24. Lamb

Chapter Twenty-Four

LAMB

I pulled the door closed softly behind me, careful not to make even the slightest of noise. Exhausted from the previous events, Ash laid asleep in the bed, but I had learned that staying asleep was a difficult balance for Ash, and that there was no way to predict when she would wake or what could wake her.

“Your little test didn’t go so well,” Jax growled, a clean bandage wrapped around his hand. He tugged and played with the cotton dressing, adjusting it against his palm. It only served to aggravate the wound more, and blood was already soaking into the white material.

“I needed to know where she was,” I answered, ignoring the bitter bite of his words. I walked past him, pulling him away from the door. We had soundproofed a lot of the clubroom, but noise still traveled well through the walls of the sleeping quarters. “Needed to know how much freedom I could give her here.”

“You could just say you were worried about her,” Jax grunted, dropping his hand to his side long enough to give me a crooked brow full of attitude and knowing.

I shook my head in return, not liking how my hair brushed against the sides of my face. It had come undone from my earlier work to tame it, and I had no time to fix it. “It’s not like that.”

“Oh, really?” Jax snorted. “You know, for someone so smart, it’s nice to see you can be a fool, too.” His posture straightened, and a little more bounce popped into his step, his ire falling from his shoulders. “It makes me feel better about myself.”

“If you’re doubting my intelligence, we could always set up another poker night,” I challenged.

Color dripped from Jax’s tanned face. Even the black of his tattoos seemed a little ashen. “Ronnie still hasn’t forgiven me for that.” He rubbed his good hand over his chest, the tight line of his lips telling more than he knew. It lasted briefly, as a new, lighter expression washed away the creases. “I’m also not stupid enough to place bets with you.” Jax jogged a step ahead, turning back and wagging a finger in my face. “See? Smarter.”

I held back my answer, letting the man bask in his delusions.

“Oh!” Jax shouted, pausing in his slow escape. “Prez is out back. Wants to see you.”

I sighed. “I’m sure he does.”

I t wasn’t hard to find the huge seven-foot-tall Russian man. Even with the vast, vacant field belonging to the clubhouse, and the wide expanse of trees that lined the edges of the metal fence, he was like a lighthouse on the shore.

Hunched like a mountain, the man sat on the rickety hand-crafted bench, a cigarette wagging between his lips, unlit. His beard, more salt than pepper now, looked wiry and wilder than I’d seen in a long while. His hair was tied tight behind his head, begging to be trimmed as it fought to free itself from the thin band holding it together.

I stood to one side, observing him for a while, and as the minutes passed, and Wolf didn’t make a single motion to acknowledge me, impatience crept up my spine.

Ash was asleep, and I wanted to be there when she woke, whether it was five minutes or five hours from now. Either was possible.

I leaned forward, plucking the white stick from his pursed lips, triggering life into the stone man. I put the cigarette between my own, tasting the bitter taste of nicotine and beer around the filter. Fishing a lighter out of my pocket was second nature as I cupped my hands against the elements, and with a flick of my finger, breathed life into the cigarette.

I took a drag before pulling it out and offering it back.

Wolf’s face was a bag of lines, each weaving in the most contorted expression of disgust I had ever seen on him. “Fuck no,” he growled, practically snarling at the little cigarette between my fingers. I didn’t see the big deal. It wasn’t like I licked it.

I shrugged off his refusal, putting the cigarette back to my lips and taking a long inhale, the warm smoke filling my lungs before escaping into the wind.

The bench creaked as he leaned back against its delicate support.

I dropped in next to him, filling whatever small gap the giant left.

Wolf fished out another crumpled packet of cigarettes from his pocket, tapping out another white stick and propping it between his lips. I reached again for my lighter, but Wolf already had his out, setting his smoke alight. Orange embers glowed with his deep long draw.

