“You fellas made the biggest mistake of your lives taking that patch on your back,” he hisses. “Don’t let Parrish fool you fucks into thinking this is a brotherhood, that this is your family, because it’s not. It ain’t nothing more than an excuse to call yourself an outlaw. I gave my life to this fucking club and what did I get in return?”
He shakes his head as he rises to his feet and stumbles. Deuce reaches out his hand but Pipe quickly brushes it away and straightens his stance, bending down to grab Oksana’s shoes.
“A dead wife, that’s what I got,” he rasps. “A wife who my brothers picked apart any chance they got. You all thought my marriage was a fucking joke, took your jabs whenever you could and now you want to offer me your condolences,” he yells.
His eyes fly back to me, narrowing as he snarls in disgust.
“You want to offer me some drugs thinking I’ll forget the sight of my wife’s head hanging off her neck?”
“That’s not what I meant,” I protest.
“Fuck you. Did I say you could talk?” he roars.
Biting the inside of my cheek, I let him continue on his tangent and take the brunt of his grief. It’s the least I can do for the faithless man before me, questioning his beliefs. None of us Knights have a strong pull to God, but we all have some kind of faith in our club. We believe in brotherhood and the beliefs that founded the Satan’s Knights. Right now I’m standing before a man who is losing the only religion he knows. I haven’t been around these men long, but I’ve seen their respect and loyalty to one another. I’ve seen them take jabs at Pipe’s marriage but never thought for a second it was in harm. I guess we all have our breaking points and being the butt of a joke takes a toll on everyone—even the badass motherfuckers you think can’t break.
“The man upstairs gives us one fucking life and what do we do? We piss it away for the sake of a patch and take an oath to be one percent of the motherfuckers who no one gives a shit about if they live or die. Today you cheated death, and tomorrow you’ll piss on that gift by throwing on that cut, thinking a piece of fucking leather defines you. You want to worship something, give your life some kind of fucking meaning then you find yourself a good woman. Parrish will think you found your heart, and maybe you will. I guarantee you, if you ever think for one second you can have both, you’ll lose your heart because Satan doesn’t let any of his soldiers keep theirs. If you got any smarts left in you, then do yourself a favor and run the fuck away from this hell.”
His grip tightens on the shoes and he glances between me and Deuce one final time before shoving both of us out of his way and walking away. Quickly, I turn around to walk after him but Deuce grabs the back of my cut.
“Just let him go, man,” he argues, pulling me back. “Nothing you say is going to make it better for him. You and I know better than anyone that sometimes a man just needs to wander alone for a bit so he can find himself.”
Yeah, I know all about it.
I know being a wanderer is the death of a man.
-Seven-
Celeste
Age: 26
Place: Brooklyn, New York
It was supposed to be an ordinary day. Like usual, I woke up twenty minutes late, spilled coffee down my shirt and raced around my apartment preparing for my twelve hour shift at the hospital. Of course, I hit every light on my way and by the time I got to the hospital I was twenty minutes late. I hurried to my locker, threw my scrubs on backward and cursed my alarm clock from here to kingdom come. It was my alarm clock’s fault I was late—it shouldn’t have come with a snooze button.
As if my day hadn’t already started off crappy, I learned I was scheduled to work the emergency room. Twelve hours in the emergency room was as close to torture as one could get. Especially with the ridiculous cases I would see—like the man who fell off his roof because he was spying on his neighbors, or the young girl who came in because her tampon went MIA in her vagina. My personal favorite was the wife who didn’t realize her husband was behind her when she was backing out of the driveway and ran him over. There was also the pill seeking junkies that filled the ER. The people who most likely sold the script on the street or threw themselves into oncoming traffic hoping a trip to the hospital would score them a fix.
Yeah, the ER sucked on a regular day, but there was nothing regular about today.
Today was a day full of senseless terror, a day that stole lives and ruined the ones left behind.
