Battles of the Broken (Sons of Templar MC 6)

But they weren’t my people.

No matter how much I wished they were.

I didn’t have girlfriends. I wasn’t outgoing, confident. And I definitely didn’t party. A lot of people would’ve thought my shyness was snobbishness and my avoidance of any mood-altering drinks—including coffee—was boring and that I was a wet blanket.

Not Lucy.

She didn’t do judging.

Not since the second she’d walked into the offices at the Amber Star, when she’d treated me with a warm smile and asked me if I wanted to go eat an entire day’s calories with her on her lunch break.

She was thin, beautiful and most likely a size two. So she counted calories. Well, before.

I did not.

But I went anyway.

And we’d become unlikely but firm friends since then.

She’d lumber into the offices in dark glasses, muttering about regrets encouraged by “too many cosmos and my fucking insane best friend” or lamenting, “Why don’t cars burn as well as they used to?” while drinking coffee after coffee and still managing to look like a runway model.

I’d listen to all of her stories with wide eyes, thinking about how she’d spent the night blowing up the car of a man who’d broken her sister’s heart, and I’d been getting my heart broken by Jane Austen.

We were worlds apart. Not just me and Lucy, all of the women. They had caused somewhat of a stir in Amber, with kidnappings, car explosions, weddings, births, and rock stars, something right out of a soap opera.

Me? I literally watched soap operas and got too nervous to finish them out. No way I could even be on the sidelines of whatever ended up happening tonight, and something would happen. Even being a bystander, I knew there was no such thing as a ‘quiet girls’ night’ with these women.

I was going to say no.

That’s what the old Lauren would’ve done.

It was safer.

“Okay,” the new Lauren found herself saying. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

Lucy smirked, rubbing her stomach. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll find out.”

Gage

“Oh my God,” Lucky breathed after Gage had spoken. “It’s happening. The apocalypse. I knew it, of course. I’m not an idiot, I watch the Walking Dead.” He rose. “I’m going to have to buy a crossbow before they’re all sold out.”

No one even blinked at Lucky and his fucked-up words. Everyone was used to the fucker spouting shit that didn’t make a lick of sense.

Lucky grinned at Gage, deciding to answer the question that no one had asked, that being what in the fuck he was talking about. “Because it’s gotta be the end of the world if Gage, of all people, is turning down a job where he not only gets to blow things up, but he gets to kill things.”

Lucky was talking about the new contract the club had gotten for a pack of lowlifes cooking meth. Some rich fucker’s son had been killed by a bad batch of the stuff. That same rich fucker had connections and pockets that led him to their door. And he was offering them a fuck of a lot of money for a lot of blood.

Neither money nor blood was going to bring his son back, but it was a good distraction.

Gage had used all sorts of bloody distractions in his life.

But he had a far deadlier one now.

Hence him not taking a contract that would take him away from Lauren. Something simmered underneath his skin. An uneasiness at how easy things had been between them. Well, things hadn’t been easy, because he was in love with her already. And that shit on its own wasn’t easy. It was the most complicated thing on this planet. The most painful and the deadliest.

So it hadn’t been easy.

But he also hadn’t been faced with the violence that had stared every single one of his brothers in the eyes. Showed them how their life could snatch away the most precious of things.

Kidnappings. Bombs. Shootings. Fucking rapes.

Actual bile burned at Gage’s throat with the utter thought of Lauren having to go through any of that. And the odds were against her, as it was with every single woman connected with the club. And that was with his other brothers.

With him, it was worse.

He should’ve done what he wanted to do the second she’d revealed her pain to him. He should’ve let her go so he didn’t cause her another second of pain. Because he was going to, he knew that. But he was also too fucking selfish and cowardly. He was yanking her further into his life, burying her in the good things so when the bad hit, she was in too deep to crawl out.

It was fucked up.

Cruel.

But he was doing it anyway.

“Got better shit to do than blow things up and kill things” was Gage’s response to Lucky.

Understatement of the fucking century.

Lucky grinned at him, slapping him on the shoulder. “My little psychopath is growing up. I’ve never been more proud.”