Jake
My mother’s face was pale against the hospital pillows.
Eden was sitting with her, reading a book while Mum drifted in and out of sleep.
I was in the middle of a conversation with Scott, my president; Griff, our VP; and Sarah, but I was struggling to give them all my attention because Eden was stealing it.
Seeing her care for my mother tonight was making me feel shit I’d never felt in my life.
But then, Eden made me feel unfamiliar things from the very first day I’d laid eyes on her, so I wasn’t surprised.
“My contact confirmed it,” Sarah said, her voice pitched low in the hospital corridor, drawing me back to the conversation. “Black Deeds have been watching King’s men for weeks, documenting schedules, planning entry points. Rage wants King’s coke territory.”
Sarah’s intel was a punch to the gut. Black Deeds weren’t just making moves against us. They were planning to go after the Sydney chapter too. The weapons stockpile we’d been tracking suddenly made brutal sense.
Rage was the new president of the Black Deeds Brisbane chapter, and he was an absolute fucking nightmare.
He was ruthless with a reckless edge that’d already gotten five of his men killed in six months.
The guy had a god complex. Thought he was untouchable.
But he was gonna learn real quick what happens when you fuck with Storm, especially once King, the Sydney Storm president, got wind of this shit.
Scott’s jaw tightened. “King needs to know.”
Sarah nodded. “Axe is briefing him now.”
Axe was her Stone Security colleague as well as King’s brother, and the guy who sent Sarah to work with us on this. If not for her military training in cyber operations and strategic intel analysis, we wouldn’t have the insight we did now.
“I’ll get J to call everyone in,” Griff said.
Scott’s phone buzzed, King’s name lighting up the screen. He stepped away to take the call, Griff following to make his own.
Sarah moved closer, concern softening her expression. “Jake, I’m worried. Black Deeds are becoming more unpredictable.”
I nodded. “Yeah, but they don’t know we’re aware of what they’re planning. That works in our favour.”
She curved her hand over my arm. “They’ll become desperate when they figure it out. When Storm retaliates for what they did to your mum.” She paused. “Desperate men make mistakes, and mistakes get people killed.”
I stepped back, looking down at her hand as I broke contact. “You can’t keep touching me like that.”
“I just?—”
“No.” My voice was firm. “We’re not doing this, Sarah. I told you that I’m with Eden.”
Her lip curled. “She’s sweet, Jake. But she’s not built for this life. When shit gets real, she won’t stick around.”
“Don’t.” I used the tone that made most people stop and listen the fuck up. Sarah and I had already had this conversation, and I was pissed off that we had to have it again. “You don’t know her.”
She rolled her eyes. “Please. You’re thinking with your dick. She’ll run back to those suits who can give her a nice, safe life the second this gets messy.”
Anger flooded my veins. No fucking way was I listening to this shit. Eden wasn’t some weak princess who needed a man to take care of her.
I leaned in close, letting her see exactly what she was dealing with.
“Let me make this real clear.” My voice was deadly quiet.
“Whatever history we’ve got won’t mean shit if you ever disrespect her again.
Eden’s not going anywhere. And if you can’t handle that?
” My eyes held hers, hard and unmoving. I wanted her listening.
Really listening. I wanted her feeling every ounce of the threat.
“Then we’re gonna have a big fuckin’ problem. ”
Movement caught my eye, and I glanced up to find Eden standing in the doorway. Her expression was carefully blank as she looked at me.
Fuck.
I knew how she felt about Sarah getting close to me, and I hated that she’d had to witness it again.
Sarah stepped back and said, “I should check in with my contact.”
I nodded but my full attention was on Eden, so I barely noticed Sarah leaving.
“Your mum’s sleeping,” she said quietly. “I’m going home. I have to get some work done today, so I wanna try to get some sleep.”
“I’ll drive you.”
I wasn’t letting her out of my sight. Not when our club was being targeted. Mum was safe with my brothers standing guard, but fuck knew who’d seen me with Eden lately. Her involvement with me put her at risk and I wasn’t taking any chances.
The drive was quiet. Eden laced her fingers through mine on her thigh while she spent most of the time staring out the window. My mind was on Mum and the club, but every now and then, I glanced across, concerned at her silence.
Eden usually talked a lot. She swung between cute ramble and intelligent conversations that intrigued the fuck out of me. Often about shit I had no idea of. I could listen to her for hours, but tonight she had no words for me.
