by Kit Rocha
He sighed and put the truth out there so they could both stare at it. "I knew Bren was lying."
"Not only that," Lex whispered. "You let him get away with it."
"Because it was simple." Admitting it hurt worse than scraping his nerves raw. "Because if Miller got away, I knew what I'd have to do. What I'm going to do."
Lex watched him, sympathy tempering the tough love in her dark eyes. She held open her arms. "Come here."
He probably didn't deserve to get off this easy, but he sure as fuck was selfish enough to take it. He gave up pacing, slumped to the floor in front of Lex, and buried his face on her lap with a groan. "I've never been good with Bren. He's like this perfect fucking weapon someone handed me. He doesn't know how to be disloyal, even when I'm fucking him up."
She made a soothing noise and stroked his hair. "I know, baby. That's why you have to let him go, just a little."
"To her."
"Would it be so terrible? You let Noelle have Jas, and the world didn't end."
Laughter clawed its way into his throat, and he huffed. "You think I'm jealous?"
"No, I think you're worried." She guided his face up until his eyes met hers. "But I also think you shouldn't want a man like Bren, not if he has to shut down everything but the job."
"No, I don't." Sighing, Dallas lifted his head. "Go get her, then. Let's get her wearing ink before she tears this place down around my ears. And then I'll deal with Miller."
The corner of Lex's mouth kicked up. "She's right outside."
Presumptive, brilliant, maddening woman. "I hate you when you're smarter than me."
"No, you don't." She hesitated. "Those people--they were headed out to the communes. Workers and breeders. Since when are they so short-handed? So desperate they'll kidnap people from the city?"
"I don't know, but those were street people. Maybe someone figured they could clean up a problem and make a little cash, to boot."
Lex frowned. "And Miller?"
"I'll turn him over to the one person who hates corrupt Eden officials more than I do," he drawled. Even though he'd been loath to take this step, the familiar excitement was building again. This wasn't the move of an insignificant sector thug. He was about to cross a line that would drag the O'Kanes to the next level when it came to power and influence.
Heady shit--and dangerous. When Lex's eyes widened in understanding, he grinned. "What did they used to say? The enemy of my enemy is my friend?"
She sat up straighter and leaned forward to drive her fingers into his hair. "Careful, Declan. It's a risky game."
"I know. But someone came along and infected me with this fucking urge to make things better, and that means using all the advantages I can get."
She brushed her thumb over his lower lip. "Sure, blame it on me."
All the good things were her fault, and later he'd make sure she knew it. For now, he sprawled next to her and lifted his voice to a roar. "Six, get your ass in here!"
The door clicked open. The girl slunk in, somehow looking wary and regretful and defiant, all at once. Dallas stretched his arms across the back of the couch and let his queen do what she did best.
"Well?" Lex asked lazily, retrieving her drink from the table. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
Six glared at her feet. "I fucked up and almost got us all killed because Elvis's intel was incomplete. But I don't regret trying. Saving them was the right thing to do."
"Fair enough." Lex drained her drink. "You didn't apologize, which is promising. So I just have one question left."
Dallas bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling as Six's head jerked up, her face awash in confusion. "What's that?" she asked cautiously.
"Can you handle being an O'Kane if it means seeing Bren all the time?"
So much for the urge to smile. For one terrible moment, the girl's face was nothing but naked pain and shattered hope, and he bore some of the blame for that, for letting Bren lie to her and himself because he wanted the easy path.
He'd have to make it up to both of them.
Six donned her mask, her expression smoothing out, and her voice only trembled a little. "The good things in life never come easy. But they're worth it."
Lex rose, walked over to Six, and grasped her shoulders. "You'll be fine, honey." She kissed her cheek, then sighed. "But if you go running off again, it'd better be because you came to me first, and I told you to go for it. Understood?"
The girl hesitated. "What would you have told me to do this time?"
"Take a bigger gun."
Six laughed, shocked and abrupt, and then she was hugging Lex for all she was worth, clinging to her as she stared at Dallas over Lex's shoulder. "I changed my mind," she said thickly.
