“It was until Sutton called and interrupted the one bit of peace I’d been enjoying since…” I couldn’t say it. I didn’t need to.
“I thought you wanted this.” Eric’s tone never wavered from even and mechanical.
I nodded, tensing my jaw. “The club needs this.”
There was a long pause before he spoke again. Quietly. Controlled. “You let Ayda back in, didn’t you?”
“None of your business.”
“I’m glad she didn’t shut you out,” he offered, ignoring my insolence.
“Shutting me out isn’t her style.” My jaw twitched. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Gilly appeared right on cue, her frantic face matching her hurried footsteps as she waved us forward and then guidedus to where Clint was holed up, handcuffed to his bed and hooked up to what seemed like a thousand machines. He wasn’t going home anytime soon. If ever. Poor bastard.
“You have ten minutes,” Gilly whispered. “Eleven minutes means we all get arrested and I’m out of work for the rest of my life. Don’t make that happen.”
“Thank you, Gilly,” Eric said behind me, offering her more words of support while I stared at the stranger on the bed. The one who’d helped my brother go out of this world the way he’d wanted to.
Clint’s eyes were bruised, swollen, and barely able to open, but he stared at me still. He stared at me like he knew me with a look that Harry would have given me had he been there. He smiled that way too, and I watched as his lip burst open from the strain of it, a small bubble of fresh blood rising to the surface.
“Nine minutes,” Dad whispered over my shoulder.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and moved forward, listening to the beeps of the machines and the heavy creaking of the leather of my boots and cut.
“I’ll be damned,” Clint said, his narrowed eyes following me around the room.
“Good to meet you, brother,” I offered softly, coming to a stop by his bed and grabbing hold of the metal support he was handcuffed to.
“The honor is all mine. I heard a lot about you in that cell.”
“Harry talked a lot of shit.”
“Spoke with a lot of love, too.”
The emotion rose in my throat, clogging my airways and making the muscles in my jaw work overtime. “Did hesuffer?” I asked straight away. I had no time to waste. I had no time to breathe. “At the end, did Harry suffer?”
“Suffering implies it wasn’t what he wanted. Dying that day was his wish. His body may have hurt, but he welcomed it—all of it. He died smiling. I think he’d already gone when it got bad.” Clint tried to lick his lip to clear the small dot of blood away.
“Gotbad?” I winced.
“Don’t do this to yourself.”
“I need to know.”
“You need to know nothing other than Harry went the way he wanted to go. He’d checked out of his head that morning. The moment he walked out of that cell, he left all his words, his memories, and his last thoughts behind him. When he walked up to that Emp you all hated so much, he was ready, and the man was happy as shit.”
The taste of grief hurt, and it dried up my voice, making it impossible for me to speak.
“Eight minutes,” Clint reminded me with a small wink. “No time for being speechless.”
“You’re going to spend a lifetime behind bars for what you did for Harry.”
“I was already spending a lifetime there anyway. What’s another one on top of that?”
“Why?” I cleared my throat. “Why did you choose to help him?”
“Sometimes unbreakable bonds are forged with strangers, and there’s no reasoning to it. Everything justis. Harry told me his life story. He told me about his cancer. He told me about his family, his club… you.” Clint sighed softly, his brows rising as much as they could. “He spoke a lot about you.”