“Love you,” Zander says quietly.
My heart sinks. He hasn’t told me he loves me in years. I could lie to myself about what those words mean coming from him, but now’s not the time to pretend everything is okay. A fourteen-year-old boy throwing out a random I love you like that is never random. He knows he’s in trouble, and while he’s certainly big enough to take Rig on, he doesn’t have the muscle mass or skillset to do it with ease just yet.
The line goes dead, but I can’t bear to move. Thankfully, Diesel doesn’t push it. He just slides my phone into the pocket of his jeans and waits.
“You told me you need me to trust you. This is a make-or-break moment, D. You’re either with me, or you’re against me, but I have to know right now, before I tell you anything, that you got my back and you’re not going to pull your patch on me.”
“I won’t pull my patch if you can tell me I won’t be losing the fucking thing for taking your back on whatever the fuck you got yourself into with Rig,” he says, taking me by surprise.
“We get that boy back to his momma without a scratch on him and we both get to keep our shit intact. You don’t help me, I’m going after him alone. You can bring the club in on this and put more of their women at risk if you want. You can even walk away and pretend you didn’t hear shit. But there’s nothing that’s going to stop me from getting my nephew back. You got me?”
“You better know how much I’m putting on the line for you, babe. We get a minute, we’re going to have a serious fucking talk,” he says. His voice sounds relatively calm, but I can tell by the way his shoulders are tight and his neck is tense that he probably wants to shove his head into a blender right about now rather than possibly betray the club.
“I know, D,” I say softly. “Let me just say hi to Izzy real quick and then we’ll head out.”
“Where are we going?”
“Detroit,” I say and head across the grass to disappoint Izzy by leaving after I just barely got here. Diesel doesn’t move. I feel the distance growing between us with every step I take. I’m so focused on getting to the swing set that I don’t notice the group of boys chasing each other around the park with squirt guns until one of them runs smack dab into my side.
“Whoa,” I say and look down at Stephen, my eleven-year-old half brother. His skin is a darker brown than Izzy’s but not quite as dark or golden as mine. Barbara, their mother, is a basic American mutt. Her contribution to their looks isn’t much, but it’s enough to dilute their Cheyenne heritage on our father’s side so they, too, look like basic American mutts. Stephen stops his running, lowers his big-ass squirt gun, and gives me a one-armed hug.
“Big sis,” he says gravely. His brown eyes travel across the grass where he finds his friends. One of them raises his squirt gun at him, but Stephen signals the boy to stand down. “A babe like you needs to be careful walking these parts by yourself. This is no place for a lady.”
“Please, I’m no lady. Dad taught me how to fight, kid. These little punks don’t scare me.” My mouth twists up into a smile that I can’t fight. He’s too cute for his own good.
“Will you teach me how to fight?”
“Absolutely. Somebody has to protect our little girl.”
Stephen’s eyes shoot over to Izzy who’s still singing to herself on the swings, and they roll back in his head as he says, “Now that one definitely needs male supervision.” I don’t have time to ask him what he means by that because he’s back to his game, running after his friends and taking them out one by one with impressively accurate shots to their backs and chests. These kids are going to be soaked in minutes if he keeps it up.