Alarming words, but the pleasure in her eyes was enough that Dallas didn't tense. "About what, darling?"
"I get why you're still in charge."
He didn't have to work hard to call up the memory--everything about the night he'd collared Lex was branded into his mind. Six had given him big, baffled eyes and admitted she couldn't understand how he was still in charge when he didn't beat people into place, and he'd told her the truth she wasn't ready to hear.
This is my family. These are my people. I'm in charge because they trust me to make life a hell of a lot better for them than it would be without me.
Now he had to live up to that challenge. "Welcome to the family, Six."
Chapter Twenty
When Bren ran into Noelle on his way to Six's room, he knew he was in for a world of hurt. What he didn't know was how effectively the damn woman could strike--and with nothing more than a cool glare.
He stepped forward. She planted herself in front of him. "Bren."
He sighed. "I could pick you up and move you, but I'd rather not."
One of her perfectly arched brows swept up. "If you can't even talk your way past me, then I'm doing you a favor by keeping you away from her."
"So that's how it is." He shoved his hands in his pockets. Making his apologies to Six was one thing--necessary, the least he could do--but having to convince Noelle he should be allowed to offer them... "I just want to tell her I'm sorry."
Noelle kept staring at him. "That's all?"
"That's all."
"Bren, she hugged me."
He couldn't imagine how badly Six must be hurting, to seek a comfort so foreign to her. He closed his eyes and nodded. "I get it."
"Maybe not all of it." Noelle stroked his cheek, her fingers warm and gentle. "I love you, but so help me, Brendan Donnelly... If you screw this up by not admitting you need her, I'm going to let my cat pee in your bed every night for the next ten years."
Bren bit his lip, torn between laughing and something darker he couldn't even define, something like the wail of a wounded animal. "As threats go, that's pretty fucked up."
"We use the weapons at our disposal," she replied. As light and breezy as the words were, there was a dangerous edge under them. "The hardest thing I ever did in my life was learn how to start fighting. And that was easy compared to what Six is having to learn."
How to stop.
They stood in silence for a tense moment that stretched out until Noelle sighed and stepped aside.
Six's door was ajar, but he stopped and knocked on the jamb. "It's Bren."
"Come in."
She had her hair up and was wearing a halter top. It was so unlike her usual T-shirts and tank tops that his gaze lingered--long enough to catch the telltale shimmer of drying med-gel on the tops of her shoulders.
Bren tensed, ordered himself not to reach for her. "What happened?"
The corner of her mouth kicked up--not a smile for him, but one for herself. "Ace happened," she said, lifting her wrist to flash a shiny black cuff at him. Before he could process the implication, she turned to show him her bare back.
Only it wasn't bare. The scars were still there, crisscrossing her spine, and the tattoo didn't try to hide them. It simply overwhelmed them, stretch
ing across her shoulders in a delicate tangle of dark swirls, forming a detailed frame for the O'Kane emblem emblazoned between her shoulder blades.
Her ink, her way. Breathtaking, a celebration of overcoming the hardships and scars of her past. Of belonging.
Bren swallowed past the lump in his throat. "It looks good. It's beautiful."
"It stung like a bitch," she said, facing him again.
Words failed him, so he reached for something, anything. "How's Elvis doing?"
"Clean exit wound," she answered carefully. "Doc says he'll be fine."
"Good."
She was tense, a little awkward, but at least she wasn't glaring. She simply watched him, her dark eyes shuttered.
And Bren had no idea where to start, except at the beginning. "I was wrong. I should have listened to you."
Her expression didn't change. "Why? I didn't know all the details, because you hadn't bothered to tell me."
"I thought it didn't matter--no." If he was going to do this, he had to do it right. No hesitation, and no lies. "I didn't tell you about Miller's involvement because I guess...on some level, I knew it wasn't a good reason. And then I was too busy coming up with reasons--excuses--that I couldn't unravel what was true anymore."
