Authors: Jenika Snow
“You can kill me, but there will be more like me,
more that will come and get rid of the —”
Lucien pressed the gun to Tobias’s head, and in one,
swift move pulled the trigger.
Tobias fell backward, and blood immediately started
to pool beneath his skull. The silence stretched throughout the room. Marx and
then a few of his last remaining men who had been outside came in. Kink looked
away from the corpses on the ground and stared at Marx and his men that were
surveying the room.
“Well, fuck, you guys took them out fast.” Marx
strapped his gun to his thigh.
“And made one big fuckin’
mess.”
He started chuckling, and although some of his men followed suit,
Kink didn’t find this situation amusing in the least.
Yeah, these men deserved to die for what they did,
for what they could have done, but taking a life was never easy. It chipped
away at a person’s soul, and Kink had killed more people than he even cared to
think about. Did he even have a soul? Did he even know what was right from
wrong anymore? He watched Malice move over to the leader. The other biker
kicked the shit out of Tobias’s body, and the anger that came from Malice was
tangible. But then again Kink would have felt the same mind-numbing rage if he
had been standing with Cookie so close to the bombing.
“I got a guy that lives in Steamboat that cleans
shit up like this,” Marx said and grabbed his cell from inside of his cut. “You
think this is the end of it?” he asked no one in particular.
Kink looked at Tobias, who stared up at him with his
now cold, lifeless eyes. The man had shown no fear, and in fact almost seemed
like he was embracing death. If he had been anyone else Kink might have
respected the hell out of that attitude, but as it was, and because of what
this bastard had done, Kink couldn’t care less. He turned his head and spit out
a mouthful of spit and blood, felt his jaw ache from the right hook that asshole
had given him, and moved away from the bodies. Now that this was over with,
well, for now at least, Kink just wanted to get back to the clubhouse and be
with his woman and his daughter. He looked at Marx who had moved closer.
“You think there are more of these hacks walking
around?” Marx stared at him and grinned.
“There is always more, man.” Kink looked back at
Tobias one more time. “And it’s never over with, not for us anyway.” There was
a noise from a backroom, but when everyone turned to look that way the sound of
a gun going off echoed through the room. Kink had his gun out and trained on
the dark entryway in a matter of seconds, he saw another man in a dark robe—the
same as the once living cult fuckers. Without thinking and only reacting, Kink
fired off a shot. The guy went down with a bullet to his head, like the rest of
his cult brethren. The weird silence that filled the room had Kink turning and
staring at the men behind him. They were all staring at the same thing …
Lucien. Kink looked at the President, saw the other man holding his thigh, and
then saw the blood starting to seep down his pants and cover the floor.
“Fuck, the bastard got me,” Lucien said on a snarl,
and removed his hand from his leg. The blood spread even quicker, and Lucien
covered his thigh again. “Fuck.” And then he went down.
Chapter Fourteen
Cookie held Callie, and although she was exhausted,
it was mainly from having to listen to the young woman cry for the last two
hours. She looked down at her sweet, sleeping face, and reached down to push
some dark hair away from her face. Even as she slept Callie’s pain could be
seen and felt.
“How is she doing?” Tatum said and moved up to sit
in the chair across from her. It was going on five in the morning, and the sun
was just starting to rise over the mountains in the horizon.
Cookie shrugged. “Okay now that she is sleeping, but
I can’t imagine how she’ll handle this in the days, weeks, hell, years to
come.”
Tatum nodded and grabbed the blanket that was over
the back of her chair. She moved over to Callie and placed it over the girl.
Tatum might have been well into her forties, but she was gorgeous with this
long blonde hair she kept braided a lot of the time, and this curvy body that
said she took care of herself.
