Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
DREW
Irode for hours, waiting for inspiration to hit.
A sixth sense inside told me Eric wasn’t far away.
I could almost feel his history on these roads, haunting my every move, steering me in ways I’d never realized he steered me before.
I was my father’s son, whether I liked to admit it or not, and the two of us had an instinct that flowed through our blood—one which we could neither explain or describe.
But it was there, and the power of it told me to keep riding until something stuck like gum to my wind-chapped face.
At the border of The Navarro Rifles’ turf, I skidded to a stop and stared down the road, unable to ignore the tingling of my spine.
Dad had set things in place to take the spotlight off our club—to keep The Hounds of Babylon clean in the eyes of the ATF and the law.
The fires, if I’d guessed correctly, were his doing, and now he was in hiding, trying to plant evidence we’d collected, and to make sure our enemies would have motive to destroy us.
Since the demise of the Emps and Chester Cortez’s charter, The Navarro Rifles were our biggest rivals.
Travis ‘Trigger’ Gatlin had placed a target on my back since his half brother Jacob Hove had strode back into Babylon.
Trigger was in deep with Walsh and Jon Taylor, that much we were certain of, but the rest…
The rest we were guessing.
At least I was. Did Eric know more? Had he always known more?
My chest rose as I dragged in a hot breath and held it there for just a moment before I blew it back out.
Go to The Navs, Drew. Find out for yourself. Stick a gun in someone’s face, risk your life, cause mayhem, and worry about the consequences later. Win the war for your brothers.
That’s what the old me was screaming in my head. But his voice was now muffled behind a gag. It was a muted plea from someone I used to know. The new me had a voice much louder, clearer, and more understanding, and the way he was talking surprised every me I’d ever known.
Ride away. The battle isn’t here today. You can’t do this anymore without consequence.
You cannot go to them without mercy and patience.
You cannot fight this war without truth and knowledge.
You cannot do this to Ayda without shame and regret.
Drew, you can’t fucking do this alone without forever being different to her after its all over.
Be careful which road you take. Everything has changed now.
I swallowed hard, turned, and rode away, circling in loops every direction I could go.
When Mayor Walsh’s house came into view on the open road, I slowed to a crawl and looked up at the windows on the first floor, hoping to see some sign of Rubin and get a single look into his eyes the way I’d done with Jedd.
All that stared back at me were reflections and disappointment.
Walsh’s car wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The house looked deserted.
The bike remained strong beneath me, forever my faithful steed when my mind wasn’t sure where to guide us.
Before I knew it, I was crawling down the main road of Babylon, glancing at the all too familiar stores and buildings.
That instinct of mine kept trying to tug at loose threads of my memory, taunting me with weak theories or possibilities I just couldn’t seem to cling to or turn into something solid.
Eric hadn’t been at Pete or Harry’s grave. There’d been no clues left behind.
He hadn’t been with Jedd. He wasn’t hiding in plain sight—or sight that I could actually fucking see. But the one thing I knew about Eric was that he was like me, and if I were him, I knew I’d be in the faces of the very people who expected me to hide.
My bike weaved in and out of the traffic. The sound of my engine and the cut on my back attracted the usual stares. My heart went wild one minute only to level out the next.
Where would I go?
Where would I go?
Where would I…
And then it hit me.
The very people he was hiding from weren’t our enemies.
He was hiding from The Hounds. From us. And if he wanted to hide in plain sight…
“You bastard,” I ground out, tensing my jaw and working the muscles there as I gripped my hands tighter around the throttle and made a sharp right out of Babylon.
“Seriously?” I stared at Eric on the top step of the wrap around porch.
He smirked confidently. There he sat at the safe house, wearing the same outfit he’d been wearing when I last saw him outside Owen’s burning home. His face looked dirty, and his hands were black, the same smears covering the gray flecks of his facial hair and actual hair.
Eric’s legs were parted, and his hands hung limply over the edges of his knees as he stared at me smugly.
“Took you fucking long enough,” he finally said in that low, calm, confident voice of his. “I thought this place would be the first place you thought to come looking.”
“I didn’t think you were that obvious.”
“No need to over complicate simple decisions, Drew.”
“You’re an arrogant motherfucker.”
He huffed with amusement, his body barely moving. “Yeah,” he sighed. “I know.”
Dropping my hands into the pockets of my jeans, I took a few steps closer and stared down at the ground, hearing the stones crunching beneath the heavy weight of my boots.
“So, Ayda’s definitely pregnant, huh?” he asked casually.
My head snapped up at once, and I held his gaze—mine serious, his breezy. I searched his eyes, looking for something. A warmth, maybe? A connection. Something that made me think he’d felt the same way I felt when he found out Mom was pregnant with me.
Eric wasn’t like that, though. At least not the Eric I knew. He had complete control. None of us ever truly knew what he was thinking.
“Yeah,” I eventually answered.
He nodded slowly, processing his own thoughts.
“She’s pregnant, Eric.”
“You ready for it?”
“Honestly? I’m both dying inside with excitement and dying inside with fear.
” I curled my shoulders in and shook my head.
“Now is, quite possibly, the worst fucking time in the history of our club for us to be bringing another life into the fold. I’m only just beginning to figure out who I am.
There are so many demons circling above me—I wake up some days not knowing which one is going to drop down to grab me first.”
