Battles of the Broken (Sons of Templar MC 6)

Something was changing now that he had Lauren. He was part of something that he’d always been on the outside of. The thing he’d been glad to be outside of when he’d witnessed his brothers going through Hell in order to get to their own versions of Heaven.

But there he was, fucking glad about being inside it.

So he didn’t stab Lucky.

“All right, Bull, you gonna tap in for this one?” Cade asked, ignoring Lucky as he always had to in order to get anything done.

But Lucky was not to be ignored, directing his gaze at his president. “Why is it automatically the next psychopath in the group who gets all the fun stuff?” he demanded. “I want to blow something up. Becky doesn’t let me do it to the cars anymore.”

The fact that his wife had to dictate that particular edict to him was why they had taken so long to have kids when every other fucker was popping them out like candy. Well, one of the reasons. The scars that Bex wore—rivaling Gage’s own—were a huge contributing factor.

Cade sighed. “Fine, you can go. Bull will go to supervise. Surely one of your boys needs a field trip.”

The corner of Bull’s mouth turned up in response.

His two sons took after both him and Mia. In other words, they were fucking insane. Gage took it upon himself to teach them all the best ways to incapacitate someone, steal things, and generally just encourage what was already there. They were Sons, after all.

Cade looked around the table. “That all?” He didn’t wait for a response, just smashed the gavel down. “Good, I’ve got a wife and kids who are a lot prettier to look at than you fuckers.”

Brock clapped him on the shoulder. “I would agree on that score, but the kids are currently under the care of their grandmother, along with mine. Since it’s girls’ night.”

There was a collective groan around the table.

Girls’ night was never just girls’ night. No. Not with their women. Shit went down on those nights. And not normal shit. No, Gage wouldn’t be surprised if there was some kind of national emergency as a result.

Gage shook his head, feeling sorry for the poor fuckers and readying himself to get out of there before shit started going down.

So he could go home.

To Lauren.

“Ah, don’t you go looking so smug,” Brock said, focusing his attention on him. “I have intel that suggests your woman is now firmly part of the posse, being that my fucking woman won’t shut up about how ‘kickass’ she is and how she’ll ‘cut the balls off that mad motherfucker if he does anything to fuck this up,’” he air-quoted.

There was a collective chuckle around the table.

Gage’s body tensed, and not for entirely bad reasons. He knew Lauren kept to herself. Knew the reasons why. The fact that she didn’t have a lot of friends filled him with a sick satisfaction at first, because that meant he didn’t have to share her with anyone. He was a greedy fucker; he wanted all her time.

But he wanted that shit for her. All the shit she’d been hiding from because of her pain. These women were crazy as fuck—arguably crazier than Gage himself—but they were good women. And they would look out for Lauren. More people caring about the most precious thing in his world was a good thing.

Her being at girls’ night was not a fucking good thing.

“Fuck,” he hissed, standing and intending on riding straight to Laura Maye’s bar, since the bitch was crazy too, and crazy tended to group together in places that served alcohol.

“Hold up, brother,” Cade said, stopping him from striding out the door. “You’ll likely get skinned alive by my wife if you interrupt too early. I don’t fuckin’ like the prospect of whatever crazy shit’s gonna happen tonight, but take it from me, it’s better to leave it for a bit. Have a beer. Give them a second to initiate Lauren to the fold.”

Gage was tense. Because he wanted that for her. But he wanted her. And he sure as fuck didn’t want her in danger. And the girls’ night was about as dangerous as a two-year-old with nuke codes. Or Lucky with anything that could explode.

“One hour,” he relented.

Brock smiled.

Cade’s mouth turned up.

Asher shook his head.

Bull clenched his fists.

Steg, who was now used to this kind of thing, gave a weary shake of his head, something that was decidedly too old for the man who had held the gavel for years before Cade.

Lucky gave him a fucking thumbs-up.

It had been an hour, and he’d been counting the fucking seconds. For a slightly different reason than usual. Not just to distract him from the aching need for a fix—that was still there, of course, always would be—and not just to be pleased that another second of his life was over. No, he was counting down to when he could see her.