his job to run the club. It’s my job to make sure he thinks shit through. I ain’t ever gonna see him back on the inside. Ever.”
“Harry…” I snapped. “I’m not doing anything crazy here. I’m just fucking angry. I’m allowed to still be angry, ain’t I?” I gave him the glare—the one that told him to step the fuck off and move away, but something had shifted in Harry in recent weeks. Gone was the softly spoken father figure who let me make my own mistakes so he could pick up the pieces afterward. There was an urgency to him now. A need for him to see me doing good. Like he wasn’t sure I could do it on my own anymore.
It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. Was I really that much of a fucking pussy these days?
Pulling away from Ayda as carefully as I could, I ran both hands through my hair and rested them at the back of my head. “Whatever. None of this fucking matters anyway. What really matters is Sloane. I know what I need to do next.”
“Howard.” Ayda moved away and sat at the foot of our bed, her hands gripping her knees.
I blew out every bit of air I had within me and gave her a nod.
“I’m about to tell a father someone has touched his girl without her permission. Tell me how bad it’s going to be…”
Ayda looked to me, then trailed off and glanced at both Harry and Jedd. “In a word? Hell. Sloane has always been daddy’s little girl. He was in denial about her relationship with Tate for a while. He’s going to make demands, throw around allegations and it’s possibly going to get ugly emotionally, too. We can’t let him confront Sloane until he’s calm. He’ll scare her, even when he’ll be trying not to. We can’t keep him away, but we have to remind him that she’s scared, confused, and hurting. It’s going to be a mess.”
Ayda’s shoulders sagged as her gaze came back to me.
“I could lie and say it’s going to be fine, but you know it won’t be. I’ll be there with you unless you don’t think it’s a good idea.”
I stared at her, unblinking as I dropped my hands down by my sides.
“There’s something else I need you to do.” I paused. “Call Autumn. We need her.”
It took me seven minutes to track down Sutton. It took him another three to roll through the gates of the yard in his cruiser and park in his usual spot. I watched him get out of the driver’s side without much fuss. His uniform was pressed, as usual. His mustache was waxed in place, as usual. His shoes shone, his eyes were determined, and his walk was overly self-assured… all as fucking usual.
Nothing seemed different about him because everything in his world was the same.
And there I stood, on the top step of the porch. The Hound he used to despise, wearing the cut he used to hate, with my arms folded across my chest the way that used to anger him, and my eyes assessing his every move like I was his old enemy. And I was the guy who was about to turn everything upside down.
If only times were as simple now as they had been back when he hated me.
Maybe I wouldn’t have felt so guilty about the darkness I was about to taint his world with.
It would have been much easier to tell someone I hated that their daughter’s life had just been dipped in black, neverto return to the cheery pastel colors of yesterday again.
“Tucker,” he said through a weak smile as he approached me, walking across the gravel path, his shoes crunching the stones beneath his soles.
“My favorite cop.” I smirked.
“Oh shit.”
“What?”
“You being nice can only mean one thing.”
