Babylon High seemed to be the central location for all the MC’s troubles. First Jacob—my girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend and the football coach of my girlfriend’s only brother. Now a mystery attacker—a nameless kid who didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to touch anything that didn’t belong to him. Two men I couldn’t get to. One would bring too much trouble to my family if I touched him. The other was a ghost I couldn’t find. The latter was also someone I wouldn’t be allowed to touch even if I did figure out who the hell the little punk was. That was going to be for Sutton to deal with. My anger was nothing compared to his. In the week following Sloane’s attack, he’d retreated into himself, walking around with that ashen face and those sagging shoulders all over again, just like he’d done straight after losing his wife, Maisey, in the warehouse.

My brothers and I tried to help him, tried to pick him up, but what the fuck was there to say to a man when his daughter had been violated? Nothing. Not even Ayda’s sunshiny disposition and let’s all stay positive attitude rubbed off on the chief. I had to admire her efforts, though. Even if he didn’t appreciate them, I sure as shit did.

Everyone had been reminded how touchable we were. That was the downside of loving, of caring. It meant that when shit went south and something happened to those you cared for, you were left feeling like we all did: useless as fuck.

Business carried on as usual. The Hounds even had a vote on what action was best to take regarding Sloane’s mystery attacker. Kenny wanted to storm the school and smash every man capable of getting a raging erection up against a wall, grab their balls, and twist them until they talked. We all voted against him on that, which led to him sulking for three days and smashing the crap out of the equipment in the training room.

With our attention needed to run the club, the pawnshop, and the repo business, Ayda demanded that we stopped calling in on her shifts at Rusty’s, instead willing us to head to football training to watch over Tate if we got the spare time. It would mean we could kill two birds with one stone. Make sure her brother was safe and keep our eyes on Sloane at cheerleading practice, since she was refusing to quit that shit, much to her father’s despair.

“See that as a good thing, Howard,” I encouraged him. “It means the attacker is probably someone she didn’t even know. There’s no way she’d go back to the same place she got hurt if the same guy was gonna be there to remind her of what happened.”

He’d looked at me skeptically, and then he’d lowered his chin back to his chest and stalked off to the bar to grab a double whiskey after his shift.

I was trying Ayda’s tactic of positive thoughts leading to a positive life, but I had to admit, it didn’t come naturally to me. The longer I tried to suppress the raging need to hurt someone, something, the more I could feel it bubbling away in the pit of my stomach in the middle of the night. The need for revenge would whisper to me like an old friend. Come back to me, Drew. Be who you used to be. React first and think later. Put the pressure on. Weed the scum out. Make the whole of Babylon fear hurting anyone you’ve come to care about.

I almost gave in a few times, too. But then Ayda would stir in her sleep, wrap her leg tighter around mine and sigh against my chest, as though she could hear that devil on my shoulder and she’d moved to remind it she was stronger than any temptation the world had to offer.

By day eight post-Sloane-attack, I was pacing, and doing my damn best to hide it.

I had no idea if Sloane or Tate were even due to practice that day, but I found myself driving around the high school a few times while Ayda was busy working a shift at Rusty’s. Just being close by had all my senses tingling, like something inside of me could sense there was something bigger going on here… something that was right in front of my eyes. So close, too close, I couldn’t focus to see it clearly.

I’d chosen to take the van out that morning. People didn’t tend to crane their necks to look at me tearing down the roads when I was in the van as opposed to the Harley. After several pointless trips around Babylon, I parked up behind the school on the back road where few cars went because it was a dead end that held all the school’s commercial trash compactors.

The football field was around the corner, and all I could feel in my gut was this pull for me to go to it. To see it, even if it sat empty and unresponsive, offering me no more vibes and nothing but a half decent view.

I shuffled around in the driver’s seat for quite some time, eventually pulling out the cell from inside my cut and staring down at it in my hands. I turned it over a few times, trying to figure out what to do, and before I could give it too much thought, I had Sutton’s name up on the screen and I was hitting call.

“Tucker,” he answered with no emotion.

“Chief, just calling to see what’s going on in the life of crime today.” I tried to smile as I rested my arm on the door and pressed the phone harder to my ear.

“It’s quiet. Too quiet.”

“We’re working on making those cells a little more crowded for you.”

“Ain’t your job, Tucker.”

“I know.” I sighed. “But you chose to befriend a bunch of outlaws. It’s not my fault you can’t choose better acquaintances.”

“I would say I wished I’d stayed away from the warehouse that night, but I’m pretty sure you’d be dead if I had, and as unhappy as I am right now, I can’t bring myself to wish for that.”

“That’s what I call progress,” I said through a weak smile.

“I call it regression, but whatever.” I heard the chief take a slurp of his drink—no doubt a triple espresso considering he wasn’t sleeping all too well lately—before he dropped the cup back down onto his desk with a little too much force. “How can I help you today, anyway?”

“I don’t need any help,” I assured him.

