Destiny was at my side in seconds, pulling me into her arms as Fabio came forward and cut free my wrists.
“Brad is going to kill him! How could we just let him drive away!” I screamed, and Destiny pulled me in even tighter.
“Houston’s going to be okay. He’ll be fine,” Destiny whispered to me but even I knew she didn’t believe it by the crack in her voice.
“Let’s get her up and out of here, we got to reach out and regroup. Plans have changed,” Fabio said.
“Josẽ take Houston’s bike. Fabio take mine. I’ll take Amelia back to the ranch in the BMW before we dispose of it,” Destiny ordered.
“I’m going with you! I know you two will call Tate and your fathers, uncles, whatever they are and you all will go in guns blazing and just pray to God Houston can dodge bullets while you take out Brad. I’m going with you to get him back!”
“Absolutely not! Houston cannot have you out there. We can’t worry about losing you again. There would be no point in getting him back if something happened to you in the meantime!” Fabio shouted at me. “I’ve about had it with stubborn ass women doing fool headed shit today! The both of you have let you anger override commonsense today! You do it just because you’re a damn Callaghan and I expect it out of you! And you, you’re just as equally insane as she is!
“You are both going to march your happy ass into that BMW no questions asked, and Destiny is going to drive it back to the ranch and God willing by the time she gets back this will be over with!”
Destiny stood up like she was about to tell her husband where to get off. She pretty much had the authority too, but instead she helped me up and we walked to the car and climbed in on our respective sides.
“What the hell was that?” I asked her.
“I have not a clue. Like he yells a lot at me, and tells me what to do a lot, but never where I actually believe he’s serious,” Destiny said as she put the car in gear and backed away from the bikes.
“What’s the actual plan for us then?”
“Back towards the ranch,” Destiny started.
“Your brother has been kidnapped do you think for one God damn second I’m going to sit around here and just wait any more than he did?”
“Less than five minutes up the road is a little turn off where we stashed your truck. We need to get it this BMW won’t make it where Brad is going I’m sure.”
“He could head back to the warehouse,” I started. “He left the cows in the truck there.”
“No, he can’t. Your Gramps, Tate and his crew, along with a Texas Ranger friend of ours hit the warehouse minutes after you and Brad left. We we’re able to trace his call when he was talking to Houston on the phone. We didn’t know if he had anyone else there, so we didn’t hit it while you were inside. Charlie is driving the truck back to the ranch and getting the cattle unloaded now.
“Alec and Eric have already started to set up roadblocks of our own on the main road. Houston is tougher than a normal man, he’ll stay whole until we can get him out of there.”
“He better,” I said staring out the window. “He just better.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Houston
Brad drove away from Amelia. Away from my family and back into the darkness the way he had come. Jokes on him if he thought he’d make it back to the old building he had stashed the cattle and Amelia in. Tate had closed in on it just after Brad had left. It was compromised.
The second the opportunity rose I was going to kill Brad even if I died doing so. The way Amelia looked, pistol ground into her skull. The sound of her screaming, begging me not to kill Felicity. I did what I had to do to get her safe because I loved her. And I finally told her that I loved her. What a worse time for it, while I was climbing into the truck that would drive me to the reaper.
But it wouldn’t matter if I died. Because Amelia, Half-Pint, my little Texas Tornado, she was safe. Destiny would get Amelia clear of this no matter how much she begged to be in the thick of it. My sister would keep Amelia safe, especially now.
Brad was speeding for the road we were on. He was only doing fifty but, on this road half ass paved path it felt like ninety. I didn’t come totally defenseless and Brad wasn’t smart enough in the game to give me a pat down for weapons. He was scared and nervous and making mistakes. He made his first big one taking Amelia and he was going to live to regret it.
For at least a few more minutes as his second mistake was taking me hostage. Felicity had tied me up well enough, but this bailing twine would not hold me, and neither would the handle I was tied too. I had my derringer in my boot, but it would be rough to get to it before Brad had the gun on me again.
