I’m done talking there’s silence down the line.
“Sash?”
“I need to speak to her.” The steel in her voice doesn’t surprise me. Sasha is tough as hell and she’s not the kind of person to give up on someone either.
I peer out the window, but nothing moves outside. My stomach should be twisting with apprehension of the fight to come, but I feel oddly relaxed, calm.
“No, you need to stay the fuck away from her until we figure this shit out. Do not call her,” I hiss down the line, my stomach twisting. Rav is going to kill me. I should have kept my mouth shut.
“She’s my best friend.”
“She’s also a fucking liar.”
“Nox…” There’s disapproval in her tone, but I haven’t spoken anything that isn’t true.
“She fooled us all, played this perfect role that none of us saw through. You don’t owe her any loyalty.”
There’s silence for a moment, then, “I owe her everything. She saved me. She pulled me out of the hole I was sinking into after Sin. She helped me raise my daughter, put food in our bellies when I didn’t have the money to do it myself. I don’t give a fuck who she was. All I care about is who she is. And if she lied about who she was there’s a fucking good reason for it. Never known Lucy be anything but truthful.”
Her words stick in my throat like barbs and I can’t swallow past them. Lucy has done all that, and more for Sasha and Lily-May. I can’t deny how important she is to me either, but she also lied and put the club—and me—in a terrible position.
“I’ve got to go, Sash, but stay away from Luce. At least until this shit blows over, yeah?”
She sighs loudly down the line. “She calls me asking for help, I’m not going to turn her away.”
I wouldn’t expect anything less, so I say, “I know.”
“Stay safe, Nox. And please keep Tyler in one piece.”
“You know I will.”
I hang up and pocket my phone, my gut rolling. I hate this shit. I hate that Lucy caused this. Things were so perfect between us, now it’s soured by what she’s done.
I peer through the window and see something happening at the gate. There are cars pulling up and men stepping out of the vehicles.
Itchy fear prickles along my skin as I pick my gun up and move towards the side door. I’m not leaving Kyle to deal with this shit alone.
As I cross the tarmac, the wind skimming through my kutte, I see my brothers out of my peripheral vision closing in on the gate, each moving with their guns raised.
Moving to Kyle’s side, the sun glinting off his own raised weapon, a suited man steps out of one of the cars, adjusting his tie. His dark hair is slicked back, his clothes clearly expensive and definitely tailored. His shrewd eyes skim around his surroundings, a lazy glance, as if the guns pointing towards him don’t even register.
I’ve never met him, but I know who he is immediately. Isaac Blackwood. He carries himself with the air of a man who has stared death in the face and laughed.
He’s not the only one. I’m not afraid to die. I came into this life knowing I would probably leave it young. I’m prepared to, but even so I feel some of the tension leech from my bones as my brothers close in around me.
Men crowd around Blackwood, their guns raised, ready for action. My eyes slide to Leon and Elijah who have their weapons trained on us, their mouths quirked into a macabre smirk that grates on my nerves.
Rav comes last, pushing through the brothers and moving to the front of the gate.
“You lost?” he demands, his eyes roaming over Blackwood.
He examines his nails, his stance bored. “You have something of mine.”
“Told your boys and I’ll tell you, we ain’t got nothing.”
Isaac’s cruel mouth turns up into a smirk and his eyes blaze. Rot fills my belly at that look. If he ever directed that at Lucy, I can see why she fled. The man is a scary motherfucker, but so am I, and so are my brothers.
“I don’t appreciate being lied to,” Blackwood says.
“Ain’t lying. So why don’t you get back into your car and fuck off. I won’t ask you again.”
I watch as Isaac’s tongue moves over his teeth and I see a crack in his perfectly controlled emotions.
“You bring her out or I’m coming in, and if that