“Then why the call?”

“Just being friendly.”

“Tucker…”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Hell no, I don’t.”

“Fine. I’m outside Babylon High.”

He paused for a beat too long before he eventually spoke. “Why?”

“I don’t know.”

I heard his chair scrape as he pushed it backward. “Is Sloane—?”

“She’s fine. At ease, soldier.” I let my head fall back on the headrest and looked up at the school. “I just feel better being here.”

He paused again. “For some strange reason, I feel better you being there, too.”

We ended the call not long after. I didn’t know why I’d called him, but something felt off with me, and I was trying to figure out what exactly I needed to make myself feel grounded again. If she hadn’t been working, I’d have gone straight to Ayda to talk it out. I was getting better at that. But Rusty’s was becoming her safe haven, despite the unease and paranoia she sometimes felt while there, and I didn’t want to drop more drama at her busy, working feet. Not without having something real and concrete to place there.

In the end, I found myself getting out of the van, shrugging my shoulders in my cut and walking along the streets that would lead me to the football field.

When I got there, it was empty. I couldn’t see any football players, no cheerleaders, and not a single staff member anywhere. All there was were green fields at my feet and blue skies up ahead. I made my way to the place where I’d first kissed Ayda and stared at the very spot where I’d first pushed her away when all I’d really wanted to do was pull her closer.

With my hands pushed deep into my jeans pockets, I got lost in the memory and found myself staring at the wall she’d been pressed against when I’d first found her. Her hands had been tugging the blonde lengths of her hair in frustration. Her eyes had been wild. And those lips…

Man, those lips.

I’d wanted to devour them the second I’d seen their gentle quivering as her uncertainty took over.

We’d had a lot of memories in a short space of time, and even though our very first kiss on the edge of this field hadn’t ended well that night, I couldn’t help feeling like that very first moment with her might just be one of my all-time favorites.

I let out a weighty sigh, almost forgetting where I was when I heard something behind me. Jacob Hove was walking out onto the grass at the other edge of the field, carrying a net bag over his shoulder and staring at his feet like he found his job the most boring job in the whole fucking world. I quickly ducked behind the wall, peering around the corner just enough that I could see him but he couldn’t see me. He dropped the bag to the grass and then bent at the knees as he started to open it, pulling out a load of shit and dropping it all to the ground carelessly.

I frowned as I watched him, simply because I hated the motherfucker. He’d had my girl before I had. No man took too kindly to that, no matter how much of a saint they were. And I definitely wasn’t a saint. Just a year ago, I’d have used Jacob’s face as a training bag for the fun of it… because I didn’t like the look of him, and nothing else.

That rumbling in my stomach stirred again.

That quiet whisper that sounded like revenge whistled in my ear.

No one would know if I walked over there and had a quiet word. No one would believe him that I’d been around, that the MC had been watching. That a hardcore club like the Hounds could and would enter a high school to hurt the new football coach for no good reason at all.

I was tempted.

Too tempted.

Until I saw Jacob’s head snap to the bleachers as someone called out to him. My eyes followed where he turned to look up, and the very second I saw a figure standing as arrogantly as I did, wearing a leather cut, with his hair and eyes hidden under a black baseball cap, my spine stiffened.

Jacob stood, planting his hands on his hips as he shouted something at the visitor in the bleachers.

The visitor didn’t respond verbally. Instead, he pointed at his wrist, signaling the time before he thumbed over his shoulder and gave Jacob a nod. Jacob saluted in return before he dropped back down to the ground and went back to organizing the small cones in size order.

I, however, was focusing all my attention on the leather cut.

And the moment the guy wearing it turned around and began to walk back up the steps, I was pretty fucking certain I forgot how to breathe.

Because as sure as I had a dick between my legs, there stood a rival MC member, walking away from me without a care in the world…

Without any knowledge of my presence…

Without any fear in his heart…

Without any worry about being in someone else’s territory.

With one very large, scary as shit Navarro Rifles patch on his back.

The Navs were in Babylon.

And Jacob Hove seemed to know them well.

The van practically spun into a parking space outside Rusty’s. The screeching of the tires had everyone sitting by a window looking out to the parking lot in one swift head snap. I barely waited for the engine to die before I jumped out of the seat, slammed the door and ran up the steps to the door, the leather edges of my cut flapping as I moved quickly.

“Ayda!” I shouted, looking left and right. “Ayda?”

I saw Janette first, and that was good enough for me. I ran straight toward her, grabbed her shoulders and was about to scream where the fuck is Ayda? when I saw a familiar figure pushing her ass against the swinging doors and backing out into the diner.

Ayda turned, her face lighting up the moment she saw me, but that didn’t last long. The second her eyes met mine she saw something was wrong. In one practiced move, she handed the tray she’d been holding to Janette and told her the table number before rushing to me with a panic of her own.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her hands curling around the two sides of my cut.

