The noise behind me was the kind of noise I wouldn’t forget any time soon. I’d heard it before, years ago. The pain. The helplessness. The heartache. The despair. Only this time there was another voice in the middle of it all. Another desperate plea for me to do something that would reverse the situation. That voice—her sound—it made so much harder to walk away.

When we hit the gravel pathway, I stopped in my tracks and stared at the cruiser in front of me. Sutton stopped moving the same time I did, his face angling up to mine and studying it.

“Once upon a time, I dreamed of this moment,” he admitted quietly. The night skies were disappearing, turning to daylight, swallowed up by the hours we’d wasted in the station after the party. It was kind of beautiful and kind of tragic all at once. Just like my two worlds. Everything was colliding. All the good behind me, weeping and whispering my name. All the bad in front of me, waiting to whisk me away for who knew how long.

“I know you did.”

“Now it doesn’t seem so sweet.”

“That’s because you’ve lived on the outskirts of society, and now you know that we have more morals, more code of honor, and more loyalty than anyone out there beyond those gates.”

His smile grew, but the sadness lingered in his eyes. “I’m sorry I ever thought badly of you.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I told him. “I’ve thought badly of me, too.”

“You’re a good man.”

“In bad clothing.”

“The wrong clothing. Not bad. Just wrong… for now.” He blew out a breath and began to walk forward again.

“Chief?”

He stopped and turned to face me, his hands falling to their default position his belt. “Yeah?”

“Cuff me here instead of the station. It’ll help you at your end. If we go there as friends, they’ll see right through you, and all of this will be for shit. They’ll dig deeper. They’ll interrogate you and the girls. If we’re gonna do this, let’s do it right.”

“Fuck, Tucker.”

“You know it makes sense.”

I couldn’t look back at The Hut. If I saw her, I’d break, and right then I was focusing on all the men who’d brought me up. The men who’d stood by me and loved me when I wasn’t lovable. The men who didn’t deserve to pay for my crimes. The men who’d only ever done what I’d asked of them, including covering up Hernandez’s death. I’d killed him. I was responsible. And if anyone was going to pay, it was going to be me. In the process, my sentence would get the heat taken off Ayda. The world would forget about Jacob Hove within weeks. Sometimes things were bigger. Sutton was right. This was bigger, and the mayor and whoever he’d crawled into bed with over on the Navs’ side of life needed to make someone pay.

I’d known playing with matches around the Navarro Rifles would eventually cause a forest fire. I’d known the risks. You didn’t mess with them without getting burned.

I stepped up, pushing my hands behind my back and staring at the ever-rising sun as Sutton clicked my cuffs into place.

As soon as they were on, he guided me to the vehicle and slid me into the back seat. My breathing turned heavy as all the memories of going to prison the last time assaulted me.

You’re the president, I told myself on repeat. You’re the leader.

Before he closed the door, Sutton leaned in, his hands resting on the hood as he pushed his face closer to mine.

“Can I ask you one thing before we go?”

“Yeah,” I answered, looking up at him.

“Before Jacob died, did you hurt him?” His face turned to stone all at once, the softly spoken sad man soon disappearing as his daughter’s assault lingered in his stare. “Did you make him suffer?”

I stared into those eyes of his. I searched them. I watched his chest grow heavy and hard. I could feel the tension in his spine as he waited for me to put his mind at ease.

“I fucked him up, Chief. He paid. Death was an escape for him, don’t you worry about that.”

He held my stare for a while before he eventually sagged and let his face scrunch up real tight.

His quiet sobs of thank you came thick and fast before he caught himself, wiped his arm over his face and stood away from the door.

“If I can get you out of this, I will,” he assured me.

Then he slammed the door in my face.

I stared back down at my feet and waited for him to climb in the front, but he didn’t. Not as quickly as I thought he would, and after a few minutes, I looked up, expecting to see Ayda beating him with a stick and begging him to release me.

It wasn’t her standing by the police car, though.

It was Harry.

His sad face was staring up at Sutton. His body and face were calm as he gesticulated with his hands and spoke to the chief up close and personal. I couldn’t tell what was being said. I couldn’t hear a damn thing. All I saw was my pack of brothers and Ayda standing on the porch, while Harry spoke to Howard alone.

It seemed to take forever for them to finish and for Howard to press a hand to Harry’s shoulder and grip it tight.

Neither one of them looked my way. They were too engrossed in one another. Harry was no doubt begging him to find another way. Sutton was no doubt telling him my future was fucked.

