Chapter One #2
One by one, the boys step back. Quill turns to me before he goes, leaning down close, his voice dropping to something private.
“I’m sorry. I get it. Believe me, I’m hurting too.
But please don’t do anything stupid. We’re your family.
Remember that.” He straightens, gives my hand a single firm tap, and I nod, because even through everything I’m feeling, I understand.
We’re all hurting, every last one of us.
They file out one by one, each of them promising to be back the next day, hopefully to bring me home.
The weeks that follow are the hardest of my life, harder even than the hospital, the beatings, and anything Clemente or Lawrence put me through because at least then I had something to fight against.
In the weeks after, all I have is grief, a promise, and a woman who needs me to hold it together when I’m barely holding myself.
But I hold it together. For Tracker. For Sophia. For the promise I made with my brother’s head in my lap and tears burning down my face.
And tonight, I finally put her on that plane.
***
Night has settled over the city by the time we get back from the airport.
The Blood Brothers’ clubhouse is lit up, noise spilling out into the dark, music low, voices rough, the clink of bottles and the grind of grief trying to pass for normal.
Cutting the engine, I sit there for a moment without moving or breathing, just staring at the front doors.
This place used to feel solid. Loud and chaotic, sure, but solid. Tracker fit here. He’d carved out a place for himself in this world as if he’d always belonged in it, even after the Bureau, even after everything he walked away from.
Now every time I step through those doors, it feels like walking into the shape of him without the man himself inside it.
Blaze parks behind me and climbs out of the van. “You coming?”
I nod once and force myself off the bike.
Inside, heads turn.
Not because I’m the president of the Sinners.
Because they know.
They know I just put Sophia on a plane. They know what Tracker was to me. They know I’ve been holding myself together with rage, obligation, and not much else.
Jasmine looks up first from behind the bar. Her expression softens for half a second before she covers it with something tougher. She slides a glass toward me without a word.
I don’t sit down.
The room smells like whiskey, leather, stale smoke, and food no one’s really tasted. Half the brothers are posted around the main room pretending to drink, pretending to talk, and pretending this is just another night.
It’s goddamn-well not.
Quill is at the table near the back with Hawke and Luke. Luke looks like hell. His face is still bruised, one arm is in a sling, and his eyes are as hard as stone. At least I’m not the only one carrying this.
I walk over.
“She make it on the plane?” Luke asks.
“Yeah.”
He nods once, like he understands there’s nothing else to say.
Quill leans back in his chair, watching me carefully. “And now?”
There it is.
The question under the question.
Now that Sophia is gone. Now that the promise is handled, at least for the moment. Now that there’s nothing left keeping me pointed in one direction instead of the other.
Now what?
I brace my hands on the table and look at each of them in turn. “Now we deal with the El Pasos.”
Silence.
Not shocked silence.
Just the kind that comes before men start discussing war.
Luke’s jaw ticks. “I’m in.”
“No shit,” Hawke mutters.
Quill doesn’t move. “You’re not ready.”
My eyes cut to him. “The fuck did you say?”
“You heard me.” His tone stays even. “You’re hurt. You’re pissed. And right now, you’re thinking with the part of you that wants blood, not the part that keeps people alive.”
“They took my brother.”
“They took all of ours.”
That lands harder than I want it to.
Still doesn’t change a damn thing.
“I’m not sitting on this.”
“I’m not telling you to sit on it,” Quill says. “I’m telling you not to rush in blind again because you want revenge more than you want a clean kill.”
The words hit exactly where they’re meant to.
Because he’s right.
And I hate him for it.
My hands curl into fists against the wood.
For a second, I’m back in that hallway. It’s too quiet and clean, and every instinct screams at me to turn around while I stand there and ignore it like a fool.
Tracker paid for that mistake.
Not me.
Him.
Luke shifts beside Quill, grimacing as he moves. “We do it right this time.”
I turn to him.
He holds my stare without blinking.
No pity or softness. Just truth.
Do it right.
Not loud.
Not fast.
Right.
It sounds too calm for what I feel inside, too measured and restrained. But restraint is the only thing standing between revenge and stupidity right now, and I know it.
Jasmine slides another glass onto the table beside me. Whiskey. No words. I pick it up and knock it back in one swallow. It burns all the way down, but not nearly enough.
Quill folds his arms. “We find out who else was working with the El Pasos. We find out if Lawrence survived. We figure out where Clemente went after the fire.”
“And then?”
“And then…” he says quietly, “… we bury them.”
That gets the room’s attention. A few of the brothers nearby go still, listening without pretending not to.
I set the glass down harder than I mean to.
“Good.”
Because beneath the grief, the promise, and the part of me that still sees Sophia disappearing through that security gate, something colder is growing.
Sharper.
Steadier.
I meant every word I said to Tracker. I’ll honor that promise no matter what it costs me.
But that’s not the only thing driving me anymore.
They took my brother, and I don’t care how long it takes.
Every single one of them is going to pay.