“I meant what I said, Lamb.” Wolf pulled the cigarette from his lips, looking down at the concrete floor between his large black boots. Weeds were creeping through the cracks; fresh rain and cooling autumn weather gave rise to the persistent growth. “I need your head on straight and tight.”

I looked out over the field, the dark clouds that had begun to gather now stitching into an ominous black sky. The air grew thick and heavy, a storm ready and waiting.

“I know,” I answered.

“No.” Wolf shook his head, silver threads falling around his aged face. A wry smile formed over his lips. It didn’t reach his eyes. “You don’t.”

I tilted my head at my president, my eyes wandering over the face I had read many times more than any other. Age lines had deepened in his leather skin, and dark circles hung from his tired, weary eyes.

“I got intel last night.” He sighed, resignation deep in his tone.

I frowned as I reached into my own pocket this time, pulling out my phone. It was unusual for Wolf to get information outside of my network. Before it made its way to him, it always came through me first and—

“8 unread messages.”

Wolf caught the change in my expression and scoffed. “You’ve had your head so far up her pussy there’s no wonder your ‘ network’ got neglected.”

I scrolled through the messages, eyes sifting through the information, plucking out what was the most important and casting aside the lesser. It only took seconds before I found what Wolf was talking about.

He knows.

My finger froze, hovering over the anonymous text message. My brain was turning, organizing, plotting, and planning my next move, adjusting the several hundred others I had lined up, ready and waiting.

“I know it was inevitable”—Wolf dropped his cigarette onto the floor, the tip catching the edge of a leaf from a reaching weed—“but I thought we’d bought ourselves a little more time.” His boots pressed and twisted, snuffing the cigarette into ash.

“We’re ready,” I reassured him. “This is what we’ve spent the last few years building up to. We’re stronger now. We have what it takes.”

“It’s not having what it takes that matters,” Wolf sighed, rubbing his weary brow. “It’s what it takes from us that matters. There is always a cost.”

I could see fragments of the past rushing over him. It had aged him faster these last few years than any before him. When the war came crashing down on our side, the fallout too heavy to bear, the club almost fell apart. It had broken, cracked, and nearly crumbled right before our eyes.

“We will rebuild, like we always do; repair the cracks and fill the bullet holes. We’ve always been stronger for it,” I reassured him. “And we will this time, too.”

Wolf frowned. “They never tell you this about being president.” His gaze turned distant as he looked out over the open field, staring past the guarding chain link fence, past the woodland boundary, past the dark horizon. “The weight of all the lives on your shoulders. It is not simply the lives of others. It’s the weight of our home. Of our women and children. Of our brothers … I don’t want to lose a single one of them. Not when we’ve lost so much already.”

I knew the face that came to mind. The face of a brother fallen far too soon. Too young. Too hopeful. Nobel had been a member long before he’d carried the badge and should have held it for years longer than he’d been given.

“Isn’t that why we’re here?” I countered, wanting to wedge away that weight even if it was just a little. “The weapons, the deals, the connections—everything we’ve gained the last few years. It wasn’t to wage a war for vengeance or pride. It’s to protect what’s ours. Protect our women. Protect our children. Protect our brothers .” I placed a hand on the wide, strong shoulder of my president. It was a weight of warmth beneath the heavy burden of stone he was destined to carry so long as he wore that patch. “If we do this, we’re risking it all. But if we don’t, we risk losing it all.”

Wolf sighed, his shoulders adjusting underneath my grasp. “You know, it’s moments like these that fool people into thinking you’re actually human.”

I smirked, retracting my hand. “Only on people who want to be fooled.”

Wolf considered my comment, his face pensive. “Then what about her?” he asked. “Are you fooling her, too?”

The words tickled my mind, sorting my new swell of emotions between sharp, logical lines. “Are you asking if I’m being genuine?”

“I know this started as a mission. As club business. But it’s not like that for you anymore, is it?” Wolf’s eyes sharpened, the clear honey-brown piercing and clear. “You didn’t have to go this far. You didn’t need to fix her. You don’t need to be by her side.”

