He slaps my back after sipping his beer. “Your mind is gonna fuck with you, you’re gonna feel helpless, and pissed at the world. But if you really want it to work, you’re gonna need to be honest with her. I tried keeping Harper in the dark and it only made shit worse. You aren’t protecting her by lying to her, believe me.” He lifts his beer to me before taking a long sip.
I blow out a frustrated breath as I reach back to hold onto my neck. “I need to make sure they are both safe.”
“Who?” Alex asks, stepping up to us.
I quickly look at Zane letting him know now is not the time, before grinning at Alex. “Ivy and her friend Mia. They are driving here, and I hate thinking of the distance they are going alone.” Zane smirks knowing how quickly I covered it up.
“You really like her, huh?” Alex asks.
“Yeah man, I really like her,” I admit.
He taps his beer against mine and smiles. “Good for you. You guys should’ve given in to that a long fucking time ago,” he says, laughing.
I can’t even argue with him because he’s right. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that she’s pregnant and moving in with me. I need to tell the club, but I didn’t want to do that without her. She needs to be beside me when they are told.
“So, what do you guys think?” Alex asks.
“Guess we’ll see,” I say, shrugging.
He finishes off his beer and nods. “Yeah, I don’t have a good feeling though.”
“I don’t think any of us do, brother,” Zane says.
The hour goes by faster than any of us want and we are sitting around the table again. Brooks looks equally pissed and nervous and I can’t blame him. It’s pretty much how I think we’re all feeling. He lights a cigarette and leans back in his leather chair as the smoke billows around him.
“Let’s come up with a plan B,” he says.
That’s all that needs to be said. If our president isn’t optimistic none of us are. “We can burn down Club Kingsley,” Riley suggests.
We all look at him and I’m not sure if I think it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard or the most genius thing I’ve ever heard.
“It’s smart if it would keep them away, but the Raging Devils want our blood now. They’ll burn down both of our Souls with us in them,” Enzo says.
I scrub my face as I realize how right Enzo is. There’s no easy way out of this. “We kill them all,” I growl. They all look at me and I fist my hands on the table. “Look, we can sit here and talk about a million ways to keep them out of here, but Enzo is right, they want our blood. The only way to stay whole is to kill them first.”
“Fuck,” Brooks says running his hands through his hair. “Kace is right. If this doesn’t go through, we need to strike first.”
Just then the phone rings and Brooks answers. “Brooks?”
“Yeah.”
“I did my research on the Raging Devils and there’s not a shot in fucking hell I want to be mixed up with them. I’d gladly talk to you about working together though,” Vincent says.
I close my eyes trying to contain the rage I am feeling. We need to move and fast. Once they realize we have nothing to barter with, they will come in here looking to kill us all. Fucking Riley and his big ass mouth. It probably wouldn’t be this bad if he just kept his comments to himself.
“That’s not our style, thanks for the offer,” Brooks says, sounding completely defeated.
“Fine enough. Good luck,” Vincent says, hanging up.
Brooks stares at the phone like it’s going to ring again, and Vincent
will have changed his mind. “Fuck,” he whispers.
“We knew this was a long shot,” Zane says, reaching out to squeeze Brooks’ shoulder. “Let’s get busy planning our attack.”
It’s not what any of us wanted, but it’s what needs to be done. Most of us at this point have more than just our lives to worry about and that is scarier than worrying about yourself. Zane has Harper, Brooks has Maren, Enzo has Nora, even Riley has Gillian. Not to mention everyone’s extended family. For me though, I have Ivy and my baby. That’s double the worry.
“We should have everyone who could be in danger hide somewhere before we make our move,” I say, lighting a cigarette. We don’t have Gloria’s parents’ house anymore for obvious reasons. Souls is the only place I think they could possibly be safe at this point.