Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
DREW
Iwas hallucinating.
The shock from Harry. The hits from Slater. The fight with Trigger. The gunshot wound from Ayda.
Still, I found myself staring into the eyes of my father.
A man I hadn’t seen in ten long years. A man who hadn’t changed, but had also changed in every single way I could imagine.
His dark hair was now being drowned out by the mass of silver.
His eyes had aged, the wrinkles of the hard years showing.
He looked cleaner, though. Less worried…
or maybe he was better at carrying the weight of it all.
“Hey, Drew,” he spoke with confidence from behind my future wife. “Long time no see.”
I looked back to her, unblinking.
Ayda’s eyes were wide with shock as she turned to the side, glanced at the man behind her and then back at me, all the color draining from her cheeks. Unspoken apologies shone in her eyes as they met mine. She’d had no idea who he was.
I rose from my stool, unsure what the fuck to do.
I was hallucinating. I had to be.
But he was right there…
“He’s alive,” I whispered to myself, unsure if anyone else heard.
Glancing back over my shoulder at all my brothers, I saw their expressions mirroring mine. Every single man was in shock, their mouths agape and their eyes wide with surprise.
“Drew?” Eric said my name like he hadn’t been gone for so long.
And like the obedient son of the former king, I turned his way on his command, staring at him with nothing to say.
“Harry’s gone.” He stated it like it was fact. Like he knew.
I scowled instantly. “What?”
“Harry. He’s—”
I cut him off quickly, taking a step closer while wondering how the hell I must have looked to him, all bruised skin, swollen eyes and wounded arms with blood still splattered across my T-shirt.
“How the fuck do you know about Harry? What the hell are you doing here? How? How…” My head shook as all the questions rattled around inside of it.
Eric stepped forward, moving himself around Ayda as carefully as he could. “We need to talk.”
“You’re damn right about that!” Slater piped up behind me. “Someone needs to talk and talk fast. Where the fuck has Harry gone?”
I wanted to turn back to Slater, but I was so focused on the man in front of me, I couldn’t move. So I said what I needed to say like a fucking coward, not looking any of them in the eye apart from my father as I delivered Harry’s fate to their feet.
“Harry’s got cancer. It’s terminal,” I practically whispered.
“I didn’t know until he got in Sutton’s car and told me.
Like the hero he’s always been for me, he refused to let me go back to prison, so he took my place.
” I rolled my tongue on the roof of my mouth and tried to rid myself of the fucking pain in my throat. “He’s got weeks to live…”
The cry of the men behind me sounded like a pack of whimpering wolves, each one injured from the emotional bullet I’d just shot straight into their hearts without build-up or warning.
Ayda pushed past my father a lot less delicately than he’d moved around her.
She crossed the room in a few short strides with her head up and her eyes locking onto mine.
She was unsure of whether to touch me or not, so she stood by my side, the back of her hand brushing my thigh. A silent I’m right here.
I grabbed her hand and curled my fingers into hers, tugging her to the side of my rigid body as the men behind me growled their quiet grief out through their gritted teeth.
Eric looked between Ayda and me, his eyes softening and his smile growing before he quickly cleared his throat and pressed his lips together.
“How long have you known about Harry?” I dared myself to ask him.
“Should we do this in private?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Just tell me,” I pleaded quietly.
Eric sighed softly. “A while.”
“You’ve been in touch with him this whole time?
” I raised my brows and tried not to let him see that hit that delivered.
The loss of Pete. The prison time. The release.
The Emps. All the shit that had happened since he’d been gone, and there was a chance he knew all about it. “Harry lied to me this whole time?”
“No.” Eric shook his head firmly. “Harry never lied to you like that. He did what needed to be done.”
“What needed to be done?”
“People needed to think I was gone for good, Drew. That I’d disappeared. That I could have been dead.”
“Including me?” I asked, hurt.
“Including you,” he answered quietly.
“Why?” I winced, curling my fingers tighter around Ayda’s.
Eric glanced around the room, assessing every pair of eyes that were focused on him and him alone.
I could see he was trying to do a quick evaluation on who was there he recognized and who was there he didn’t know.
His eyes lingered on someone at the back, narrowing even farther until he slowly brought his gaze back to me.
