But he knew he couldn’t.
Seeing that on his face was worse than anything that could’ve been dished out in that room. So, like a coward, I stopped looking at his face and instead took the easy route, taking the wrath of my brother.
“Trust me, Cade, I know what I’m doing. For the club. For my family.”
He glared at me, and continued to do so when, with an exaggerated sigh, Gage, of all people, was the first to lower his gun. Then Lucky, of course with a wink. Then Bull, with no expression because he was Bull. Brock shook his head with a shadow of a smile at the corner of his lips. Dwayne and Asher did it expressionless, and Steg was regarding me with twinkling eyes.
All of them, apart from Gage and Dwayne, had experience raising and using their weapons when their own women were in this exact situation. Or something very close. I knew they didn’t lose a wink of sleep at night over those expelled bullets or lost lives. I knew they didn’t because they had it. Their fairy tale. Or their violent, bloody, and painful version. The one they took out of the books.
This man had the power to take that away from them. I had the power to make sure that didn’t happen. If I first swallowed my pride.
It went down easily when I thought of all of those happy ever afters that would stay intact. My beautiful nephew and niece who wouldn’t have a family torn apart.
“Cade,” I whispered, my voice little more than a plead.
He didn’t move for a second, suspended in time almost. I knew it went against everything in him to lower his weapon. He considered himself my shield too. It was his job to protect me, and he took it seriously.
But I wouldn’t let that mean he had to die for me like he would.
So I let out the breath I’d been holding when he lowered the gun.
The silence after that was toxic, suffocating.
A clap, harsh and ugly, cut through the air, and I turned to see the source of it.
“Wonderful. I see that one beautiful lady is all that is needed to stop any more bloodshed,” Fernandez said, menace haunting his harsh accent. “So good, so good we do not have to engage in hostilities. It would have been… most unpleasant.”
“We’re going to go our separate ways now, aren’t we?” I said, the words painful for me to utter.
“What the fuck?” both Cade and Luke growled almost simultaneously.
I glanced their way, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge them. “No hard feelings now that we understand each other, right?” I asked Fernandez.
He smiled. Or stretched his facial muscles, showing teeth in the mimic of a smile. “Of course, my dear, we are understood. You keep your business and I keep my own and we… how you Americans say it? We cool?”
I did my own mime smile, all the while tasting battery acid climbing up my throat. “Yeah, we cool.”
He nodded. “Well, I’ll be going, then.”
Cade’s jaw twitched.
“Cade, let him through,” I said.
“Are you fuckin’ joking, Rosie?”
Luke looked at me, then Cade. “Do as she says.”
“I’m not listenin’ to a fuckin’ cop when he tells me to let go of the man who pointed a weapon at my four-year-old daughter’s head in front of my fuckin’ wife,” he spat.
“But your family are all alive, are they not? Surely you would like them to stay that way,” Fernandez said blandly.
Luke caught Cade just before he lunged, Brock helping him to stop Cade from charging. He struggled with both of them, all logic gone from his eyes. Fernandez had just openly threatened his family. Cade’s reaction was kneejerk and deadly.
“You’re not listening to a cop because I ain’t one,” Luke hissed. “You’re not even listening to me. You’re listening to your sister who you need to fucking trust at this point in time. You know she loves your family with everything she has. You think she’d be making this call for anyone but them?” He had to yell over top of Cade’s struggles.
Cade breathed heavily, wild eyes focused on Fernandez with a predator’s determination. Then he moved to me, communicating a lot of things with that look. I tried to communicate back. Tried to tell him this was just a battle, that the war was ours.
He slackened in Luke’s and Brock’s grip, shaking them off. He focused on Fernandez. “This shit isn’t over,” he promised.
Fernandez smiled. “Oh, once you chat with your sister, I think you’ll find that it is.”
And then he walked forward. An uneasy moment passed when I thought that Cade might not move, might change his mind and blow them all away right there.
He stood to the side with a granite jaw. The rest of the men followed suit.
The second Fernandez was out the door, Luke was on me, shoving his gun into the back of his jeans and framing my face with his hands. I thought he’d talk first but he didn’t, just plastered his mouth to mine. Not closed mouth. Not short. It was like he was sucking every part of me out to make sure it was all still there.