Page 25 of Devil's Own: Roughneck

“He’s calling up the men to hear what you have to say, babe.” Rough moves closer to me, pulling me halfway onto his lap. It’s as comforting as it is comfortable.

“I think I got up here too late. I think that’s who got your man. Gruff was his name?”

“Shit!” Daniel shouts, startling his son and the baby starts to cry. He bends down to pick him up from where he’s been playing. “Sorry, boy. Dad didn’t mean to scare you.” He holds Tripp in his arms, hugging him. Tripp lays his head down on Daniel’s shoulder, baby-hugging him back. It’s one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen, only coming in second to when my own boy baby-hugged me.

“It’s time for him to go down, anyway.” Nic stands to take her boy from his arms.

“Night, buddy,” he says, kissing the little guy’s cheek. “Love you.” My heart melts. Completely. Utterly. Any other “ly” that might apply here. My heart does that.

We wait anxiously for the men. My brother calls Dark. He must live in one of the houses on either side of this one because he gets here at the same time as Sarge.

“Gia.” Dark tips his chin at me. There are men like Rough who just do it for a woman in all the ways, and then there’s Dark. He’s sin walking on two legs—two thickly muscled…whoa! I have to fan myself and turn my heated eyes to Roughneck because I can handle him, just barely, but I can. A man like Dark would kill me. A smirk spreads across Roughs sumptuous lips. He knows what I want once we get back to his place. Oh yeah… Rough I can handle.

“How’re you doing?” Sarge asks.

“I’m doing well and I’ve been better all at the same time,” I answer, giving my man a squeeze to convey that he’s the reason I’m doing well.

It takes a while for the guys who live in Middlesboro to get here and the air remains tense the whole time, mainly because my brother keeps it that way. Nic joins us, bringing beers for the MC brothers. Once the rest of the men arrive, I don’t waste any more time telling them exactly what I told Rough and Daniel.

There’s silence for about five seconds as every man looks at me with shock. Then they erupt. Fury rather than lava fills the room. The men start shouting in whispers because they all know that Tripp is upstairs sleeping.

“I thought we got rid of them!” and “Are you sure?”

Dark, whom I find rather intimidating, glares at me. “Are you sure that’s what you heard?” he grumbles. “Word for word?”

Slowly, I nod, my mouth too dry to speak. Daniel’s eyes narrow as he turns them on all the brothers in the room.

“War room.Now,” he orders in the voice of thepresident of a biker club.

“What does that mean?” I ask Rough.

“The men are heading over to the clubhouse. Aja and Dusty are there now. I’ll walk with you. Talk with the women or watch TV in my room. We’ll go home when I’m done.”

Standing quickly, I tug on my shoes and hug Nic goodbye, thanking her for the wonderful meal. “We’ll have you down soon,” I say as my goodbye and realize that I haven’t talked to Rough about inviting people to his home for dinner. I turn to Rough. “If that’s okay.”

“You know it is,” he replies, dropping his hand to the small of my back to usher me outside. I wave over my shoulder one last time to Nic as we all hurry up to the clubhouse.

Once inside, the brothers break off to head toward the war room. Rough turns me into his arms, kisses my lips, and rests his forehead against mine. “You did the right thing, telling us, Gee. I don’t know how long we’ll be.”

Okay. This is the life I accepted when I accepted him. If spending a few hours stuck in the clubhouse means I get to sleep next to Rough tonight, I’ll take the clubhouse every day of the week.

He leaves me standing as he jogs around the bar to reach their war room beside the entrance to the kitchen.

I should be freaking out that they have a ‘war room’ to begin with. But instead all I can think about is what are we in for next?

9

“Did we hear that right?” Cut asks. “Did Gia say the Death Bringers are working for Jack fucking Dunham?”

“That’s what she said,” Sarge says, looking absolutely gutted. And hewouldlook gutted. Jack Dunham was one of his men. A former Raider. His unit. He brought that psychopath to our doorstep. None of this is on Sarge. There’s no way he could’ve known how Jack would’ve turned out after his discharge from the Marines. “But why? Why would he do this?”

“Just one more thing we have to figure out,” Vlad answers. “Fuck.” He slams his hand down on the table, acting on what every man at this table feels. You don’t have to be a mind reader to know that. We’ve gone to war too many times together to have any doubt.

“Why Gruff?” Dark asks. “Why go after the Lords, for that matter? What’s he trying to prove with these attacks?”

“Before we go after Jack,” Vlad says, “we’ve got a more pertinent problem. We thought we took out the Death Bringers before. Clearly, there were ones who got away or didn’t make the attack on our compound. Tell me where your heads are at.”

“They went after Aja before,” Cutter says. “Now I got my baby girl, too. No one hurts my family. It’s them or us. I vote them.”

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