39. Gideon
GIDEON
The sound of engines retreating echoes through the mountains like thunder rolling away from a storm. I watch through the shattered window as cartel vehicles disappear into the forest, their headlights cutting desperate paths through the dawn mist.
"They're running," I announce, wiping blood from the cut above my eye. "Like rats from a sinking ship."
Savannah lowers her rifle, shoulders finally relaxing for the first time in hours. "El Espectro was their anchor. Without him, they're just scattered criminals with no direction."
"Good riddance," Dante mutters, stepping over debris toward the radio. "All units, sound off. I want casualty reports and status updates from every sector."
The radio crackles with voices—some strong, others weak with pain. Too many don't respond at all.
Malachi emerges from the smoke, his expensive suit torn and bloodstained. "Hex is coordinating medical triage in the garage. We've got wounded who need immediate attention."
I nod, but my eyes stay fixed on Savannah. She's staring down at El Espectro's corpse, her face carved from stone. Something cold twists in my gut—not fear, but recognition. I've worn that same expression after killing someone who mattered.
"You good?" I ask, moving closer.
"I'm fine."
"Bullshit." I catch her chin, forcing her to look at me. "Talk to me."
Her grey eyes flicker with something raw and unguarded. "I thought killing him would feel different. More final."
"Death's never as clean as we want it to be," I tell her. "Bastard's still talking in your head, isn't he?"
She nods, leaning into my touch despite herself. "He said I was his masterpiece. His creation."
"You're ours now," I say simply. "That's all that matters."
Dante's voice pierces the moment. "Gideon, I need you organizing cleanup crews. Bodies need moving before they start drawing flies."
I reluctantly step back from Savannah. "Copy that."
The next few hours blur together in a haze of blood and ash. We drag cartel corpses into the forest for the coyotes while our own dead get wrapped in club colors for proper burial. Brick and Tommy didn't make it through the night. Neither did three prospects whose names I barely learned.
Savannah works beside us without complaint, her hands steady as she helps carry stretchers. She doesn't flinch when Prospect Jackson bleeds through his bandages, doesn't hesitate when Dante asks her to help identify cartel weapons for disposal.
"She's holding up better than I expected," Malachi observes, hauling debris from the main hall.
"She's compartmentalizing," I correct, watching her methodically sort ammunition. "Survival mode. Seen it in fighters who take too many hits to the head."
"You think she'll crash later?"
I consider this, studying the rigid line of her shoulders. "Probably. But we'll be there when she does."
Dante approaches, his face grim with exhaustion. "Compound's secure, but we're looking at weeks of rebuilding. The armory took heavy damage, and the north wall needs complete reconstruction."
"Could be worse," I point out. "Could be dead."
"Speak for yourself," Hex calls out, limping past with her arm in a makeshift sling. "Some of us feel half-dead already."
Savannah looks up from her ammunition sorting. "How many did we lose?"
"Eight confirmed," Dante answers quietly. "Dozen more wounded, but they'll live."
Her jaw tightens. "Eight men died protecting me."
"Eight men died protecting their home," I correct sharply. "Don't you dare take that from them by making it about guilt."
She meets my eyes, and I see the fight drain out of her. "You're right."
"I usually am." I offer her a hand up. "Come on. Time to bury our dead."
The funeral happens at sunset, when the mountains turn the color of dried blood. We dig graves in the hard earth behind the compound, eight holes that look too small to hold the weight of what we've lost.
I stand beside Tommy's grave, staring down at the Hell Court colors draped over his coffin. Kid was twenty. Barely old enough to drink, and now he's feeding worms because some cartel bastard decided our lives were disposable.
"Should've been me," I mutter, my voice barely audible over the wind.
"No." Savannah appears beside me, her presence solid and warm. "It shouldn't have been anyone."
"Tommy had a sister in Portland. Brick had kids." My hands clench into fists. "I've got nobody. No family waiting for Christmas cards or birthday calls. Should've been me in that ground."
The words taste like ash in my mouth, but they're true. Always been true. I'm the expendable one—the monster they point at enemies and let loose. That's all I've ever been good for.
"You're wrong."
I turn to look at her, expecting pity or false comfort. Instead, I find steel in her eyes.
"You have us," she says simply. "Dante, Malachi, me. We're your family now."
"Family doesn't mean shit when you're dead."
