“I know what you fucks are up to.”
“What are we up to?”
Leo shook his head. “Don’t play dumb with me, Hunt. I don’t want things to get ugly. I don’t want there to be bad blood between us and then have Skye in the middle of it all—”
“Get to the point.”
“You think I don’t notice bikers hanging around every corner, watching me, waiting for me to take my old man’s loot from under his nose? Convince your president to lay off.”
Hunter said nothing. He finished his smoke and then stomped it out. Leo stared at him evenly, gritting out, “I don’t want to hurt anyone—”
“They’ll hurt you long before you even try,” Hunter coolly cut in.
Leo scoffed. “Hunt, I’m not helpless.”
“You’re in over your head—”
“Believe it or not, a lot has changed—I’ve fucking changed.”
“Change or not, you’re being fucking stupid.”
“How?”
Hunter flared his nostrils, glaring at him now before pointing a finger in his face. “You’re trying to get at your dad, and you’re leaving a giant fucking opening for the club to come after you both—”
“I have a plan.”
“Whatever it is, it won’t work.”
But Leo simply smiled now. Hunter went still, eyeing his mouth with a curious look in his eye because…perhaps he could sense that Leo was different—that things were, in fact, changing.
“Why did you want to meet?” Hunter asked, gravely.
Leo’s face cooled. “I’m going to take the town, Hunt. It’s going to be mine. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or even in a year. But this place is going to be mine, and the Warlords need to move along. If they don’t, I will fucking wreck them.”
Them.
Never lumping Hunter in, like he wasn't part of them.
Leo stepped closer now, peering up at Hunter’s face with a softer expression. “Hunt, I love you like a fucking brother, and I don’t want you to get hurt. Get out of that club while you still can. Come back to me—to Skye—”
“I already have Skye.”
“It can be different.”
Hunter shook his head. “You want me to walk away from what I’m good at while you continue to play the fucking part, Leo. It’s sickening.”
“Playing the part is the only way to win—”
“At the expense of losing yourself,” Hunter angrily cut in. “You won’t know what you’re doing, and when you do, it’ll be too late. You’re going to lose yourself in this fucking charade you play, Leo, and when you look around, you’re going to find that everyone that ever loved you is gone. You wanna know why? Because you won’t be the same Leo we love.”
Without giving him a chance to respond, Hunter threw his hood back up, telling him, “I love you like a brother, too, but don’t think for one second that you’re the only brother I have. I’m making a life for myself, and just because I’m not in a fancy fucking house, pretending to be a fancy fucking hero, it doesn’t make it less of a life than yours.”
Leo watched him leave, feeling that rift between them grow, and oh, how he would have liked to close it. He crouched to the ground with his back against the wall, feeling the raindrops fall, wishing…
Fuck, he wished he was a kid again.