EAGLE
Iwatched the guys’ faces as they absorbed what I’d just told them.
This was a truth I never wanted to admit to myself and somehow, I ended up falling for the one woman who could turn me into what I feared most. Hannibal still haunted my dreams as he stared me down, crazed and babbling nonsense about how we could rule the world together if I let him live.
He used to always tell me that he saw himself in me, and that turned my stomach.
I refused to ever be like him and when I saw Dax turn her gun on Nelly, I snapped.
I was transported back to those dark days, watching sobbing women and children beg to be set free, until we doped them up.
I’d helped to turn children into drug addicts—yeah, I might not have given them the drugs with my own hands, but I’d helped collect the drugs we used.
As much as the nightmares clung to me, they were my constant reminder of what was hiding deep in my blood, waiting for me to slip up.
Then Dax entered my life and one night of her in my bed and I slept like a baby.
Did I deserve to be given that freedom? No, my life would never be on the right side of the law, but I worked hard to make sure that I kept people like my uncle out of my territory.
This was the driving force behind why I chased the Mad Dogs out of California, took over their businesses and cleaned them up.
Flesh would never be dealt if I had anything to say about it.
People might not understand why I choose to live this life still, but where did a man like me go?
I couldn’t ever be the good guy, not really.
As a result of my trauma, my desperate need to control myself and others around me became a way to cope, to make sure that nothing like that would happen in this club.
How Picasso only turned into the moody asshole artist he is was beyond my understanding.
Hannibal nearly beat him to death and most of the scars have been covered up by tattoos, but I still knew they were there.
“Well, fuck,” Void muttered as he leaned back into the couch.
If there was ever another man who could understand what I feared, it would be him.
When I found him fighting in the underground rings after he was kicked out of official fights, I saw the pain in his eyes.
Cognac knew loss as well but the fire that fueled him was revenge against the cartel that stole his family from him.
I’d hoped never to have to tell him this story, knowing that he’d been sold.
Not through our network, but that made little difference to the person who was trafficked.
These men had become brothers, bonded together by pain and anger, and the only way to keep us all sane was to make sure no one fucked with our carefully structured world—the one thing Dax would be able to blow up with a single word.
“I thought she was his enforcer for the profit or the clout. Knowing that she is the dark queen of the Empire changes everything,” I stated, dropping my now thawed bag of peas.
Picasso snapped a piece of the coffee table, tossing it across the room. “You can’t keep letting that asshole torture you from the grave, Eagle. It gives him too much power.”
“You know that it runs in our family. Why do you think Mom wants nothing to do with us? Yeah, we all go home for Christmas, but she lives in a fantasy where we aren’t the leaders of a gang and her brothers died in a tragic accident.
What do you think will happen if we show up with the woman who killed her brother?
” I demanded. “I think it would break her. She hides away in her perfect world, but if we shatter that, I don’t think she could take it. ”
“Why the fuck do we have to tell her? Dax is a tattoo artist who also paints. That’s what the world knows her as.
Why do you have to make it out to be the worst possible situation?
You’re so fucking scared to turn into some Jekyll and Hyde shit, you’ve built this perfect fortress, not only for you but for me as well.
Could you just man up for one goddamn second and see that you’re pissed at yourself and not Dax or anything that happened about last night?
She scares the shit out of you because she can handle the so-called crazy without losing to it.
What makes you think she would even want to turn you into that person?
” Picasso was now shouting at me in a way that hadn’t happened since we became the leaders of the Phantom Saints.
“I got to see a glimpse of the woman under the attitude and she’s crying out for someone to stay by her side no matter how broken she is, and you tossed her worst fear in her face.
You did exactly what you’re afraid she’ll do to you—see the vulnerable underbelly and go for the kill. ”
His words hit harder than Sprocket’s fist in my face, and it finally sank in how badly I fucked up.
“I think he just got it,” Cognac whispered loudly. “So does that mean we’re going to the docks tonight?”
Shoving myself to my feet with a grunt, I nodded. “Let Sprocket and I clean up and we’ll make a plan as we eat. Chances are this meeting isn’t until the docks are closed for the night.”
Cognac grinned at me like the Cheshire cat, the gleam of excitement in his eyes. “Oh, this shit’s gonna be good.”
Void grunted his agreement, but I saw the smirk on his smug face. That man had no problem at all with the idea of burning down the world around us if it meant she would be safe, and I envied that. Seems I might have something to learn from my enforcer after all these years.
We pulled up to the docks around eleven.
The security was gone, the shipping yard silent but for the ringing of the buoys out in the ocean.
I drove past the vacant guard shack onto the docks at a low idle so we didn’t attract too much attention.
If we were late, then it would be even more obvious that we shouldn’t be here.
