Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
DREW
Slater was sitting opposite me in my office, twirling the small wooden box in his hand.
A slow smile crept into place, my eyes narrowing as I drummed a pen on the top of the desk. I was more relaxed than I should have been considering the shit storm we were currently living under.
“Told you I’d sort it,” Slater said, that arrogance he wore so well shining through.
“We can’t let Ayda find out about this until its time.”
“One secret I’m sure she won’t mind you keeping from her.”
I raised a brow and laughed, leaning forward and taking the box from Slater’s outstretched hand. My body fell back in the chair with a thud, rocking me into a soothing bounce as I stared down at it in my hands.
When I opened it up, the vintage band of twisted gold shone up at me like a beacon of hope. It had been my mother’s, but after an argument with my father when I was younger, she’d taken it off her finger, placed it on the porch of The Hut, and she’d swung it across the yard with an old broom.
Harry had chased after it and slyly whisked it away into the safety of the pawnshop.
We all suspected Mom knew Harry had it, but she never asked for it back.
Not even when Eric had said all his apologies, and they’d fallen straight back in love again.
According to her, marriage didn’t need a gold band.
All it needs is loyalty, commitment, and understanding.
The other stuff is just shit magpies can take from you.
Still, it was something I wanted Ayda to have. Something for her to throw off the porch and crush into the gravel if she ever felt the need to. Something from one woman in my life to the other.
“Those tears in your eyes, Tucker?” Slater said, his smirk growing when I glanced up through hooded eyes.
“Allergies.” I sat up straight, sniffed and ran the back of my hand over my forehead.
Slater laughed, rocking back in his chair. “Any date set yet?”
“Nope.” I shook my head. “Shit’s been a bit—”
“Fucked up. Yeah, I know. We’ve all been here through it with you. You just haven’t seen us for a while. Took Eric along for the ride with you instead of the men who have been here your whole damn life.”
“I didn’t take Eric. He followed,” I corrected him, dropping the ring box on my desk and planting my joined hands to rest in front of me. When I glanced up, Slater had that look about him that told me a lecture was on the tip of his tongue. “Go on,” I urged. “Say what you’ve got to say.”
“Okay,” Slater said through a sigh, lifting his ankle to rest over his knee, his hand clutching at the dusty old sole of his boot. “Do you trust him?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s something. Do you think he’s back here permanently?”
I rolled my neck, hearing the crack of tension when I moved it too sharply. “I don’t know.”
“How do you feel about it all?”
“Like he’s come in useful so far. Like he was what I needed when I needed it—just some punk who knew enough history of the club to understand why I wanted to do some of the things I’ve done, but still enough of a stranger for me to keep him at a distance.
Honestly, Slate, I’ve already got too many enemies.
Why make one more of my old man? If he can be useful, I’m going to wring him dry of every good thing he has that helps the club. ”
“What if he isn’t here for the good of the club?”
I scowled and smiled at the same time. “You really think the guy who built the Hounds from nothing but two wheels and a piece of leather is going to put us in danger? Nah. He’s got too much of his heart in the soil beneath our boots.
He left it here. His life was here. He may be a self-preserving selfish piece of shit at times, but he wouldn’t do anything to hurt the Hounds. ”
Slater opened his mouth to speak, closed it and then clearly thought, fuck it. “And if he does?”
I shrugged. “We kill him.”
“Just like that?” Slater frowned.
“Just like that.” I nodded without emotion.
A knock on the door pulled our attention away from each other, the two of us sitting up straighter when Eric walked into the room.
He gave Slater a nod, but he didn’t have to say a word for Slater to turn back to me, push himself up out of his chair, raise his brows and sigh. “I’ll be in the bar. We still heading on that repo job later?”
“Give me thirty minutes?”
“Sure thing.”
Slater’s eyes held Eric’s the whole way until he sauntered out of the office, closing the door behind him. Eric dipped his chin to his chest, a small, amused smirk playing on his lips as he shook his head.
“Is it me, or is it getting a little cool around here lately?” he asked quietly, turning his head my way as he folded his arms across his chest and stood there, legs apart.
Just the way I held myself in front of people, too.
It was fucking creepy how many things I’d picked up from him without realizing it.
I shrugged, still hunched over my desk. “Feels kinda warm over here.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get used to that. I’m about to send a shiver down your spine.”
“I’m guessing by the look on your face that’s not because you know a girl who can come and tickle my balls.”
“The Hut’s got plenty of those.”
“Only one who interests me.”
Eric paused, his eyes searching mine before he gave me a nod of, what I assumed, was approval. “Quite the little firecracker you’ve got there. Understanding, too. Especially about the whole Helen Taylor thing.”
I nodded to my chair, indicating that if he was here to chat, he should probably sit down. He did, taking my instruction and sinking into the seat opposite me.
“I keep waiting for something to tip her over the edge, something to make her think that this life isn’t for her,” I admitted.
