Gavel lets out a dark chuckle, bracing his weight against mine as he guides me over to where Patch is already setting up his medical kit on a broken log. “They have a shitload of food tonight. They’ll be happy for a while.”
I sink heavily into one of the canvas chairs the men had set up around their fire. Patch doesn't waste a second. He shoves the torn sleeve of my black t-shirt all the way up to my shoulder, aggressively poking and prodding at the bloody puncture wound there.
“Looks like a clean through-and-through,” Patch mutters, his eyes scanning the damage. “You’re lucky as hell it missed your brachial artery by fucking inches, Tomcat. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be finding your woman at all tonight, brother. You'd be dead in the dirt.”
“Just do your thing so I can go get her.”
“You’re not going to be able to ride with an arm like this.”
“The fuck I’m not.” I grit my teeth, glaring at him. “I’m fine. Patch it right now. You can stitch it properly after I have her back.”
Patch lets out a heavy sigh, shaking his head in resignation. He pulls a handful of supplies out of his trauma bag, snapping a pair of black nitrile gloves over his hands. “I’ll do as much as I can right here. But I need to thoroughly clean both the entry and exit wounds first to remove any clothing fibers or debris that’ll cause a nasty infection.”
He’s incredibly quick, but meticulous, fully aware that every ticking second we lose is a second Marigold is trapped with a monster. After he flushes the wound, he tears open a vacuum-sealed package of hemostatic gauze. “I need to pack the cavity now. It’s not going to feel the greatest.”
“Just get it done,” I tell him, my entire system so numb from the adrenaline and panic that I honestly don’t feel shit anyway.
I grind my back teeth together until my jaw aches when he forcefully shoves a gloved finger and a stream of medical gauze deep inside my flesh. It feels like he’s packing a hundred fucking feet of fabric into the wound by the time he finally finishes. Then, he folds a gauze into fours and presses it firmly over the entry and exit points to seal the pressure.
He hands me a fresh, unopened roll of gauze. “I need you to squeeze this roll tightly in your fist as I wrap the Coban around your arm. Wrapping the compression bandage while your muscle is slightly flexed will ensure you still have enough range of motion to control your handlebars. It also means the wrap won’t slide down your arm or unravel from the wind resistance while you’re riding hard.” He peers up at me, his expression grim as he pulls a roll of heavy-duty duct tape from his bag. “The vibration of your bike is more than likely going to open this right back up by the time we get back to the clubhouse.”
Patch smoothly applies a strip of duct tape across the top and bottom borders of the Coban to lock the edges down. Then, he holds his palm out toward me. There are three large pills lying in the center of his glove. “I’m keeping you away from heavy narcotics right now. I need your head clear since you’re riding. These are the heaviest prescription dose of Tylenol I can give you.”
I rip the pills from his hand and swallow them down completely dry, using my own saliva to force them down asPatch rapidly packs his gear back into his kit. “Appreciate you, brother.”
Pope passes me a cold bottle of water from the cage. I take it gratefully, cracking the cap and drinking the entire thing down in three massive gulps.
“Ride safe, Tomcat,” Patch says, his hand clapping down on my good shoulder. “I’ll be staging the cage somewhere right behind you all in case my medical unit is needed at the secondary location.”
Nodding, I climb back to my feet. My boots feel a bit steadier on the dirt now that the bleeding is stopped and I’m fully hydrated.
“Did anyone squeeze the exact location out of him?” I ask, nodding toward the man I had intentionally shot in the shoulder for interrogation purposes.
Pope nods, that fucking wacky, unhinged smile of his spreading across his face. “Did you honestly doubt me for a second?” He places a mock, offended hand over his heart. “I’m deeply disappointed, brother.”
I should have known the second my eyes track past him and land on the severed, bloody hands lying on the dirt next to the man. To be completely honest, I’m surprised the bastard’s head is still attached to his neck after letting Pope loose on him.
Joker pulls a map out of his kutte, laying it flat directly across the dead body on the ground to use it as a makeshift table. Cyanide steps in closer, holding a flashlight over the paper so the rest of the officers can see.
Joker points a finger at an abandoned shipping warehouse located just across the northern city line. “This is exactly where they’re holed up. Vortex just flew the thermal drone over the roof structure. There are six distinct heat signatures inside the perimeter. Two are stationed directly at the front exit doors, two are covering the back. The other two signatures are isolated inthe central space. We’re assuming that’s Damon and Marigold. A few of our advance scouts went ahead on foot to try to get visual confirmation through the windows so we know exactly what we're walking into when we breach.”
He glances up at me, his eyes shining with respect.
“From the way those two central heat signatures kept rapidly shifting and blending together on the thermal feed, Tomcat... it looks like your ol' lady is not going down without a damn fight.”
“Let’s go,” I say, my voice dropping into a deadened, flat tone that cuts the air like an executioner's blade.
My little shadow isn’t far from me. I don’t even need the scouts visual confirmation. That unbreakable tether she has wrapped around my very soul tells me everything I need to know. It’s anchoring us together across the city, pulling tight, refusing to snap even in the face of monsters who have risen from the grave to strike at us.
The thing about men the world already thinks are dead?
They’ll never be searching for his body when we kill him all over again.
To the regular residents of Coral Cay, I’m Tomcat. Secretary of their chapter of the Saint’s Outlaws MC. The guy who keeps the books, keeps his head, and stays calm and controlled, but remains lethal when the circumstances call for it. The bachelor who was always down for a good fuck with absolutely no strings attached.
But nobody in this city has ever met this specific version of me.
The one who is about to walk straight through the deepest bowls of hell to show the devil himself that I am a lot fucking scarier than he will ever be when he makes the mistake of taking the very thing keeping my heart beating.
