Page 68 of Gunner

They’re here for me, not because they have to be, but because they want to be. I know their men didn’t ask them to come.

Lark’s man, Tyrant—their president, isn’t here right now. He’s at the club, no doubt trying to figure out what their next move is and how bad this threat might be. I think they’re probably going into lockdown. Maybe not. I don’t actually know anything because I haven’t been able to bring myself to ask.

“How are you doing, honey?” Ella asks, smoothing circles over my back. She looks like a badass too, with her leather jacket, her ripped jeans, her heavy dark makeup and her biker boots.

I want to lie, but the wrong words come out. “How can I ever apologize to R—” I stop myself just in time. His club might know his past, but the name he shared with me is a precious gift and is mine alone. “How can I apologize to Gunner? My father did this. I don’t know all the details yet, but we’re going to have to work it out. I’m expecting a call anytime. I’ll have to meet withhim later. But I- I promised Gunner that I’d look after him. I convinced him that everything would be okay. I said I’d handle this. I most definitely did not handle it, nothing is okay. He’s hurt. This isn’t happy anything.”

“Yeah,” Ella sighs. She’s so sweet and tender that she’d for sure be one of those people who holds back her bestie’s hair after a night of hard partying. Then again, looking at Lark with her sweet bohemian vibes, I can’t imagine that she’s ever partied hard at all.

Also? I think they’re tight, but not besties. Their friendship seems to be a more recent development.

“I know it’s corny,” Ella sighs, “but sometimes all you can do is live hard and create your own happiness. Live out your own story despite what life is throwing at you.”

Lark gets up, smoothing down her long dress, and kneels beside my chair. “He killed to save our lives. Did you know that?”

I make a small noise. Did I? I can’t keep a single thing straight right now.

“We’ll apologize to him too, for ever being afraid of him.”

“It’s easy to be afraid of what you don’t understand.” Lark tilts her head at the big man dressed in black at the far side of the room. He’s called Crow, and he’s the man I managed to speak to when I called the clubhouse.

Yeah. I’ll admit he’s pretty much a walking horror show and not in that hot antihero kind of way. He’s menacing in more than a brutish way. His eyes keep shifting around the room, cautious and alert, but also completely dead. It’s the kind of gaze you don’t want to get trapped in if you value the blood in your veins flowing free without an ice blockage.

“We’re a family,” Ella whispers, her eyes soft but not pitying. “That’s what the club stands for. Idealistic, for sure, but if you have nothing to move towards, what are you even accomplishing?”

“Gunner is actually kind of funny in a horrifying kind of way,” Lark tries.

“I’m the funny one,” I tell them humorously. “I threatened to shoot a man in the foot and feed him his balls and then I did it.”

Their eyes both shoot wide open.

“Only the first part of the threat,” I add quickly. I should feel some kind of guilt about shooting another human being, and maybe I will tomorrow, but in the heat of the moment, I was a beast. I was no less fearsome than my father.

“I’m so sorry I brought this to your doorstep.” I need to fix this. Now. It’s so incredibly frustrating sitting here, powerless. I had to do that once in my life already and I hated it. It was out of my control, but I vowed I would never let anyone take anything from me that way again. “I promise that I’ll make everything better. You don’t need to be on lockdown. My father won’t hurt any of you. He just wanted Gunner and that’s only because of me. If I had never- if I—”

“Fathers can be rough.” Lark exchanges a look with Ella before she pats my knee sympathetically. “Gray’s dad tortured him and burned his house down.”

“I did hear something about that,” I admit. “But that’s insane. Parents should protect their children at all costs. That’s what my father was doing. It might be extreme, and I wish that he’d talked to me first and that all of this never happened, but-ugh. You must think the worst. You must think he’s horrible.” That wounds me too. This all hurts. It feels like I’m being straight down the middle and certainly not cleanly.

“We don’t think anything like that,” Ella assures me. She takes Lark’s hand and then she reaches for mine.

I’ve never had a sibling. I’ve never had a best friend. I was raised far too solitary and protected for anything like that. The little circle we make warms me in a strange, unexpected surge. I don’t know if I believe her words, I don’t know if she does, but I appreciate the lack of judgment.

Another hand, soft but strong, lands on my shoulder. I turn my gaze directly into Rita’s weathered face. I nearly leap out of my skin. For a minute, I’d forgotten that there was anyone more than just us three in the room.

“You’re part of a family now.” Rita’s voice, like her face, is worn in and lined. She has that deep rasp that comes from smoking a pack a day or more. Hard and fast, wild living. She’s so beautiful in her own way, with all that kindness flowing from her into me when I least deserve it.

I bow my head. “I keep expecting my father to call me, but he probably hasn’t touched down yet, and with how careful he’s been over the past few years, I know he’ll want to be discreet. Wherever it is that he wants to meet, I’ll go alone, and I’ll set all of this right. No one will be in danger because of me. I won’t let a single other person get hurt.” My eyes glisten with unshed tears, but there’s no way I’m giving in to them or I won’t be able to stop them from constantly leaking out of my eyes. “I’ll leave before that ever happens.”

The door at the far side of the clinic bangs open. All of us whip around and there’s Ronan. Bruised and beaten, still in hisboxers, eyes blazing, his hair blood crusted. He’s a warrior who just went into battle and lived to see the other side of it. He’s awake now, and he is not looking pleased.

Archer hovers just over his shoulder, one black gloved hand extended, shaking his head, but he says nothing. He’s probably worked with bikers for long enough to know how useless that would be.

“Like hell you are,” Ronan growls, so predictable that I bite down on my lip to choke back the world’s most inappropriate laugh.

I expected this to be an argument. There’s no way that I’m letting Ronan get anywhere near my father. I’m trying to prevent a war, not start one.

He sways and has to thrust a hand out against the doorframe. That’s all it takes and I’m rushing across the room, throwing myself at him. I’m careful not to hurt him. I wrap my arms around him just to give him support and let him lean on me. I press my forehead to his chest. He’s sweating and he feels hot. It’s such a change from the coldness of his skin earlier. I’ll never forget that either. How lifeless he looked and felt.

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