his haunted eyes, I couldn’t speak. Tanner laid his hand on his back.
“I am sorry,” I mouthed, and felt that I had never spoken so little for such great meaning in my entire life. Smiler didn’t answer. I wasn’t even sure if he was taking anything in right now. He looked numb, trapped in a hell from which he couldn’t escape.
Tanner guided me through the forest and back toward the clubhouse. I stared at Hades on Viking’s cut up ahead. I stared at the dark god, noose in one hand and a gun in the other. I wondered if he had taken Slash into his arms—one of his own coming home.
The sky was dark and turbulent, reflecting the somber mood of the entire club. We made our way into the bar, and brothers started drinking. I quickly realized that tonight wasn’t for quiet contemplation, but for drinking and temporarily forgetting the dangerous world these men—and women—lived in. It was to drink to a fallen brother, before the act of revenge would inevitably follow.
We sat at a table. I felt Tanner’s eyes on me. I didn’t look up. My chest was swirling with too many emotions, and I knew he would see straight through me. Tanner always had. And right now, I needed to be alone with my thoughts. He didn’t let me be alone though. Tanner lifted my chin with his hand. As soon as I met his eyes, those blue eyes I adored so much, he leaned down and kissed my lips.
I looked around the bar, at all the men and women. Smiler and Ash hadn’t made an appearance, nor had Rider. Zane was with AK and Phebe. At the funeral, the boy had never looked up from the floor. I remembered him shooting men two and three times his age, his bullets hitting hearts and heads and necks. And I wondered if he could sleep at night, or if the faces came to haunt him. AK had put his arm around his Zane’s shoulder at the beginning of the service and kept him close. That boy clung to him like a magnet.
It made me think of Smiler and Slash and how Smiler had been alone as he buried his cousin. “Where’s Slash’s mother?” I asked Tanner. “His father?”
Tanner must have understood who I meant. “Don’t know.” He ran his hand through my hair. “Smiler isn’t a talker. Don’t know anything but he was in the army. Don’t know how he came to be here. Don’t know much about Slash either.”
“He was alone,” I whispered, thinking of Smiler’s tears as he shoveled dirt onto Slash’s coffin. “He had no family with him. He has no one to love him.” Tanner pulled me close. The quiet comfort in his embrace was short lived as Tank and Beauty came and sat down beside us.
“Drinks?” Tank said somberly. Tanner got up with Tank and headed to the bar. I watched the two best friends walking together, and in that moment was eternally grateful for Tank. He had been there for Tanner when he was a beaten lost boy. Tank had been the one to save him in so many ways. He had been there when Tanner no longer wanted the Klan. And Tank had given him a home amongst these men, a refuge when he had nowhere else to go.
A flicker of peace calmed my heavy heart. Tanner wasn’t alone. He had people—people other than me who loved him.
“It wasn’t your fault.” Beauty’s voice pulled me from staring at Tanner and Tank. I turned to Beauty who was studying me. “I can see it in your eyes, darlin’. You blame yourself.”
“Diego was pissed about me.”
Beauty sighed. “The Hangmen took you, sweetie. From your home before anyone knew who you were.” Although that was correct, it was little comfort. Beauty edged closer to me. She pointed to the men in the room. “You are cartel, Lita. I know you get this life more than anyone who has walked through the doors on the arm of a brother before now. So, you don’t need me to tell you that anyone who swears his allegiance to this club, to this life, does it knowing the risks. Any brother who slips on a cut with Hades on the back knows that he might not live to see the next day.” She sighed. “It’s hard. And when something like this happens, to someone so young, it hurts twice as bad.” Beauty took hold of my hand. “But