was easier to let them assume it was military service that had fucked him up beyond repair. That he’d taken it up the ass from the American Military without lube, just like so many others who had come before him. And maybe that made him a fraud—he was honorably discharged after all—because after his injuries, he wasn’t fit to serve anymore. He couldn’t hold still, and his remaining eye couldn’t focus on all those screens the way they needed him to. And he jumped at every fuckin’ loud noise.
But every time he opened his mouth to talk about the night at the bar—and the men who had followed him out, and the burning heat of the truck when they tied him down—his throat closed up. Then his head would spin, and his stomach would twist in on itself. And it made him feel like he was losing his goddamn mind—because maybe he was.
He was close to breaking when he met Smokey and Gunner, and he knew deep down that the Chains had saved his life in more ways than one. Being part of that family didn’t stop the night terrors or those moments during his day when he could hear faint voices that shouldn’t be there. Or when he could feel the ghost of hands squeezing around his neck—and searing hot metal burning into his back.
But it gave him something to hold on to.
The officer patch on the breast of his cut—the vow he took for his brothers—that was the first time he ever felt like he was standing on steady ground. It was easy to look at the men who stood next to him and know he would die for them—in more ways than he’d ever been willing to die for anyone.
He’d lay his life on the line, and more than that, he’d put bodies in the ground without hesitation. And he had.
His soul was already blackened beyond repair for what he’d done in the past. He’d been dragged out into the middle of nowhere and tortured. It was that moment he knew there was a monster living inside of him. One that wouldn’t ever let love settle in his bones. So he embraced it with the same ferocity as he embraced everything else.
After all, what were a few more deaths if it meant saving the lives of people who—unlike him—were truly and impossibly good.
Kicks was unsurprised when Smokey called and gave him the order to ride out on the babysitting job. “I don’t wanna spare you right now, but I know you can get in and out quicker than anyone else.”
Kicks had seen this shit-show coming from a mile away. The moment Smokey’s eyes went soft for that fuckin’ professor, it was all over. Smokey wasn’t the kind of man to make mistakes, but shit happened when you fell in love. Or so Kicks had heard. And he wasn’t such a cynic that he didn’t think he’d never be able to fall in love, but he wasn’t going to let himself catch a case of stupid for the sake of dick on the regular, either.
Kicks was fine with sex—at least in theory, but he was a man who hadn’t let himself indulge—hadn’t let himself be vulnerable since before the night that fucked his life forever. He didn’t begrudge other people who wanted to get off, of course.
But he also knew when his brothers were being led by the promise of screaming orgasms. He’d seen that look before—that sort of craving and need that turned men into animals. And while he trusted his brothers, he didn’t have any faith that their lust wouldn’t turn the situation into an epic nightmare now that two of them had fallen head over heels.
“Send me the address and tell me I’m not gonna have to fuckin’ knock this guy out and hog tie him just to get him back here,” he said, rummaging through his drawer for his gun. He really wasn’t sure how this was going to go with the brother. He hadn’t really gotten a chance to meet the professor, but he’d been hearing Rory sing his praises about what a bad-ass he was since the moment the kid started college.
But from what Kicks had seen, the guy was just another pretentious, tweed-wearing asshole, and he couldn’t imagine this brother was anything different. Especially if he was a fuckin’ rabbi of all goddamn things.
Kicks wanted nothing to do with any religious shit, but he also understood that Smokey wasn’t going to