Page 28 of Three to Fall

Hayden smoothed his hands over his jeans. “We just wanted to come by and make sure you were okay. You left before we could catch up.”

I rubbed a hand across my throat absentmindedly. “Nothing but a few bruises. I’ll be fine.”

Hawk cleared his throat. “Kara didn’t tell me what happened exactly. Just said you saved her life.”

I could feel Trigger watching on, his body tense.

But Kara hadn’t said anything to Hawk and Hayden about who her attacker had been. And I suspected that considering Trig hadn’t actually hurt Kara, that maybe it was better if Hawk and Hayden never knew exactly what had gone down in this room twenty-four hours earlier.

I’d only just gotten my brother back. I didn’t want to lose him again because Hawk kept trying to kill him. Especially because there was a very good chance it wouldn’t be Hawk who won that fight if it ever came down to it.

I couldn’t imagine anyone taking on the murder squad and living to tell the tale.

Kara had been smart not to say anything. It was for their own safety.

And so Trigger and I had a shot at being brothers once more.

God, I loved that woman.

I swallowed hard. “I love her. I’d do anything for her.”

I waited for Hawk’s expression to cloud over. For his fingers to bunch into fists. For him to take a swing at my face.

But all that happened was he shrugged. “Yeah, well. I think she loves you too. So that’s probably a good thing.”

I really fucking hoped so.

X watched the interaction with interest, his head swiveling back and forth between us like we were at a tennis match. “So allthree of you are poking that Kara chick? I mean, I get it. She’s got a banging body. All tits and ass…”

Hawk, Hayden, and I all turned to stare at him. Hawk’s low, protective growl was all Doberman to X’s golden retriever energy.

Whip clamped a hand on the back of X’s neck. “You know what? I just remembered we left a man tied to a table at my house! Time to go back there and see if he’s still alive! Right, X?”

X propped his chin up on two hands, elbows resting on the countertop, and shrugged Whip off. “Not yet! I want to hear more about Gray’s boyfriends.”

Whip shoved him toward the door, nodding for the others to join them. “Come on. The guy on the table at my place still had his eyeballs. You can remove them. You know you love that.”

X perked up at that and trotted down the hallway after the others, leaving me, Hawk, and Hayden staring after them.

I grimaced at the two men. “So…that’s my friends…”

Hawk cocked his head to one side. “Have you introduced them to Scythe and Vincent? I think they’d have a lot in common.”

6

KARA

For a few days, we laid low at the clubhouse. Hawk hovered like the bird he was named after, never far from me or Hayley Jade. Hayden fell into the habit of calling from Sinners multiple times a day, apparently just to talk, but we all knew it was because he was stressed out over what had happened. Grayson took time off work to hang around until the lure of the Friday free clinic drew him back. They needed him there, but even he found his way back to the clubhouse each night, crashing on the couch or crawling into bed with me if one of the other guys didn’t beat him to it.

I was never alone. Not even for a minute, and while some might have found it claustrophobic, I enjoyed every second of having the people I cared about close to me.

It meant I couldn’t do anything about leaving.

And that was a quiet relief.

I didn’t want to go. But we couldn’t live in this little bubble forever either. As the days wore on, things settled down, and I knew it was time to put my foot down about the coddling and get Hayley Jade back to school.

Hawk and War both went to talk to the principal, and she allowed them to bring in a new team of security specialists. Only after they’d installed cameras and sensors, and the hype from Josiah’s podcast faded, did they decide that it was safe for Hayley Jade to return.

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