That was what mattered.

All was good in the family.

But a middle-of-the-night phone call was never good news.

Ever.

He put the phone to his ear and muttered, “You got me.”

“Callout, brother,” Tack replied. “Benito.”

Fuck, he thought

“Be there in fifteen,” he said.

“Later.”

“Later.”

He tossed his phone to the nightstand as he felt Lanie stretch, pressing into him.

“Is everything okay?” she murmured, her voice drowsy and sweet.

“Yeah,” he lied.

His woman was good in all the ways she could be. The short-term therapy counselor had suggested long-term therapy and Lanie had found someone she liked working with. They were winding things up seeing as his woman… no, his wife… had moved beyond the heavy shit and had been given the tools to deal with how her thoughts and memories twisted themselves and tortured her.

She still threw dramas but they were not embedded in dysfunction.

She came home from work and ranted about shit that was fixable, thus mostly unimportant, but was important to get off her chest.

She hilariously lost it when she got caught up in something and burned her first attempt at making Cody’s birthday cake.

And she bitched while he bit back laughter at the antics of her mother and father; strike that, her sober, seriously pissed off mother and her asshole father. Lanie and Lis were Team Joellyn all the way as Joellyn made maneuvers to take her husband to the cleaners. Edward had backtracked, saying he wanted her back, and none of the Heron women could tell if he said that because he knew he’d lose a vast chunk of his fortune or he was falling back in love with the woman he’d married now that she was sober. None of them cared, either. It was an all-out female Heron offensive to make that dirtbag pay.

Hop was loving it and, even if she bitched, he knew Lanie was too. She had one parent back and she’d learned the hard way how precious life was. She wasn’t wasting any of it on an unnecessary grudge.

But the business with Benito Valenzuela was something else.

He wouldn’t let her worry. He wouldn’t let her think anything about Benito if he could control it.

So he was going to control it.

Even if he had to lie.

But he was worried about it. The one thing that could set her to sliding back was this, if she found out how bad it was, and how it kept getting worse.

“Gotta go do something with Chaos,” he told her, rolling her to her back and leaning in to kiss her throat but bracing for her reaction.

“Okay, honey.”

Okay?

He lifted his head up and looked at her shadowed face.

She turned to her side, curled her legs up but stretched her neck to brush her lips against his collarbone.

Then she settled back in.

He stared at her.

Fuck. She trusted him.

Fuck. She was good with letting him go out in the middle of the night on unknown business for Chaos.

Hop gave it a beat to let that settle then bent and kissed her neck again, smoothing a hand over her hip then in, up her nightie and to her stomach. “Take care of Ellie while I’m gone.”

“Happy to take care of Butch while you’re gone,” she mumbled dozily, and he felt his lips tip up.

He wanted a daughter who looked like his wife. His wife had informed him she wanted a son who looked like her husband.

God would decide but it was fun arguing about something that meant everything knowing neither of them really cared which way it went.

But “Butch” was new.

“Butch?” he asked.

“Ty-Ty took all the cute baby boy biker names. I’m calling him Butch until I can come up with something else.”

Fuck yeah, she was sleepy and joking.

She trusted him.

Hop stifled laughter and told her, “Ellie’s a girl, Lanie.”

“Butch is a boy, Hopper.”

“We’ll see,” he muttered, leaning in to give his wife another light kiss.

“Yeah. We will,” she replied, cuddled deeper into the bed and he rolled out.

Hop got dressed and went back to find his woman sleeping. He reached out, pulled the covers high and tucked her in.

Then he grabbed his phone, went downstairs to the locked cabinet, got his knife, moved to his safe and tagged his gun.

Then he walked out to his garage and hopped on his bike.

* * *

“Do not fire! Chaos, do not fire!” Tack roared and Hop, crouched behind a hospital bed on a goddamned fucking porno set of all fucking places, with his arms up and resting on the bed, gun pointed at one of Benito’s men, stayed still but kept his finger on the trigger.

He took his eyes off his mark to look at Tack who had his mouth tight. His gaze was on Shy, who had blood oozing down his neck because he just got winged by a ricochet bullet from one of Benito’s men’s guns.

Tack looked back at Benito and Hop looked back at his mark as he heard Tack growl, “Jesus Christ, are you shittin’ me?”

They were there to rescue Tabby’s best friend Natalie. Tabby had been tight with Natalie for years. Hop knew her. The girl had been on Chaos and he’d seen her around. She was bad news in that sad way you knew, just looking into her eyes, that she’d chosen her path in life to numb some pain she didn’t have the courage to face.

They’d been briefed, before they went to extract her from her film debut, that she got herself a habit to numb that pain. Then she got in deep with Benito and he was taking it out in trade. In other words, she had a bit part that was very active in his latest porno flick.

She wasn’t big on doing this, so she called Tabby for a Chaos rescue. Shy stepped up for his woman and the boys rolled out.

Strategically, this was not good. Benito kept pushing, Chaos kept pushing back. So far, they had been able to keep Benito and his pushers and whores out of Chaos territory, but it was an ongoing battle. Regardless, hostilities had not escalated.

But for Tab, for Shy, for family, every man was there.

Tack and the Club hitting a porno set in the dead of night, demanding the actress who was meant to make her debut, and outing fucking Elvira—who had absolutely no fucking business being there undercover for some shit Hawk Delgado was working—did not go over big with Benito. Things got heated. Tack sent Elvira out for her own protection and he also sent away the Chaos recruits because they didn’t need this experience. Not yet.

Things got more heated after that, and one of Benito’s men jumped the gun.

Literally.