“Son?” I didn’t flinch when he called me that then. His slow smile grew, the light of the porch making something I’d never seen before shine in his eyes. “It’s all going to be okay,” he said quietly.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, unable to look away. “You think so, Dad?”
He nodded once. “On my life.”
Reaching up, I scratched the back of my neck awkwardly and looked back down at the ground.
Dad. Son.
We’d used those two words quickly tonight, and neither of them had made my skin crawl.
I wanted to go to him, sit beside him on the porch with a beer in our hands, stare out into the night and clear a lot of old history away.
There were still so many questions to ask, but only a few mattered that night.
The rest could be answered when he was older, grayer, less… Eric.
With a sigh, I dropped my hand back into my jeans pocket and walked over to stand in front of him.
No words passed between us before I allowed myself to drop into place on the porch steps beside him.
Okay, so we didn’t have the beer or the perfect timing, but we were there, and I had my questions as we both looked out into the inky night.
“Where’ve you been?” I asked, resting my hands over my knees—a mirror image of him. Harry would be choking on his smokey laughter looking down on the two of us and our awkward relationship.
“Ready for this, too?” Eric side-eyed me.
“Probably not, but let’s hear it anyway.”
He spread his hands out, revealing the dirt and grease upon them as he turned the palms up to the sky and stared at them in front of him.
“The stuff Ayda collected from Harry’s room and from Owen’s place was good, Drew.
She’s got an eye for what’s important. After you guys rode off from Owen’s place, I gathered it all up and got the hell out of there.
Dumped it all in the repo vehicle, rode someplace remote, not too far, to the outskirts of Owen’s land.
There was water there. Did you know that?
Water I could drive the front end into, flood the engine, make it so no one could move the thing without a tow truck. ”
“To make it look like whoever burned Owen’s place and him to the ground also stole the car and wanted to get rid of it quickly?”
“Maybe.”
“What did you do with the evidence? There was a lot of it.”
“Left some of it in the car. I had a little time to flick through some of the paperwork. I didn’t leave much.
Just enough to tie Owen, Jon Taylor, and Mayor Walsh in together.
After you guys rode out of Babylon chasing Owen that day, you had a lot of witnesses to say he’d gone rogue.
You also had a lot of witnesses see the look on Walsh’s face, by the sounds of it. ”
“How do you know that?” I scowled, turning to study his aging yet familiar face.
He stared forward, his amusement lighting his eyes. “I have my sources.”
“Have you had those sources the whole time you’ve been gone from Babylon?”
Eric turned to face me, his movements slow and controlled.
“I’m your father. I needed to know. Sometimes I hated seeing your life through other people’s eyes.
Most days, I convinced myself a day like this would never come—a day where you sat next to me on a porch step, trusted me, and listened to me. ”
“I don’t trust you,” I lied, the croak of my voice giving me away.
“Okay.” His lips twitched on one corner.
I looked out into the trees again, imagining a million pairs of wolf eyes staring back at me, or a hundred guns, pointed and ready.
“What did you do with the rest of the evidence?” I asked quietly.
“Gave it to Rubin.”
“Rubin?” I called in surprise, looking at him once again. “The kid has our club’s future in his hands?”
“I hope not. Not anymore, anyway.”
My scowl was deep as I shook my head, telling him I didn’t understand.
“Trust me, Drew. Trust him. The kid is smart.”
“And how the hell would you know that?”
Eric tilted his head to the side and released a slow, long breath of air from his lungs. “Gut instinct.”
“And Jedd? What have you got him involved with? Why the fuck is he in a cell and looking proud of the fact?”
“You’ve seen him?” Eric raised a brow, clearly surprised.
“You’re damn right I have. He’s my VP. You think I’m just gonna let him rot—let any of you just fuck off like a trio of vigilantes trying to bring down the bad guys, while me and my future wife raise a pretty little girl with pigtails for the rest of my life. I don’t think s—”
“You think it’s a girl?”
I paused, my heart feeling like it stopped for a second, and my eyes unblinking as I stared at him.
“I…” I hadn’t even thought about it. Not until now.
“A girl?” he asked with reverence lilting his voice.
My mouth opened and closed four times before my shoulders relaxed, and I shook my head. “I don’t know, Eric. I just can’t allow myself to believe it could be another boy for us to bring into this mess and fuck up with ego, bravado, and bullshit the kid doesn’t deserve.”
Eric’s face fell, and all the regrets I’d longed to hear him speak of were written across his face as he stared at me.
“I haven’t made many promises to you in your life, Drew.
Never felt the need to. Never wanted to make one and break it or let you down.
I’ve lived a life where the truth has been both my addiction and my tonic.
I figured truth could be yours, too. I was wrong to do that.
Truths are often twisted and ugly and sharp.
They don’t always make things better. Sometimes truths make things so unbearable, you feel like you can’t breathe.
A long life of mistakes has taught me that.
The truth isn’t always a good thing. I drowned you in it for years, and then I hid behind lies I thought would protect you.
I’m one big fucking mess of a father, and I can assure you, no one knows that more than me. ”
I ran my hand across my forehead, not knowing what to say.
“But I’m going to make you a promise today.”
Looking up, I held his gaze and saw that never before seen emotion there again.
“Before your child is born, there won’t be a mess for you to bring them into. The mess will be gone. No matter who has to pay the price for it, the next generation of Tuckers are going to be born into a world of peace. The kind of peace you and I have never known.”