Chapter 24 #3
“I said we can’t all go,” he said tightly, drawing his eyes from mine and looking to Dirt.
“We fell for it once, we left, and they attacked the compound. So we make them think we’re not leaving.
A few of us head out, we leave the bikes behind, take a truck and to anyone watching, we’re not going running when they think we will. ”
My jaw dropped open. He wanted to save Declan? He was arguing against the officers in the club, for my ex-boyfriend.
“Hustle’s right,” Ballistic said.
“We send three men,” Hudson said. “Scope the place out before we decide what to do, Ballistic can bring his sniper rifle to cover us, if he’s still alive, we go in and get him out.”
Hudson didn’t look at me when he said that. Everyone in the room already knew it was a possibility Declan was dead by now.
“I’m going,” Warren said.
Ballistic nodded. “Let’s go.”
Warren turned me to face him. “Go to the house and stay there. We’ll get Rosa to come straight over. Promise me you will stay there and let them look after you okay. Waverley,” he shook me slightly.
I wanted them to save Declan of course I did but they wanted to send Hudson and Warren after him? I didn’t want to lose any of them.
“We’ll bring him back.”
Hudson’s voice broke me out of the stare off with my twin. I turned to look at him and it was like looking at a stranger. Something about the way I reacted to Declan being harmed changed something in him. About us. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I couldn’t dwell on it now.
“Okay,” King interrupted, and everyone turned their focus to him. “You take the truck out via the access road behind the Shed,” he went to Hudson and grabbed the back of his neck. “This is your plan. Don’t fuck it up.”
Hudson nodded and followed Ballistic out of the garage without looking at me.
“Don’t read into that,” Warren told me. “He’s just tense. We all are. Everything will be okay. Hud’s right, we’ll bring him back, Wave.”
“Bring all of you back,” I said on a breath that cracked near the end.
“You know it,” he pressed our foreheads together, then kissed the top of my head. He tapped his fist to our fathers as he walked out of the garage.
“Everyone back to whatever you were doing. If they’re watching, they need to know things are normal here.
Go about your business but make sure there are extra guards watching out at all the check points.
” King then waited until everyone except his Sargent at Arms had left.
“Dirt, you stay connected with them. You know what to do.”
Dirt followed the rest of the men out of the garage.
I didn’t know what he meant by those parting words, but something told me Hudson, Warren and Ballistic were not walking into this alone.
Dirt and my father had known each other for a long time.
I was sure they could read each other as easily as Warren and Hudson could.
“You good, girl?”
“I’m not a girl,” I said, unable to stop myself arguing back.
“No. You’re not,” my dad sighed stepping closer. “Your brother is right, this isn’t your fault.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because it’s true,” King said. “And you know I’m right. As hard as it is to believe, even though the Kingsmen are doing this to get to you, it isn’t on you. They did this. Not you.”
I could appreciate what he was trying to say to me, but it wasn’t helping.
Declan wouldn’t be there, being hurt if he had never met me.
I let more tears leak out. I missed my brothers arms around me.
But I couldn’t fall apart. Not in front of my father.
I didn’t want him to think I was the weak kid he’d let walk off his compound five years ago.
“You don’t have to try so hard, sweetheart.
” My father’s gentle tone had me looking up at him.
I wiped my tears away as he came nearer.
“You think I don’t know how strong you are?
How fucking brave you are? Waverley, you walked out of here at eighteen years old and you did it despite the heartache and pain.
Things that none of us knew you’d even been through.
You pulled yourself through it and you went after what you wanted.
What you needed. I might not have shown it, because I’m a fucking asshole, let’s face it.
But I am proud of you. And I will never, ever let you blame yourself for something that is not your fault.
“You couldn’t help being born into an MC any more than that guy could help meeting and falling for you.
But that all said, I saw what went down just then.
I don’t know what this guy Declan did to make you turn to Hudson and I’m not gonna say I’m all that bothered about it because Hudson is a good man, a better man than even he knows.
He is out there going to get back the man he thinks you still care for.
“It doesn’t matter to him how it will make him feel doing this, all he cares about is doing this for you.
Despite what you think about this club, we are all here for you.
And I am telling you right now, I am going to fix this once we get him back.
No more sitting around waiting to see what they’re going to do.
“You’re my daughter. I will do whatever it takes to protect you and your brother. The Kingsmen won’t get another chance to hurt you or anyone else in this club.”
My mouth had gone dry while I listened to him, my heart pounding as heavily as my head, not just from the wound but all the crying too. “Do you promise?” I whispered, taking a slight hesitant step towards my dad.
“Yes,” he took my hand. It was too much to hope he would hug me, but in all fairness, it would have been a little weird to me too, King Curtis did not do hugs.
But I was happy to have any kind of contact with him.
He gave me strength wrapping my small hand inside of his large one as he led me out of the garage towards the old ladies house.
In a low, menacing voice that would make other men tremble, he ground out.
“This ends now.”