I huffed out a small laugh and shook my head.
“You’re a bastard, Thomas,” I told him softly.
“Learned from the best,” he muttered, low and quiet.
“We good?”
“You know it.”
I nodded once and turned to look at Winnie whose brows were creased, and her eyes narrowed on me like I’d somehow just slipped my brother a fucking chisel to scratch his way out of his cell.
“Thanks for letting me see him. I think I’m done here.”
She glanced wildly between the both of us, her chest rising and falling faster and her mind clearly working at a thousandmiles an hour as she tried to understand what the fuck had just passed between the two of us. She’d never figure it out. No one beyond the gates of our yard ever could.
This was loyalty.
Blood.
Brotherhood.
Family.
I stood, pushing my chair back and noting the way Winnie flinched as the legs scraped loudly against the flooring. With a single rap of my knuckles on the table, I made my way to the door without looking back at either of them.
“Don’t hang around here too long, brother. I think the agent in this room has a thing for you.”
Her gasp was loud enough for me to hear. “Wait a minute, I—”
“See you on the other side, VP,” I said calmly, and then I walked out of the room, leaving Jedd with my faith, and Winnie with her questions.
Whatever Jedd was doing, he had it under control.
It was time for me to do what I had to do, and hope that we were all going to come back together as a full pack.
“Where are you?” I asked Ayda, my cell pressed to my ear as I pushed my sunglasses into place and stared up at the dying ball of sunlight outside the station.
“Rusty’s. Sutton’s about to leave and Deeks is about to take his place. Where are you?”
I spun around to look at the building I’d just left. “Visiting family. Making sure we don’t have any more men going rogue on us. Trying to find a way to figure all this shit out without anyone getting hurt. I think that about covers it.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“I just like to hear your voice.”
Ayda made a small humming sound that expressed her pleasure. “I’m glad to hear it, but at the risk of ruining the moment, we bumped into an old friend in the diner.”
“And by the tone of your voice, I’m assuming by friend, you mean enemy, asshole, or both.”
“Rosie Sullivan.”
I frowned. “Who?”
“Maisey’s best friend. One of the women from The Hut who walked away just after I started warming your bed.”
Admittedly, I wasn’t good with names, and if someone didn’t leave an impression, they were a ghost to me, but the mention of that bitch Maisey—may she rest in Hell—had my brain scrambling like crazy through a sea of female faces. Faces that held no warmth to me, only instant gratification and even that wasn’t always instant. Sometimes the effort outweighed the reward.
Rosie…
