Blue Fire

Chapter Twenty-Seven - Definitions

CATCHER

She was asleep in the passenger seat of Luke's car. I'd gone and got his keys a while after they were done with showing her the respect they felt for what she did. I'd told him she needed to go to the hospital and we'd almost come to blows about him coming with us. That was the thing with her, she touched us all and as much as I wanted for her to have the love and loyalty of every single member of my family, it was sometimes a pain in the ass. Because I might want for her to have a piece of them, but I wanted for none of them to have a piece of her, and they all already had too much. Luke being pissed I could handle, he was hotheaded and dramatic about things. But my mind still reeled because a part of me wanted to take him with me because he knew her better than I did. He had been there since that first day, and I hadn't. So, in a way he had a right, but that right was lost in Wilder rules so he was out. I had to push them out because from now on they needed to fucking know that first and foremost she was my old lady, nothing else. And second, almost barely, she was their friend. She wasn't a part of them anymore, she was wholly mine. So even though Luke could have been helpful, I wasn't allowing it because there needed to be distance between all of them. If there never was? I'd kill one of my brothers in cold blood one of these days. Because she would never back off. Never. And she'd never get my point of view, either. So, they needed to steer clear and in ten, maybe fifteen, years we could re-evaluate.

She was exhausted, almost falling asleep on her feet as I led her to his car and drove her to town. She was seen almost immediately, probably because Dr. Michaels was worried about her.

She had a bump on her head, some bruising and that was it. We left and she was dead weight as soon as her ass hit seat.

On the drive back, I felt my mind twisting itself into knots. The past twenty-four hours had been brutal on the both of us, and there were new stakes in the game. She'd proven to me, to all of us, once again that she wasn't just a fighter, but a loyal warrior for this club. From a briefing with Heat, I'd learned that Green had completely frozen, weapons, drugs and sensitive documents enough to send me, Stark and a shitload of others down the river for life, and he'd frozen. He was working himself to death, and that shit needed to stop yesterday. I was going to have words with him, careful ones because I knew that he was probably mentally maiming himself because of what went down. But we needed to have words. He was taking too much on, Sara Gulliver had fucked him up good since she came here and now he was punishing himself for what went down. The guy was smarter than most, had done insane things for the club and the business and was basically invaluable at this point. When he stepped boot on tarmac ten years ago, a surfer kid from Cali with his tan and blond hair we'd almost laughed him out of the state. Now he was the one who'd stepped everything up, had made sure that our businesses ran as legal as possible, our shit was secure and highly productive and efficient. He was key in the entire club, all chapters, because he was a goddamned genius with a taste of wild on his tongue. He just needed to realize right now that sleeping was essential, that he wasn't responsible for every single thing going on with this club and its security. I was at blame, as was most definitely Stark. We'd seen him as a source to get ourselves where we wanted and we'd taken advantage, running him dry for years. He was always good with a busy schedule, but fuck if he hadn't overdone it lately, and that was on us. Our life wasn't all about work, fuck no. We were free men, men who lived however the fuck we wanted without anyone getting in our business about it. But Green had been wrung dry for years now, it was time for that shit to stop.

Thing was, Sara'd saved our asses yesterday. She'd stepped it up when no one else had. She saw the place and situation spin out of control and she'd grabbed the reins, knowing that nothing was more important than the club and the family. She'd ordered them around, made decisions she definitely was in no position to make, even now that I'd declared her.