“It’s safer for us and her to be by my side,” I argued, having gone about this line of argument once again. My answer never changed.

“But it doesn’t have to be you ,” Wolf bit back, frustration building on his brow. His foot began to bounce against the floor, the black boot stirring small dust storms rolling over the concrete. “I could ask another brother to take your place. Even Mint could—”

Wolf’s words stopped dead. His brows shot upward in surprise, registering the small, but meaningful movement.

My flinch had been obvious, and I couldn’t deny the reality. I trusted Mint; he was my brother through and through. Though new and young, I knew I could rest easy with my life in his hands, as I could with any of the brothers who had fought alongside me. The seconds his name had left Wolf’s lips, however, I was ready to gut the man.

It was hot, possessive, and intense, and it was over in a flash. Even in a fraction of a second, it had said enough.

A smile fought at the corners of Wolf’s mouth as he struggled to bite it back. “Do you know why I helped you?” He sighed, the tension in his shoulders slumping, eyes relaxing their visual grip on my own. “Because I know what it’s like. To have someone whom you fear to lose. Fear so much it can overtake you and make you act in ways that aren’t true to yourself. Love is hard.”

That word burrowed into my chest; it was like a physical weight bearing down on my ribs and lungs. I reached up, rubbing against my sternum, as if to ease the ache I knew didn’t exist. “Is that what you think this is?” I hadn’t considered it. The word was foreign to me. I’d never needed to learn or know what love was. I’d understood loyalty and devotion to my brothers and our club, but I’d never been able to call it that. “You think I love her?”

“Can’t be sure.” Wolf shrugged, the motion easy on his wide shoulders. “Love looks a whole lot different to everyone. And even if your love is not the love that I or our brothers know, it might be the closest you ever get to the real thing.”

If anyone was to understand my nature the most, it would be him. The man who’d been by my side since day one; who’d seen through my shit and shenanigans. Who’d taught me the meaning of loyalty and brotherhood, even if I didn’t work the same way others did.

“Either way”—Wolf drew back—“it’s special, and you need to protect it.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but Wolf didn’t let me.

“Though I’d rather you pick anybody else on the planet.”

My words dissolved behind a barked laugh erupting from my chest. The man had not changed even the slightest as the years went on. Much like the true mountains he resembled, he weathered and aged, but he still stood tall and proud, remaining who he was to the core.

Wolf didn’t laugh with me, but his mouth resembled something close to a smile. “If you didn’t think it was love,” Wolf questioned, his expression puzzled and curious, “then what did you think it was?”

“Indigestion.”

Wolf barked out a laugh, hard and hearty. It was a noise I had not heard in a long time.

“If you think that, you’re the fool. Not her.”

I glowered at my president. “That’s the third time I’ve been called an idiot today.”

Wolf shrugged. “If the shoe fits.” He didn’t allow me to argue any longer, patting his hands against his knees and pushing himself up to stand. Deep brown eyes looked over at the darkness on the horizon, regarding it for a quiet moment before moving along as if it never happened. “My old lady will be needing me about now. I’m sure she’s already loaded up with things to throw at me.”

I didn’t doubt it. If Anna didn’t already have an arsenal of weapons, she’d make do with a shoe, a lamp, or a bookcase—whatever was handy. She was resourceful like that.

I recalled her expression from earlier, her calm and collected reaction to the biggest trigger in her life. It’d be calming for him and the rest of the club to see her attempt to commit murder, as usual.

“Lamb,” Wolf jarred me from my thoughts about his wife. He stood tall and towering over me, his face darkened with his shadow, light smothered behind him. “It doesn’t matter what you call it. If you know it’s something you don’t want to lose, you know what to do.”

“Which is?”

Even through the muted light, I could see Wolf’s expression sober.

“Don’t let go,” he warned. “No matter what.”