Chapter Fourteen
Skip
When I was a child…probably ten, maybe not even that old…I learned the first lesson that shaped the man I became:
Love doesn’t stay. But pain does.
My dad split before I was born. My mom… she tried.
God, she tried. But loving her was like hugging a bomb.
Some days she was soft, braiding my hair she refused to cut because she said it made me look like “her warrior.” Other days, she’d forget she had a son at all.
Forget to eat. Forget to sleep. Forget I existed until her demons reminded her.
She struggled with addiction. Pills. Alcohol. Anything she could get her hands on. I didn’t understand it then. I just knew she had bad days and worse days, and I learned to survive both.
One night, one of the bad ones, she locked herself in the bathroom. Wouldn’t answer. Wouldn’t speak.
I sat outside the door for hours, talking to her about anything I could think of, telling her how much I needed her, begging her not to leave me.
She didn’t answer.
Days later, the cops came.
I found out later that the mailman called them, complaining of an odd smell coming from inside the house.
That day, everything inside me cracked when I saw the sheet-covered body being carried out.
After that, I bounced. Foster homes. Group homes. Temporary beds. Temporary families. People who wanted a paycheck, not a kid.
I learned how to charm my way into safer situations.
How to flirt to get what I needed.
How to make people laugh so they wouldn’t look too closely at the cracks.
It became my armor.
Humor. Flirting. Being the guy who never took anything seriously.
Because if no one knew the real me, no one could abandon me like she did.
When I was fourteen, I got caught stealing food. Thought I’d get my ass beat. Instead, Spike, seventeen at the time and already wearing a cut way too big for his cocky shoulders, stepped in.
He didn’t snitch. Didn’t judge. Just bought the damn food and told me if I was gonna steal, at least learn to do it without getting caught.
I latched onto him like a lifeline.
Spike wasn’t a gentle friend, but he was a steady one.
He taught me how to fight. How to survive. How to be loyal to something bigger than the pain I came from.
When I was sixteen, I earned my patch. Youngest full member the Shadows ever had. Mostly because I didn’t fear death. When you grow up with nothing, dying doesn’t scare you. Living does.
The President at the time, Sky, took me under his wing. Sky was Spike’s uncle and always treated the men like family. Same way Spike does now.
For years, I told myself I didn’t need love. Not the real kind.
I could take lust. Take fun. Take bodies and pleasure and the temporary warmth of someone who didn’t look too deep.
Until Eli.
He’s soft where my life is hard. He’s gentle where my world is brutal.
He’s everything I never thought I was allowed to want.
And maybe that’s why loving him terrifies me more than war, death, or anything Cortéz could throw at us.
Yes, I’ve learned to love myself. Learned to love my brothers. Hell, I even thought I was in love once several years back… but that turned out to be nothing more than lust wearing a cheap Halloween mask.
But this? This is something else entirely.
It’s intense. It’s consuming. It’s damn near terrifying because if I can’t get this man to love me back, if I screw this up, if he decides he’s safer without me?
Yeah.
I might be the one they carry out in a damn body bag.
I lean against the building, arms folded, pretending like my heart isn’t trying to Hulk-smash its way out of my ribs. I watch Eli as he and Abby laugh at something Sunny said.
His whole face lights up. That soft, shy smile. Those warm brown eyes that crinkle when he really laughs.
God help me, that laugh alone could bring me to my knees.
“He’s something else,” Maverick says beside me, nodding toward the group. “He’s handling all of this pretty well for someone who was thrown into the deep end of organized crime.”
I huff a laugh. “Thrown? Brother, I practically yeeted him into the danger pool.”
Maverick snorts, but his expression stays thoughtful. “Most civilians would be screaming, crying, or trying to run. He’s panicked, yes. But he stays. He adapts. That says something.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, eyes still locked on Eli like a damn magnet. “It says that he’s braver than he gives himself credit for.”
Maverick glances my way, brow raised. “It also says that he trusts you.”