The days that change our lives never come with a warning—you never see the chaos coming until it implodes around you. Some people freeze, some pray, and some close their eyes until it’s all over. A nurse doesn’t do that. A nurse forgets her fear as her body switches into autopilot and assists the doctors, making sure every patient gets the care they deserve.
A nurse doesn’t have a full blown panic attack in the emergency room when a bomb goes off twelve blocks away from her job.
I hadn’t had the chance to take the vitals on my first patient before the call came in that the tremble we felt minutes ago wasn’t a fluke thing, but in fact a bomb. Since 9/11 there is a protocol the hospital follows in situations like this. As bits and pieces of information come through, we immediately rush around preparing for the victims.
The victims were the wedding guests of Jack Parrish and his bride. Jack Parrish was the name of a man most people knew from the news. Being the president of the Satan’s Knights motorcycle club and a close ally to the notorious gangster, Victor Pastore, kept Parrish front and center in the headlines.
Victor also happened to be my cousin Gina’s uncle, and while our side of the family didn’t have much to do with the gangster, I, like the rest of the tristate area, knew how dangerous he was. Everyone knew that anything or anyone associated with him didn’t stand a chance. The Satan’s Knights were no exception. The news was already reporting that the attack on their clubhouse had resulted from either a rival motorcycle club or one of Vic’s enemies avenging the murder he committed while in prison. It wasn’t a far-fetched notion considering Vic’s family was at the wedding and his daughters were the first victims to be brought into the ER.
Immediately I thought to call my cousin to let her know the status of her cousins Adrianna and Nikki. Until I caught my first glimpse of leather, it didn’t dawn upon me she was also probably worried about the guy she was sort of dating, Stryker—the biker she dubbed the king of orgasms. Well, maybe not dating. I was about to sneak away and call her but I was quickly pulled in ten different directions by doctors and patients.
One resident ordered me to grab the victims with minimal injuries and bring them to triage where I could clean and stitch their wounds. My eyes scanned the packed waiting room and I made my way to the first leather cut I spotted—not caring who it was, only hoping I could help.
“Sir, we need to bring you into triage…”
My words fade as I reach for him and he quickly brushes my hand away, spinning around and piercing me with a glare. I stare back at Stryker for a moment before I rake my eyes over him, checking for obvious injuries.
“I know you,” he says, breaking the awkward silence. “You’re the blonde from the other night.”
A few nights ago, I reluctantly let my cousin drag me out of the house. She was feeling down because the dope standing in front of me had basically slept with her once and had forgotten all about her. We wound up at the Crazy Taco, a Staten Island restaurant that made killer margaritas. My slick cousin never mentioned it was a place Stryker and his buddies frequented. It became all sorts of awkward when she tried to hide from him as we chowed down on tacos and guacamole. Lucky for me, the hospital called me in and the night was cut short before I could formally be introduced to the orgasm king himself.
Regardless of his situation with my cousin, he’s my patient, and staring back at him it was easy to detect he was experiencing repercussions from the explosion.
“My name is Celeste,” I tell him softly. “I’m a nurse here and Gina’s my cousin,” I add,
hoping that comforts him on some level because it was obvious he would be a rough one to treat.
He stares at me blankly and I take that as my cue to nudge him toward one of the exam rooms. He doesn’t budge, crossing his arms against his chest as he stares back at me defiantly.
“I’m fine,” he states.
I bite the inside of my cheek and curse my cousin’s taste in hard-headed men.
“You were in an explosion,” I remind the dope.
“Thanks for the concern but it ain’t my first taste of terror, sweetheart,” he replies.
Before I can argue with him, I turn my attention toward the doors behind him and drop the tablet I’m holding.
It couldn’t be.
Not again.
The universe isn’t that cruel, is it?
I blink rapidly and stare at the man I walked away from two years ago—got my answer.
Yes, the universe is cruel. She is actually a vicious bitch.
