Walk Through Fire (Chaos #4)(174)

I wasn’t sure if they got my message before I had to look away to go down the hall.

We were in the bedroom when I asked, “How are you gonna explain all this to Deb?”

Logan kicked the door shut with his boot, kept moving me into the room but did it giving me his eyes.

“What do you need? Rest? Coffee? A shot of bourbon?”

I stopped in a way it stopped him. Then I turned into him and wrapped my arms around his waist.

“What are you gonna say to Deb, Low? You have to tell her because if you don’t, the girls will, and she’s gonna freak. That could mean she won’t want the girls—”

He lifted his hands and put them to either side of my neck.

“Deb did not spend our marriage in a vacuum, Millie,” he stated. “She knew what I was when she met me, when she took my ring, and when she shared my bed. She knew how Chaos changed. She knew our activities after we changed. I didn’t lay all of it out for her but I told her what she needed to know. She isn’t gonna like this. She’s gonna freak. Then she’s gonna trust in the brotherhood. It might take her time to get there. But she’ll get there.”

I found this hard to believe.

“Are you sure? Today was extreme,” I pointed out the obvious.

“She never bought into the biker life, babe, but she lived a long time connected to Chaos. She knows us. She wasn’t into it because she wasn’t into anything. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know us. She’ll get there.”

I found this easier to believe but not by much.

I decided not to pursue that.

Even so, I didn’t get a chance before he declared, “And if she doesn’t, the gig we got goin’ that’s workin’ good will stop workin’ good. No one is gonna keep my daughters from me for any reason. It just is not gonna happen. She tries, she’ll learn quick she shouldn’t have. But she knows that too. So she ain’t gonna try.”

That I could believe.

So I nodded, suddenly feeling exhausted.

“I think I need a shower,” I told him. “Then I wanna call Dot and—”

“Unh-unh,” he denied.

I blinked up at him.

He saw it and tipped his head so his face was closer to mine.

His tone was firm, but gentle, when he stated, “You got a big family. That family is yours, all of it, but that don’t mean the bottom line is that you really got two families. You know the gig, too, baby. This is Chaos. You got your sisters in Chaos. You need them, they’re right down the hall. Other than that, no go. This stays in Chaos, and it f*cks me to lay down this law after the shit that went down with you today, but that’s the end of it. Hear?”

“Dot won’t—” I began.

He cut me off, “Alan will.”

I shut my mouth because he was right.

Alan would.

He’d totally lose his mind.

“Hear?” he prompted softly.

I thought of my Chaos sisters in the living room. They’d descended, probably immediately, to look after Logan’s girls.

I didn’t know them all that well. I just knew I liked them. I trusted them.

And I was Chaos, in this situation, they were all I had.

As well as Logan, that was.

So it was good that was nothing to sneeze at.

With no other choice, because I’d already made it years ago when I chose Logan, I did what I’d been doing all day.

I nodded and whispered, “I hear.”

Like any good old lady should.

I knew it was the right thing to do even before I did it.

But when Logan’s hands slid up to my jaw and he used it to pull me up to my toes so my mouth could meet his and he could kiss me light, but long and wet, relieved but determined, that knowledge was confirmed.

Tack

It was dark.

There was only one light lit in the room.

Tack sat at the head of Chaos’s table.

Hound was standing, his back to the wall opposite the door.

But Tack had his gaze on the Chaos flag under the Plexiglas in the middle of the table.

“High told us what Millie said,” Tack told the table.

“Yup,” Hound replied.

Tack stared at the flag.

But his mind was filled with hearing High’s voice over the phone earlier that day when he’d first gotten the call.

He felt deep what he heard in High’s voice. The anger that hid the fear.

He knew how that felt. He knew how it felt to know your woman was in the hands of a madman. He knew how it felt not to know where she was or how to find her. He knew how it felt to know you’d give anything to get her back safe.

Even if it meant giving your life.

Even if it meant that would take you away from her, your kids.

You’d do it.

Without a thought.

He knew exactly how that felt.

And hearing it in his brother’s voice, remembering it in a way that cut like a blade, knowing he had to do everything he could to stop High from giving everything he was, after years of that feeling being gone, it again haunted him.

He looked from the flag to Hound.

“You’re on this,” he ordered.

Slowly, Hound grinned.

“Alone, Hound. You got that?” Tack asked.

The grin didn’t waver. “I got it.”