That one hits me right in the sternum.
Could it be true, though?
“Feels like too much sometimes,” I admit quietly. “Feels like I’m holding something delicate. Something I don’t deserve.”
Maverick studies me for a long moment before saying, “You’re underestimating him. And yourself.”
I scoff. “Sentimental today, aren’t we, Don?”
“No,” he says simply. “Just observant.”
I shake my head, but the truth of it sits heavy in my chest.
Because Eli is something else. Something precious. Something fragile in all the ways that matter and steel in the ways that count.
And something someone could use against me if they ever figured out just how much he means to me.
“I shouldn’t have brought him here,” I mutter, mostly to myself.
“Cortéz was all talk in his little letter,” Maverick says, arms crossing as he watches the yard. “He never had access to this compound, and he never would have breached my estate had it not been for an incompetent guard. But now we know his tricks. That man of yours is safe inside these walls.”
That man of yours.
Fuck, I want to hear him say it again.
But he’s right. Spike has Shadows lining this fucking place like it’s Fort Knox.
Inside the walls, outside the walls. Snipers perched on the roofs.
Foster’s pit crew has drones circling the compound like hungry hawks.
Maverick’s men are stationed at their bunkers, watching over the Moretti family, every one of them ready to die for the Don if need be.
Eli is as safe as any human can possibly be in a warzone.
It doesn’t stop my chest from tightening like someone’s got a fist wrapped around my heart.
“Hey, brother,” Tank says, jogging up to us. “Patch is on his way. He’s not too thrilled about being called in, but Spike wants him here in case things go sideways. You might want to catch him up on Eli’s condition. Just in case he’s needed.”
Great. Fucking fantastic.
Patch is brilliant…better than brilliant…but he’s also emotionally allergic to bedside manner. The man will stitch your guts back in place without blinking… but God help you if you try to thank him.
I nod my agreement anyway and lean my head back against the building, letting my eyes close for just a second.
My lungs burn. My heart aches. My brain won’t shut the hell up. I’ve never been this worked up before over a threat.
Then again, I wasn’t too worried about my brothers. They can handle themselves. And, it’s not just Eli that has my head a mess. The compound is filled with people who have brought joy, love, light, and laughter inside these walls. Like Spike says…our most precious members.
Sunny, Riley, Lila, Abby, Asher, Bree, Micah….Eli.
All eight of them trusting us to keep them safe.
Going against the Mexican Cartel is suicide. We’ve said it for years. We’ve all known it. Los Fantasmas is a monster with a thousand teeth. It devours everything in its path. It doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t show mercy. It doesn’t break.
And without Maverick’s empire standing beside us?
Yeah. We’d all be fucking dead.
We can’t take them down on our own. I mean, sure, we can dismantle individual sectors…just like we did when we rescued Abby all those years ago. But we’re going after the fucking Boss. Which means the entire Cartel will come after us.
I open my eyes again and immediately find Eli across the yard.
Smiling…Laughing.
Completely unaware that I’m three seconds from ripping out my own hair because I brought him right into the middle of a fucking war.
He looks so small surrounded by the people he’s grown to care for in such a short amount of time. So safe. So soft.
God, what happens if I can’t protect him?
What happens if his little body collapses at the wrong moment?
What happens if Cortéz gets lucky?
What happens if…
“Skip.”
Maverick’s voice slices through the panic.
His voice is calm. Controlled. Solid.
Everything I sure as hell am not right now.
“Get control of yourself, brother,” he orders.
“I’m freaking the fuck out,” I snap back, too wound up to soften it. “That man can’t handle stress. Like…literally…cannot fucking handle it. What the hell was I thinking bringing him here, knowing the shit we’re in the middle of?”
Maverick doesn’t flinch.
“According to Spike,” he says, “your boy wasn’t doing much better on his own. In fact, he was doing a hell of a lot worse than he is right now.”
He lets that settle before continuing.
