Slider and I didn’t make it to Sugar’s.

He came off his bike.

It scared the fucking shit out of me.

He’d just passed out, and I’d had to watch helplessly as his bike skidded down the road on its side, flinging him off into the bushes. I’d gone with him to the hospital and spent most of the day there while they’d tried their best to fix him up. It wasn’t life threatening, but with all the issues he already had, he was weak.

That’s where shit had hit the fan.

Things with Sugar got forced to the side—one of those times that the club needed to be put first.

With a plan put in place, I was confined to the clubhouse. We knew it was coming, but we couldn’t be sure when. The only thing we knew was that when it came, we needed all hands on deck. Turned out, it didn’t matter how many hands we had, how much firepower, or whether our plan was solid. Two days after I’d sat with Slider in the hospital—thankful that I hadn’t watched my brother die that day, grateful that he’d managed to pull through and was strong enough to fight back—we lost him.

I sat in the clubhouse, staring at the wall, the feeling of death filling the room. Soft sobs were the only sound that filled the room as we all gathered together, trying to make sense of what the fuck had happened.

I felt numb.

Losing a brother was never easy, and it had happened all too many times during my time with the club. It was part of our lifestyle, each of us embracing the fact that one day it could be us. None of us ran or cowered. Even when we were scared, we stood tall and we stood together because that was the essence of who we were.

Many of us had come from lives where we’d lost our friends or family, where we’d grown up struggling to find a place in the world. The Brothers by Blood gave us all a family who would stand by each other and face the fires of hell if it meant protecting the people that we cared about.

Whether we were related by blood or not never came into play. It was about earning your place in a family through loyalty and trust. Some people say you can’t choose your family, but they were wrong. I’d chosen mine.

This was fucking it.

The sofa dipped beside me and I looked out of the corner of my eye to see Optimus staring at me, his eyes bloodshot but his face a stern mask. He was our leader, he had to hold strong for us and keep us going. He was the one who would push us forward despite losing an important piece of our puzzle. It must have been a lot of pressure for him to hold on his shoulders, but if there was anyone who could do it, it was him.

“Get out of here,” he said harshly, but with a crack in his voice.

I pulled back, surprised by his words.

His shoulders slumped and he shook his head. “You need her right now. So go to her.”

I stared at him, wondering whether I was so deep in a daze right now that my brain was hearing things that couldn’t be true. The last few days had been full on, I’d barely even had time to breathe as I coordinated with Judge and his boys to make sure everything had run smoothly.

When shit hit the fan, one of Simon’s men had been able to scramble the signal to the car he’d taken Hadley in. It had taken me almost twenty minutes to fight through their defenses and pull the tracking device back online so we could find them. Every second that passed, I’d wondered if it would be too late, if my skills weren’t good enough to rescue Hadley, and if I’d be responsible for Leo losing another person that he loved.

My brain was fried, I was running on autopilot.

“I should be here with you guys,” I croaked. “If I’d found them faster—”

“Cut it out,” Optimus snapped. “It wasn’t your fault. None of us could have stopped him and he wouldn’t have wanted us too. He wanted to go out as a hero, he was scared of rotting away to nothing and losing himself. He got what he wanted.”

I inhaled a shaky breath.

“Harlyn is with her. The both of them are gonna need you,” he said, his face dropping. “I have to be here right now. I can’t support everyone, so I need you to do this for me. And I know it’s what you need, too.”

My throat was tight and constricted. Optimus might be pissed at me, angry at what I’d done and the secrets he knows I’m still hiding, but that wasn’t what was important right now.

“Yeah…okay.”

We both stood at the same time and turned to face each other.

“I might not like you a lot right now, but you’re my brother, and I love your dumb ass,” he growled as we stared at each other. “Go.”

I took a deep breath, patting him on the shoulder as I passed by and headed straight for my bike. He was right, I needed her. This wasn’t just a relationship where she would lean on me and I’d hold her up. No, it worked both ways.

 

 

I knocked on her front door, breathing in the sound of laughter that came from inside. I braced my hands against the doorframe as I heard footsteps moving toward the door. As her silhouette filled the glass between us, my body shuddered, and I felt my emotions building in the pit of my stomach.

The door clicked open, and she stood in front of me with a bright smile on her face.

I fucking loved that.

Since we’d met, it had always been my mission to fill her face with brightness, to hear her laugh and see her smile. But as she studied my face, the smile slowly dropped, and she inhaled a sharp breath. I stared into her eyes, trying to make my mouth move but failing completely.

She immediately rushed forward, hitting me with such force that she almost threw us both backward down the staircase. I buried my face in her hair, struggling to catch my breath, trying my best not to break down right there on her porch.

“I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m right here.”

We stood there for what seemed like hours, with her pressed tightly to my chest, just surviving on the smell of her, just knowing she was there.

When Harlyn called out to her, obviously wondering what was taking her so long, we finally pulled apart, and I said the words that up until that point I’d managed to avoid. “Slider’s dead.”

Her lips pursed and she took in a shaky breath before looking over her shoulder and into the house. “Harlyn is going to be shattered.”

I took my hat off and scrubbed at my head before placing it back down. “Optimus… he needs to be at the club right now.”

She nodded. “I know. Come on. Guess we need to all sit down and have a talk.”

My gut churned as we walked back inside, hand in hand. Slider might have been absent for the past couple of weeks or so, but he and Harlyn had developed a bond since Sugar and her had been back. He was silly and immature at the best of times, something the kids all flocked to.

Harlyn looked up from her place at the dining room table, coloring books, markers and cookies spread out around her. Her eyes instantly went to where our hands were connected and her eyes brightened. “I knew it!” She beamed as she leaped off her chair. “Are you guys in love? Like Daddy and Chelsea?”

I looked down at Sugar who just smiled. “We’ve got some stuff we need to talk to you about, baby girl. Why don’t you come sit down?”

 

 

“I remember that one time he tried to blow bubbles with me and breathed in the bubble mixture.” Harlyn smiled as we sat on the sofa and talked about Slider and how important he had been to us. She was curled up on Wrench’s lap, his arms wrapped around her and her head on his chest.

She was in her pajamas, getting ready for bed. I’d talked to Op, and he’d said it was probably best that with the mood of the clubhouse right now, that she stayed here for the night. I understood it was undoubtedly a hard decision for him to make, but I also knew that there was a whole clubhouse of brothers and women who were looking up to him in this moment. They were looking to him to stand strong for them.

Harlyn had shed her tears with us earlier when we explained that he was gone. Although we’d gone for a reason that she could digest a little easier and explained that he was sick, it hasn’t made it hurt any less.

“Remember when he tried to convince us that he could fly?” I giggled softly.

Harlyn rolled her eyes. “Or when he said he had a pet elephant that lived in his pants.”

Wrench and I both looked at each other and tried to contain our laughter.

“Only Slider.” Wrench chuckled as he shook his head. “I think it’s time for you to go to bed, miss,” he said as he lifted Harlyn in his arms and stood up.

She yawned and cuddled in closer to him. “Are you gonna be here in the morning?”

He looked over at me and I nodded. I wanted him to stay. I wanted to be there for him, to comfort him in his time of need just like he’d done for me. Everything else didn’t matter in that moment. The shit with Peter, the drama with Op. None of it was important right now.

“Yeah kid, I’ll be here.”