I decided to look back down at my feet again and try to focus on something else. Someone else. I pictured her face on a morning. I pictured her sleepy eyes as she woke too early and hurled whispers of abuse at me for looking too good while she assumed she looked like shit. I imagined all the ways she touched me before she let me crawl out of bed. I imagined her naked body pressed against mine. I imagined her warm lips kissing me, devouring me, and whispering all the things no other woman had ever whispered.

And I almost smiled.

Almost.

But the sound of the car door opening caught my attention before Harry slid into the back seat beside me, slamming the door shut and blowing out a breath as he leaned back into the chair and gave me a smile.

“Harry?” I frowned.

“What are you doing, son?” he asked softly.

“Taking a quick vacation to Cuba.”

“Don’t get smart with me.”

“What the hell does it look like I’m doing?”

Harry sighed and pressed his lips together to form a sad smile. I had no idea what the fuck he was trying to achieve. Delaying the inevitable had never been our style, and he had to know that by doing this to me, by coming to me, he was going to make it so much harder for me to leave.

“Please, Harry,” I begged him quietly. “Don’t give me this speech. I know what I’m doing. This is for the club.”

Harry stared forward, running his hands over the thighs of his jeans.

“I know someone has to pay,” he acknowledged, nodding his head to no one in particular as he watched the sun come up. “I know someone has to represent the club.”

“Then get out of here.”

“Can’t do that, son.” He smiled flatly.

“You don’t have a choice, Rogers. I’m the pres, remember? I call the shots.”

He huffed out a laugh, a laugh that caught in his throat like usual and forced him into a small coughing fit. Harry smacked his fist against his chest in his usual manner, rolling his eyes at the delay in conversation.

“We always have a choice,” he eventually pushed out, his voice rough and gravelly.

I stared at him, unmoving. “What’s going on?”

“I need you to listen and listen real good.”

“Why?”

“There’s something I haven’t told you. Any of you.”

Harry’s eyes filled with a small pool of unshed tears as he stared out the front of Sutton’s car.

“What haven’t you told me?” I dared myself to ask.

He bobbed his head from side to side, weighing up the taste of his next words. “I’ve got the cancer.”

I blinked, not able to say anything.

“Yep.” He sighed heavily as if confirming it to himself.

The air suddenly poured from my lungs in one long stream of disbelief as my blood ran cold.

“In case you didn’t hear that,” he said quietly. “I said I’ve got that dreaded old cancer.”

I stared at him, unable to blink or move or feel or react as my heart picked up pace and started to try and run out of my chest. He gave me time and let the silence suffocate us both.

“Ugly thing. Been around a while,” he eventually whispered.

“No.” I shook my head. “No, you don’t.”

“I do, son.”

“No…”

“Lungs. Spread to the liver. Stomach. Fucking everywhere. I shit blood. I piss blood. I cough blood.”

“No.”

“Stop saying that. No doesn’t change what I’m saying. No doesn’t turn a truth into a lie. No doesn’t make it any less real. I’ve got the cancer, Drew, and it’s eating me the hell up, better than a Hound Whore ever could.” His hands went to his stomach, his fingers wiggling over it like they were the monsters that were attacking him. “It’s all black and shadows in there, kid. It’s all death. It’s evil, trying to take me out like an old, aging man. It wants me lying on a bed, coughing up blood and spitting out weakness until it decides when I’m ready to die.”

My mouth opened wide, the shock of the breath I inhaled making my whole body rock backward. Breathing hurt. It fucking hurt and tore me open, making everything I wanted to see bleed out until there was nothing left but silence between us.

“Die?” I managed to choke out. That one word: Die.

Harry.

The no I so desperately wanted to wail was held back, purely out of respect for him and everything he hadn’t yet said.

His eyes filled with more tears until one slipped, forcing him to strain the muscles in his jaw and swipe that tear away like it stung his cheek.

When he turned to me, I crumbled. Every ounce of composure I ever thought I’d had became shit as I looked into the eyes of the man who’d always been a father to me and let my tears fall.

“I’m so sorry I had to tell you like this,” he said with regret. “I’m so sorry I had to wait.”

“Harry…”

“... But I meant what I said to you, Drew. I wouldn’t change a damn thing about my life. I wouldn’t change a fucking thing. Being there for you has been a privilege. Being your road captain, being a part of this crew, watching you grow and sometimes bleed,” he said through a small huff of air. “God, it’s been an honor.”

“Shut your mouth, Harry,” I snapped. “Just shut your fucking mouth. You’re not fucking dying.”

I was angry.

Angry. Angry. Fucking angry. So angry I felt like I could tear the roof of this car and throw it to the ground. So angry I felt like the blood was going to burst from my strained veins. So angry… I wanted to cry.