“Tack—” Benito started.

“Your man fuckin’ fired,” Hop clipped.

“Warning shot, he was closing in,” Benito returned, jerking his head Shy’s way. “It was a ricochet. He meant no harm.”

“I don’t give a fuck. My brother is bleeding and your man fired,” Tack snarled. “And for once in your life, seein’ as we got this many armed men in a faceoff, pay attention. He was approaching me.”

“I will remind you, you were not invited to this party,” Benito bit back.

“And I’ll repeat what I’ve said five fuckin’ times. Chaos will cover her debt. She’s family. We agreed a long fuckin’ time ago, man, family is off-limits,” Tack returned.

“Not when they owe me a great deal of money,” Benito shot back.

“Jesus, are you listening? Chaos is covering her debt,” Tack replied.

“I prefer my method of payment,” Benito retorted.

“That is not gonna happen. Con one of your other junkies into eatin’ pussy for payback. This girl belongs to Chaos,” Tack bit out.

Benito leaned toward Tack, his face twisting in anger. “She is not family. She is not blood or old lady. You lay claim to pussy on a whim, you can claim any-fuckin’-body. You do that, no rules and anything goes.”

The entire room, already tense, went electric. They all knew what that meant.

If it came to war, Benito would play dirty, and it would not just be the brothers in the trenches.

Hop came out of his crouch, strode directly to Benito. He was concentrating on Tack so he reacted to the advancing threat too late.

Hop had disarmed him and had his hand curled around Benito’s throat, shoving him back with speed and force so when he hit the hospital bed, he went down on it on his back. Hop kept squeezing as he put his gun to Benito’s temple and listened vaguely to the scuffling maneuvers of the men around him who became antsy after a direct attack on Benito.

“Those rules never change,” Hop declared. “Your beef is with Chaos, motherfucker. Any member of our family even fuckin’ shivers ’cause they feel you close, you’re eating my bullet.”

Benito held his eyes but called out, “Tack, call off your dog.”

“Say you get me,” Hop growled.

“You’re making a mistake,” Benito hissed.

“Say. You. Get. Me,” Hop ground out.

He felt a presence and knew it was Tack before Tack spoke.

“I suggest you say you get him, man, ’cause you pull family into this shit you’re stirrin’, swear to fuckin’ God, you won’t eat Hop’s bullet ’cause that would be too quick. I’ll skin you alive, Benito. Do not mistake me. You harm any member of my family, and by that I mean all of Chaos, inch by inch you’ll bleed and scream.”

Benito’s eyes were aimed over Hop’s shoulder at Tack. He made a noise low in his throat before he looked at Hop and snapped, “I get you.”

Hop instantly let him go and took two steps away.

Benito scrambled off the bed and faced Hop. “You just declared war.”

“Motherfucker. Seriously?” Hop asked. “My brother’s bleedin’. No paper signed but you spill Chaos blood, you do not come out of that shit unscathed. We had war five minutes ago.”

“Five square miles,” Tack cut in and Benito looked to him. “I do not get it. You can have all of Denver—it sucks, but you can have it—no Chaos beef. All you gotta stay clear of is five fuckin’ miles. What is it with you?”

“You can’t claim what isn’t yours,” Benito returned.

“Your crew has been workin’ Denver for seven years, motherfucker. Chaos claimed that territory fuckin’ decades ago. How is it not ours?”

“Nothing is yours, you can’t protect it,” Benito retorted and Tack shook his head.

“Man, trust me, Chaos lore is watered down. I get, you keepin’ this shit up, you think we’re no threat but, hear me, you do not wanna go to war with us,” Tack advised.

“Soft,” Benito whispered, his eyes lighting in a freaky way Hop did not like. “Everyone knows, you got out of the trade, you all went soft.”

“I see you don’t get this, seein’ as you probably only get off jackin’ off on a mountain of twenty-dollar bills, but a man protecting his home never goes soft.”

“We’ll see,” Benito replied.

“No, we’ll see,” Tack fired back. “You and your boys do this, you’ll be under dirt so you won’t see shit.”

Benito grinned.

Tack turned his eyes to Hop and shook his head.

Then he moved to exit while ordering, “Chaos, mount up.”

The brothers moved out.

Tack tagged Shy and Hop on their way to the bikes. “Meet. Early. I’m callin’ in the boys.”

Hop jerked his chin up. He knew what Tack meant. He wasn’t wasting time calling in reinforcements, and by that he meant Hawk Delgado, Brock Lucas, and Mitch Lawson.

Commandos and cops.

Benito should have listened.

After years undercover with the DEA, Brock Lucas knew the bowels of Denver like the back of his hand. Living with filth, to survive, he’d learned to embrace the wild inside. He might be married to a pretty baker who made unbelievably good cupcakes, and they were raising two boys, but he was still good with getting in touch with his wild side.

Mitch Lawson had proved without doubt that no matter how clean a cop he was, he had Chaos’s back. He was cautious but far from dumb, and willing to go the distance, therefore a worthy ally and a surprisingly scary adversary.

And it was debatable but Hawk Delgado might be a functioning lunatic. But he got the job done, no matter how nasty that job might be. He didn’t mind mess while doing it and he had an army of commandos at his back. He paid them well, but he earned their loyalty another way and every one of them would lay down their lives for their leader.

Tack’s eyes locked on Shy. “You and me now, to Baldy.”

Shy nodded.

Baldy was a biker and a doctor. He would be in a Club if he had the time. Seeing as he took cash for his services and the underbelly of Denver found themselves in need of a physician more than occasionally, he didn’t have the time.