I had no time to spare to be gentle. Glancing over her head, searching every corner of the diner I could, I practically growled at her, “Get your shit. We’re going home.”

She looked at me, obviously calculating the severity of the situation. Whatever she saw in my eyes had her convinced, and after one short nod of agreement, she replied. “Okay. Let me just explain to Janette, and I’ll grab my things.” She turned but stopped, and twisted back to face me again. “Is… is everyone… healthy?”

“Just fucking move, Ayda,” I snapped quietly, struggling to stay in control as I scanned behind me. “Now.”

Putting both hands up in surrender, even though her eyes were narrowed at me, she walked backward for a couple of steps before turning and following a bewildered looking Janette into the back.

I tapped my foot and ran my hand through the longer lengths of my hair when Sam walked past looking concerned. I reached out without thinking, grabbing her arm a little too tightly. Her eyes widened, and I realized my mistake, loosening my grip and swallowing as I looked down on her worried face.

“Has anyone been in here today that you’ve never seen before?”

Sam scowled, swallowing as she looked at the doors Ayda and Janette had disappeared through before she glanced back up at me.

“We get travelers every day, Drew.”

“Not tourists. I’m talking about anyone like us…”

She glanced at the president patch on my cut. “You mean… someone from the MC?”

“Any MC,” I whispered.

Her scowl deepened as she searched my eyes. “No.”

“No?”

“I… I don’t think—”

She didn’t get time to finish before the swinging doors flew open again to reveal Ayda staring at my hand on Sam’s arm. I dropped it instantly, straightening up and pushing my hands into the pockets of my jeans to keep them under control.

“I’ll see you later, Sam,” Ayda said with a quiet smile, before glaring at me and marching toward the front door while pulling her bag up over her head so it crossed her body.

She could glare at me all she wanted. The only thing I cared about was getting her back to The Hut.

I tried to grab her hand and drag her down the steps, but she somehow timed it so she had to readjust her bag again, a move I was certain was done to avoid my death grip. I was scaring her and I knew it. But the Navs were circling, and that demanded the old Drew Tucker. Not the new one. That was the problem with being the leader. Sometimes you couldn’t stay nice. You had to switch that panic button and go into battle mode again.

I opened her door and watched her climb in and side-eye me the entire time. I slammed the door shut and jogged around to the driver’s side before I climbed in myself and started the engine.

The silence was thick as I backed out of the parking lot, once again spinning the wheel a little too hard right and causing the van to sway from the jerky movement.

Ayda slapped her hand and grabbed her seatbelt, dragging it into place as I pulled onto the feeder road, almost sideswiping the Toyota chugging along innocently in the next lane over. Her body turned in the seat, her knee resting on the bench seat as she studied my face, trying to get a read on the situation.

“What the fuck is going on, Drew? You come into the diner frantic, question my co-workers while I’m following your rude and snappy orders to get my shit then drag me out without a word. You’re scaring the shit out of me, and it looks like you did a pretty good job of terrifying Sam, too. Can you please explain this?”

I heard her, but I didn’t hear her. I was too busy leaning forward, checking my mirrors and listening to the sound of the pipes on the bike that was suddenly gaining on us from behind.

“Call the school. Get Tate back to The Hut. Tell them there’s a family emergency. Sloane, too. Shit… I need to call Sutton.” I glanced over at her lap, trying to seek out her bag. “Ayda, you call Sutton. Do it now.”

“And tell him what?” she snapped impatiently. “You’re freaking me the fuck out.”

The bike gaining on us grew louder, and I took my foot off the gas to ease up. I needed to see. I needed to see if it was one of them before I spoke again—because if it was, I was about to veer this car to the left and run some Nav off the road.

“Drew, give me something to go on here.” She ran her hands through her hair, noticed my attention on the bike and twisted to look out the back of the van.

“Come on, you son of a bitch,” I muttered under my breath, watching the Harley get closer.

Closer…

Closer…

Until whoever was riding that bike sped up and came level with my window, turning to face me wearing a smile before he gave me the thumbs up like the happy vacationer he was and tore off into the distance.

I sagged immediately, dropping my head back against the seat and feeling the weight of the tension disappear from my shoulders for just a single second.

The thought of not killing a Navarro Rifle member was almost as appealing as sex. Almost.

“Shit,” I blew out. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Drew.” Ayda sucked in a breath and reached out a hand before letting it drop back into her lap. “Fucking say something.”

I closed my eyes for just a moment before I opened them again, stared out at the road and then turned to look into Ayda’s eyes. “We need to gather the club together. Everyone. Including the kids. Something big is about to happen, Ayda. I can feel it.”

“You know I trust your judgment. I know you wouldn’t steer us wrong, but if you want me to call Sutton and convince him to pull the kids from school, you have to give me more than that to go on. He’s a friend of the club, but he’s not going to take your intuition as law.”

“He will.” I nodded once, turning back to stare at the road ahead of me. “Once you tell him we have a Nav in our town.”