Page 46 of The Devil’s Escape (The Devil’s Soldiers #7)

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

HULK

I have to convince her to stay. To trust us. To trust me.

I open the door to my room for Avery about ten minutes later and step back to let her inside.

She passes me, and the floral scent of her shampoo hits my nostrils, making my mouth water.

I barely resist reaching for her so I can bury my nose in her hair and draw in more of it.

More of her. Instead, I follow her inside and shut the door.

I keep myself from locking it in case one of the kids needs her, though I’m hoping the two of them will stay in their room for a bit.

They’re great kids, but I want Avery to myself.

Especially considering what happened. Thankfully, Theo is still guarding them, and Frost and Bowie are stationed outside their room on the ground to ensure no one tries to sneak in. We’re not taking any more chances.

Avery moves further into the room and then turns around, her gaze hard as she stares at me.

She’s not hostile, but there’s no trust in her gaze.

Not like before. Shit. “What the ever-loving- fuck is going on, Hulk?” she demands, voice low, but as far as I’m concerned, she’s still yelling at me.

“This…this is so fucked up that I can’t even wrap my head around what happened. I thought we were safe here!”

“You are safe here,” I promise firmly, moving to stand in front of her.

It’s probably pretty stupid, but I put my hands on her hips and stare into her eyes, needing her to believe me.

“I promise you are. This shit with the Misfits, it should never have happened. Hell, I still don’t know why it’s happening.

We’re leaving them to stew in the basement, with cameras watching and listening to everything they’re saying.

We brought them in as allies to help us.

In the beginning they were fine, but they don’t like how we run our club.

Being around us for a longer period has shown the problems with their alliance with us.

Bullet was ready to cancel it anyway, but this only cemented it.

They have never touched a woman while they’ve been here before, and we would never have allowed them to come if we knew this would happen.

I promise you, Avery.” I look at her face, where the bruise is darkening on her cheek.

“I’m going to fucking make him pay for this.

” I gently cup her face, my thumb whispering over the mark. “Him and Silver.”

“That might be, but what happens now? What, you’re going to kill them all?

I won’t have my brother and sister around that either.

All of this shit, this is too much. First, I have to worry about Vlad, and now I have to worry about an MC that clearly doesn’t like me or trust me.

Who would say such vile things about my little sister?

And there is no fucking way that anyone is going to convince me that they haven’t done the shit they threatened before.

And the fact that your club is associated with them is a huge strike against all of you. ”

I can see it in her face that she’s ready to run. And run as fast and as far as she can. Panic fills me at the thought of losing her, but I have to keep a cool head. I have to understand where she’s coming from. It’s the only way I can convince her that she is safe here. They are all safer here.

“Avery, I know how bad this looks. I need you to understand that if we had known any of this, we’d have never brought them here.

We’ve known the Misfits for years. Hell, Bullet has known Arson since before he was President.

They’ve been an outlaw club, but we vetted them thoroughly to make sure they weren’t into anything that goes against our own beliefs.

They have figured out how to hide it from us, and Cryos is already kicking himself for not realizing they might have been.

And none of that excuses it. Our alliance is done, and we’ll be making sure the local law where their club is knows what’s going on.

If there is anything else they’re hiding, now is the time to figure it out because they’re here and unable to stop it. ”

“Fine, good for you, but that doesn’t negate the fact that your club has put us in danger.

What if they had decided to go after Isla?

Huh? What if she had walked into the kitchen or something, and none of us had realized she was away from us?

Do you understand what would have happened?

She is a child, Hulk. A fucking child! And then what about Sawyer?

They could have tricked him into going with them under the guise of talking and teaching him something about their bikes or something, and beaten or killed him?

I’m just lucky that they went after me instead.

I can handle myself, and I can take what they can dish out, but not them. ”

“I will never allow anything to happen to them. And as of tomorrow morning, the Misfits won’t be a worry.

” I shake my head when she opens her mouth.

“I can’t tell you what’s going to happen, Avery.

It’s club business, and we don’t involve women directly in club business like this. It’s better if you don’t know.”

“So, what, you just expect me to believe we’re not going to know that you’ve killed them all?” she snaps. “Or, what, you’re hoping we’re just going to go deaf and not hear gunshots?”

“There are more ways to kill someone than with a gun, angel. We’re a group of mostly former servicemen, and we’ve all got experience with it. We can make sure that if that’s the decision we go with, the kids won’t suspect a damn thing. They’ll only think we kicked them out.”

I almost expect her to pull away from me at that, but she doesn’t.

The strength she possesses rings back out at me.

“I don’t know a lot about MCs, but I do know that if you’re aligned with them, then they have alliances too.

If you take them out, that puts another target on your back.

Then we’re right back to where we started.

It is a never-ending cycle that I refuse to be a part of. ”

I’m losing ground. Shit. My brain is scrambling to keep up and figure out how to fix this. How to convince her not to give up on us completely.

“Avery—”

“No,” she snaps, pulling away from me. My hands drop to my sides, and I can only watch her.

She stares at the floor for a second before she finally looks back at me.

“Hulk, in my head, I know that you’re not at fault for this.

And I know that you and your club did save us.

You got us out from under Vlad’s thumb, and I’m grateful for that.

Up until now, our experience here has been great, so I understand that under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be this way.

I just can’t get what they said out of my head.

What they did. What they made you all think of me to try and save their own asses. ”

“We never believed for a minute what they said, angel,” I state fiercely. “It never crossed any of our minds. The minute they accused you, we knew they were lying. It infuriated me more when they did. I wanted to pound their faces in again.”

She arches a brow. “Really? You just believed me? None of you know me, Hulk.”

