his arms crossed over his chest. He looked down his nose at me suspiciously. “Then what were you so mad about?”
“You got an issue with Heath, Dante?” Blade asked dangerously.
“No, I don’t have an issue with Heath—look, I’ll explain, but will someone tell me what the fuck is going on?” I nearly shouted.
Blade stared me down. He must have found what he was looking for, because he sighed and said, “All right, boys, back off.”
Tex and Jazz shared a dark look, but listened to their president.
“Come on,” Blade said. He motioned for the rest of the club to head back into the clubhouse, and I followed behind them. My heart felt like it might pound right out of my chest. Something had clearly happened to Heath—something that involved Baxter, Ryder, and Trip.
And whatever it was, it was all my fucking fault—and Hell’s Ankhor obviously agreed. I’d been so focused on this thing with Heath that I hadn’t kept a close enough eye on the patrols. I should’ve known something like this was coming. I’d had a suspicion weeks ago that Baxter and Ryder and Trip would be back, that they’d try to retaliate, but I thought it’d be targeted at me or Mal or even Star. Not any of Hell’s Ankhor.
This didn’t make any sense.
Inside, Heath was sitting at the end of the couch with a bag of frozen peas resting across his face. The television was on mute, and Priest was sitting next to him, with the remote in one hand and a beer in the other.
Heath furrowed his eyebrows at me—at least, the one I could see—when I walked in, and then grimaced like making that expression hurt. He removed the frozen bag of peas.
Instantly, I felt nauseous. Some possessive, protective part of me roared to life when I saw the shiner marring his pretty face. My focus narrowed to Heath and Heath only—in that moment I didn’t give a single fuck about club relations or the way the enforcers had gotten in my face. I rushed over and leaned over Heath to gently cradle his face in my hands.
Heath’s good eye widened, but he didn’t pull away from my touch. I turned his face to the side slightly to get a better look at the shiner. It was gruesome: mottled purple, green at the edges creeping down his pale cheek, bad enough to swell up around his eye.
Around me, the room was oddly silent.
“What happened?” I asked softly. Even though I already had a pretty good idea of the events, I wanted to hear it directly. So I could be sure. So I knew exactly what kind of hell to bring down on the guys who did this.
Heath drew his lower lip in between his teeth, and then pushed my hands away from his face. He stood up, slipped by me, and hurried into the kitchen where he busied himself swapping out the bag of frozen peas for a different, colder one from the freezer.
I straightened up. Even from this distance he carried himself like he was hurt, his shoulders a little tense, his steps a little short. I thought I might vibrate out of my skin trying to hold myself back. Every part of me wanted to step closer, wrap him in my arms the same way I had in my office, and soothe the knots from his shoulders.
“He had a run-in on campus with your ex-members.” Priest sat up a little straighter on the couch and pinned me with a serious look. “The ones who are supposedly banned from the territory.”
“A run-in?” I asked, tearing my gaze away from Heath’s back to meet Priest’s eyes.
“Three on one,” Priest said darkly. “Sounds like they were trying to prove a point.”
“I’ll prove a fucking point to them,” I said. I was furious. But it wasn’t a sharp, explosive anger. It was slow-burning, running through me like poison. It was a fury that was here to stay. I was going to take those fucking guys apart for what they did.
“No, you won’t,” Blade said. I whirled to face him. Blade had his arms crossed over his chest, and he looked nearly as angry as I felt. “Hell’s Ankhor will deal with them. You had your chance.”
The fact that Blade would verbalize his opinion that I’d dealt with them incompetently only stoked the anger—and guilt—burning in me. “They’re my responsibility. They’re not abiding by the terms of their excommunication—the Crew’ll make them pay.”