Page 68 of Cruz

Would Sloane agree to come here? What would happen to the café if she had to close indefinitely to face this threat? She might get to know the other women and their children, but for Sloane, being away from the café would be a little bit of a slow death.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Liam promises. “I’ll be back with you for when Cruz has to be in the meeting. Are you okay if I leave you alone? This is all my fault, and I want to do what I can when people get here.”

Sloane’s eyes get misty. She nods, giving Liam a worried look suffused with motherly pride. “Thank you for helping. That’s good of you.”

“Like I said. All of this happened because of me.”

Sloane shakes her head emphatically. “No. It happened because of something they did. Something very wrong and terrible. I don’t believe they should get away with it, but I also understand now that going to the police can be… not the right thing to do. If they can shoot up all our businesses and hack into Wizard’s security—and I’m sure that wasn’t easy, then they can get at anyone.”

Liam stands and kisses Sloane’s forehead. “Tyrant is sure that this will be over for good today. He’s generally right about most of the stuff he says because he works so hard to make sure that his words come true. We’ll be back at the café by night, and we’ll have it open again in no time. The guys at the club will come out and help if it’s needed.”

Sloane flushes. “They’ve already done so much. Trying to protect us—and…” she trails off, her eyes spilling over.

I squeeze her knees. Liam gives me a plaintive look and I shoot one back. I’m not at all confident about this meeting, but I’m absolutely certain that I’ve got Sloane. She might not be alright, but I’ll do what I can to help her through the storm, out the other side. When I have to leave, Liam will be back. We’ll make sure that Sloane isn’t alone. We both care about her. Liam loves her. I will too, one day, if she lets me. The word doesn’t take me by surprise or rock me. I don’t know how to love anyone, really. I wasn’t raised with much of that emotion to spare. I understood brotherhood and deep connections. Friendship. I’m hoping that Sloane and I can figure it out together.

After Liam leaves, I sit on the edge of the bed and take Sloane into my arms. She drapes her legs across mine and Prissy walks up her knees and settles in her lap. Her purr motor is so strong that I can feel it too.

Sloane is content with silence and not just because I’m worried about finding the right words again. She doesn’t need me to do that for her.

I know that she feels the safety of this place. Not just the brick walls and the thick beams, the many rooms, the steel doors, and the chain link compound. She wouldn’t melt into me like this if she didn’t trust in what Liam said about Tyrant fixing this. Sloane feels the brotherhood of this place, the bonds, and the love. In such a short time, she’s gone from being dead set against the club, to making peace with Liam being a part of it, and maybe even wanting to be a part of this big family herself.

I dip my head and drink in the sweet scent of her hair. I tighten my arms around her and she sighs softly, snuffling closer.

Despite everything—how badly I want the café to be fixed for Sloane, how I want her and Liam to be safe and well, a good future free of violence and threats that I want for all of us—there are many worse places to be and worse ways this could have ended.

Like Liam, I trust Tyrant to do the right thing for the club. I trust him like we’re family. I haven’t patched in yet, and neither has Liam, but I’ve never doubted that we’re a part of this place. That includes Sloane, and she fully understands that. The three of us might not have much in the way of blood family anymore, but we do have each other, and we have the club and all the men and women in it. Chosen family.

Prissy keeps purring, on and on, and that about sums it all up.

Chapter 23

Sloane

Cruz leaves me in his room with Prissy and a whole lot of thoughts that I don’t want to have. The door shuts behind him with a soft click.

It should feel strange, being in Cruz’s private space. It does, a little. His room is so bare that it feels like a place someone sleeps, not a place they live. Bed. Dresser. Nightstand. A folded stack of clothes on top of the dresser. A pair of boots by the door. A duffel bag sitting open near the tiny bathroom. No art. No photos. Nothing personal except the faint scent of him clinging to the air. That warm, clean, masculine smell that makes me want to do deeply ill-advised things.

Now isn’t the time to think about that. Not with my café full of broken glass. Not with men I’ve never met shooting out windows all over Hart. Not with Liam somewhere in this building trying to help because he thinks this is all his fault.

I sit on the edge of Cruz’s bed and scratch Prissy between the ears. She’s curled up against my thigh like she hasn’t just been ripped out of a perfectly good sleep, shoved into a carrier, driven to a biker clubhouse, and released into a strange room.

She purrs.

Prissy’s whole approach to life seems to be to find the softest place, assume everyone exists to serve you, and go back to sleep whenever things get too complicated. Maybe I should follow her example.

I try to relax, to pretend that my life hasn’t imploded for the second time in a handful of months. It works for all of three seconds before my brain decides that what I really need is a high-speed slideshow of every terrible thing that could happen next. Of escalation and retaliation. Of Liam getting dragged deeper into something that he never should have been near in the first place.

That thought is ugly and it sits there like a stone.

I want to be fair. I’m trying so hard to be fair. The club didn’t start this. Liam saw something he shouldn’t have seen, and then everyone tried to protect him. Protect us. Cruz stayed with me, slept barely at all, watched over my home and my café and my son. These men have shown up for us in every way.

But still.

Broken glass is broken glass.

Fear is fear.

No matter how much I tell myself that the club didn’t bring danger to my door, the fact is that tonight, danger came wearing the shape of their world.