“Zane?” Holt couldn’t believe Zane gave a rat’s ass about him. The Sinner VP kept to himself, and never socialized with the brothers. Holt didn’t think Zane had ever said more than two words to him in the entire time he’d been at the club.
“Yeah, man.” Tank took a step forward. “He’s mellowed now that he’s got a kid. You saved Evie, brought their family together. Zane said he owed you a life debt. He even gave a speech at your funeral.”
His funeral. Because they thought he was dead after they’d left him in the dungeon. He raised the gun, gritted his teeth. “There wouldn’t have been a funeral if you’d come for me.”
Tank’s shoulders dropped. “Shoot me if that’s what it takes for you to go on, but you should know we were there. Thirty Sinners and Evie, too. Benson—he’s a prospect now if you can believe it—drove a truck filled with explosives into the Black Jack clubhouse. Sparky and Gunner blasted the door to the dungeon. They found a body. Same hair. Same build. But cut up so bad they couldn’t see the face. They found your medallion, too.”
“That wasn’t me.” It was stupid to say, he knew. Obviously, it wasn’t him. But still, how could they not know their own brother?
“I know,” Tank said gently. “If it had been me in that dungeon looking for you…” His corded throat tightened when he swallowed. “Anyway, it was an ambush. The Jacks had been tipped off about the raid. They had to leave the body behind. But I always knew…” He clenched his fist, smashed it into his palm. “I knew you weren’t dead. I never gave up. I chased every lead…” He heaved out a breath, dropped his hands to his knees. “Fuck. I never gave up. I never gave up. Never.”
Holt holstered his gun. Maybe it was all a lie, but it was a good one. And he knew who they’d found in the dungeon … a Devil Dog who’d tried to cheat the Jacks.
“Looks like no one is getting killed tonight, so I’ll … just go back to our room.” Naiya made a discrete exit, leaving them alone in the alley.
“Fuck it.” Tank closed the distance between them in three easy strides of his long legs. He wrapped his arms around Holt and hugged him. “Shoot me if that’s what you gotta do. Punch me. Stab me. I don’t fucking care.” His voice cracked, broke. “I thought you were dead, and here you are and I never felt so fucking happy in all my life.”
Tank broke. Sobbed. His body shuddering. Holt swallowed past the lump in his throat, his arms dangling uselessly by his sides as emotion threatened to consume him.
This.
Words could be twisted, actions misinterpreted. But true emotion—where a man as strong as Tank would cry in his arms—couldn’t be feigned.
His vision blurred. Holt never cried. Not when he’d spent two years in juvenile detention. Not when he found out what happened to his sister. Not when Viper had beat him or when he gave up hope the Sinners would come. But nothing had hurt as much as the thought Tank had betrayed him, and to see him again, know Tank had been looking for him all this time …
I never gave up. Never.
Holt wrapped his arms around Tank’s shoulders and let himself go.
EIGHTEEN
Naiya had only a few seconds warning—the faint rasp of the key card in the lock—before Holt slammed open the door to their hotel room.
She shot up in the bed, pulled the sheet around her, and braced herself for the oncoming storm. She’d spent the last two hours alone in their hotel room, emailing resumes and figuring out what to do next. Holt was back with the Sinners, and Conundrum was a safe haven from the Jacks. They didn’t need each other any more, and she had to get on with her life. So why did it hurt so much?
“You had no right to get involved.” Holt burst into the bedroom, flipped on the light.
He looked wrecked, his hair mussed, face haggard, eyes red, cheeks streaked. Almost as if he’d been tortured all over again.
“You were going to kill an innocent man.” Her heart pounded in her chest, the urge to run almost overwhelming. But this was Holt. She trusted him like she’d never trusted anyone before.
“You should have come to me after you found him. You should have given me the choice about what to do.” He scraped his hand through his hair, paced the room, distraught.
“He’s your best friend, Holt. Did you not want to see him? Didn’t you want to hear the truth?”
“I don’t know.” He pounded his fist on the window. Again and again. “I don’t fucking know.”