I wanted to fucking fall to my knees and wail. Cry. Weep. Become undone.

“You’re not fucking dying,” I told him firmly as I sniffed hard, swallowing my tears.

Harry stuck his tongue out, trapping it between his teeth and staring down at his thighs. “Let me go out like a Hound, Drew.”

“What?” I wheezed, frowning hard.

“Don’t let me die on a bed. Don’t let me become frail. Please…” He looked up, his face full of assurances and strength. “Don’t let me become all bone and bags. I don’t want to be hooked up to machines, pissing through tubes, being put to sleep just so I can listen to you all say your goodbyes over my rotting body.”

“Harry.” I growled. “Fucking stop. You’re not… You’re not…”

“I am dying, Drew!” he cried suddenly.

And it was then that I knew. I knew beyond all doubt that he wasn’t lying. I don’t think he even knew how to lie to me. My brother. My father. My road captain. My Harry.

“I’m fucking dying. And that’s okay. I’m ready. I’ve worn the reaper on my chest and on my back my whole life. I’m ready to meet that dark bastard and have some fun in the underworld with him.”

I broke at the thought. My sob tore through me like I was a feral animal, ripping my chest open, making my mouth hang loose as the tears fell hard and fast, covering my face, my mouth, my chin my chest… my black fucking heart.

“No,” I whimpered.

His hand reached out to rest on my shoulder as I stared down at the seat. “Let me take this fall for you.”

“Not a fucking chance. We’ll… we’ll save you. We’ll get you help. Chemo. Treatment. Whatever the hell it is the docs can do. We’ll do it. I’ll pay for it all. I’ll give you whatever you need, even if it’s my kidneys, my liver, my heart, my…”

He cut me off with a squeeze of my shoulder. “All I need is you to be the president you were born to be and give your road captain his dying wish of kicking you out of this car, going to the police department, and taking the fall for my club. Please, Drew. Do this… for me.”

When his eyes met mine, I became lost in a vortex of confusion and grief.

All the words I wanted to say were drowning, lost under the sea of all the pain I felt at the thought of losing the main man in my life.

“I can’t lose you, Harry,” I sobbed.

“You’re going to lose me in a few weeks anyway, son,” he confessed in a whisper.

Weeks?

Fucking weeks?

My head rolled back between my shoulders, my eyes closing as I tried to find some way to contain the breaking of my heart.

“Get out of the car, Tucker.”

“No.”

“For me.”

“Harry…” I dropped my head back down and opened my eyes, trying to focus on him through blurry eyes. “I can’t. You can’t ask me to do this. I can’t do this.”

“When did you become so fucking soft?” He smirked, his own silent tears descending down his face.

“Please…” I gasped. “Don’t…”

“It’s already done.” He shrugged. “I’ve spoken to Sutton. He thinks I’m enough for them. I’ve experienced every bit of Hound history in my life. I’ve been there through it all. I’ll sate their thirst. Let me go have one last fight. I can even get a sly hit into that bastard Jon Taylor who gave you so much grief on the inside.”

I growled, getting really fucking angry. “They’ll kill you in there. They’ll kill you ‘cause of me. ‘Cause of who you are. ‘Cause of who you belong to.”

“And I can’t think of a better way to go.”

I broke again, my face scrunching up in agony. He grabbed it with both his hands, squeezing it in his grip as he searched my fucked up eyes.

“You go out there and you tell our men I love them. You hear me? You go out there and you tell them that I’m doing this for me. Not for you. Not for them. Not for anyone. For me. And don’t you dare come fucking find me.”

Before I could take a breath, he’d pulled my head down to his and kissed the top of it. His mouth lingered there, and I heard the I love you, son he breathed upon me.

Then everything happened quickly. Sutton opened the door and whispered his apology as Harry used all his strength to push me out. I rolled to the ground a sobbing mess, unable to get up with my hands still cuffed behind my back and my vision blurred from the tears and the earlier fight.

“Let’s go, Chief,” Harry shouted.

“I’m sorry, Drew,” Sutton muttered, but he wasted no time in hopping into his car, locking the door and switching on his sirens.

The tires kicked up dust as the car tore off, leaving me bent over on my knees as the man I loved most in this world rode away to save me from any more pain.

If only he knew how much agony I was suffering as I watched him go to die.

“HARRY!”

It was my last cry of blood-curdling desperation before I fell forward, sobbing my brother’s name and feeling the loss hit me like a bullet in the chest all over again.

The bullet that hurt the most.