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His shoulders shook with his sobs, his tears soaking my shirt. I cupped his face in my hands after a moment, gently brushing his tears away from those adorable freckles. “Why did you come out of that closet?” I demanded now that he was a tiny bit calmer and wasn’t screaming and wailing away at my chest with his smaller fists. “I didn’t hear Halo or Reese give you permission.”
He sniffled, his fingers sliding into my beard. He tugged on the strands, making pain flash through my face, though I hid it from him. If he needed to make me hurt, then so be it. I’d hurt endlessly for him if it made him feel okay again. “I know the sound of your boots,” he croaked.
Fuck.
Sighing, I hugged him back to me, burying my face in his hair. We clung to each other, taking just a moment to calm ourselves.
I had no doubt the Ghosts of Chaos had come for him, but I hadn’t been kidding when I said the only way anyone would get this boy away from me was to pry him from my cold, dead hands. But today, they could’ve come close. And I didn’t like the way that shit made me feel.
Knowing how close they’d come to my boy made me want to rip my skin from my body.
I needed to get Gabriel somewhere safe—somewhere that couldn’t be linked back to the club.
Somewhere no one would fucking find him.
And that needed to happen today.
10
Tango
Gabriel was like a spider monkey. He refused to let me go. I had to hold him while I cleaned his face in the bathroom in Halo’s room, and I had to carry him down the stairs. And when Scorpion called church after all the bodies were cleaned up and the bikes and that SUV disappeared, Gabriel refused to let me go even then. He dug his nails so deep into my skin, I felt blood trickle down my neck from his nails cutting into the flesh.
Scorpion had nodded once, letting me know it was okay to bring him into the chapel with us. So now, Gabriel was perched on my lap, his arms and legs wrapped around me. Gidget had asked Gabriel directly if he was okay, if he needed anything, but Gabriel had gone nonverbal.
He was regressing. Hard and fast. I’d witnessed him do it once before, and that was when I carried him out of the cellar and took him home with me. It’d taken him hours to come out of it. He’d been nonverbal, refused to feed himself, and wanted to do nothing but cling to me.
I’d secretly loved his clinginess—still did. But it worried me so much when he regressed this far.
“I think all of us sitting at this table know what they came here for,” Scorpion began, his elbows braced on the table. His linked fingers rested against his chin. “Everyone is safe and unharmed.” He drew in a deep breath. “I got off the phone with Grim a little while ago. The Savage Crows will be here tomorrow morning for sure. They’re mobilizing tonight so they have the cover of darkness when they ride in.”
Chase drummed his fingers on the table. “It’s going to be all hands on deck to get this place fixed back up,” Chase told us. “Tango’s room is fuckin’ trashed.” Gabriel tightened his hold on me, and more blood slipped down my neck. “Outside of the clubhouse looks like we decided to decorate it with goddamn bullet holes.”
Scorpion looked at me. “Alejandro called before we came in here. He’s got a safe house set up for Gabriel up north. He won’t disclose the location to me. Apparently, only he, you, and Gabriel will know where it’s at.” I nodded once, no longer fighting the idea of a safe house. Especially if no one here would know where it was. Wasn’t that I didn’t trust my brothers. I just knew that the Russians had shit at their disposal to find Gabriel if where we were at was connected to the club.
“You two will be leaving tonight,” Scorpion continued, looking relieved that I wasn’t fighting him on this any longer. “Alejandro is having someone drop off a car. He’ll call you with any further details.”
“Anyone going with them?” Halo asked, looking at Gabriel before looking back at Scorpion. I tightened my hold on my boy, already ready to open my mouth and tell them all fuck no.
Scorpion shook his head. “If we want Alejandro’s help, we do it his way. And his way is no one with them. Tango is more than capable of taking care of Gabriel by himself. Remember that.”
I inclined my head to Halo when he looked at me with worried eyes. “We’ll be fine, brother,” I promised him.
He sighed. “Don’t like it, but alright,” he grunted, letting it go.
Didn’t care if he liked it. Gabriel was my boy to take care of.
Scorpion slammed his gavel on the table. I gripped Gabriel’s chin and lifted his head from my shoulder. He pouted at me, his brows furrowing. “I need to pack when we get upstairs. Can you handle laying on the bed if I give you something of mine to cuddle with?”
He ran his eyes over my face for a moment before nodding his head. I pressed a kiss to his forehead and stood from my chair. With one arm braced under his ass and the other around his back, I carried him out of the chapel and up the stairs to our apartment.
Our ruined apartment.
Gabriel whined when he saw the state of our room, tears springing to his eyes. I stroked my hand over his hair as I made my way over to our bed. “It’s going to be fixed, baby. I promise,” I assured him. “And when it is fixed, you can paint it whatever color you want, okay? We’ll even buy all new furniture.”
His bottom lip trembled, breaking my fucking heart. Sniffling, he nodded at me. I crouched and gently set him on the mattress. Then, because I didn’t want to leave his side without having something of mine for him to cuddle with as I promised, I shrugged my cut off and tugged my shirt over my head, handing it to him.
He smiled then and curled up on his side, burying his face in my shirt. After covering him with the blanket, I walked over to our shared closet, stepping past the pile of vomit on the floor. Sighing, I made my way into the bathroom, getting what I needed to clean it off the floor. My phone rang as I was throwing everything in the trash and yanking my gloves off.