“She isn’t going anywhere,” Eric said firmly, no mistaking in his voice that he meant it, either.
I sighed heavily, relief coming out like exasperation without intention.
“Since being with me, she’s lost her childhood home, been assaulted, chased down, attacked, watched me almost die in a warehouse, covered up an explosion and the deaths of an entire enemy charter.
She’s had to learn how to shoot, lost Harry…
. She even killed two guys—one who once meant something to her.
I shouldn’t have been as surprised to see her stand by me with the whole Helen thing, too, but I was. ”
“Ayda loves you.”
“I know.” I stared back at him, feeling the weight of his three words gripping my heart and squeezing it tight.
“There’s a but on the tip of your tongue. Better set it free before it bites you.”
Why he was the person I was talking to about this, I had no fucking clue. “I know I’m a selfish fucker for letting her live this life with me, but I can’t live without her now. Can’t help but think that—”
“You should set her free?”
I didn’t respond, just stared straight at him and watched him as he sighed, shifted in his chair and cocked his head to one side.
“Good luck with that. I tried to keep your mother out of this life for years. You know what happened? She ended up getting in even deeper. You push them away, they tend to push back harder until you’re the one slammed up against a wall with them holding your throat in their hands. ”
“Mom was wild?”
“Fuck, was she wild.” He smiled with a tinge of sadness around his eyes.
“Wilder than any of the boys even knew. Ayda reminds me of her in so many ways. She’ll get hurt with or without you around now, boy.
You can’t turn a good girl bad and then expect her just to forget what the high of that naughtiness feels like.
There’s no going back. Better to be by her side with a chance of saving her than to let her run free and get herself in trouble without you there. ”
“Couldn’t let her go now even if I wanted to.”
Eric nodded repeatedly and pressed his lips together.
“Why you here, anyway?” I asked, scowling because I sure as shit knew he wasn’t in my office just to compliment my future wife. Wife. Hell! That sounded good.
“To ask what your long-term plan with Helen Taylor is.”
Straight to the point. That was one good thing about my father. He didn’t fuck around with wasted words.
“I have no idea,” I answered, honoring him with equal honesty.
“For now, Helen can stay where she is. No one is looking for her. There have been no missing persons filed from what Sutton keeps telling us. That phone call we made her have with her daughters while they’re off traveling the world seemed to sate their curiosity of where the fuck she was.
Doc’s checked out her bullet wound. She’s healing well. She’s safe.”
“But she’s still being held hostage.”
“Better by us than some of the other evil bastards out there that will no doubt be wanting to avenge Jon Taylor.” Eric’s jaw tightened, and I narrowed my eyes on him, sensing there was something more to this than he was allowing me to see. “What is it?”
“What?”
“That thing you’re not saying, which, by the way, is unlike you. So, let’s get straight to the point.”
“Fine,” he started, resting his elbow on the chair arm and running his finger over the top of his lip. “I think we need to work toward letting her go.”
“What?”
“Not now, but soon. You’re not going to kill her, are you?
My silence was my answer. Eric could take it however he wanted.
“You’re not, Drew. Ayda wouldn’t allow it.”
I scowled harder. “I love her, but I’m not pussy-whipped, Eric.”
His sardonic laugh was enough to make me curl my hands tighter together.
“Fine,” I all but growled. “Guilty as charged. Helen lives. But I’m not letting her go yet.
Not until we know for damn certain she can get the hell out of town.
I’ve spoken to Ayda. She wants to help take care of her.
If it means her spending more time in the safe house out of the way, actually safe, then I’m all for it. ”
“I hear ya.”
“That all?”
Eric Tucker had a lot more to say and a lot more to ask, but his signature nod arrived right on cue, and that meant our meeting was done.
“Good. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a woman I need to speak to about living the rest of her life with and a fucking wedding to sort that keeps getting put off because assholes like you keep fucking with my free time.”
“Drew?”
“Yeah,” I sighed, readying myself for another lecture.
“You’re doing good… even when you think you’re not. If you’re ever in doubt, just remember who you are and how many men live for your leadership.”
I blinked several times, trying hard not to show any emotion on my face as I stared at the man who’d created me like he was a stranger I somehow knew. He was a walking contradiction, and I had no idea why I was drawn to him when I wanted to kill the fucker some days.
“Right,” I croaked, quickly clearing my throat, pushing my chair back and standing up in front of him. “Thanks.” My hand found the back of my neck and rubbed it awkwardly.
“Don’t worry. I’m going.” He pushed himself up out of his chair and made his way to the door.
“Stay out of trouble,” I found myself saying.
When Eric glanced over his shoulder, his familiar devil eyes narrowed, and his knowing smirk broke free. “Where’s the fun in that?”
And then he left, leaving the door open so I could watch the way my old man swaggered through the halls of The Hut like he owned it.
Like he built them.
Like they belonged to him.
Like he was fucking home again.