Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
DREW
Seeing Eric and Jedd had given my soul a sense of peace, even though I still had a thousand questions and a million reasons to stay awake.
The only thing I’d needed after the day I’d had was her.
The need to make her come and have her whisper my name in my ear was stronger than ever. No better feeling existed.
With Ayda’s head resting on my chest and her breaths falling against my skin, nothing else seemed to matter. I was tired. So tired. Not just from recent events, but from my life. All of it. The expectation, the damnation, the purpose, the leadership…
I was fucking exhausted.
I’d listened to Ayda’s quiet, heavy breathing for a while. The ceiling held my attention for only a few minutes before dreams of a peaceful life, a wife, and a healthy baby filled my world.
A world I was beginning to wish I could drag into reality.
It felt like I’d only been asleep for a minute when I felt the gentle tugging of my hand that was hanging off the edge of the bed. With a groan of protest, I rolled my head on the pillow, facing the direction of the tugging.
“Tucker,” came a rough voice.
It took one thunderous heartbeat for my eyes to fly open and my body to tense.
Jedd was hanging over me, his silhouette the only thing I could really make out as the light from the adjoining bathroom poured through the crack in the door. He had a finger pressed to his lips, and his dark eyes narrowed as he used his other hand to point to Ayda.
I glanced down at her blissfully asleep against me.
She was holding on tight, clinging to me in a way that made me want to curl into her even more and spend a week there.
But Jedd was back, in the middle of the fucking night, telling me to be quiet, and the peace Ayda had shrouded me in was slipping away by the second.
With a sigh, I peeled Ayda off my body, making sure not to wake her as I lifted my groggy head from the bed and began to slide out from beneath her. Jedd was backing away toward the door, his silent instruction clear.
I walked out into the corridor, blinking against the muted lights that lit the way. I’d dressed in some loose fitting, gray sweats, and was pulling my white T-shirt down over my body when I froze in place.
It wasn’t just Jedd waiting for me.
Eric was there, too.
I’d barely had time to blink when a groggy-looking Slater Portman was shuffling into place beside me, rubbing the tiredness out of his eye as he struggled to stifle his yawn.
I looked between all three of them before I began to walk forward, Slater dragging his bare feet behind me. Eric was standing behind the bar, as stoic as ever, and Jedd was standing by his stool with a suppressed grin on his face.
“What fucking time is it?” Slater croaked.
“About one in the morning,” Jedd answered.
I blew all the air out of my cheeks and glanced between him and my father.
“What’s going on?” I asked roughly.
Jedd gestured for me to take a seat on the stool as he slid into place on his. Dad uncapped the bourbon, lined up four glasses, and poured heavy measures into each one.
“They let you out in the middle of the night?” I questioned, scowling at Jedd just as Eric slid a tumbler into my hand. The gulp I took sent a burning fire into my chest—one that woke me up without fail before I dropped the glass back to the counter.
“They offered to let me go two days ago.”
“That’s a joke, right?”
Jedd glanced at Eric, as though waiting for his instruction rather than mine. When he eventually looked back at me, his eyes were light, the darkness I’d come to know him wear so well… gone.
“I was free to walk any time I liked.”
“But you stayed…”
He nodded slowly. “All part of the plan.”
“To create trust with that Winnie chick?”
“That, and…” He trailed off and glanced down at his finger running circles around the rim of his glass. “The thing is, Drew, everyone in this club loves you. You know that, right?”
I scowled harder, not needing to answer him when his eyes looked up to meet mine. I knew. That didn’t mean I had to say it aloud.
“We love Ayda, too,” Jedd said quietly. “It’s weird. In the grand scheme of the club, she hasn’t been around long. You two haven’t been together for years. I don’t even think you’ve celebrated a birthday together yet, right?”
That was right. April 10th was approaching, marking the celebration of the birth of the greatest woman I’d ever known, and my birthday was June 3rd—a summer child with a winter heart.
It was hard to imagine Ayda never being in my life.
In such a small amount of time, we’d endured, felt, and survived so much, my heart often tried to convince me that she’d always been around.
That I’d always loved her.
“Right,” I found myself breathing to Jedd.
“So, when Eric began speaking to me on the sly just a week or so ago, and he said that he wanted to set backup plans in place that would save both you and Ayda, you know I had to hear him out, too, yes?”