“You sent your brother and sister to the club, trusting we’d keep them safe and believe you.

Those kids are your life. You would never have done that if you were working with Vlad.

You’d have sent them as far away as possible and kept them out of this completely.

You’ve been trusting us, Avery, and I just need you to keep doing that for a little longer.

And if you can’t trust all of us, then you can trust me.

I will make sure that you are all safe. I know you might not want to with Arson and Silver getting past me in the first place?—”

“Stop,” she interrupts. “Hulk, I don’t blame you for that.

You were all in your meeting, and they used a moment when everyone was distracted.

To do that, they had a plan, and even if they hadn’t done it then, they would have done it eventually.

That doesn’t make me stop trusting you.” She gives me a wry smile.

“Actually, you were the one who caught them and stopped it, so it’s a big point in your favor. ”

“I wanted to kill them,” I admit unrepentantly.

She gives a soft laugh. “Yeah, I got that. Pretty sure you showed me the actual reason for your name, big guy.”

I shrug. “It’s part of it, but a lot of it has to do with my size, and when I get mad, I do tend to, well, hulk out.” I give her a wry smile. “My father is like that, too, so you can blame him. I was a bit worried it would frighten you.”

She shakes her head. “I’m a big girl, Hulk, and not much scares me.

It’s a hazard of my upbringing, but also my job.

You see the scariest shit in a hospital, so you have to develop a thick skin and an even harder shell or you won’t survive it.

I’m also a realist. If someone hurt Isla or Sawyer, I’d do the same.

” She pauses. “No, that’s a lie. I’d pull a Rose, but I’d have already sliced their jugular.

I don’t know that I’d have Rose’s restraint. ”

I smile. “Not many do, but that’s what makes her special.

And when it comes to those she cares about, you, Isla, and Sawyer included, she will do anything in her power to make sure that we’re all safe.

Hell, if the Misfits hadn’t thrown such a fit, she’d have been out searching for me when I was first taken.

Or, better, she’d have figured out far sooner than everyone else did that Vlad was using you. She sees shit a lot of us don’t.”

“You guys are lucky to have her.”

“We are.”

She stares at me, gaze conflicted. “I like you all, Hulk. I really do. Up until now, from your club, I’ve felt a lot more relaxed than I have in a long time.

It’s the unknown, and the Misfits that scare the shit out of me.

What happens if you let them go and they leave, but then come back to get revenge on me or the kids when this is all done and we’re back on our own? ”

“It’s not going to happen, Avery,” I promise. “I mean that with everything I have. Not only because there are MC rules that make it against our bylaws to do something like that, but also because when this is over, I have no intention of just letting you walk away. At least not from me.”

“Hulk…”

“Avery. You know that we have something. You said it earlier. We have chemistry, and I want a chance to see where it will take us. Let me show you that you have nothing to worry about when it comes to you or the kids. I will protect you. I will stand between all of you and Vlad, or even the Misfits. And when this is all over, we’ll know we can withstand anything once we get through this. ”

She blinks. “Wait, you’re talking about the two of us being something longer than us just staying here? I thought all that earlier was just kind of a proximity thing. I’m here, we have chemistry, and you wanted a fling.”

I shake my head. “I have no intention of this thing between us being casual, angel. I’m planning on it being a forever kind of thing.”

Her mouth drops open, gaping at me. “What?” she chokes out. “Okay, look, I think we need to check your head again. You’ve obviously lost a few screws in that big head of yours, or we need to tighten a few back up.”

“My head is perfectly fine, angel, and you know it. You’re an excellent nurse. Why is my stating something so simple causing you to panic?”

“Because you can’t just announce something like that and expect me to go along with it,” she cries, then winces as she glances at the door.

Lowering her voice, she adds, “We barely know each other, Hulk. We haven’t spent any time together other than in the sick bay and earlier today.

A couple of kisses and some flirting are not enough to know if you want a relationship with someone.

You have no idea what kind of person I am outside of this. I could be terrible.”

I laugh at that, which makes her glare at me.

“Angel, you really think I don’t know what kind of person you are, not that I’ve known you for longer than a few days?

The hardest times, the stressful times, are the times when people show their true character.

I saw it every day when I was in the military.

The soldiers who quit, the ones who gave up or bowed under the pressure, I took their measure long before any of that finally happened.

Because I saw them fail, I saw them break over the small things, then the harder things, until they finally caved.

You, you didn’t do any of that. You could have gone to the police against Vlad, you could have refused to speak to me, refused to help me, and you could have completely ignored helping my brothers in finding me.

Hell, you could have just killed me, overdosed me, thinking it was a kindness. ”

“But I thought about it,” she admits, watching me.

“Thinking isn’t doing. Right now, though, I’m fucking glad you didn’t or I’d never get to do all the shit I’ve wanted to do.

” I’m risking a knee to the balls here, but I reach for her, pulling her into me.

Her fingers curl into my shirt, and her face lifts to mine.

She wants this, even if her mind is fighting her.

“And what I want to do right now is taste you again. Hear you sigh and cry my name as I’m deep inside you.

Then, I want to do it all over again, and I want to get out of my bed knowing that the two of us are going to figure this shit out.

I’m going to prove to you that when a man knows what he wants, he doesn’t hesitate, because he’s not about to let it slip through his fingers.

And I can’t do any of that if I’m dead. You might have thought about it, but it was from a good place, angel, and I’ll never hold that against you.

Instead, I’ll thank you, because it only makes my life clearer. And that includes you in it.”

Avery’s eyes are wide as I lower my mouth to hers, wanting her to feel it from me. I meant every word, and what better way than to show her?