“Eli wasn’t living, Skip. He was surviving. Barely. You didn’t drag him into danger. Life did that all on its own. At least now he has people who would die before letting harm touch him. People who will surround him if he has an episode until he’s awake again.”
I drag a hand down my face.
Yeah. He’s right. I know he’s right.
But knowing doesn’t stop the fear from clawing inside my ribs.
Maverick hesitates for the first time since I’ve met him. Just a flicker. Barely noticeable.
“But,” he adds quietly, “just to throw this out there… if you want, I can set him up with a new ID and a place to stay in Ohio. I have family out there. Not much, but enough to keep an eye on him.”
My blood freezes.
Ohio.
A new identity.
A place to “stay.”
Far from me.
Far from the Shadows.
Far from everything that’s mine.
It feels like Maverick just handed me a gun and asked if I want to shoot myself in the chest.
My jaw clenches so hard it cracks.
“Absolutely fucking not.”
Maverick lifts one brow, but he doesn’t challenge me.
He doesn’t need to. I’m spiraling loud enough for the whole damn Valley to hear.
“He’s not getting sent away,” I growl. “He’s not getting tucked into a safe little box across the country. He’s not disappearing into some bullshit new life without me. That man is mine, Maverick.”
Maverick smirks…small, knowing, smug as hell.
“So,” he says lightly, “I’ll take that as a no on Ohio.”
“That’s a fuck no on Ohio. Fuck Ohio.”
Maverick claps a hand on my shoulder.
“Good,” he says. “Because the only place Eli belongs right now… is exactly where you can reach him. Because if you couldn’t, we’d never get you to calm the fuck down.”
“Don,” Luca appears beside us. “The children are on their way here with their parents and the Bambinaia…the nanny. Spike has assigned them the last house in the row. I need permission to access funds to purchase them items.”
Grief flashes across Maverick’s face so fast most people would miss it.
But I see it. Hell, I feel it.
Then the mask drops back into place.
“Of course,” he says, pulling out his wallet.
“Get them whatever they need. Clothes, toiletries… the basics. And extra groceries.” His jaw tightens, just a fraction.
“Enough to feed the compound for a week. But don’t tell Spike that part.
He’ll glare me to death if he finds out I bought his family food. ”
Luca nods and takes the black card before turning to go.
“I’m sorry about your loved ones,” I tell Maverick. “I can tell they meant a lot to you.”
His eyes soften, and he lets his grief shine openly.
“Even if I had not known them personally,” he says, accent thickening with emotion, “I would have loved them deeply. La mia famiglia is my life, Skip. Those precious children were meant to be safe. That is why we came here. This was home base for as normal a life as I could give those under my protection who wished for it.”
His voice cracks…barely….but it’s there. “These families wanted safety… and it was taken from them.”
I swallow hard.
“This world I live in?” he says. “It breaks men long before it kills them.”
“Enzo?” I ask quietly. “He was close to you?”
Maverick’s whole expression softens into something raw.
“He practically raised me,” he admits. “My father was too busy with… business. And my mother was killed in an ambush. Enzo…Enzo was like a father to me.”
There’s nothing I can say.
Nothing that won’t sound hollow after a loss like that.
So I don’t say shit.
We sit in silence for a long moment, just watching those around us. My eyes never leave my man.
“Brother,” Maverick nods at someone passing by.
I glance over to see who he’s talking to…and my fist is already flying.
Mike’s head snaps sideways with a satisfying crack, and he stumbles back holding his jaw.
“Dammit, Skip!” he groans. “Aren’t you over this by now?”
“Walk away,” Maverick says calmly. “Before he does more than bruise your ego.”
“My ego?” Mike sputters, glaring between the two of us. “Keep this up, and I’m gonna need a new jaw.”
I shrug, completely unfazed.
Because I don’t give a single solitary fuck if he needs a new jaw.
Or a new face.
Or a whole new skull.
By the time I’m done dealing with him…he might need all three.