Chapter Six
Drew
Icould sense Harry’s silent judgment pouring out of him as we drove back to The Hut in silence. I didn’t need for that fucker to say shit to me to know that he was doing what he usually did for all of us. He was worrying again.
In terms of long days, this one felt never-ending.
As I let my body sink farther into the passenger seat and widened my legs farther apart, I dropped my head back against the leather and groaned quietly.
I don’t know what purpose it was meant to serve, other than to fill this weird awkwardness with some noise and to try and stop me from saying something to Harry that I would regret.
It was obvious what he was thinking. A part of me was thinking it, too.
Before too long, I threw my hands up to cover my face and ran them up and down my cheeks in frustration. The haze of the alcohol was starting to wear off and the thickness of my head was multiplying by seventeen thousand units.
“Get it over with,” I groaned against the palms of my hands.
“Got nothing to say,” he answered flatly, the way he said it letting me know that actually, he had about a million things to say but just couldn’t find the energy or the balls to crack the hell on with it.
“Sure you don’t.” I sighed, dropping my hands down onto my thighs with a slap. “Sure you don’t.”
“You need to sleep.”
“No shit.”
“Tomorrow’s a big day.”
“They’re all big days for me from now on. I get it. There’s no respite for the freed man.”
“Is that what you want, Drew? A break?” he asked quietly, as though he’d been waiting to ask that exact question since the second he saw me outside the prison gates. “Five years not enough for you?”
That’s all it took for my eyes to snap open and my jaw to tense again.
I stared up at the roof of the car with such an immediate sense of intensity, it was a wonder I didn’t burn two big, fat fucking holes through the fabric and the metal.
“Not tonight, Harry. I’m not doing this now.
Not after what’s just happened. Save your shit for another day. ”
“And what exactly has just happened?” My head rolled to the side lazily, the movement so small and so half-assed that I wasn’t even sure if he saw the shift in my position or not as I turned to study the look on his face.
Harry generally didn’t speak to me that way—not before my stint, anyway.
Maybe that was what I would have to get used to from now on—people not having the same respect they once had for me.
Maybe that would be something I would have to correct the second my eyes opened up to a brand new day that wasn’t tinged with the fuzz of alcohol in my bloodstream.
“What do you mean?”
Harry’s eyes twitched to look down at me before he quickly faced back out to the open road and curled his fingers tighter around the wheel until his fat, stubby knuckles turned white. “Don’t make me say it.”
“Bro, I’m too tired for riddles. I’ve spent too long trying to understand my own unspoken thoughts. Don’t make me try figure out yours, too.”
“Fine,” he grumbled, his head glancing out of the driver side window before looking forward again. “What would you have done to a guy you found in your room five years ago?”
I didn't even have to think about that one as I blinked and answered without thought. “A man? Ended him. A boy? Exactly what I just did back there.”
“Really?”
“You don't think I would have let him go?”
Harry's mouth turned down at the corners before it straightened back out into a thin line and he shrugged a shoulder. “Not without some kind of shit going down first.”
I knew what that shit he was talking about was, too. We both did. And I guess a part of what he was saying was right, but I was only a kid back then myself, and quite honestly, that version of Drew Tucker died the first time he took a gang beating behind bars.
“Maybe I'm not that man anymore,” I sighed back over at him before staring back up at the roof again. “And that's what worries you, isn't it?”
“You're damn fucking right it does.”
“Don't let it.”
“Just like that, Tucker?”
“Just like that,” I repeated in a whisper as I closed my eyes and tuned him out.
If he expected me to give him a world full of answers tonight, then he was even more damn stupid than I thought he was.
Considering the amount of whiskey that was in my blood, it was a miracle I could move my lips at all, never mind psychoanalyze myself.
He didn't say anything else the whole way back. I didn’t speak either.
Tomorrow was going to be a brand new day for me and my resurrection into MC life.
When the time was right, and when they all least expected it, I would show them who I was in that moment and I would show them what I stood for.
Each and every man would be able to look into my eyes and see nothing but fire and certainty there, while I looked down on them with nothing but pity for the ones who ever doubted or questioned me at all.
When the wheels hit the gravel of the parking bays outside The Hut, my body rocked to life again as my shoulders bounced all over the place, forcing my eyes to flicker open.
The porch light was still on, but more importantly, a few of the men were waiting for us outside.
No doubt each one of them had their own questions to ask.
Jedd could have dealt with that shit, Tucker.
Why didn't you let him nail his ass to the wall and teach him a lesson?
Did you deal with him in private?
Did you show him what this club stands for?
There were those who hated the violence and there were those who craved it. It was part of the reason I’d introduced the underground boxing club as a huge part of our business, all those years ago. It kept the ones who craved blood sated, for the most part.
Only I paid the price for that one in the end, too.
We all did in our own way.
I couldn’t put it off any longer. Turning away from Harry, I pushed myself out of the door, jumped down onto the earth beneath us and started to walk over towards The Hut.
“Everything okay, Drew?” asked Jedd as he looked down the stairs at me before I began to climb them and met him on a level.
“Peachy.”
“What did you do?” He folded his arms across his chest again and widened his stance as he watched me.