Too early wasn’t that much better. As we made our way further back, I spotted a warehouse that glowed in the night with cars and bikes scattered all around.
Either there was another secret meeting, or this is what we were looking for.
I cut the engine and the others followed, coasting our way up to the building and parked a little way from everyone else, in case we needed to get out of there in a hurry.
“You ready for this, Pres?” Sprocket asked as he stood next to me. “Because if you have any second thoughts or you need to work through your shit, then now is not the time to do this.”
I clapped him on the back. “I’m good. Still got shit to work on but it’s more about me than her. I owe her an apology, a huge fucking apology if I’m being honest.”
“Glad to see you managed to remove your head from your ass.”
“Let’s just hope I’m not too late and she’ll give us another chance. You guys don’t deserve to be punished for what I did.”
Sprocket shook his head. “It wasn’t just you who let her walk out that door. None of us stopped her from doing it. Any one of us could have manned up and told you what we really thought, but we didn’t.”
“That won’t happen again,” Void announced. “I told my little demon that I wasn’t going to let her go and I plan to make good on my word, no matter what I have to do to make it happen.”
“What, you going to kidnap her again?” Cognac joked, laughing to himself until he saw Void’s face. “Oh fuck, you would.”
“Of course I fucking would. It worked the first time, didn’t it?” Void answered with a shrug of his shoulders and headed off to the warehouse.
“I love that man like a brother, but sometimes he worries me,” Cognac muttered as he followed.
Picasso fell in beside me as we journeyed into the demon’s lair to await whatever fate she had for us.
Was Picasso right about Hannibal still controlling me?
It was hard to swallow that kind of truth, but I knew my brother always had my back and would never lie to me about shit like that just to get his way.
Something had happened between him and Dax while he was at her house and it wasn’t just the rescue mission for Harper.
No, it was deeper than that. He said he’d seen behind her walls and caught a glimpse of her true self that she’s locked away, much like I’ve done.
I wonder who she would be if she’d never lost her brother?
Shaking my head, I pulled myself back to the present, the time to be lost in thought was not when we were in unknown territory.
For all we knew, she could have put out a hit order on us if we ever showed up here.
Yeah, Buzz was a double agent and had been feeding us a lot of the information we had on the Empire over the years, but that didn’t mean he’d be able to catch everything.
“Yo, is Weston around?” Cognac asked the hulking mass of muscles that stood at the door.
The guard tried to fold his arms over his chest, but he was so bulky that it didn’t really work. “If you have to ask that, you don’t belong here, so move along.”
I took a deep breath and rolled my head to shake off some of the stiffness that was settling in after my fight with Sprocket.
I squared my shoulders and stepped up. “Eagle, President to the Phantom Saints. We were told to be here and to ask for Wes when we arrived. You want him to find out that you ignored his order and mention it to Dax?”
It was an amazing thing to watch a man of his size wither at the mention of my little hellcat. “Wait here.”
“Well, look who’s back in the game. Way to go Pres,” Cognac cheered, punching me in the shoulder.
I glared at him but didn’t rise to his teasing. It’s just what Cognac did, meaning all was right in our world. It didn’t take long before Wes came storming out the door and got right up in my face, rage covering his face.
“What the actual fuck, Eagle? Why the hell are you here right now?” he barked, but when I tried to answer, he cut me off. “On second thought, I don’t want to know. You need to leave. You’re not welcome here.”
“Is that order coming from you or from her?” Picasso snapped, shoving Weston to the side and out of my face.
“We aren’t here to cause trouble, Westley.
It’s clear that she’s going to tell everyone about what’s going on, and seeing as we are allies, we wanted to offer our services and provide backup.
It’s not safe for her to do this without people she can count on to have her back. ”
“Oh, and you think that’s you assholes? I’m sorry but did you all forget the part where you told her to fuck off and that she wasn’t wanted anymore?
Because I sure as fuck do!” Wes shouted, grabbing Picasso’s shirt, ready to lay him out on the pavement.
But in the last second, Void grabbed his arm, halting the punch.
“Wes,” Void warned. “Don’t make us defend ourselves against you. We are in deep enough shit with her already.”
Holy shit, Void just saved our asses, because I know that Picasso would have retaliated, and nothing would infuriate Dax more than Weston getting hurt.
“Just let us in. You won’t even know we’re there, alright?” I offered. “None of us want to cause more problems, we just need to somehow show her that we’re there for her.”
Wes snorted. “It’s gonna take a lot more than this to do the trick.”
“The groveling will come later, I assure you,” Sprocket interjected. “Our goal is to keep her alive long enough to atone for our sins.”
Wes gave us all a hard look and I could tell he was at war with what to do. “Keep your mouths shut, and only step in if I give you guys a signal. Dax has to prove that no matter what, she is and always has been the leader of the Hidden Empire. Don’t fuck this up for her.”