"You were hurting." Her fingers curled toward her palms, the first sign of pain. "I know I'm fucked up, I know I'm ignorant, but I'm not a pet. You didn't give me a chance to take care of you."
An idea he could still barely wrap his head around. "No one does, Six. Not like you mean."
"Because you have to let them. And it's hard." Her hands trembled, and she crossed her arms over her chest, as if to hide it. "You have to trust someone to see you when you're weak. And you have to trust yourself to leave if they break you."
The way that he'd broken her. "I'm sorry."
"Do you know what hurt worst?"
Everything? "No."
"You made me feel crazy. You made me doubt what I knew was right." Her voice rose, losing its calm edge. "Why didn't you just tell me you needed him dead?"
The truth was stark, unforgivable. "Because I knew it wasn't enough." He wanted to touch her, slide his hands over her skin and feel her melt into his embrace--so he took a step back. "I'm not asking for another chance, Six. I wouldn't. I don't deserve one."
She hugged herself tighter. "Then what are you asking for?"
"Nothing." But that seemed too simple, too evasive. "I was an asshole. And you're right. I didn't realize I was doing it, but I took everything you'd shared with me, and I used it against you."
"Oh." She wet her lips and looked away. "What happened to Miller?"
"I don't know."
Her gaze jumped back to him. "What do you mean? I thought Dallas said he was taking care of it."
"He must be, yeah." But Bren hadn't asked. It wasn't so vital anymore, not after facing the fact that he'd lost Six.
He'd lost her.
The room was too small, with walls that were pressing in on him. He had to get out. "Anyway, that's all I wanted to say--I'm sorry. And I'm glad you're sticking around, for the gang's sake. For yours."
"Bren--" He saw her waver, saw the fracture in her defenses, that hint of vulnerability. But she dug her teeth into her lower lip, and it vanished behind a tough, polite mask. "Thank you."
He turned away. He didn't trust himself around her anymore, not even his voice, not until he'd reached the door and had his fingers around the handle. "Least I could do, sweetness."
He closed it firmly behind him without waiting for an answer, dismissive or comforting. Any closure between them belonged to Six. She was the one who'd opened up, risked herself in so many ways.
She was the one who'd earned it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Trix stared at the bundle in Flash's arms. "She's so tiny."
It wasn't the first time Six had heard the words. It seemed to be all any of the O'Kanes could say when confronted with the sleepy newborn. Everyone except Jasper, who'd grown up on one of the communes and had probably seen as many babies born as Six had.
To the rest of them, little Hana was a strange and wondrous creature, mysterious and fragile. Flash was watching her with awed fascination, as if he couldn't believe she existed and didn't know what to do with her--and didn't care a bit.
It was adorable. "She's not that small," Six said, fighting to keep her expression serious. "She only looks it because Flash could hold her in one hand."
Flash's brow furrowed. "Nobody better hold her in one hand."
"No one's going to," Jas assured him. "Congratulations, man."
"She's beautiful," Mad added, leaning closer to the couch. Amira and Flash had a new, larger suite of rooms, supposedly to make space for a nursery. Six suspected it had been to make room for the endless parade of aunts and uncles who cycled in and out, perching on the extra chairs Dallas had dug out of storage.
That she was included as one of them still stunned her.
The baby squirmed and blinked, her lingering sleepiness melting away. In a heartbeat, her features screwed into a grimace, and she whimpered.
Flash's calm vanished. He was on his feet before the first hungry cry rang out, rocking Hana and making soothing noises tinged with panic. "What's wrong?" he demanded, as if Noelle and Trix weren't staring at him with equal alarm.
Jas answered before Six. "She sounds hungry, that's all. Better take her back to her mama."
Six bit her lip as Flash seemed to struggle between the urge to rush and to take careful steps. He disappeared through the door to the bedroom, and Doc emerged a few moments later.
His clothes were rumpled, wrinkled shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, his dark hair disheveled. But it was his expression that stopped them all, a scowl of disgust tempered by disbelief, as if he couldn't believe their audacity in being there. "Get out."
