All he had to do was survive.Stevie Carlyle didn’t have a clue what was coming.
“I’LL GUThim!I’ll rip his throat out with my teeth!”Somebody was howling,gibbering, and Joey was struggling with all his might.Iron bands wrapped around his shoulders as he stared at the disappearing SUV in a red haze of fury.
“Joey—fuckin’Carlyle—stop it!”Crosby boomed in his ear.Were thosehisarms holding him back?
“Gideon!”The howl was raw enough to tear his throat, and the echoes were still ringing in his ears when a harsh slap across his face shocked him into stilling his frantic thrashing.
“Carlyle!”Clint Harding barked into his face.“Stand down, son,stand down!”The military boom, accompanied by the military command, was almost as bracing as the slap, and Joey sagged in Crosby’s iron grip.
“He’s got him,” Joey gasped.“Harding, he’s gotGid.”
Harding nodded.“I hear you.But he could have shot him right here.Think, Joey—why wouldn’t he do that?”
Joey struggled for breath, forclarity.“Same thing he’s wanted since I got clear of FLETC,” he said.“He wantsme.He seems to think I’m some sort of weapon.Military, DOJ—like if I joined the organization, he’d be invincible.”
Harding nodded slowly.“He’s going to need to break you first—make you feel like you’ve crossed the line.He wants a mini-me.Someone of his own flesh and blood.It’s a narcissist’s dream.”
“He didn’t seem to think I was his own flesh and blood when a brown girl squirted me out,” Joey spat venomously.His father’s words; Joey had heard them a lot growing up.
“Yeah, Joey,” Crosby rumbled.“But now he thinks you’re a killer.We were in the fucking papers, man, and I’m sure there’s folks in the Sons of the Blood who told him about you.How many of them did you put away?”
Joey’s shoulders went limp, and Crosby set him down like he was a porcelain doll.
All those lessons with Gideon flooded through him, and he could hear the thing Gideon had never said, probably because Gid hadn’t wanted Joey to ever imagine it was true.
“So I’m a killer,” he said, dispirited, close to tears.
“No,” Harding said, voice firm.“You’re awarrior.You know the difference between those two things?”
Classes—all that book learning, but it didn’t come down to that in the end.His brain said,Protector—trained, disciplined.But that’s not what penetrated the blinding cold fear of becoming what he hated the most.
What it came down to was a blanket, constructed one stitch at a time, thrown around Joey’s shoulders to keep him warm.Every stitch a memory of kindness.
Of love.
Gideon’s unfathomable eyes as he buffed makeup into Joey’s face.
His approval as Joey had been kind to Crosby, playful with Pearson, tender to Natalia, deferential to Harding.
That dry chuckle he had as he laughed at his own jokes.
His fury when Joey had taken his own life for granted.
That sudden vulnerability every time they were about to kiss.
His resonant baritone as they sang at the top of their lungs, because they were high, and pissed, and very, very glad to be alive.
The way he’d touched Joey softly in the night, when they were hard men meant for hard use.
And contrasted with that?
There was only the lack of expression on Joey’s father’s face when Joey had threatened him with death at the age of eight years old.
“Yeah, I know,” Joey said into the sudden silence.
“The difference between a warrior and a sociopath?”Harding said, his voice firm.“Let’s hear it, Joey, or I’m locking you in a padded room whilewego get our friend.”
Joey gave a wolfish smile.“Me.I’m the warrior.Stevie Carlyle’s the sociopath.We kill the sociopath to keep our pack safe.”