My jaw tensed, the muscles twitching as I glanced at Slater and Eric. “Right.” I swallowed hard.
“It wasn’t just about saving you, Drew. It was about saving Ayda. It was about saving you as individuals, and as the couple we’ve come to love having around here.”
“Tell me everything, Jedd,” I begged him quietly.
He did. Jedd told me how Eric had approached him, warning Jedd of something big on the horizon.
Something he didn’t know the finer details of yet, but something that had his gut warning him that they needed insurances in place in case The Hut came under attack from anyone.
Things that would keep the club, as well as Ayda and me, safe.
Since the ATF arrived in town, the plan had always been for Jedd and Eric to slip away and cause a distraction when the time came.
False promises of intel.
False teases of turning rat in order to get out of it all.
More misdirection.
Eric had asked Jedd because he knew Slater was too loyal to keep secrets from me—even ones that would protect my future in the long run.
He’d been right in that assessment, too.
Slater was loyaler than loyal. The guy struggled to look me in the eye when a lie was resting on his tongue.
I’d have figured him out straight away. But Jedd…
Jedd was a natural born VP.
There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do if it served the greater good.
He had all the makings of being president.
He was controlled, a tactician, a military soldier dressed in leather and ink.
I, more than anyone, knew Jedd would lay his life and reputation on the line to defend his president and his club.
“Harry had hinted to me before that the club had a rat, but in typical Harry fashion, he called it a mole—just a man or a whore with a big mouth and loose lips. He never said anything about it being Owen Sinclair who would betray us.”
“And that made you wary of everyone around here,” I added, purposely making it a statement rather than a question. “And that’s why you’ve been asking more questions lately, brooding more, looking disappointed at all of us and having me think that, for all this time, you’ve been disappointed in me.”
It was Jedd’s turn to frown. “How could I ever be disappointed in you?”
With a shrug, I answered honestly. “Because I went and fell in love with a girl who took up more space in my heart than this club ever could.”
The silence was tense between all of us when my eyes met Jedd’s again.
“That’s what you think?” he eventually asked, his voice hoarse.
“The thought had crossed my mind once or twice. You blamed me for disappearing after Harry died and—”
“I blamed you for closing the fucking doors on us all, Drew, not for disappearing or falling in love with Ayda. Fuck me, do you know how many people in this club wish they had what you have? Do you know how many of us lay on our beds, letting random whores suck our dicks while we look up at the ceiling and dream of a love like you’ve managed to find? ”
I leaned back and straightened my shoulders, unable to hide my surprise at his admissions.
“You don’t get to make assumptions, Tucker,” Jedd told me.
“Not you. That’s not who you are. You’ve always been upfront, straight to the point.
Next time you think I’ve got a problem with you being happy, either ask me outright or fucking man up and realize that I could never have an issue with you finally wearing a fucking smile on that grim-ass face of yours.
This isn't just about you anymore. Get that into your thick skull once and for all. You don’t get to be the only guy around here making sacrifices that send you off to jail for five years.
Harry did it, and if I want to do it, too, then screw you, I’ll fucking do it whichever way I see fit. ”
Eric’s huff of laughter had me looking his way, watching as he dipped his chin to his chest to hide his smile and ran a hand over his forehead.
I turned back to Jedd, resting my elbow on the bar. “You quite finished with your dramatic speeches, you big pussy?”
“For now.”
“Right. Bravo. Glad you got that shit off your chest.” I smirked, unable to hide how good it felt to know a man like Jedd cared so much about Ayda and me, he was willing to do whatever it took to keep us safe. “Now tell Slate and me everything we need to know. What does Winnie have on us?”
“If she wanted us all to go down, she has enough evidence to put a few of us away for life.”
My face fell, and all the nightmares of returning to prison swirled above my head like a dark, cold cloud of doom.
But Jedd’s flat smile slowly rose into a contradicting shit-eating grin.
“What do you mean, if she wanted us?”
“We’re not enough for her now. She’s got bigger men to chase—ones that could earn her the promotion she’s always dreamed of. While I was inside, Eric was putting things in place to tie our very own Sinclair, Jon Taylor, and Mayor Walsh together.”