Mad frowned. "C'mon, man, we're family. We just want--"
Doc cut him off with a quick shake of his head. "Frankly, I don't care what you want. I care about what Amira and her child need. Hell, Flash too, for that matter. They need to rest. So get out, all of you."
Noelle slipped from Jasper's lap and dragged him up. "Trix and I should be checking inventory in the bar anyway."
"Way ahead of you." Trix's lips curved into a smile as she hurried toward the door with a little wave at Six. Noelle rose on her toes to kiss Jasper's cheek before following her.
That left Six to be herded out the door with Mad and Jas. Doc snapped the door shut behind them, and they stood there in awkward silence.
The women had been welcoming her for so long that the ink seemed like a formality. The concept of sisterhood that had baffled her so completely only a few months ago was reality now, a truth she felt in her bones. Brotherhood must be the same, and the men towering on either side of her were Bren's friends, his brothers. For all Lex's promises, it was hard to believe a little bit of ink could change that.
Jas watched her for several long seconds before finally shoving his hands into his pockets. "Tomorrow morning, eleven o'clock."
It was a struggle not to blink stupidly at him. "What's at eleven?"
"Lex says you're gonna work the door at the club. You need to train, right?"
Still guarded, she nodded.
"Jas'll do it," Mad said, hooking his thumbs into his belt. "I'll help. It'd be good for you to practice with different people who've got different styles."
Goddamn, she had to stop underestimating the O'Kanes. A lump formed in her throat, but at least she could pretend she was moved by the offer and not mourning those quiet afternoons with Bren. "That'd be good. Thanks."
"Yeah." Jas rubbed her shoulder, his expression neutral. "I'll see you then. Come prepared to kick ass."
It was hard to remember how rare her smiles had been when they came so easily now. "I always am."
"That's what we like to hear." He slung an arm around Mad's shoulders, and they headed down the hall toward the warehouse, unaware that they'd tilted her world on its ea
r.
She hadn't let herself think about working the front door, not from the moment Ace had started her tattoos. Dallas and Lex were offering her the world, safety and family and a place to belong. Without Bren to train her and vouch for her, she wouldn't have blamed them for sticking her back behind the bar until she proved herself in other ways.
But no one was punishing her for standing up to Bren. Instead of beating her back into the dirt, his brothers were reaching out a hand to pull her up. To pull her as high as she was willing to climb, as high as she dared, out of the grime and fear of her past, out of being afraid and alone.
First, she had to learn how to dream.
The garage was a safe haven.
Bren swabbed sweat and dust from his forehead with a swipe of his arm, then wrapped a fresh sheet of sandpaper around the rubber block in his hand. If he kept going, he could get the left fender finished and primed before collapsing into his bed.
"There you are. I've been looking all over for you."
He paused just long enough to glance up at Dallas. "Need something?"
"I wanted to check on you." Dallas leaned back against the workbench and studied him. "I haven't seen you in and out of Amira's room like the rest of 'em."
"I'm not good with babies." Or people.
Dallas scoffed. "None of us are good with babies."
"True enough." Bren set aside the sanding block and sat back on his heels. "I'm fine, Dallas. Working."
"Hey, I'm not here to force you to spill your secrets. That's not my thing. But if there's anything or anyone you'd like to avoid, I need to know so I can work that into my plans for what we do next in Three."
Christ, he hadn't even thought about it. "Is Six--will she still be helping out over there?"
"Probably. It's important to her, and she's useful." Dallas hesitated before heaving a rough sigh. "I'm sorry, man. For my part in what happened."
"I'm a grown damn man." Bren rose, wiped his hands, and reached for a beer in the open bucket of ice by the worktable. "You're not responsible for making sure I don't fuck up. That's on me."
"You're my man," Dallas said quietly. "My brother, my friend. I let you get away with it for my own reasons--lazy, cowardly reasons. We've gotta draw the line between right and wrong, because no one else will."