“Drew…”
“You heard what I said.”
I turned away, scrunching my eyes tight before opening them with a flash and staring at Trigger.
“The next guy I want setting free is Jedd. You fucking deaf?”
“Suicide Tucker. That’s what I’m going to call you from now on.”
“Whatever gets you hard. I’m sick of your show. Give me my next victim.”
Trigger smirked that smirk I wanted to smash right off his face, and he called in a man who was standing to his right.
“A VP for a VP,” he said calmly, and I let my eyes drift down to the cut on the next fighter’s chest.
Vice President of The Navarro Rifles.
That just happened to be a fancy badge on an idiot’s chest in the end. He had that fire in his eyes and the loyalty marked by the ink on his skin, but everything else was weak. He wasn’t big, he wasn’t strong, and he sure as shit wasn’t a fighter… although he tried. Gerrard Gates gave me a rest, even when I was prancing around like a ballet dancer. I managed to catch my own breath and wipe away more shit by the time he’d gotten close, and even when he made his fist connect my cheek, it was pathetic. In the end, he became mush beneath mylegs as I knelt on his chest and pounded my fists into his face like he didn’t matter.
He didn’t matter.
None of them did.
I was at war, and I was going to fucking survive this.
When I jumped off him, sated, yet thirsty for more, I raised my chin and opened my one good eye to look at my woman properly for the first time. There was more blood on my skin than running through my veins as our eyes connected, and I let my lips fall apart to drag in more air, taking a moment to just… look at her.
See she was alive.
God, I loved her.
Tears were swimming in Ayda’s eyes, but her chin was up and shoulders back as she held my gaze. Her lips trembled as she said something, but she had to stop and start again, her words clearer the second time around.
“Come home to me.”
I lifted a bloody fist and pressed it over my heart, my breathing ragged as I pushed it into my chest before I released it and pointed right at her, a silent, “You” falling from my lips.
She closed her eyes, then opened them a defiant glint in her eye. “I love you. Live forus.”
When you love someone as much as I loved Ayda, it was easy to get caught up in whatever spell they cast. My body was breaking, heart aching, limbs shaking, and yet all I could focus on were those six words she’d just delivered to me. It made me a sick fuck to smile with blood in my teeth and crimson stains on my face, but I smiled anyway, wishing I could have appreciated every moment I’d ever had with her a thousand times more than I had done.
Then Trigger’s voice brought me back to the present.
“Bring him in!” he called out, and it made me blink quickly, scowling soon after as I spun to see him from my good eye.
He was facing someone I couldn’t see, and the crowd around us began to mumble and mutter to themselves, their whispers growing louder until I picked out a name I instantly recognized.
Walsh.
Walsh was soon shoved in front of me, his body limp. His shirt was undone and his tie loose, but even with one fucked up eye, the only clear thing I could see, and smell, was Walsh’s fear as he looked up at me through worried eyes.
His body was bent over; the bullet wound causing him more pain than he could handle in his ripped up, pretentious navy suit.
I glanced up at Trigger who was hovering above him, and I shook my head. “Is this a joke?” I ground out.
Trigger folded his hands behind his back and paced slowly around the Mayor of Babylon, staring down at him like he was nothing more than a sewer rat. “Do you know, Drew, how many times this man right here has stood in front of me, whether he’s been in my drug lab asking for cheap rates, or he’s been handing over intel on money launderers, arms dealers, crooked prison officers…” He paused, glancing over his shoulder to raise a brow at me. “…fellow MC men like myself.” Trigger sighed and turned back to his task. “And all he’s begged me to help him do is bring down The Hounds of goddamn Babylon.” Trigger raised his hands, palms up and facing the ceiling like he was talking to himself. “Every single time we’d meet to discuss some new venture together, it would always, always come back to The Hounds.”
I glanced at Walsh and his scared eyes and messed-up red hair, my face tight and angry.
