Wild Like the Wind (Chaos #5)(71)

How to tear life up.

When I took my position opposite my gold-rimmed glass coffee table and faced off with Hound, I fought tossing my hair, because if he wasn’t going to give me anything, I sure as shit wasn’t going to give him anything.

Hound stood behind my couch, my dining room table behind him.

Both the boys stood to the side, opposite the armchair.

“Right, Hound, told you Jagger and me gotta make an important decision about some seriously important shit and we can’t,” Dutch started it, not earning Hound’s regard.

He hadn’t looked at me since he walked into my kitchen.

He’d been about blanking me out and the boys.

So Dutch already had Hound’s regard.

“What I didn’t say was that Ma’s ready to let go of Dad’s cut and his bike, and me and Jag gotta pick which one is gonna get which,” Dutch carried on.

At that, Hound’s gaze sliced to me.

I didn’t move. Didn’t even lift my chin.

I just took it for a beat before I looked back at my boys.

“We can’t pick which gets which, we both want both, but most of all, we both want Dad’s cut,” Dutch shared. “And Ma won’t say which one of us Dad would have wanted to have what.”

“If your father was here, he’d give you his cut, Dutch,” Hound’s deep voice sounded immediately. “And he’d give Jag his bike.”

I was not surprised Hound came to the same conclusion I did. I was also not surprised that Dutch took this without reaction but Jag took it trying to hide being pissed, which meant disappointed.

“If he knew he’d end when he did, though,” Hound kept going, “he’d have made it clear to your mother that you should get the bike, Dutch, and Jag would get his cut ’cause he’d feel it, he didn’t have more time with his youngest boy. And he’d know you’d become the kind of man who’d get that.”

Okay, now that was just uncanny.

And now I was noticing Dutch was having trouble holding back his reaction and Jag looked relieved.

“It was up to me,” Hound continued, and my gaze shot to him because he’d never said dick about what he felt if it was up to him.

He did, always, what he felt Black would do with the boys.

He’d never given his own opinion.

“Way you manned up early to look after your ma and your brother, you’d get Black’s cut and Jag,” Hound’s attention moved to Jagger, “you’d get his bike. It might suck, son, and it might not seem fair. But you think hard on it, you’ll understand that circumstances gave your brother two more years of your daddy but not at a time when he could get what he needed outta that. At a time when the time would come when he’d need to step up in a way a boy wouldn’t have to if he had his father. And you didn’t have to do that. You got to be you. So in one way, your brother earned that cut. In another, it’s an expression of gratitude for the brother he was to you that you’d give it to him. Sayin’ all that, Black had a shit-hot bike. So you aren’t exactly getting a bad deal.”

God, God.

I hated it that I so totally loved him and he was standing right there in my own goddamned living room demonstrating one of the reasons why when he was such a huge, motherfucking dick.

It occurred to me I was glaring at him so I stopped doing that, fortunately just in time to feel my youngest boy’s eyes come to me.

“Ma?”

I looked to Jagger. “I’m not in this,” I said, and when his expression grew impatient, I carried on, saying, “But Hound speaks sense.”

Disappointment slid to devastation and my stomach clutched before Jag did what the blood in Jag’s veins guided him to do. What the direction Hound had been giving him most of his life guided him to.

He turned to Dutch and said, “You take Dad’s cut, man. I’ll take his bike.”

Dutch gave him a beat before he asked, “You sure?”

“No,” Jagger answered immediately. “But Hound’s right. You earned it.”

Something came over my eldest son’s face that settled low in my gut in a beautiful way, and I knew from the vibe Jagger was now giving off that he saw it and felt the same thing when Dutch murmured, “Thanks, Jag.”

“You become a brother and ride my ass as a recruit more than the other brothers, I earn my own patch, I’ll kick your ass,” Jag returned. But I knew from the tone of his voice he felt the extent of his brother’s gratitude, it meant a great deal to him, and he knew this was the way it should be.

Still, he was going to give him shit.

And there it was.

Brothers being brothers.

Dutch just grinned at him.

And again there it was.

Proof, if my oldest wanted to be a player, panties would be dropping all over Denver.

I looked to the ceiling.

“We done here?” Hound asked.

I looked to him and again had to fight back my glare.

“Uh …” Jag started.

“Just—” Dutch began.

“We’re done here,” Hound decreed and honed in on Jagger. “Men are meeting in a coupla hours. Be at the Compound. We’ll call you in after we vote.” And with but a glance cut sharply through the boys, though not me, he ended it, saying, “Later.”