Felicity was in the back seat too, and I had pissed her off royally. I watched her charge at Destiny, so I knew that she had plenty of spunk to her. I needed to wait for my moment and pray to go God I was faster.
Brad took a left down a field road when the lights from the warehouse came into view and he could see that it was no longer deserted. “Where are we going Brad!” Felicity asked. I glanced behind me and saw that she was petrified. Bitch better be.
“We’re getting out of here baby, don’t worry about it,” Brad answered her, but I knew the tone. Brad was losing what little resolve he had.
I noticed the small ditch on the left-hand side. If we could hit it just right, we should be able to crash the truck without killing ourselves in the process. Amelia’s face flinted through my head. I wanted to see her again, to kiss her again and whisper in her ear how much I loved her.
I made fists and yanked hard. The twine broke free and I threw my weight into Brad, gripping the wheel and driving them headfirst into the ditch.
The truck hit hard, bounced back and spun around to fling it in a one-eighty back around and slamming its rear end into the ditch as well pinning the passenger side against the dirt embankment. We had all jostled around in the crash leaving Brad and I landing in a tangled heap on the driver’s side.
In seconds we were wrestling around trying to fight. Brad pushed open the door from behind him and then gripped me in the best version of a choke hold he could.
I braced my feet against the passenger door and shoved off hard, slamming us both backwards and out of the truck on our backs. I landed on top of Brad and I rolled off hoping to grab for the derringer in my boot.
Brad was quicker though, he grabbed for his gun that had fallen to the floor board in the accident as I lined up a shot. We both fired simultaneously.
Brad’s bullet cut through my side and I knocked Brad back with a bullet to the right side of the chest that didn’t kill him.
My gun was a single shot and Brad’s could hold five more. I dropped my gun and charged ahead at Brad. Despite the burning in my side I crushed Brad into the truck and punched him in the face hard enough I felt the skin on my knuckles crack open. Brad’s gun dropped from his hand and I picked Brad up by the throat.
Lifting him off the ground I kept Brad trapped between my hand and the truck. Brad was turning purple, but I didn’t stop squeezing, I couldn’t stop squeezing. The man betrayed his own family, stole from his grandfather, took his cousin hostage by gun point.
Amelia.
She would never forgive me for this. For killing Brad. Her family; George, Eloise, they could never forgive me for killing their eldest grandchild no matter what he had done.
I stepped back and dropped Brad to the ground. Brad crumpled as he gasped for air. I shook my head and looked to the back of the truck. When we struck the ditch, Felicity had hit her head on the back window hard.
Blood splattered and ran down the window and I started to open the door to check on her when I heard the faint sound of Brad standing up and in the dark window I could see the reflection of Brad raising his arm…
I dropped to the ground as Brad pulled the trigger and the bullet struck the window shattering it. I rolled over and yanked Brad’s feet out from underneath him, sending the ranch foreman crashing into the ground. I pulled
myself to my knees and wrapped my arms around Brad’s neck.
I had tried not to kill him… for Amelia. But Brad wasn’t going to stop me from seeing her again.
In a fluid motion I twisted Brad’s neck into a contoured position. I felt the bones break, felt Brad’s body go limp, and I laid him slowly back on the ground.
Just a few minutes passed before lights shone in the distance. Bikes and four wheeled cages alike.
“Houston!” I heard Fabio’s voice call out.
“I’m fine!” I gasped from where I sat in the dirt next to Brad’s body. “Felicity is in the back… I don’t know if she made it.”
Alec, Eric, Scottie, Jay, Vat, and Tate were with Fabio as well as Travis Connelly. Alec reached a hand out to me and I gripped it tightly and Alec yanked me to his feet and into a hug.
“Amelia… she’s out of here?” I asked him.
“Destiny has her at the ranch.”
