Page 56 of Tattooed Love

“You’re telling me,” I scoffed, crossing my arms. “We need to send her away or something. Get her away from him.”

“Like Amber will do anything we say,” Troy shot at me, giving me a pointed look as he lit his cigarette. “We will just have to monitor this. Hook him up with someone else, in front of Amber. Show her he’s bad news.”

“Bad news! Is that what you call him?” I arched an eyebrow. “He’s the most powerful man in bikie history, because of his family, and he’s only bloody 18! He’s only going to get more powerful as he gets older.”

“Jax is never faithful to women; it’s not in his blood,” He responded, blowing smoke out the side of his mouth. “We don’t have to worry about it too much; he will stuff it up on his own.”

I settled into an armchair. “Amber’s going to be sick when she wakes up. That scar is going to ruin her life.”

“I have never seen one cut in before; usually they just tattoo it.” Troy frowned. “But they obviously didn’t have time for that.”

“She has the scar ofThe Pythonson her stomach and the tattoo of the HellBound on her shoulder. It’s fair to say she’s a marked woman,” I scoffed, running both hands over my head. “We stuffed up, Troy. We shouldn’t have left her here.”

“How were we meant to know, Cole?” Troy put his cigarette out on his bedside table. “We didn’t know she would get involved with a gang member. When I checked in with dad, he said she was fine.”

“I didn’t even recognize her,” I muttered, recalling back to the night I had actually forgotten what my sister looked like. “If I’d recognized her back then, all this could have been avoided.” That one night, where Amber approached me and I didn’t even fucking realize it was her. If I could turn back time and I hadn’t lost contract with my sister, I would have known then - that she was getting into a lifestyle I wanted her to never have a part of.

“Well, we will stop it from getting any worse. We’re here now. We can’t change the past.”

“We go on about family,” I looked Troy square in the eye. “We respect the brotherhood, we are loyal members. We pledge that family means everything but we turned our backs on our own sister to build our own charter. Now we are one of the strongest charters. Hell, we’ve got bloody Jackson Johnston riding with us. But, at what cost? Amber lays scarred and we failed to protect her.”

“What do you want me to say, Cole,” Troy huffed. “Business came before her? We know that was how it was. We chose the charter. We can’t change that.”

Staring each other in the eye, we both remained silent.

“If an all-out war is declared, we won’t be able to keep an eye on Amber,” I thought out loud.

“I know,” Troy shot back at me. “But it is blood in, blood out. We can’t turn our back on our brothers, or on the brotherhood. We ride, we die. You know that.”

“So Amber fends for herself?”

“Not while Jax has this thing for her,” Troy pointed out, “And we will just have to keep a close eye on her; the four of us. We can work it out.”

“One day at a time then,” I muttered, rubbing my eyes with the back of my palms. I was beginning to feel my lack of sleep catching up with me, especially now.

“Get some sleep,” Troy said as he pulled his boots off. “While you can.”

Nodding my head, I pulled myself up from the chair. Sleep sounded good. I could return to worrying in the morning.

***

Amber

Every breath I took hurt. As my lungs opened for air, my stomach clenched in pain. My eyes fluttered open; it was the dead of the night. I noticed the empty arm chair next to my side of the bed.

One of my brothers must be skipping watch. My teeth slammed together as I twisted to my side. I heard my door open, and I quickly closed my eyes. I wasn’t up to speaking to anyone. I would just break down in tears.

The armchair creaked as a body slumped into it. I felt guilty; whoever it was should go get some sleep. I heard him exhale softly; he was clearly tired. I heard the muffled vibration of a phone, and he cursed under his breath before I heard him pull it out of his pocket. I kept my breathing shallow, knowing if I inhaled too deeply, I would end up screaming in pain.

“What?” he half whispered, half barked into the phone.

I had to keep myself from snapping my eyes open in shock. Why was Jax in my room? And why was he willingly sitting here watching over me? Had my brothers blackmailed him into this?

“This isn’t a good time,” he hissed into the phone. “Call back in the morning.” He paused.

“Fine, “he continued, “it better be bloody important if it can’t wait.”

I couldn’t believe he was actually keeping his voice low. Was he doing that so he wouldn’t wake me?

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