Page 116 of Protector

“Yeah, boss?”

“Get the fuck out.”

“You got it,” he chuckled. “I’ll just be out here, beatin’ the shit outta the Blake kid if you need me.”

Bear watched me from the couch with an amused smirk. “Jesus Christ. Kid runs his mouth more than me. So, how’s it feel to be back from the dead?”

I stood up. “It feels fuckin’ amazing. Walk with me. I lost my shirt, tryin’ to keep the cop alive and I feel fuckin’ naked without at least my kutte, you know?”

We passed Goblin, happily pistol-whipping our prisoner and moved outside. “We any closer to findin’ our rat?”

Bear shook his head. “Jarvis is lookin’ into it, but between our guy and whoever they got inside the department, they’ve covered their tracks. It’s like a fuckin’ game of cat and mouse, only I can’t figure out what the goddamn prize is.”

I sighed. “I’m startin’ to feel like this Saint guy ain’t real. Only person who copped to knowin’ jack shit about him was Hawk, but I ain’t seen a goddamn thing that proves he’s out there.”

“Serpents were spotted outside of Houston. Got some of our Nomads trackin’ to see where they lead.”

I ignored the pang in my chest as I thought of Slim. Three years later, and it still didn’t feel real. Every day, I expected him to walk through the door of the clubhouse, bragging about how he’d pulled off the world’s most epic prank.

“Cobra with them?” I asked, pushing my grief back down.

“Haven’t gotten confirmation on that, but as soon as they know, we’ll know.” Bear kicked at stray pieces of gravel with his boot, sending them rolling across the parking lot.

In two years, the Sons had wiped out the Outlaws and recruited most of the local gangbangers to their cause, but no one knew exactly what that cause was. Torch’s Ol’ Lady had turned up dead after overhearing something she shouldn’t have, but the notes she’d left behind had led nowhere.

As much as I wanted there to be a connection between Cobra and the Sons, the evidence wasn’t there. It seemed that, despite what Hawk had wanted us to believe, no puppet master was pulling at strings to get to my wife.

I’d been looking for hidden meanings and chasing after loose ends when it could’ve been nothing more than a turf war. Most ended as soon as they began, but the Sons had been smart and infiltrated my clubhouse.

“Sullivan’s here.” Bear pointed at the truck pulling in. “Bet you never thought you’d live to see the day that he was the one with his head on straight,” he chuckled.

“What do you mean?” I asked carefully as I retrieved my kutte from where I’d left it hanging on the chain-link fence, tucking it under my arm before meandering back toward the warehouse. Comedian had snagged Blake Sr. and with the way Goblin was working Junior over, I knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

Plenty of time for me to find out what exactly Bear knew, and how.

He looked around before leaning in. “I mean, out of the three of your kids, he’s the only one who has his shit together.”

Dread wrapped its icy fingers around me, and I swallowed. “You know about that?”

Bear nodded. “Pres, I got two eyes and been ridin’ with you for years. You and I both know the conversation that’s gonna have to happen. You know how hard it was for me to tell Ricky I wasn’t his old man? To see the hurt in his eyes?”

“You two are good now, though, right?”

“I don’t know. We’re brothers in the same club—whether he’ll ever see me as his dad again? Who the fuck can say? You know, me and Molly had a one-night stand not long before she ended up with the gangbanger. When I found out she was knocked up, I had this stupid thought that maybe the kid was mine.”

He paused, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Only I used a rubber and that prick didn’t. Some of the other guys gave me shit, sayin’ that she was gonna try to get me on the hook for child support, but I was so fuckin’ gone for her by then, it didn’t matter.”

“Did she?” I’d been so preoccupied with taking outLos Dictadoresback then that I’d missed out on the drama taking place within my own club.

Bear shook his head with a grin, lost to his memories. “Nah, she straight up told me the baby wasn’t mine; tried to push me away. I showed up to every goddamn doctor’s appointment and was the first one to hold him when he was born—fuck, what am I tryin’ to say? Just don’t wait too long. Hell, maybe if I’d been honest from the beginning, things would’ve turned out differently.”

I clapped him on the shoulder with a jerk of my head before walking back inside. There was nothing I could’ve said to make things better. Bear and I were in the same boat; both stuck, wishing our boys could see who we really were.

Mikey looked to me when I walked in and snapped, “You wanna tell me why I’m down here?”

He wasn’t pissed that he was getting called in to clean up another mess for the club; he was mad that he’d had to leave home. Thoughts of Slim filtered through again as I stared at my son, finally seeing that he’d been right the entire time.

A woman had come along and settled Mikey’s ass down.

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