Chapter 43 #2
“I do love that protective spirit of yours.” Eric grinned.
Considering he’d only just met her, I frowned harder.
“With all due respect, Mr. Tucker, I don’t think you’re qualified to make that assessment.” She squared off against him, rolling her shoulders back, and lifting her chin again, not allowing him to even begin to intimidate her.
“Your bullets sure don’t take corners. Straight shooter.”
Ayda frowned at him, her hands rubbing on her thighs. “Funny. I’ve heard that before.”
Bullets don’t take corners was always one of his favorite things to say growing up. Whenever I had a gun in my hand, he expected me to make the shot count. I glanced between Ayda and Eric. Something about the way she was glaring at him made my spine tingle.
“I know you have,” he said calmly, staring straight at Ayda.
“How?” she challenged.
Dad glanced back at me, his eyes cautious. “I know she’s stubborn and hard-headed, Drew, but there were times when she really shouldn’t have been left alone… no matter what fight she put up.”
“I don’t…” I frowned harder and shook my head before something clicked. “You’ve been in Babylon a while, haven’t you?”
“Long enough.”
“It was you. All this time I thought it was Jacob trying to goad us and it was you,” Ayda gasped.
“What was him?” I asked, snapping my head to her.
“I got a few random notes that didn’t make much sense. Just notes scribbled on paper. I threw them away and ignored them. I thought it was just another stupid game of Jacob’s and I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of reacting to them.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
Ayda’s eyes moved slowly to me. “I forgot them almost as soon as I threw them away. I didn’t think anything of it. Not to mention something always came up between the time I received it and when I saw you.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, not wanting to think anything even remotely bad about her. She’d done what she needed to do, that’s all I had to keep thinking. I reminded myself of the freedom she gave me to fuck up and remembered how much I wanted to be like her. To not take so much control.
But I couldn’t help thinking that if I’d known about that one note alone, I’d have figured out that my father was lurking in the shadows.
I just couldn’t figure out if that would have been a good thing or not.
“Why were you sending her notes?” I asked him with as much control as I could muster.
Eric released a weighty breath. “There’re a lot of things I need to tell you.
Both of you. All the brothers, too. But ten years is a long absence, Drew, and there’s no starting point for me.
There’s nowhere I can begin that won’t bring more questions, probably more hate, definitely some resentment. ”
My eyes flew open as I turned my head his way and took an angry step forward.
“How about you start with the truth! Something I seem to have spent my whole fucking life without. How about you tell me why you’re back after ten long years of me thinking you could be dead for all I fucking knew.
How about you tell me why the man who was there for me is now on his way to Babylon Police Department to take the fall for a crime he didn’t commit?
How about you give me something, Dad, Eric, Mr. Tucker…
whatever the fuck I’m supposed to call you now you’ve risen from the dead.
Tell me something real. Tell me something true. Or get the fuck out of my Hut.”
He stared at me, and I saw the flash of respect in his eyes. But Eric Tucker didn’t flinch. He never flinched, which is why it had always sat badly with me that he’d ever run at all.
“Your Hut,” he said softly.
“You’re goddamn right it’s my Hut. My club. My patch.” I jabbed my chest, refraining from ripping my T-shirt wide open for him to see the tattoo on my skin. “My goddamn brothers. The ones I would bleed and die for. Not run away from.”
“Sometimes we have to run away to protect the ones who stay.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes you need to tell the ones who stay why you’re going at all, otherwise you’re just keeping them out of one prison and putting them in another they can never get out of.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you, son.”
Son.
That one word. The word Harry had said with truth and respect—like he meant it.
It felt strange coming from another man’s mouth, but I found myself falling back onto flat feet and collecting my breaths anyway.
“Give me something, Dad.”
Eric scratched his eyebrow before he dropped his hands into his jean pockets and held my gaze.
“The biggest problem I ever had was with The Navarro Rifles. I worked my whole life to keep this club away from them. I knew the power they had… have. They’re not to be messed with.
Something happened all those years ago. Something I can’t explain to you right now, but I will, I promise.
Trust me, the less you know, the more protected you will be while I’m here.
Especially with everything going on.” His eyes drifted to Ayda before he looked back at me.
“Harry has always kept in touch with me, but it’s been loosely.
Birthdays. Christmas. Times when I wished I could have been here with you all, sharing a beer with my brothers and smelling the sweet smell of home. ”
“Home?”
“I never wanted to leave, Drew. I did it because I had to.”
“Why are you back now?”
“Because Harry told me what was going on. He told me about the way you’d imitated The Navs to bury The Emp.
I couldn’t stay away. I made the decision that I’d rather be dead, or among you all, trying to fight, than be hidden away in a world without the heart of this place with me.
As soon as Harry called me and told me about you playing with fire, I heard his voice.
I heard the deterioration of it all. I heard the cancer before he even told me he had it. That’s when I knew…”
“Knew…?”
“You were about to lose a father. I needed to come back and be there for you. You’ve already lost too much.”
Ayda’s lips twitched. It was so hard for her to restrain herself when she wanted to protect me. Her hand balled at her side as she glared at my father.
“You thought it would be that easy?” she asked.
“You’ve been gone for ten years, and Harry has been there for Drew at every single turn in his life, every hard decision he had to make, every change the club had to make so they could survive, and you think that Harry being gone just leaves an opening for you to walk into?
It doesn’t work like that. Harry can’t be replaced. ”
“With all due respect, Miss Hanagan, you’re not qualified to make that assessment.” He tilted his head to one side and studied her.
“You watch your mouth when speaking to her, you understand me?” I growled, my finger aimed at his chest as my own rose hard and fast. “You don’t get to come back in here and play king. Not today. You want back? You earn the right.”
“I’m not here to make waves,” he said calmly, glancing down at my finger.
“I’m here because I think you’re under attack, and this time, I want to be fighting alongside you.
If you’ll let me, I want to work together to secure the safety and the future of this entire club for the rest of your lives.
” Eric looked up at me carefully, lowering his voice as he spoke.
“Marriage is the best thing you’ll ever do when you do it with the right woman.
I know she’s right for you. I can see it in everything you now are.
Everything you weren’t ten years ago. It’s because of her, right? ”
My teeth were grinding together and my nostrils flared as I stared at him, unable to speak.
“Let’s give her the good life, Drew,” he whispered as he leaned in.
“Let’s give her and your future kids what we never had.
What your mom never had. Let’s end all these pointless wars based upon power, greed, and envy.
Let me help you give Ayda what I know you desperately want to give her…
a future where everyone is safe, and you never have to look over your shoulder again. ”
“How do you know that’s what I want?” I breathed back at him.
“Because it’s what every man wants to give the woman he’s in love with.”
“And Harry?” I asked, not wanting to hear the answer.
“He wants the same for you. Harry wants you to live a good life. When he dies, he wants you to remember him like a hero, a friend, a father, and with a shit-eating smile on your face, Drew. His words, not mine. The biggest gift you can give him is this one last act of bravery.”
“You say it like it’s easy.”
“Nothing about this life is easy. Nothing worth having ever is.”