Colson (The Henchmen MC #20) - Jessica Gadziala Page 0,62

the corner of the street, I could see the men rushing back inside, likely to get rid of their own weapons, to make sure the clubhouse was clean, even as poor fucking Brooks wordlessly moved out front with a bucket, washing Eva's vomit away.

If there was one kid I wanted in the club, he was the one I would give my vote to get a cut.

"You good from here?" Huck asked, shoving Jacob into the backseat as I shuffled Eva into the front.

"I wasn't told where to go."

"Take them home," he suggested. "I will fill you in as soon as I have something to say."

"Okay. Thank you."

"Take care of her," he said, wincing down at Eva who was still trembling, staring off out the windshield with a blank expression. In the backseat, Jacob was confused, but as he watched his mom, his eyes got wider, worried.

"I will," I agreed, nodding to him, then hopping into the car.

I didn't know what was going on.

I didn't know what to say.

But I did know what I could do.

I could take them home.

I could shoo Jacob up to his room.

I could comfort Eva.

So that was what I did.

While I waited to learn what the fuck was happening.

THIRTEEN

Eva

I couldn't stop the image from flashing across my eyes. Even when I closed them.

I saw every single awful detail.

In bright, vivid color.

Even though it had been dark out.

My mind chose to illuminate everything, make it something I could never forget.

Even as we drove away from the clubhouse, it played over and over on a reel.

The truck bed opening, something falling out, then the truck peeling away, leaving the lump of nothing in the street.

Only, it wasn't nothing.

It was Miguel.

It was my brother.

His face had been one giant bruise, his left eye swollen shut, his nose crunched to the side, his eyebrow and lip split open. Every part of him was swollen, distorting his once-familiar features.

Blood soaked through his white shirt.

So, so much blood.

Then, of course, there was the giant hole right there in the center of his forehead, making it pointless to look for the rising and falling of his chest, the possibility of him surviving the beating he'd clearly gotten.

The bile rose up, the contents of my stomach forcing their way out.

Maybe I had no right to be so impacted, to feel so disgusted.

As I'd watched the men leave the clubhouse before, I knew what they were going to do. They were going to exact their revenge. On the entire gang.

But, most importantly, on my brother.

I'd known that.

I'd known he wasn't going to live through the night.

I had, in a sick sort of way, made my peace with that.

Maybe I had no right to be so upset by seeing the evidence of his lost life, the torture he'd endured before the end.

But it was there regardless.

My mind flashed back to early childhood memories, shared Christmases, looking for Easter Eggs around the apartment, laughing ourselves to tears when, two days later, everyone realized we'd somehow missed one of the boiled eggs, tucked deep in the toe of a shoe, fermenting, and making the entire apartment smell rotten, birthday parties, ghost stories alone in the apartment when our mom was at work.

There were good memories, once upon a time. And maybe I was grieving for those, even though they were long gone. Even though that boy had turned into a man I'd despised. Even if that man wanted to put my son in danger, turn him against me.

And another part of me was struggling with how to tell my son what happened, what I could possibly say to make something like this make sense?

"What happened?" I could hear my son ask from the backseat, but couldn't seem to respond, my vocal cords and my brain refusing to work in conjunction. "What's wrong with Mom?"

"We're going to explain it all to you, bud," Colson assured him from his position, cramped close to the steering wheel in a too-small car. "But can you let me get you guys home, and shake your mom out of this first?" he asked, genuinely waiting for an answer from Jacob.

"Is she going to be okay?"

"She is. I promise. It might be a couple of days, but she will come around, alright?"

"But what about my Grams?"

"I will hang with you guys to make sure she's okay. And I will have a nurse around to help."

"I can help too," Jacob declared, and there was determination in his voice. He had never been overly enthusiastic about helping