Page 109 of Three to Fall

Hawk and War had berated me for every little mistake I’d ever made.

Josiah hadn’t even punished me for failing to kill Kara. He’d opened his gates and accepted me.

And told me to try again. I saw his instructions there in his eyes.

“I won’t fail again.” I swore the promise with every fiber of my being.

“The Lord is pleased with you, Brother Xan. He will reward your obedience and commitment.”

The bored-looking guard rolled his eyes and tapped his watch. “Time’s up.”

My upper lip curled at his arrogance and the evil inside him that had him dismiss Prophet Josiah’s words as rubbish.

The guard was just like the men at the club. Their evil souls protecting the evil in Kara’s.

They all needed to be reborn in the Lord’s image.

They just didn’t know it.

But I did. I would show them the way.

And when they were reborn, I’d welcome them into the Lord’s embrace. I’d accept them the way they’d never done for me.

28

HAWK

The clubhouse was the fullest I’d seen in a long time. People seemed to have come out of the woodwork, filling up the parking lot with almost as many cars as bikes. We pulled chairs from everywhere we could and got out picnic blankets for the kids, not that any of them were sitting on them. They were too busy running around and playing on the equipment.

Music played loudly across a portable speaker Queenie had brought out, and after a couple of rounds of drinks, she’d dragged Hayley Jade onto a makeshift dance floor and was spinning her around, the two of them laughing hysterically.

There was a party vibe in the air, one that had Kara smiling from ear to ear at the edge of the crowd, taking it all in.

I dropped a kiss on her shoulder as I passed, my arms loaded up with beer we’d had to run into town for after Ice hadn’t shown. “Happy?”

She nodded. “Very. This is exactly what she would have wanted. Fun. Laughter. Friendship. Family.” She gazed up at me. “Thank you.”

“What for?”

“For today. For every day. For letting Hayden and Grayson in. For accepting me. For loving Hayley Jade.”

She smiled, staring at something, and I followed her line of sight to Grayson, who’d jumped onto the dance floor. He hadn’t gone back to his place in between the funeral and the party, so he had his dress shirt half unbuttoned, cuffs rolled to his elbows, and his tie around his head like Rambo.

I screwed up my face at the man who was supposed to be a serious, responsible doctor. “You sure you want to thank me for that one?”

She lifted a shoulder, her small smile reaching her eyes. “I kinda love him.”

“Is it the bad dance moves?”

She giggled and twisted to look up at me. “Maybe. But I love you for a whole different set of reasons.”

I snuck a hand down her waist and over her ass to grab a handful. “Yeah? It’s for all the hot sex, right?”

To my surprise, she moved in closer, so her hand brushed over my cock, and her eyes held a glint of mischief. “Absolutely. But also for how you love people.”

Awkward embarrassment crept up my neck. “Don’t get too excited. I love you and Hayley Jade. That’s it.”

“Liar.”

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