“Let’s do this in private. Not here. You and me…” He trailed off, turning his attention to the woman in my grip. “And Ayda.”
“Me?” Ayda sputtered with surprise. Her hand tightened around mine, but her eyes were leveled on Eric.
“Especially you.”
I pulled her closer. I had no idea how to feel. Eric Tucker was my father, and I loved him because of that, but my world was turning upside down, and he’d been gone for so long, I was struggling to believe any of this was really fucking happening.
“How much time have we got?” I asked carefully, knowing for damn certain that him being in The Hut had to be a temporary thing.
His eyes assessed the room again. “Enough.”
“Let’s go.”
I was torn between telling my father to leave my girl out of it and wanting her by my side.
I’d had some low points in my life, but that was turning out to be one of the lowest. It was selfish of me to want her there to draw strength from, but I tugged on her hand anyway.
She followed me through the parted sea of my men, with my father not too far behind.
The Hounds all made quiet rumblings of a greeting to him as he passed them by.
I could only imagine the amount of questions they had. I knew for certain I had even more.
We pushed into my office, and I guided Ayda to the old battered sofa, dropping a kiss to her forehead before I turned and waited for my dad to walk inside.
When he did, it was like he’d never been away.
He owned the space. He’d built it. This used to be his private place to escape the MC life.
Whatever had happened to make him leave, disappear from my world and throw me into the deep end of MC life, it had probably been plotted in the very room we were standing in.
He turned slowly, looking around the place with a very faint trace of a smile tugging at his lips.
“Just the same,” I heard him whisper to himself.
“Not everything is.”
Eric glanced over his shoulder before turning fully. For a while, it was just two men standing in front of each other. Two men who could have been strangers but looked far too alike, despite the way they assessed each other.
“I can see that,” he eventually said. “I would say you look well, but the blood on your skin and the fact that you can barely see out of one eye makes it pretty clear that that would be a lie.”
I shrugged a shoulder and narrowed my eyes at him. “It ain’t easy being pres.”
“Now that I can agree with.”
“Some of us just don’t run away when the going gets tough.”
“I deserved that.” Eric shuffled on his feet before he crossed his arms over his chest and pushed his fists against the underside of his biceps.
He raised his chin, looking at me like he owned the air around us all.
It was then that I realized he stood exactly the same way I did.
He commanded the space the same way Ayda told me I always had.
He was my double on the outside. On the inside, though, I knew we were different.
“I don’t blame you for the cool reception, Drew. If my father had done to me what I did to you, I’d hate him, too.”
“I don’t hate you,” I replied calmly. “You’re my father, and I love you. Nothing will ever change that.”
My admission seemed to catch him off guard, the surprise flashing in his eyes as they widened before he gained control of his face again.
That’s right, pops. I’ve no problem with the I love yous anymore.
“But that doesn’t mean I have to like it when you walk into my Hut after so long away and tell me you’ve been in talks with Harry all this time.
It doesn’t mean that I have to like the fact that you knew my other father—the one who watched over this club while I was sent away for five years—was dying.
It doesn’t mean I have to throw my arms around you and tell you I’ve missed you. ”
“Have you missed me?” he asked quietly.
I worked the muscles in my jaw, copying his pose and raising my chin. “I needed my dad. I didn’t have a mom.”
“I didn’t ask if you needed me. I asked if you missed me.”
“Yeah, I fucking missed you,” I practically spat at him. I had. I’d missed the blood connection and feeling like I had an angel on my shoulder, even if he could be cold and calculating at times. I missed having someone like me who would understand me.
Eric’s eyes softened, his gaze falling to Ayda. “I’m sorry you’re having to meet me this way.”
Nodding once, Ayda sucked in a breath and finally found her words. “I wasn’t sure we’d ever get to meet, Mr. Tucker.”
His smile grew as he watched her. It was a little threatening from the outside looking in.
Not to me.
I knew he was eyeing her much the same way I had the first time I saw her. She was a magnet. A shining beacon of goodness in this dark, dirty, fucked up, grease-filled world we were stuck in.
“You’ve brought a new lease of life to this club.” He paused, his smirk growing. “So I hear.”
Ayda offered a small, cautious smile in return. “Not really. Just cleaned up a bit and fed them some square meals. Drew’s been the life to them. He’s a leader they can get behind. A leader they love.”