Cookie was sitting on the leather couch with Callie
sprawled out beside her, with her head in her lap. Harlem was sleeping on the
other couch across the room, and Kendra was lying beside her. After Callie had
broken down after saying her mother had died, Molly and Adrianna had tried to
comfort the young girl, but she’d seemed inconsolable. Finally Molly left to go
upstairs to take care of a crying Dakota. That was when Cookie had brought the
girl close to her, wrapped her arms around Callie, and just held her. No one
had done something like this to her when she was Callie’s age, and it felt good
to ease someone, even for a small moment.
“I know Callie and her mom weren’t close, and she
wanted to leave Sarah because they didn’t get along, but I can’t imagine losing
my mom at such a young age, and in a horrific car crash either.” Tatum had
lowered her voice to a whisper, and the empathy on her face was tangible.
Cookie looked down at Callie and nodded at what the
other woman had said. Once Callie had been able to speak through her tears
enough to tell them what had happened, Cookie had found out that Sarah and her
boyfriend Dale had been driving home from a party. Dale had been drunk, lost
control of the car, and went through a guardrail. Then they had crashed into a
ravine, and died instantly. At least there was that one solace for Callie in
knowing her mother hadn’t suffered. But they hadn’t been able to get a hold of
Kink, and although now was not the time to bring this up to Kink, this was
something that couldn’t have waited.
Cookie looked down at Callie again, and just as she
was about to push more of Callie’s hair away Molly came rushing down the
stairs, Adrianna right behind her, with frantic looks on their faces.
“What’s wrong?” Tatum was up and moving toward the
other woman. “Shit, we don’t need any more bad news.”
Callie stirred and slowly woke, and then shot up and
started breathing hard. “What’s the matter?” She looked back and forth, still
slightly sleepy and confused. Cookie rubbed her back, trying to ease her.
Callie looked over, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen, and her face slightly
puffy from crying. “I had a dream, one where there was so much death and
blood.”
“It’s okay.” But that was a lie. Cookie knew this
situation was about to get worse before it got better. Molly moved over to the
front door, opened it, and wrapped her arms around her waist.
Cookie stood, but kept Callie close to her. “Molly,
what happened?” She stepped up beside the other woman and glanced outside. The
sun was rising about the mountains now, but there was no comfort in the light
and warmth, not right now at least.
Molly turned toward Cookie, glanced at Callie, and
then said, “Lucien’s been shot.”
Cookie felt Callie tense, and then lean into her, as
if she couldn’t stand.
“Is he d-dead?” Callie asked softly, and if Cookie
had any second thoughts about the girl wanting Lucien, she didn’t have them
now. Because this wasn’t about Callie being worried about a man she cared about
as family. Cookie could hear that clearly in the other woman’s voice. Callie’s
emotions were as clear as day, and when Cookie looked at Molly she saw the club
nurse looking a little confused, as if she could tell there was a little more
behind Callie’s statement than just those spoken words.
Molly shook her head and swallowed. “No, honey, but
I don’t know how bad the wound is. They called in Malcolm’s dad, and the doctor
should be here soon.”
“My dad’s okay? The other guys, too?” Callie asked
softly.
“As far as I know.”
Molly turned and faced outside again. The sound of the gates being opened by
two prospects, and of tires squealing on the concrete as the two vans sped up
to the house surrounded them almost ominously. Molly, Adrianna, and Tatum were
already out the front door and racing toward the vans, before Cookie led Callie
outside. She wanted to rush to the guys, make sure they were okay, that Kink
was okay, and hold him tightly. But Callie had a death grip on her, was
shaking, and she knew the girl needed a stable post right now. Cookie seemed to
be that for her right now, and she wasn’t going to abandon her.
“Oh God.”
Her heart slammed hard against her ribs, and sweat bloomed along her forehead
as she watched all these bikers pile out of the vans. She didn’t know many of
them. But her main focus was on Kink. He was one of the guys who helped lift
Lucien out of the back of one of the vehicles, and a gasping sob left Callie.
“We need to go to them,” Callie said, but didn’t
move.
“I know, honey, but right now we’ll be in the way.
