Page 60 of Zeke

I nod in agreement. I’m never going to argue about Julia being looked after, especially if it can be by me. “Probably a good plan.”

“There’s more,” he says heavily, bowing his head. “Julia’s going to—”

I hear her scream, “No!” from the kitchen and my head snaps in that direction.

“—that.”

I look back at him, but he motions for me to go to her. Concerned, I dart from the room and hover in the kitchen doorway as Julia launches herself at Zeke, pounding on his chest as he stands there. His eyes go to mine, and he shakes his head slightly to tell me not to get involved. I have no idea what to do. He’s my VP and, while he doesn’t control my every move, I’m supposed to listen when he gives me an order. This feels like one—to stay put.

But Julia…

Julia means more to me than anyone else in my life has. She’s the girl I could see having a future with. She’s sweet and reserved but has a fire and a quick wit underneath a hard exterior. It makes sense she’d have that. Until she joined the Kings, she had to deal with people not wanting her around simply because she is a woman.

Right now, the woman I nearly kissed not even fifteen minutes ago is crying like a wounded animal, and I’m supposed to stand back and let her be in pain?

She seems to burn herself out, then looks up at Zeke with pure rage on her face. “I don’t need someone who helped take my brother away from me, who’s responsible for my other one’s life being on the line, to feel bad for me. Save it for someone you didn’t fuck over.”

“I know you’ll take your anger out on whoever you want,” he replies.

Julia visibly tenses.

“But this isn’t the fault of anyone here.”

I can’t believe what he’s saying. There was a problem in Miami, and Savage, Julia’s brother, is in the hospital. She already lost one brother at Eden’s hands. For this to happen, I understand her pain and anger.

Zeke turns and walks past me to go to the living room. I resist the urge to throw a punch. The way he spoke to Julia, who is obviously in pain, pisses me off enough that I want to knock his ass out, but I don’t. I watch him go as Kira holds Julia.

This is the first time my loyalties have been divided in a way that matters. Julia’s friendship with Kira and her job are indicative of the dissent she feels toward the Kings as a whole. She was looking for something—anything—else to fulfill her since she felt like she would implode if she was forced into silence about Walton.

That had never been an issue between us until now. Until I let the person who spoke to her like that walk past me without doing a thing, and then fail to go to her side when she needs me.

It’s only a minute before she throws Kira’s arms off her and doesn’t spare me a glance as she runs outside into the night.

I stand frozen, unsure of what to do, but Kira helps me out.

“Go,” she whispers, nodding her head.

It takes a second for me to break out of the spell of my crippling indecision, but Kira’s right. I don’t care what’s going on here. Others can deal with it. No one else goes after Julia, and, if I’m honest, I don’t want it to be anyone but me.

She’s already at the end of the driveway and turning onto the main road by the time I get on my bike. I rev my engine and take off after her as fast as I can.

She takes me on an intense chase, but eventually, I catch up to her on the highway and get beside her, pointing at her to pull over. She doesn't at first, but then she eventually gives up and pulls her bike onto a wide shoulder with a guardrail. I drive up beside her and swing my leg over my bike to get off. Before I can react, Julia tears her helmet off, tosses it to the ground, and hits me the way she attacked Zeke before. I can’t blame her after the way I left her to deal on her own when she needed me.

I don’t fight, not because I pity her or look down on her like Zeke did, but because I know how angry she is, how much she needs to grieve things she’s never had a chance to. When she found out her brother was dead, she got into a fight with Big Red and Savage about it, but she never mourned her brother.

I’m going to give that to her now. I’ll let her rail at me and hit me until she can’t go another second. Eventually, it happens. Her cries of rage as she throws punch after punch turn into sobs. The blows lose their force until she lies against my chest. Finally, I wrap my arms around her.

I feel how tired she is, so I bend down and pick her up to carry her over to the guardrail, where I let her sit as I kneel in front of her. I’m taller than her, so even kneeling, her eyes are only a few inches above mine. I look into them as she takes deep, long breaths that keep turning back into deep, rattling sobs.

Once she has no more tears to cry, I reach up and wipe away the remaining ones. I know what I want to say, what she needs to hear, but I want to stretch this moment out forever before I say something that might make her hate me.

“Julia…”

She looks at me nervously.

“I don’t ever want you to think that your feelings don’t matter, because they do. Especially about this, when you’ve been through some horrible stuff. But…” I take a deep breath. “But at some point, you have a choice to make.”

She looks at me with a little huff of disdain. “And what’s that?”

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