"It means everything when you're alive." She steps closer, ignoring the fact that half the club is watching us. "You think I don't know what it's like to believe you're only good for violence? To think the world would be better off without you in it?"
Her words hit like a punch to the gut. "That's different."
"Is it?" She reaches up, her fingers tracing the scar that cuts through my left eyebrow. "You saved my life tonight. Multiple times. You saved Dante's life when that sniper had him pinned. You pulled Malachi out of that burning building when the roof started coming down."
"That's just?—"
"That's love, Gideon." Her voice carries across the graveyard, clear and unwavering. "That's what family does for each other."
I feel the eyes of every Hell Court member on us, but for once, I don't give a damn about appearances. Savannah's hand is still on my face, her thumb brushing away something wet I didn't realize was there.
"I never had that before," I admit, my voice cracking like I'm fifteen again instead of thirty-two. "Never had anyone who'd mourn me if I didn't come home."
"Well, you do now." She rises on her toes, pressing her forehead against mine. "And we're not going anywhere."
Dante's voice cuts through the moment, low and steady. "Gideon's right about one thing. We lost good men tonight. But they didn't die for nothing. They died protecting their home, their family."
I turn to see him standing at the graves, Malachi beside him. Both of them are looking at me with something I've never seen before—not pity, but understanding.
"That includes you, brother," Dante continues, his eyes locked on mine. "You're not expendable. You're irreplaceable."
The words break something inside my chest, something I've carried since I was a kid bouncing between foster homes. Savannah's arms wrap around me, and I let her hold me while the club watches their Sergeant-at-Arms fall apart in front of them.
I don't feel ashamed of the tears.
The funeral ends with dirt falling on coffins like rain on tin roofs. I stand there long after the others drift away, staring at the fresh mounds of earth that mark where good men went to ground.
"You planning to take root there?" Malachi's voice cuts through my brooding. He approaches with two bottles of whiskey, offering me one.
"Maybe." I accept the bottle, unscrewing the cap with fingers that still shake slightly. "Seems like a decent spot to think."
"Dangerous habit, thinking." He takes a long pull from his own bottle. "Leads to all sorts of uncomfortable revelations."
Dante emerges from the shadows between the graves, Savannah beside him. Both look as wrung out as I feel, but there's something different in their faces—a settled quality that wasn't there before tonight.
"Club meeting in an hour," Dante announces. "We need to discuss rebuilding and security protocols."
"Always the pragmatist," Malachi observes. "Can't even let the dead get cold before planning the future."
"The dead don't need plans," Savannah says quietly. "The living do."
I study her face in the moonlight, looking for cracks in her composure. Instead, I find something that surprises me—peace. Not happiness, but acceptance.
"You look different," I tell her.
"Different how?"
"Less like you're waiting for the other shoe to drop." I gesture at the graves around us. "This should've broken you. Should've sent you running back to whatever hole you crawled out of."
Her amber eyes flash with amusement instead of anger. "Is that what you want? For me to run?"
"Hell no." The words come out faster than I intended, raw and honest. "I want you to stay. All of you."
Dante raises an eyebrow. "All of us?"
I look between the three of them—Dante with his steady strength, Malachi with his sharp intelligence, Savannah with her fierce loyalty. At last, the future doesn't feel like a threat waiting to happen.
"Yeah," I say, surprised by how certain I sound. "This thing we've got—whatever the hell you want to call it—it works."
"Even when it's messy?" Savannah asks.
"Especially when it's messy." I take another drink, letting the whiskey burn away the last of my fear. "I spent thirty-two years believing I was better off alone. Safer that way. Less chance of getting hurt or hurting someone else."
"And now?" Malachi prompts.
I look at each of them again, these three people who somehow became my anchor in a world that never made sense before. "Now I think being alone is just another way of being dead."
Savannah steps closer, her hand finding mine in the darkness. "You're not alone anymore."
"Neither are you," Dante adds, his voice carrying that quiet authority that makes people listen.
"None of us are," Malachi concludes, raising his bottle in a mock toast. "To family, blood or chosen."
We drink in silence for a moment, standing among the graves of men who died protecting what we've built together. The weight of their sacrifice should crush us, but instead, it feels like foundation stones—something solid to build on.
"So what now?" I ask, genuinely curious about the answer.
Dante's smile is barely visible in the moonlight. "Now we rebuild. Stronger than before."
"Together," Savannah adds, squeezing my hand.
The word settles in my chest like a promise I finally believe.