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In the confines of the office, brothers and enemies alike engage as I clamber off the floor to handle business. A group of bikers carry chairs laden with our women out of harm’s way, doing their best to cover them with their own bodies as they run for safety, under a cloud of deafening gunfire.
Tables are knocked onto their sides as shields. Lace and Kade slice and dice their way through a throng of enemies. Trusting my fellow brothers to do their job, I focus on him—my prize.
“You killed my brother!” I loom over the Russian bastard as he squirms in pain on the floor, blood seeping from too many holes. “You did this.”
His cronies wouldn’t have ended Runner without his consent. They wouldn’t have cut our women’s hair off or tied them up without the orders to do so. They know the rules.
Watching his eyes widen in horror, knowing these are the final moments of his existence, I kick the son of a bitch in the side. He groans a high-pitched, pathetic sound. Unsatisfied by his reaction, by how easily he succumbs to his wounds, by his lack of fight, my upper lip curls back over my teeth in an ugly snarl. I spit on his face, varnishing it in my hatred. On a whine, the fucker clutches his stomach as tears trickle down the sides of his face. Pussy. I straddle his form, one foot on either side, and aim true, at the exact spot they ended my brother. “Fuck you!” The bullet carves a pit right where it belongs. The Russian’s body jerks one last time before I watch the remnants of his soul escape, headed to whatever afterlife.
Good riddance.
The scent of pennies suffuses the air as the Grim Reaper stakes his claim one by one through the office. Those who live clear out, leaving behind nothing more than a brutal war field—a cemetery.
Checking for signs of life, just to be certain, I nudge bodies with the toe of my boot. Nobody moves. Not an inch. Not a breath. Good.
White Boy, coated in bodily fluids, sidles up to me as I flip a deceased biker onto his back and cut off his patch to take home to his family. I shove it into my rear pocket for safekeeping. I may not know this man, Jimbo, but I respect his sacrifice.
I press my thumb to the center of his forehead.Rest in peace, brother.
“You hit?” White Boy asks as he flips another fallen Sacred Sinner onto his back.
I kneel beside the young male and press my thumb to the center of his skull, or what’s left of it.Rest in peace, brother.
White Boy removes the guy’s patch and hands it to me. It, too, joins the other.
“You hit?” the pain in the ass repeats when I don’t answer the first time.
Can’t he see I’m busy? I side-eye him, unimpressed. He raises a brow, challenging me. Fine. My bones crack like I’m a thousand years old as I stand long enough to get my brother off my ass.
With flourish, I scan my legs, shake ‘em a little for show, then check my torso and arms. Everything seems just peachy, ’til a finger grazes my side, and my adrenaline begins to wane. I stumble forth and catch myself on the closest wall.
Shit. Fuck. Fuckin’ shit.
Heaving a pained breath, I grip my side. Blood squishes through the hole in my cut, bathing my palm in red.
Goddammit!
White Boy turns me around by the shoulders and props my back against the wall. Grabbing me by the chin, he forces me to look him in the eye.
“Let me see.” He peels my cut to the side, and shoves my t-shirt up my abs, exposing the hole. It leaks steadily onto the waistband of my jeans, coating my belt. He reaches around my back to probe for an exit wound. No dice.
“You gotta see Doc,” he confirms, doing an I-told-ya-so eyebrow wiggle, as if he saw me get hit. Who knows… he might have. But if he thinks I’m seein’ Doc, no, the fuck I’m not.
I push his overbearing touch away and cover the hole with my palm, to staunch the bleeding. “I need to see the girls.” All of ‘em. The bullet can come out later. This isn’t the first time I’ve been shot, nor will it be the last. I’m not dying today.
“After you fix that.” He waves to the wound. “Bonez is already outside. The girls have been removed from their chairs. They’re safe. You, not so much.”
Rolling my eyes, I shove off the wall to go see them. To make sure Kit knows I’m here for her. That I came. I should’ve been the first face she saw when they removed the blindfold. I need to be there. I need to touch her. To hear her voice. To tell her Adam’s okay. That Big’s got him.
“Stubborn asshole.” White Boy hooks an arm through mine and escorts me like an old crippled from the room, despite my grumbly protests. We hobble over several bodies before we reach a hallway teeming with brothers. Many of them mend flesh wounds with packets of gauze and tape on their own as others take a beat to catch their bearings. Can’t say I blame ‘em. It’s been a long night.
“How’s your mom and Jade?” I ask as we amble through the warehouse, pretending I’m fine.
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Brother…”
“I knew whatever happened to them would be bad. Now it’s real.”
