"Your old lady is going to get herself killed," Happy mentioned nonchalantly as we stood watching O'Neill fumble around in that field.
"Laura will be fine. She's just stubborn. She's with Gemma now. She'll be fine there."
"You really think being around Gemma makes somebody safe?" Happy retorted with a snort. I rolled my eyes and focused on O'Neill. From behind us, we could hear the sounds of everybody else scrambling around in the barn.
"She'll be fine. Laura's strong. She can take care of herself. What the fuck is taking him so long?"
"Quit fucking playing with yourself!" Happy yelled. I chuckled, but it stuck in my throat when we heard the crash behind us as a truck drove through the barn doors.
"What the fuck?" I shouted.
"We were fuckin' chained in! Ye damn idiots did no' notice?" Chibbs roared in return.
"We were fucking watching O'Neill!" I replied. It was then that Jax started shouting about the truck and we all scattered as it blew. The truck exploded, killing Chibb's nephew and wounding most of us in some way. A second mother fucking explosion that had to do with vehicles. I stared at the mess around me. Young boys were laying on the ground, their bodies blackened with smoke and stained with blood. I stared at Chibbs, my best friend in the world, as he sobbed over the body of his nephew. I didn't personally know those men, the Sambel sons. But, in a weird way, we were family. Even just meeting, we were closer than people on the streets. Even across an ocean, they were family and we'd lost them. Meeting that night was solemn and I left looking forward to getting home to Laura. Looking forward to telling her about my day and hearing about some goofy shit Gemma did. But that's not what I learned. Instead, I walked into the room at the clubhouse to find Kerrianne, Fiona, and Laura sitting on our bed, Laura painting Kerrianne's nails.
"Hey, baby," she said sweetly. The syrup in her voice let me know that something was up. "Did Chibbs and Gemma get a chance to call you?"
"No, I…." I was interrupted by the sound of my prepaid ringing.
"Yeah," I answered shortly, eyeing Laura's dark hands that were very calmly painting Kerrianne's toenails a brilliant red.
"Are the girls at your room?"
"Yes." Fiona was eyeing me with distaste, as if I'd had something to do with whatever reason there were three women in my room instead of the only one I wanted to see.
"There will be a car to get them and Laura in fifteen minutes. Follow the car on your bike. The house they go to is your new home for the duration of our trip. Laura will fill you in. She should have already packed for you." Sure enough, there were our duffel bags packed and ready at the bottom of the bed. "You're their new protection. Laura too."
"Laura's not protection. She needs protected."
"She's got a gun. She knows how to shoot. Apparently, she's not afraid to. Make her be useful. I'll call you if you need to know anything else."
Clay hung up and I stared down at Laura. She smiled at me and asked innocently, "Are you ready to go, baby? Is there anything else you need?"
"Yeah. A few minutes alone with you." She stood up and I grabbed her hand. I pulled her behind me into the bathroom and demanded, "What the fuck happened today, Laura Moon? What's going on?"
"I went out to the store today and, while I was gone, Jimmy O showed up to try to get Fi and Kerrianne back and Gemma and Mo kicked his ass so now they're hiding. What happened to you today, Juice? I heard something about another explosion. Are you feeling okay?" She raised her hands up and cupped my cheeks, her emerald eyes scanning mine.
"No, Laura. I'm not. I'm tired and I just wanted to come here and sleep with you and now I get to find out that, not only am I a babysitter, but you're a babysitter too because the club seems to think that you should be allowed to do official business. Oh, and also, I'm a little conflicted right now because you did what I told you not to do when you left that apartment, but I have to admit that if you had been in the apartment, you would have been held at gunpoint. So I can't be mad at you. But I just want to sleep so bad and…." I stopped. My voice broke and I realized how fucking tired I was. I was tired of being in Ireland. I was tired of thinking about being sent to prison. I was tired of my fiancé being in danger all the fucking time. I was just fucking tired.
She used the hands splayed across my face to drag my face down to hers. She pressed a kiss to my lips and pulled my head down to her shoulder. Then her arms wrapped themselves around my back and she just held me. She murmured, "It's okay, Juice. It's okay, baby. Everything's going to be okay. We'll go to the new apartment and we'll go to sleep. We're going to be safe. We're going to be okay. We'll be home soon."
Her hands stroked my spine gently and I breathed her in. She said softly, "I love you."
"I love you too."
"We're going to be okay."
I nodded against her shoulder and she whispered, "You can tell me more about everything tonight. I'll make us some food, get us settled in, and you can take a nap for a couple hours."
That sounded so good. I didn't ever want to do anything else but let her make me promises. But then, my phone rang and I grimaced at the sound. She encouraged, "Go ahead and answer it."
I answered the phone with a sighing, "Yeah?"
"You're going to have one of the SAMBEL members with you. Saun Casey. He's trusted. He'll be watching them with you." I winced. I did not want SAMBEL members with me. I had the sneaking suspicion that O'Neill was a traitor and that SAMBEL's prez was probably in on it as well. An original nine was probably a fucking IRA rat.
"Okay."
"The car will be there in ten minutes. Does Moon have everything ready?"
"Yes."
"Tell her to leave her prepaid on so Gemma can reach her."
"She will."
I hung up and stared down at my fiancé who had somehow found her way into the mess of the club that I'd tried to drag her out of time and time again. She stood up on her tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss to my lips again before she ordered, "Come on. We need to make sure we have everything. We'll make the SAMBEL member take the first watch and you and I can talk about the day."
"Laura," I dropped my voice to a whisper, "SAMBEL is what I need to talk to you about today. I think the explosion came from SAMBEL. I think O'Neill is a traitor for the IRA. I don't trust SAMBEL and I don't want them watching our backs."
"So we'll take first watch together, Juice. It makes me glad I'm with you. I'd rather have your back than a fucking traitor. We can talk on watch."
She grabbed my hand and dragged me back into the bedroom where Fiona and Kerrianne were sitting. As if nothing was going on, she sat next to Kerrianne on the bed and started painting her nails all over again. I stared, wondering where the girl who never wanted to be involved in club business was. Wondering where the girl who was going to be a nurse was. Because, at that moment, my fiancé was completely different than she'd been before Half Sack and Donna's deaths.
