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WAR
The beep of the hospital monitors had become a permanent fixture in my ears, and I was sure my ass was now molded in the shape of the uncomfortable, hard plastic chair I’d been sitting on for three days.
My brothers and sisters from the club had all come by. Aloha had smuggled me in two bottles of bourbon, which I’d been steadily sipping from like it was water. His old lady, Queenie, had tried a more traditional approach and had brought several hot meals up for me, wrapped carefully in insulated containers. They all sat untouched on a counter in my mother’s hospital room, cold and forgotten because I wasn’t hungry.
My mother was too pale. I’d never once seen her look so lifeless, small, and helpless.
Fancy Maynard and helpless didn’t go together in one sentence. She would have knocked some heads together if anyone had ever so much as breathed the notion that she might not be fully capable of anything.
Except right now, she really wasn’t. There were tubes and machines keeping her alive, and she hadn’t moved once since I’d rushed right out of Psychos and burst into the ER demanding to be taken to her.
A heavy hand came down on my shoulder.
I jumped, automatically reaching for my gun stashed in the back of my jeans.
“Settle,” Hawk murmured. “It’s me.”
He’d been my best friend since we were little kids. Our old men were best friends too, and when Hawk and I had shot outta our mama’s lady business just ten days apart, our best friend status had seemed inevitable.
He was the only person who knew the real me. Everything about me, from what sorta cereal I liked in the morning to the type of women I wanted on my cock in the evening.
“How you doing, brother?” he asked carefully.
“Fucking losing it. Didn’t even hear you come in. You could have been one of the Sinners, and right now, I’d have a gun to the back of my head.”
Or worse. If someone from the rival club wanted me dead, my brains could have been sprayed all over Fancy’s crisp white hospital blankets.
First rule of this life. Be fucking aware of your surroundings.
Especially when there was clearly a hit out on your family.
Hawk tutted like he was a disappointed grandmother. “You need to go home. This shit ain’t safe. We have the whole compound in lockdown. Everyone but you.”
“Do what you want. Not leaving her. Not ’til I know she’s gonna get better. Or she…”
Nobody needed to fill the silence. Fancy was either still meant for this world, or she was leaving it along with my old man.
My gut knew the latter was more likely. The doctors had prepared me for it. I’d seen her deteriorate so quickly I was scared to turn away for fear she’d be gone when I looked back.
I still refused to believe it though.
“Stubborn jackass,” Hawk muttered. But he didn’t try to convince me again. He knew it was a losing battle. “I’m gonna go get us some coffee and some food, ‘cause you smell worse than the floor of Psychos, and your face is fucking gaunt.”
“That’s a big word for you,” I replied without any of my usual amusement. Hawk and I had been insulting each other for years. It was our love language, and an instinct, but I couldn’t find the humor in it today.
Hawk clearly wasn’t feeling it either. “I’ll be back.”
I nodded, fighting off a surge of exhaustion and the desire to lay my head down on the bed and rest. Instead, I watched him walk out the door and then focused on every other person walking by, just so I had something to do. Two doctors in white coats who were probably young enough to still be in diapers. A dozen nurses in their green scrubs, scurrying around like worker bees. Not one of them walked at a pace any slower than an easy jog.
A flash of auburn caught my eye, snagging my attention.
I’d only seen that specific color on a woman just two other times. “Hey!”
The woman stopped in her tracks and raised her head, glancing in my direction.
It was her. The stunner from Psychos the other night who’d been hanging out with Nash. The same woman I’d noticed at the police station the other day when I’d been there paying off one of their officers. Fuck, she was a sweet little thing with her unusual-colored hair and pretty eyes.
“You remember me?” I asked, sitting up straighter.