They need to take care of Lucien, and I have no medical training to help in
this.” She looked at Molly who stopped off to the side looking worried as hell.
“Molly, do you need an extra set of hands?” Cookie might not know what the hell
she would be doing, but she could hand stuff to her if need be.
Molly shrugged, rubbed the center of her chest, and
then moved over to them. “I might, but I need to assess Lucien, see how bad it
is, and hopefully get him stable. The doctor should be here any minute, but
stay close, okay?”
Cookie nodded, and Adrianna moved closer to them.
“What if he dies?” Callie pulled away and stared at
Cookie with these huge blue eyes. The young woman probably felt the world on
her shoulders right now. Cookie knew she felt that way right now. This girl
loved the President of The Brothers of Menace. That much was clear. It wasn’t
about knowing him her whole life. It was about a hell of a lot more than that.
“It’ll be okay,” Adrianna said. “It has to be okay.”
Cookie wrapped her arm around Callie’s shoulder, pulled her in tight, and tried
to give her the comfort she needed. Kink scanned the grounds almost
frantically, and when he stopped his gaze right on them, there was this relief
that could be clearly seen. Callie took off toward him, but she stopped when
she was a foot from all of the other guys. There was just too much going on
right now. With the yelling, action, and a lifeless Lucien in the guys’ arms,
everything seemed to happen slowly. But at the same time everything seemed to
be speeding up faster than she could even comprehend.
“Callie, I need you to wait over there while we get
Lucien taken care of, okay sweetheart?” Kink said in passing, and then he
looked at Cookie once more. There was this pain, this hardened expression, and
this violence that still covered his face.
Cookie went over to Callie, embraced her again, and
stared at the men as they took Lucien into the oversized garage. The sound of
an approaching car had her looking behind her and seeing a flashy looking SUV
pull to a stop behind the vans. The doctor, she assumed, took off toward the
garage with an oversized bag in hand.
“Come on, just in case they need us.” They both all
but ran toward the garage, and she yelled over her shoulder when she saw the
girls that had been inside of the house open the back door. “Stay inside, and
start making some breakfast for the guys.” She saw Kendra holding Dakota, and
was thankful he was in safe arms right now. Cookie let go of Callie and went
into the garage. They had Lucien up on a stainless steel table, and had
everything off of him.
Seeing a man as strong and powerful as
Lucien lying there naked and vulnerable, with a bullet hole in his leg, shook
Cookie to her core.
Blood seeped out of him and started to pool on the
table beneath him. Reality crashed into Cookie, and she pushed Callie away from
it all. Fortunately, the young girl didn’t object.
“I need everyone out except the nurse, and a few of
the guys that can help hand supplies to me,” the doctor yelled out, and all of
the men started coming toward her. Cookie moved out of their way, and when
Pierce grabbed her arm gently and steered her out as well, she glanced behind
her and saw that Kink and Malice had stayed behind.
“Come on, there isn’t anything for us to do in there
besides get in their way.”
She knew Pierce was right, but she didn’t want to
leave. She wanted to help, even if she didn’t know anything about this shit or
saving someone’s life. The guys didn’t go far though. They stayed over by the
back of the clubhouse, smoking and glancing at the garage. The sound of yet
another approaching car had Cookie glancing up from where she had buried her
head in Callie’s hair. A white van came right up to the garage, turned around,
and backed up toward the door. The young man she had seen briefly yesterday,
Malcolm she thought his name was, got out of the vehicle and moved toward the
so fast it seemed to happen within seconds. He started carrying medical
equipment, and even a cooler inside of the garage, and then it was back to
everyone waiting.
“This is fucked up, man,” Pierce said to no one in
particular.
“This is more than fucked up,” Tuck said and inhaled
from a joint he was smoking.
“What if he doesn’t make it—
”
The look Tuck gave Rock was enough to shut the man
up. “We aren’t even going to go there. He will make it, got it?”