on, I want Gunnar to stick close to home. Elkin Lake’s guaranteed to be a target. Both of Crave’s sons are with the club, now, not to mention the Vipers have coveted our territory for as long as we’ve had it. I need our top guns here in case shit hits the fan.”
“Yessir,” Gunnar and I said in tandem.
Jazz glanced over at me, snuck me a little smile. Despite the bad circumstances—our fight, the scuffle earlier at the shop, Crave’s potential canvassing—we were both ready to pull our weight for the club. And that felt good, even if we had more work to do until we were good again.
The rest of the meeting was details: patrols, perimeters, scheduling. Coop was to loop in Rebel where necessary, and Raven was to start keeping an eye on traffic cams and police reports to see if Crave showed his face again.
As the meeting came to a close, we all grabbed a second round from the fridge.
The events from Custom Ankhs rattled around my memory. Jazz had taken down that big biker like it was nothing—and he’d done it quickly, efficiently, without hurting the guy unnecessarily. Then, in church, he’d been…
It was like he’d always been there. He’d settled so easily into the role of enforcer, I caught myself wondering why he hadn’t been promoted sooner—but it was because he wasn’t this guy before he was locked up. If he’d become an enforcer a few years ago, he wouldn’t be this calm, collected version of himself. He’d somehow managed to take a brutal punishment and transform it into something good. Would he have become this man if he hadn’t spent those years in the joint? There was no way to know.
I couldn’t help but be proud of him, though—it would’ve been easy for him to sink into violence and self-pity during those years. But he didn’t. He came out stronger.
I caught Jazz’s eye and nodded toward the back door. He followed me onto the back deck, into the cool, quiet night.
“Everything all right?” He closed the door behind him, and then took a long drink from the neck of the pilsner bottle.
The dim yellow porch lights haloed his dark hair and cast dramatic shadow across his face as he tipped his head back to drink. I watched him, his hand on the bottle, and I suddenly remembered how it had felt to have his hand around my wrist.
The weird flip in my gut, again. I adjusted my hat.
“Listen,” I said. “I just—I owe you an apology.”
Jazz raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know if I’ve ever heard you say that.”
I brushed that little dig off. “Can we have a new start? For real, this time.”
Jazz paused. “What do you mean?”
“I mean—” I swallowed hard. His curious eyes were like a physical weight on me. “Before you were put away, you know, you were always… My kid brother, in a way.”
“We’re the same age.”
“But I was always looking out for you, wasn’t I?”
Jazz couldn’t deny that. He pursed his lips.
“You were just always getting into binds and I was getting you out of them. It’s hard for me to shake that off, you know? The feeling that I always need to be around to step in—that you won’t be safe without me there to take care of you.” I thought again of that easy, skilled takedown. “But you don’t need that anymore.”
“No, I don’t,” Jazz agreed softly. “I don’t need you to be my older brother.”
He paused. I met his eyes.
I wished I could read them. I used to be able to read every little tic of his expressions. But moments like this, moments where it really mattered, I was suddenly at a loss.
But then he let a little hint of a smile curl his lips. “I just need you to be my best friend, all right?”
“All right. I think I can swing that.” I grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and pulled him in for a hug.
Maybe it lingered a little longer than it used to. Every time I touched him, some of the old aching wounds from the three years apart healed a little more. But I was still hungry to be close to him—I was just making up for lost time. That’s all.
9
Jazz
My first month back in Hell’s Ankhor passed quickly—more quickly than I ever expected. I spent most of my days on patrol as an enforcer, and my nights either at Ballast or the clubhouse, catching up on everything I’d missed over