A few of the fellas behind were approaching us to listen in on it, and the memory of their faces as I launched myself at that kid, just an hour or so ago, flashed through my mind, forcing me to tense my jaw and swallow quietly.
“Close all the fucking doors! NOW!”
And then everything went silent.
Everything except the sound of a young voice crying out as his body was slammed up against the wall by none other than Jedd Thomas himself.
We had him.
Bingo.
“Well, well, well. Look what we have here…” Jedd snarled in the kid’s face, curling his fists tighter into the T-shirt on his chest before he pulled him away from the wall, just to slam him back harder against it.
My feet moved across the floor like I was on fucking skates, sliding this way and that way as I felt the fire erupt in my stomach, and pushed past every single man that was in my way.
I hadn’t gotten a good look at the guy yet, but when I did, I wanted him to stare straight into my eyes and see who the fuck he’d just messed with.
“Wanted yourself a little party at the club’s expense, did you?
” Jedd growled as I finally made my way over.
He’d gotten such a good hook and hold on the kid’s T-shirt, he was able to press his fists into the central point of his chest and push him so far up the wall, his feet were barely touching the floor.
“Who the FUCK are you?” I snapped, falling in line behind my brother and setting my face to crazy bastard mode. My jaw was working double time and my nostrils were flared as I tried to take in enough breaths to stop me from seeing so much red, so soon out of prison.
“I… I… Please. Don’t. I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t going to…”
“How did you get in?” Jedd asked. I could see the twitching fury in the shaking of his forearms as he held him in place.
“T-the…”
“Answer faster,” Jedd warned him quietly.
“The window, sir.”
“You break into my place and now you wanna call me sir?”
Even though my eyes were narrowed and my fists were balled down by my side, the sound of the kid’s stuttering voice forced my shoulders to drop just a fraction of a fucking inch, as though I was almost going soft for him.
He couldn’t be any more than fifteen—sixteen at most. His shaggy hair hung over his face and he hadn’t a mark on his perfect white skin.
The clothes he wore looked a little on the small side for him.
His muscles were pressed too tightly against his T-shirt, but other than that, he didn’t look any different to any other teenage boy out there.
“I’m sorry. I-I wasn’t thinking. I don’t know what to call you. I would never… my sister, she…”
My hand reached up to rest on Jedd’s shoulder as I looked behind me nervously and spoke through the small gap in my mouth. “Put him on his feet.”
Jedd didn’t answer at first as his fists shook and kept him in place. But when he slowly turned his face to look at mine, I saw the flash of disbelief in his eyes. “What?”
“You heard me. Put him on his feet.”
I waited for him to argue. I guess I should have known better.
He wouldn’t do that in front of the whole pack.
It would only show disrespect and get them whispering so soon after I’d been let free.
Dropping him down on the floor, he kept a hold of his shirt and just stared at me. “You wanna handle this?”
“I guess I do.” I groaned and sighed, moving into Jedd’s place in front of the kid.
My hands found the belt of my jeans as I slid my thumbs around both sides of my waist and began to re-dress myself and fasten up my trousers.
“Here’s how it’s gonna work, kid.” My chin rose higher as I widened my stance and looked down on him.
“You’re going to give me a very specific and very quick reason as to why you were in my room, and then you’re going to give me one very specific and very good reason why I shouldn’t take you out into that yard and beat the living shit out of you. Ready…”
The other guys in the room drew closer and the air around us grew thicker and tighter with every silent second that passed us by.
The kid’s eyes eventually lifted back up to mine, and any fool could have seen the innocence that they held as a layer of tears coated them. He rubbed his lips in worry before eventually clearing his throat to speak.
“I’m a fifteen-year-old boy that is being brought up by his sister, sir.
She struggles. She needed money. I got drunk and walked the streets to try and find a way to get some to her quick.
When I saw all the bikes gone, I…” he paused and, bold as shit, pushed himself off the wall to take a step closer to me.
“I made a mistake, Mr. Tucker. I know you don’t do second chances as a rule, but I won’t let this happen again… if you just let me go…”
And that’s when it hit me. Here I was, a man who was staring at the world for the first time in so many years, looking for it to give him a second chance himself, and this wannabe was telling me I couldn’t even hand that shit out myself.
I stared at him for some time before my mouth opened and yelled out without any thought of the consequences what-so-fucking-ever.
“Harry, grab the keys to the van. We’re going for a drive.”
Jedd was staring at me now, waiting for an explanation as I held his gaze. Eventually folding my arms, just like his, I let one hand rise up to the end of my chin and rubbed my scruff as though in thought. “I took him home.”
“No consequences?” someone shouted from behind me. I couldn’t be bothered to look around and take them in.
“Not tonight.”
“You’ve got that look on your face, Drew.” Jedd’s chin lowered even farther and his eyes narrowed. “What do you mean not tonight?”
“I mean that things are going to be run a little differently around here from now on and it’s about time all the questions stopped.
” I paused, holding his glare as if to challenge him before I spoke again.
“In the morning, I’m going to need all the information you can find on a Tate Michael Hanagan.
I want to know about his family, his parents and most importantly, his sister. ”
“His sister?” Jedd asked quietly. “She got a name?”
“Yeah, she did.” I closed my eyes briefly before opening them and letting my mouth curl up on one side. “Ayda Hanagan.”