But I wouldn’t let that mean he had to die for me like he would.
So I let out the breath I’d been holding when he lowered the gun.
The silence after that was toxic, suffocating.
A clap, harsh and ugly, cut through the air, and I turned to see the source of it.
“Wonderful. I see that one beautiful lady is all that is needed to stop any more bloodshed,” Fernandez said, menace haunting his harsh accent. “So good, so good we do not have to engage in hostilities. It would have been… most unpleasant.”
“We’re going to go our separate ways now, aren’t we?” I said, the words painful for me to utter.
“What the fuck?” both Cade and Luke growled almost simultaneously.
I glanced their way, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge them. “No hard feelings now that we understand each other, right?” I asked Fernandez.
He smiled. Or stretched his facial muscles, showing teeth in the mimic of a smile. “Of course, my dear, we are understood. You keep your business and I keep my own and we… how you Americans say it? We cool?”
I did my own mime smile, all the while tasting battery acid climbing up my throat. “Yeah, we cool.”
He nodded. “Well, I’ll be going, then.”
Cade’s jaw twitched.
“Cade, let him through,” I said.
“Are you fuckin’ joking, Rosie?”
Luke looked at me, then Cade. “Do as she says.”
“I’m not listenin’ to a fuckin’ cop when he tells me to let go of the man who pointed a weapon at my four-year-old daughter’s head in front of my fuckin’ wife,” he spat.
“But your family are all alive, are they not? Surely you would like them to stay that way,” Fernandez said blandly.
Luke caught Cade just before he lunged, Brock helping him to stop Cade from charging. He struggled with both of them, all logic gone from his eyes. Fernandez had just openly threatened his family. Cade’s reaction was kneejerk and deadly.
“You’re not listening to a cop because I ain’t one,” Luke hissed. “You’re not even listening to me. You’re listening to your sister who you need to fucking trust at this point in time. You know she loves your family with everything she has. You think she’d be making this call for anyone but them?” He had to yell over top of Cade’s struggles.
Cade breathed heavily, wild eyes focused on Fernandez with a predator’s determination. Then he moved to me, communicating a lot of things with that look. I tried to communicate back. Tried to tell him this was just a battle, that the war was ours.
He slackened in Luke’s and Brock’s grip, shaking them off. He focused on Fernandez. “This shit isn’t over,” he promised.
Fernandez smiled. “Oh, once you chat with your sister, I think you’ll find that it is.”
And then he walked forward. An uneasy moment passed when I thought that Cade might not move, might change his mind and blow them all away right there.
He stood to the side with a granite jaw. The rest of the men followed suit.
The second Fernandez was out the door, Luke was on me, shoving his gun into the back of his jeans and framing my face with his hands. I thought he’d talk first but he didn’t, just plastered his mouth to mine. Not closed mouth. Not short. It was like he was sucking every part of me out to make sure it was all still there.
“He hurt you?” he demanded when he pulled back, eyes running over every part of my wrinkled but still intact outfit.
“No,” I whispered.
His eyes met mine, fear, death, and love shimmering within them. “He had you for twenty-four hours, Rosie. Twenty-four fucking hours.” He took my hand and placed it on his chest. “First time my heart’s beat in twenty-four hours,” he murmured.
“Rosie?” Cade’s gruff voice demanded, breaking our moment.
Luke didn’t move at first. His eyes roved over every inch of me, as if he had been away from me for years, decades, and he was trying to catalogue the changes that’d happened in his absence. Like a man deprived of water for almost long enough to kill him and then presented with a whole glistening lake of it. He pressed his lips to mine again, like before, hard and intense and most likely not appropriate for an audience.
I kissed him back. Fuck the audience.
I’d been deprived of water too. Of everything, really.
Then he let me go to reveal everyone standing around, like they didn’t quite not know what to do with themselves since they weren’t surrounded by bodies.
Cade’s eyes went to Luke’s firm hold around my shoulders. “Let her go, Crawford.”
The grip tightened. “Not a fuckin’ chance in hell.”
I savored the feel of my safety for a second longer, inhaling deeply. Then I reached up to graze Luke’s fingertips. “Luke,” I whispered.
He glared down at me. “This is the first time I’ve had you in my arms in twenty-four hours,” he growled. “During those hours, I was forced to entertain the idea that I might never fucking do this again. Or I’d have to hold the broken pieces of you, with nothing to put you back together with.” His eyes went to Cade. “I’m sure with Cade’s experience, he knows what the fuck he’s asking and if the situation were reversed, he’d have the same response as me, which is fuck right off.”
My mind whirled at the deep of the emotion in Luke’s voice, how it shook just a little, noticeably. He didn’t care about showing these men that emotion. Mostly because he knew they’d all felt it before.
I squeezed his fingers. “Yeah, and I get it. I’m pretty darn pissed at my brother right now, but I owe him an explanation,” I murmured.
Luke didn’t move. “You can explain from here.”
I touched his jaw. He gazed down at me. “I’ll be two feet away.”
He frowned as if the two feet were as wide as the distance between us months before.
Then he let me go with a tight face.
I kissed his jaw.
Then I stepped forward, expecting a lecture, a lot of swearing and yelling from my brother.
Instead, he yanked me roughly and tightly into his arms.
“Don’t you ever fucking do that to me again,” he murmured into my hair, kissing it.
I sank into his hold, clutching at the sides of his cut. “Don’t really plan on it.”
He kept a hold of me for a while longer, not seeming worried about time or witnesses. Then he let me go slightly, his hands going to my neck so I met his icy gray eyes. “Been scared a lot of times in my life,” he growled. “Man enough to admit it. That’s when the irreplaceable things in my life are taken from me. When I have to do nothing but think about how easy it is for fuckers to destroy me without touching me. You can take care of yourself. I know that.” His eyes went behind me. “You’ve got a man who would die to make sure I don’t live a nightmare of having a big fuckin’ hole in my heart. That the club doesn’t live with a big gaping hole where the soul of it was.”
Tears ran down my face. “You’re not going to yell at me?”
He smiled. “Maybe later. But Luke was right. You would give your life in a fucking second just so I could go to sleep with my family every single night. But you ain’t doing that because if you do, I’m not sleeping easy for the rest of my days. I know that decision wasn’t something you had a choice in. Hate it, but I know you’re not givin’ up. That’s not my Roe.” His eyes twinkled.