It had me worried that my life had exploded all over hers, and while I didn’t think Sarah was right that Eden would run at the first sign of trouble, I needed to know she was dealing with it.
She’d told me she didn’t know what it meant to date a biker, and I’d asked her to let me show her.
Now was the time to step the fuck up and do that.
“You okay, darlin’?” I asked as we turned onto our street.
She looked at me, exhaustion lining her face. “Yeah. I’m just worried about your mum.”
“And the club stuff?”
She nodded, but it wasn’t convincing. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I feel like I need a minute to catch up. To process it all.”
She looked like she’d been slammed with too much, too fast. The kind of too fast that could rattle a person enough to walk away. But her hand was still in mine, and that meant something.
“This life isn’t easy, Eden, but I’ll always protect you.”
“I know.”
I pulled into our apartment building’s car park, scanning the darkness for threats. Nothing seemed off, but instinct always kept me aware.
“Talk to me,” I said as I parked the car and turned to her. “Tell me what it is.”
Her eyes searched mine and I saw her hesitate before finally saying, “I get that club business is club business. I get that there are times you have to disappear to take care of it. And I get that you can’t talk about it with me.
” She took a breath. “But that makes things hard for me because I stress and spiral when I’m uncertain and don’t know facts.
” She looked down at her hands for a beat before looking back up at me.
“I guess I’m just processing that. And what that means for us. ”
The way my body reacted at “what that means for us” said a fuckuva lot about just how hard I’d fallen for her.
“You’re right that I can’t talk about a lot of it, but there are things I can tell you that’ll take some of that uncertainty away. I just hate the idea of dropping all the club shit on you. I want to protect you from it.”
“I didn’t fall for you because you made me feel safe, Jake,” she said softly. “I fell for you because you made me feel seen. Don’t try to protect me by keeping me in the dark. That’s not safety. That’s distance.”
She was right. I knew she was. And yet, I also knew I was going to struggle with this.
I didn’t say a word. Just leaned in and kissed her like it was the only way to get oxygen into my lungs. When I pulled back, I slid my hand along her jaw and said, “Thank you for coming to the hospital tonight. It meant a lot to me.”
She curled her hand around my forearm and fuck if I didn’t crave so much more of her touch. “I liked that you let me be a part of it.”
We sat watching each other for a few moments, not speaking, but still saying more than we had in the last twenty minutes.
I felt the things neither of us were voicing out loud but were absolutely communicating.
The way her hand stayed on my arm like she needed the contact just as much as I did.
The way her eyes softened but didn’t let go of that guarded edge.
The way mine probably looked like a fucking storm because that’s what she’d turned me into; a man who was feeling a fuckload of new feelings and didn’t know how to express them all.
She hadn’t said she was staying. But she hadn’t said she was going, either. That was Eden, though. Fierce, cautious, and standing firm.
I ran my thumb over her jaw. “I’m not trying to keep you in the dark, darlin’. Not on purpose. I just don’t always know what to give you.” I paused for a second. “I’ve never wanted to bring someone into my life like I do with you. I might need a little help and a fuckuva lot of patience with this.”
A smile spread slowly across her face, and she nodded as she whispered, “I can do that.”
“Thank fuck.” I pulled her in for another kiss before saying, “Okay, let’s get you inside so you can rack up some sleep. You’re gonna need all your brainpower to survive whatever fresh hell Johnson serves up in the morning.”
Her smile grew and her eyes lit up. “Honestly, that might be the hottest thing you’ve ever said.”
“Fuck, I’ve got work to do if that’s the bar.”
She laughed as she opened her door, and I thought about how fucking much I liked her laugh. Hell, I liked every damn sound she made.
We were halfway to the building when two figures stepped out of the shadows.
They moved like they weren’t in a rush. Streetlight highlighted the distinctive tattoo crawling up one guy’s neck.
Recognition flared; I knew that tattoo from the surveillance I’d been doing. These motherfuckers were Black Deeds.
The other guy held a chain, and it clinked as he adjusted his grip and said, “Well, look what we have here.” His tone was lazy, but his eyes were sharp, and they slid past me like I wasn’t even there, landing on Eden. His expression turned predatory. “Two for the price of one.”
I stepped forward, putting Eden at my back. “If you’re smart, you’ll walk away.”
They didn’t move.