Jagger stands behind Stryker, wearing an identical leather vest and the same somber expression as everyone else who was a member of the Satan’s Knights. Covered in blood, holding a pair of women’s shoes, the man that broke my heart twice stares back at me. He doesn’t stare at me long because a moment later the doors behind him open and all eyes shift to the black body bag rolling through them.
Everything spirals downward from there as I watch the man following the bag break down and flee the emergency room. Jagger doesn’t give me a second glance as he turns around and walks after the distraught man. For a moment, I’m not sure if this is another nightmare or just fate twisting the knife in my back.
I lose it after that.
I don’t know if it is the magnitude of terror or being face to face with the man I kept losing, but something breaks inside of me and I fall to pieces. I disappear into a supply closet and cry. I call my cousin in hysterics, ramble about the bomb and all the people that are hurt, leaving out the part about seeing Jagger again.
No one knows the truth.
They know about the young love we shared—the love marred by violence. No one knows that two years ago fate brought us together and ripped us apart again.
It took me a while to get myself together, for the shock to finally wear off before I force myself to do my job. My twelve hour shift turns into eighteen and I’m fucking exhausted when the sun rises, signaling the dawn of a new day.
I didn’t have much of a break and my responsibilities kept sleep at a minimum. Ten hours later I was back at the hospital, working another grueling shift. However, today I was scheduled to work ICU instead of the ER. A lot of my patients were victims of the blast that had been admitted. Most were held twenty-four hours for observation and released this morning, but there was one recovering from a massive heart attack and another that would be a patient here for a long time.
The patient’s name was Lincoln Brandt. He was in ICU after having one of several back surgeries needed for him to walk again. To add insult to injury, he also broke both his legs and was in a medically induced coma. A yawn escapes me as I swipe my finger across the tablet to bring up his chart. Lifting my eyes, I find Jagger sitting beside the patient, eyes glued to me.
“It’s really you,” I whisper.
He isn’t wearing the bloodstained clothes anymore, trading them for a t-shirt and jeans. He pairs the clean clothes with the leather vest from earlier, the vest naming him a patched member of the Satan’s Knights. Other than the change of clothes, I noticed there are more tattoos decorating his skin—a lot more than there were two years ago. The man who wore a crisp suit the last time I saw him now wore leather just as well as he wore silk.
He silently assesses me the same way I do him and I tear my eyes away. It is bad enough I have to feel the way he looks at me. I don’t need to watch him unravel me with his gaze too.
“I thought it was you, but…” I whisper, turning my attention to the patient’s chart, “…all the tattoos,” I continue, waving my hand in the air, trying to make myself appear as if I’m immune to his presence.
Ignoring the goosebumps peppering my skin, I check the patient’s IV line and take a reading on his heart.
“It’s been a long time, Cel,” he says softly.
I snap my eyes back to him and cock my head to the side as I ponder why it doesn’t feel that way. Maybe it’s because no matter how many years pass, whether it's six or two, every time my eyes lock with his my heart still beats faster. It’s that first glance when time stands still and he’s just my Jagger.
“It doesn’t seem that long, Jagger,” I admit thoughtfully.
“Cobra,” he corrects. “My name is Cobra now,” he reminds me, pointing his long, tattooed finger to the scrap of material sewn into the front of his vest that identifies him.
I avert my eyes from the patch, to the long line of his neck where he has an hourglass tattooed, reminding me of the differences between Jagger and this Cobra character he has become. I nod my head sadly as my gaze settles on his blue eyes.
He isn’t mine.
And two years is a damn long time.
Long enough to learn there is more to life than mourned relationships.
There’s more to me than just him.
My pager vibrates against the waistband of my scrubs, tearing me away from the sad reality. I turn back to him and tip my chin slightly.
“I’ve got to go,” I say, glancing back at the helpless patient. “I hope your friend recovers quickly.”
“Thank you,” he rasps.
