Page 103 of Ruthless Reign

He drew my hand to his chest, placing it in the same spot where he still held his against mine. “Whatever I have, it’s yours, Hawk. Scars and all.”

Hardin and Becca slept in the shed until late afternoon.

I watched over the yard and the perimeter from Hardin’s new 4K video monitors in his bedroom since they weren’t using it.

Aodhán still didn’t wake, but we knew what he’d done now. More or less.

A storage unit went up in smoke twenty minutes before he showed up at our door. Santa Clarita PD said that by the look of the wreckage it was filled with ammunition and some larger artillery. It wasn’t ours, and the only gang with that kind of munitions store on our turf right now was the Sons. They recovered several corpses and managed to ID one as an Irish national.

So, he really had slowed them down. And even took out a couple of his own men in the process. I wondered if he knew them. If I could have done the same if I were in his shoes. Honestly, I couldn’t say.

“You missed a spot,” I told Becca as she set down a steaming mug of coffee next to me at the desk.

She wiped blindly at her face until I jerked her into my lap and rubbed the dried paint from her hairline. It was still damp from the shower she and Hardin had just shared. She winced as her ass settled against my thighs, and I wondered how hard my brother gave it to her. But by the sated, almost peaceful look on her face, I knew it was nothing she couldn’t handle.

“You guys good?”

She nodded gratefully. “And Aodhán? He didn’t wake up at all?”

I shook my head.

“You sure you wouldn’t rather take a nap? How much coffee have you had?”

“Too much,” I admitted with a sigh. “But there’s no time, anyway. Dad’s on his way over.”

She shot up from my lap as if I shocked her.

“What? Right now?”

My Vixen glanced to the door and I knew she was seeing Aodhán still passed out on the table through the walls. “He wants to talk to him, that’s all.”

“I’ve seen how you guys ‘talk,’” she scoffed, using air quotes with a tension pulling in her shoulders.

“He won’t kill him,” I said with a one shoulder shrug. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Because that’s so reassuring.”

I smirked, pulling her closer to press a kiss to her neck that made her shiver. She smelled like a mixture of my shampoo and something else that was just uniquely her.

“You should eat, Vixen.”

Her jaw tightened.

“Look, I get that it’s hard when shit’s like this, but you need your strength. We all do right now.”

“Later?”

I pursed my lips, trying to read whether she really meant it from the pained look in her eyes. But what the fuck was I supposed to do? Stuff it down her throat? I sighed. I might not force her, but if she wasn’t careful, Hardin would.

“Okay. Later. A whole meal. Deal?”

“Deal.”

She stole my coffee for a sip, clenching it between her hands as if trying to leach its warmth even though it was hot as balls in here.

“Come on, Vixen, let’s go check on Aodhán and get you some ice for your pussy.”

She spluttered, almost spewing coffee all over me as I tapped her thigh, helping her up with me as I stood. She coughed, pushing the coffee into my hands as she cursed, but there was a smile on her lips and that was my goal. Achievement unlocked.

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