“Are you okay?” Tate asked. “God you’ve been shot!”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse… I’m sorry man. I … I backed away once. I didn’t think he would… try again,” I told Tate and my VP looked down at his cousin’s body.
“You got my sister back. There’s nothing to be sorry for, he did this to himself.”
Travis was on the phone calling in a chopper for Felicity, he looked to me and gave a small nod. We’d figure out the mess of paperwork this would be later.
“Houston!” I heard my name being called. Amelia? She was at the ranch? I saw Amelia push her way through the crowd of men who milled around, Destiny on her heels.
Tears streamed down her face. She looked exhausted, her hair was a mess, her clothes torn, dirt and dried blood caked to her skin. I had never seen anything more beautiful. “Oh, God!” she cried out as she ran to me and threw her arms around my neck.
My side burned where her body pressed into mine, but nothing could make me let her go. I felt her hot tears on my neck.
“I was so scared Houston. I was so damn scared. I never want to feel that way again.”
“You won’t baby I promise. You’re safe, he can’t hurt you,” I kissed her neck and her cheek before taking her face in my hands.
“That wasn’t why I was scared. I mean, I was a little. But not really. I knew you would come for me, even before you called. I knew Tate and Destiny would be looking for me. But I knew you would come back for me and I would be okay.”
“Then why were you scared?”
“Because he took you! Because I couldn’t just swoop in after you. Fabio wouldn’t let Destiny, or I come when they rode out after you. I could barely breathe… when I saw the truck… dammit Houston Callaghan I love you!”
“You should know better,” I told her with a small smile because it was the truth. We both knew better than to go off and fall in love.
“I do know better. That’s the problem.”
I wrapped her in my arms, in a single moment, all the bullshit of the day, it was over. The terror I felt when Amelia had been kidnapped, what I had done to Felicity or allowed to be done to her, what happened here, it was all gone. Amelia was in my arms, for however long it lasted, I was okay.
She stepped away and I groaned softly. Amelia looked to the blood that had sept through my shirt and onto my cut and now was on her. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s not that bad,” I flinched. I had worse in my life that was true, and I had a bullet still lodged inside me meaning I would have to go to the hospital. As much as I loathed the idea, I knew Amelia would not leave my side, so I could be okay with that.
“Let me get you out of here? Deal with the cops, with this all later?” she asked me with that worry crease on her forehead that only showed when she was in her deepest level of concern.
I nodded and kissed her forehead. “Let’s go.”
***
It had been a long night in the hospital. Minor surgery to dig out the bullet from my side. It was the only time that Amelia left me and during that time I had requested Destiny force her to get an examination as well. Half her face was swollen slightly from where Brad had struck her. When she tried denying anything was wrong, I cradled her face in my hands and she tried so hard not to flinch.
I had known that the sure-fire stubbornness that radiated through her would get me in trouble. Amelia hadn’t wanted me to know she was in pain. A large part of me wished she wouldn’t mask it, yet I knew she was right, I couldn’t handle it. Every time I looked at her and saw the bruises she sported on her face, pressed her busted lips to mine, and ran my fingers over the tender spots in her arms and the rope burns on her wrists, I was angry then elated.
Furious that Brad could do that to someone as precious as Amelia. The man was family! Nothing could irate me like seeing someone betray their family, it had happened so many times to us, and that wasn’t even blood.
Overjoyed at what I had done. I understood now, what I saw in Destiny last year. My sister and Drew had never seen eye to eye, but they had still been patch family. While I was sure it ate at her, as taking lives tend to do, I never saw her question what she had done. Never saw her openly expressed remorse or sorrow for it.
Now a year later I didn’t have to pretend to have empathy for the situation Destiny found herself in. While I wished Brad could have lived, could have lived so the Charlon and Lorbosh clan wouldn’t have to live through knowing how he died, knowing that I was the one who took his last breath from him, I would do it all again. I would never hesitate to get in that truck and taking Amelia’s spot, if I had to do it over I would aim truer with my shot and never turn my back on Brad. But if I had to, I would kill Brad a thousand times over if just to protect her. Half-Pint, my Texas Tornado.