I don’t give him a second look as I turn and hurry out of the room, brushing past another visitor. I don’t lift my head, mumbling my apologies before jetting away from Jagger, I mean Cobra. I place the tablet down on the nurse’s station and look at one of my co-workers.
“I’m taking my break now, can you cover my patients?”
“Sure, go ahead,” she says, taking my tablet as I pull off my name badge, lean over the counter and drop it in one of the drawers. I step around the counter, slam my palm against the button that opens the doors to the unit and stride toward the bank of elevators.
I often thought about what would happen if I ever saw him again, mainly how he’d react. I wondered if he’d take one look at me and know my secret. That should have scared me but for some reason it didn’t. I’ve changed a lot in the last two years—things I used to stress over are not important anymore. My broken heart is not all there is in this world; the guilt I used to carry is not what defines me. I have a purpose. I have something that mends my heart every day I wake.
I have more than just a memory.
I step off the elevator, head straight for the glass windows and smile widely when I spot the person that saved me—the person that continues to save me every single day.
Blue eyes.
Blonde hair.
A little of him.
A little of me.
I have my beautiful daughter.
-Eight-
Cobra
“Rise and shine, motherfucker!”
Recognizing the thick drawl of Deuce’s voice, I bury my face into my pillow and growl. I should never have let him take charge of our temporary living situation. The bastard now has a key to my motel room and thinks he’s back on the farm, rising early like the fucking roosters he used to play with as a kid.
“Come on, get up,” he orders, drawing the blinds open to the lone dirty window in my room. “Jesus, fuck,” he hisses.
I lift my head from the pillow and watch him place his hands on his hips, staring back at the dirt and grime.
“We gotta get the fuck out of here,” he says. The south leaves his voice and there is a little New York laced in his raspy tone. It’s what happens when you decide to stick. You start to lose where you’re from and pick up on where you are.
“We ain’t got nowhere to go,” I remind him, sitting up as I stretch my arms over my head and roll my neck from side to side. Since we took the Brooklyn patch, the four of us; him, me, Stryker and Linc, all l
ived at the clubhouse. The Dog Pound was like the Ritz-fucking-Carlton to guys like us. We each took a room and never bothered to look for more. Having a room in one place, running water, my own bed and a private shower was more than I’ve had in the last three years. Sadly now our home was a fucking crime scene, well whatever was fucking left of it.
“Yeah, which is why you need to get your ass up. Blackie dropped by about an hour ago, with news,” he says, tearing his gaze from the dirty window.
Blackie was the vice president of our club and now our acting president. With Jack’s hearing temporarily gone and his wife on bed rest until her due date, he was out of commission—something the Bulldog wasn’t too happy about. Say what you want about Jack Parrish, but he’s a loyal motherfucker. It’s killing him that he has to sit on the sidelines while his club sits in ruins.
After the blast, Jack and Reina were admitted. Blackie was discharged and immediately went to work on uncovering who was responsible for fucking with us. We all knew who the man with the bomb was. Once upon a time the fucker’s douche of a son tried to rape Jack’s daughter, who also happens to be Blackie’s woman. The stupid prick got his skull bashed in and Blackie wound up doing a short bid at Rikers.
Anyway, Jack made a deal with the father, kept both him and his son breathing by sending him to collect information from the Corrupt Bastards. The Bastards were a rival club, ran by a weasel that went by the name of Charlie Teardrops. We had beef with the Bastards, the same group of assholes who pushed drugs for the G-Man, the gangbanger Victor Pastore killed in the cafeteria of a federal prison.
It was no wonder why Wolf brought us here, they were in over their heads and the hole just kept getting deeper.
Deuce walks over to the small table in the middle of the room, grabs a bag and throws it onto the bed.
“Compliments of Blackie,” he says, tipping his chin.
I open the bag and pull out a prepaid cell phone, toiletries and fresh clothes.
The Nomad Series-Collectors Edition Page 36
