There was a chorus of agreements. Hansen included in this.
Cade nodded once. “I’m not gonna give you all false promises about glory in this war. War doesn’t give glory. Or satisfaction. It only takes. I have faith in my brothers that we’ll win this war. I know every single man in this room will die for the cut. For their club. I also know that some of you will die. I can only promise that for every Son that falls, we’ll cut them down threefold.”
“They say there are no victors in war, but they’ve never met the Sons of Templar.”
A chorus of grunts of agreement sounded from around the table, a handful of men slamming their fists down on the smooth oak, others gripping their weapons with an excited glint like Gage and Hades, two fuckers that knew the dangers of this mission but craved the death they would be able to deal out.
But even Gage, one of the craziest and most soulless men Jagger had seen in the flesh, had something else behind his eyes, like a lot of the men in this room.
Fear.
Not for themselves.
But for the women they loved with something more than most civilians experienced.
The women, that Jagger had seen first-hand, loved the men with the same ferocity.
He wasn’t a romantic man in any sense of the word. Romance died with him along with many other things years ago.
But one didn’t need to be a romantic to see how these women saved his brothers. See how his brothers fucking worshipped them. And for good reason. They were something extraordinary. Something dirtbags like them surely didn’t deserve, so they cherished it more than any civilian man could.
This was a war that threatened their lives—something they could all handle without blinking.
But their lives were no longer their own.
They had wives. Kids.
Families that they’d all thought they’d forsaken the second they’d put on the cut.
And a death was a blow to the women that he knew the men would do anything to protect. But they had to fight for their club. They were in the middle of a war that made them fight for their club and sacrifice their women.
It didn’t sit right.
Not with Jagger.
It haunted him, the look in Caroline’s eyes. The shadows in her. Because of him. Shadows that would never lighten, not in the best-case scenario. And they were fucking far from the best-case scenario now.
His stomach lurched with the thought of having someone tell her he was dead, properly this time. She’d demand to see his body. He knew that already. She would never accept anyone’s word on such things.
His brothers—whatever was left of them—would refuse. Because they would want to protect her.
She would fight them. And she would win.
The sight of his lifeless, likely brutally wounded body would not only cause more shadows, it would banish her soul to oblivion.
She’d never repair.
Recover.
She’d endure, because she was strong.
But he’d put her as close to death as she’d ever come.
And he’d do anything to make sure that never fucking happened.
He envisioned himself calmly walking out of that room, away from his brothers—the men who’d saved his life, who’d become his family, who helped give him a purpose—grabbing Caroline, putting her on the back of his bike and riding. Back to that small town in the middle of nowhere, back to his family, where no one would likely trace him. There might not be anyone left to trace him. Where he’d be able to keep her safe. Where he might be able to repair relationships with his family, stitch together some kind of life that he was meant to have.
He clenched his fists.
Then he envisioned his brothers in a hail of bullets, battling for the club, he watched them fall. Watched wives have to bury their Old Men. Children grow up without fathers. Something that might not happen if he’s there, another gun in the fight.
He would do almost anything to make sure Caroline did not have to feel his death again.
But what he wouldn’t do was sentence another good woman to the same fate.
He would not forsake his club.
Cade
“Go home to your families,” Cade said to the table. Something in Cade told him that whatever kind of piece of shit Fernandez was, he had a depraved and deeply kind of fucked up sense of honor. He was giving the Sons of Templar this one last night on the earth. With their loved ones. Family. He was giving them that because he believed this was the last night they’d have.
Fucker was wrong.
“We meet here tomorrow morning,” he said. “This place goes on lockdown. Prospects at every entrance. We’ll have the kids down in the basement. Women too.”
Though he doubted any of the women would be locked in a panic room, his wife included. The only thing that would keep her in there would be the love for their kids. But that might be the thing to take her out, fight for them. Gwen was a lot of things, all of them wonderful, but the thing that scared the shit out of him was that she wouldn’t just sit out a fight. Not for her family.