The pain meds the nurses gave me weren’t the best, I knew my pain killers, but they had allowed me to eventually drift off to sleep. Amelia curled against me in the small hospital bed against the side that wasn’t wrapped up from the bullet hole.
As we lie there in bed, not talking, just simply being, my arms pulling her tight I had felt her tears on my chest as I stroked her hair until she fell asleep. She said she wasn’t crying for Brad, maybe she really was just wound up from the stress of the day.
The following morning the nurses took off my monitors and the doctor’s cleared me to go. Someone had delivered a change of clothes for me, so I dressed in the small bathroom with Amelia waiting impatiently outside the door. She offered a half dozen times to come in and help. But I wasn’t an invalid yet. I joked with her that the only time I wanted her to see me naked was when we were making love. She had blushed and threw my jeans at me.
It wasn’t a lie though. Despite everything, waking up with Amelia in my arms had given me the thought. She knew as much too. Hospital gowns leave little to the imagination. I wanted to have her one more time… even if it was in a hospital bathroom.
But alas, the badges showed up. Travis Connelly with his shiny star pined to his shirt and his pile of paperwork. The Ranger bitched and moaned that he had been up half the night filling out reports and that all I had left to do was give my statement.
Luckily enough, Amelia was escorted out of the hospital room to give hers as well. I didn’t want Amelia hearing what had happened between Brad and I and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hear what she had gone through either. With Brad dead there would be no one I could direct my anger at and I wouldn’t direct it at Destiny and Amelia. They did what they had to and ended up with the short straw. In the end count, both woman had handled their own.
Travis took the signed stack of papers and told me to send a bottle of whiskey to Jerrica Clayton in Illinois if I knew what was good for me. He then passed along word that Felicity they expected to make a full recovery in time to be locked up in prison for a lengthy list of charges.
Travis and I shook hands and the Ranger warned that I could still be needed and maybe it was best if I stayed out of trouble and in the country for a while. I wasn’t really planning on crossing the border when I left but w
ho knew where the wind would blow?
Finally, just after lunch we headed to the parking lot and after a brief fight we decided that Amelia would drive her own damn truck to her own damn house since I got my damn self shot.
When we pulled into the ranch yard I glanced over at Amelia. She was upbeat and smiling but as she gripped my hand I felt that she was a little unsure of it. If she knew what I was thinking she never let on.
Most everyone had dispersed first thing that morning. Speedy and Sticky took off with the BMW as payment for their time. Apparently lock up hadn’t convinced Sticky to get an entirely different trade. Josẽ had rented a truck and trailer to haul Tommy back to San Antonio where Tommy had himself a new place with a new girl for however long it lasted. My old business partner was still a month out from getting to ride again and the rest of the visiting patches left as well.
But the Sweetwater patches hovered. Charlie, Bryant, Vat, Jay, my family. Their eight bikes lined neatly up by the house with Tate’s off to the end.
Tate was staying on the ranch. It didn’t take as much convincing as I thought it would, not after all that happened. It would just be for a month or two. He needed to catch up with his family, help settle things back in, deal with Brad… with everything. Tate had been a good rancher, a good cattleman, maybe he would decide this was the life he wanted to live after all, maybe he would be a nomad who rode his bare minimal hours and did his own thing.
My family stared at me. They didn’t ask the questions they wanted the answers to, instead they just waited and watched. Waiting for me to make a decision, expecting to watch me make an ass out of myself doing so. Well, I wouldn’t make them wait long.
Amelia finally left me for a few moments when we arrived, and I headed towards the bunkhouse. My bike had been returned, it was parked in what had become its usual spot by the corner of the building. My saddle bags were already packed from before. My hardware, less the derringer in evidence lock up, would be safe in the roll that was strapped on the back.
Houston Callaghan: The Devil's Bastards MC Page 24
