“Hmmm?” he answers, his eyes closed, forehead pressed to mine.
I kiss his jaw, and he gives me those steely blue eyes. “You wouldn’t need to burn the world downforme, baby… We’d burn it downtogether.”
He kisses me, swiping the matted and bloody hair from my face, his eyes filled with the same love I feel for him.
“Yeah, I suppose we would, Rhiannon.” He chuckles deeply. “I suppose we fuckin’ would.”
Chapter 58
Aiden
“I hope every one of you understands that we didn’tneedto bring this to you.” I look around the table, in a place I never thought I’d be—seated at the opposite end of Gabriel Wolfe in the Hounds of Hell’s clubhouse chapel room. Our top men surround us, all of them shell-shocked by what Mason and I are explaining. Even though this is a friendly meeting, tensions are high with all of us in one room for the first time in decades. It’s unprecedented, and why all weapons and phones areoutsidethe room.
“This couldn’t be helped?” Wolfe asks from the other end of the table. He leans back in his leather chair and folds his arms over his chest. He’s someone I’ve truly come to respect, and his acceptance would band us together. Our two clubs, fighting on the same side of things for the first time in fifty years.
“He killed my sister. All due respect, Prez, but it couldn’t be helped,” Mason speaks up.
“And you’re okay with this?” Wolfe asks Mason, nodding toward me.
Mason clenches his jaw and eyes me up. “Fuck no, but as headstrong as Mia is, I wouldn’t have a choice anyway. I’m not losing another sister. Accepting she’s part of this world is all I can do.” He looks to me and nods. “And we’re good.”
I nod back. I have no problem with him either. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say I like him.
“Looks like you two worked out your differences with your fists,” Kai, the Hounds’ enforcer, says, taking a drag of his smoke and then chuckling. I don’t know him, but I’ve heard things. The guy’s batshit fucking crazy. Cut a prisoner’s dick off and eat it for breakfast wrapped in a hot dog bun kinda crazy.
Mason and I both have some good bruises from the fight in my office, and his cheek is split where I hit him.
“Looks like it was a fair fight.” Stone chuckles.
“I respect that you settled your differences like men,” Gabriel adds. “It says a lot about our two clubs, how far we’ve all come. Maybe a little more one-and-the-same now than we’ve ever been.”
“Agreed,” I answer.
“So, then what do we do about the mob?” Kai asks, stubbing out his smoke.
“We’re not working with them,” I say. “Word on the street is Angus Ramsey has ambitions that some of his top men don’t necessarily agree with. My contact says he’s risking their entire empire. That he’s greedy, and the power has gone to his head.” I pull my smokes out of my cut and light one.
“He married the daughter of the former don to rise to power, and now he wants more,” Stone pipes up. He’s done intensive work investigating the south’s most deadly crime family.
“They’re taking over the Atlanta area. Picking up the slackwe dropped a few years ago. Dealing mostly with the K-6’s,” I elaborate, to drive the point home.
“There’s no saying where they’ll stop. They want arms from us, and I can’t say they’ll take lightly to your clinics flushing the area clean.” This is a truth we all have to face, and they know it. “The mob is a threat to us all right now,” I add, looking around the table.
“I’m down for taking care of this problem.” Kai offers his input first. “But it’s gotta be done right, from the inside.” There’s a hint of something personal in his tone, and I wonder what his dealings with them have been, if any, or if he really just loves getting his hands dirty.
“We’d need to get more intel. It would take time,” Gabriel says from his end of the table. “We need to know his men, his habits. I think there’s a way we can do it.” He looks at me directly. “But that’s for you and I to discuss, and then we’ll bring it back to the table.”
All the men murmur in agreement, and Gabriel nods to me. “I’m putting this motion forward. We join forces and end fifty years of needless war between our two clubs. We’re brothers in this fight. Understood?” he asks his men.
“We fight for each other, all the same,” I say to mine.
Gabriel raises the gavel. “Aye?” A unanimous round ofayesgoes up before he drops the hammer and grins. “Now, let’s be gracious hosts. We’ll get some grub going. You’re all welcome to stay and break bread with us.”
“Hear, hear.” Kai offers up a wide smile. “It’ll be nice to not have to think about killing any of you fuckers for a change.”
Everyone around the table laughs and stands up, shaking each other’s hands.
I meet Gabriel’s gaze across the table, and we share a momentof understanding. There’s never a fucking dull moment, but at least this time we’ll be on the same side. Ending fifty years of back-and-forth between our clubs is a big step, and both of us should be damn proud it happened under our watch. I raise my glass of whiskey to him, and in turn he raises his to me.