I waited until Sky was well out of earshot and then for good measure, I closed the patio doors.
My love for my brother was unbreakable, but unfortunately, he had something up his ass, some fucking vendetta that I had no doubt didn’t have anything to fucking do with Sky, yet he’d chosen her as the target of his anger.
She’d spat out those words in my direction, and while she’d tried to glare through them, I could see the hurt that she was harboring inside the anger. I knew why. I hadn’t said anything after my brother insulted her, which was saying a lot given that Sky was one of the most peaceful easygoing women I’d ever met. Being a club girl wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, it was people calling you names and questioning who you were as a person. It was a constant judgment from the outside. But I’d never seen her anything but happy with who she was and her decision to be there doing what she was doing.
Unfortunately, pissed wasn’t even a strong enough word to explain what I was feeling in that moment. And I’d had to force myself to keep my mouth shut until Sky left, so she didn’t have to hear my brother fire shot after shot at her when I ask him what the fuck is going on?
I knew he would have too. Jake would have tried to take the heat off himself by directing it at her, and I wasn’t about to let my own flesh and blood treat anyone with that level of disrespect, especially not fucking her.
Before I could form the words, he had already switched off, not even acknowledging what he’d said or done. I stormed forward, snatching the air rifle out of his hands and rounding his chair, so I was standing directly in front of him. I handed the gun off to Leo who shook his head in disappointment before gathering the second rifle and heading inside.
“Levi, we’re done,” Blizzard called, waiting for the prospect to leap up and jog inside. But before he followed suit, he stepped up next to me. “Being Eagle’s brother, you get respect. But I’m telling you right now, girls like Sky who have been nothing but fucking loyal to this club for years will always get my support first. So check your attitude.”
Jake pursed his lips together as Blizzard stormed off, slamming the patio doors behind him. There were a few seconds where the air just buzzed around us.
“Since when did you start disrespecting women like that?” I demanded. “You sure as hell weren’t fucking raised that way.”
He glared at me. “Yeah, well, maybe I’m just sick of women who think they can catch a guy and then string him along.” For the first time in fucking years, I could see Jake’s eyes glistening in the light from the clubhouse. The anger in them was diminishing and being replaced with pain.
Grabbing another chair, I pulled it over and sat in it, folding my arms across my chest. “Tell me what happened? This about a girl?”
“Max,” he warned, using a name that nobody but him used. One that both warmed me and sent a chill through my body at the same time. I’d never told Jake to not call me that, but the fact was, I left for the army as Max, but that wasn’t who I returned as.
I shook my head. “No, we aren’t fucking leaving here until you tell me. Then I have to go back in there and grovel like a damn idiot because yes, you’re right… I fucking care about Sky, and do you want to know why?”
Jake screwed up his nose, his eyes still misty but he didn’t reply.
“Sky helps me to breathe,” I growled, tapping my chest. My brother’s eyes widened slightly. Jake knew what I meant, he knew how much I’d struggled when I returned back to the States after the accident. It was bad then, I was having episodes sometimes more than ten times a day. Every loud noise, every time I fell asleep when I got in the car. Jake had only just started his first deployment when they gave him a month’s leave to come home and help me to do shit I couldn’t do for myself. He’d seen me at my worst, Jake knew how hard I struggled, the guilt I went through, the times where I just wished I’d suffocated. And he’d stood by me while I fought through it.
“She helps you breathe?” he asked quietly.
I slouched in my chair, nodding my head. “It’s like she grounds me again. When I have an episode, I can hear her telling me to inhale, to breathe. And in my brain, I know she shouldn’t be there, she wasn’t there that day, but somehow she brings me back to the present.”
Saying the words out loud that I’d simply been thinking the past week or so, it felt weird but I knew there was only one way to get Jake to understand.
“She also makes me laugh, she’s sassy and tenacious. And you know what, she hasn’t had it easy, but she chose not to let her past destroy her, and that’s someone I need in my life,” I tried to explain, suddenly wondering why the hell I wasn’t trying to make something of what we had. It had been a few weeks, but with Sky thinking about leaving the club soon anyway to look after Emerald, why couldn’t we give it a try and see where things took us.
I went to get up out of my chair, this sudden realization in my fucking stupid brain, but my brother spoke first, stunning me. “I fell for the enemy,” he said, darkness clouding over his eyes.
Relaxing back into the chair, my mouth hanging open, I didn’t know what to say.
He saw the expression on my face and laughed, but it was entirely void of any kind of humor. “She was the interpreter… her name was Eliana. The most beautiful fucking woman I’d ever seen. Columbian accent, tanned skin, sweet as hell,” he spat out in revulsion. “I know we aren’t meant to get involved with them, it’s against the rules, and I broke them, man. She came to me one night, and I couldn’t fucking say no.”
“Fucking hell,” I muttered, leaning forward and bracing my elbows on my knees.
“Yeah, hell is right,” he snorted. “Andres Rojas was the target, that fucking douchebag is basically a ghost, but we had eyes on him, and we were gonna take out him and his operation.”
My nose wrinkled. I knew exactly who he was talking about. Andres was on the FBI’s most wanted list, the leader of the most powerful Columbian cartel, involved in too many illegal activities to mention, but more specifically known for importing cocaine to the States and trafficking women out.
I already knew where this was going.
“Eliana was his fucking girlfriend,” he snarled, grabbing hold of one of his crutches and tossing it across the patio, clattering loudly in the silent night air. His breathing was uneven and angry. “He sent her in to get the job with some help from a few of the dirty cops over there vouching for her. Really, she was there to get information on strikes and make sure she kept him one step ahead until he could organize an ambush at one of the points.”
“You’re lucky you fucking got out of there alive,” I marveled. “Your whole team could have been exterminated.”
“We almost were, but she pulled her gun too early, and it was pointed directly at me so the team stopped just before we walked through the door and would have been sitting ducks,” he explained, closing his eyes. “Luckily, we managed to get the hell out of there, but not before she shot me in the leg and tried to run.”
I cursed under my breath.