His One Regret: Sons Of Lost Souls MC Book Four

by Hunter, Ellie R.

  His reply comes fast. “No. By the time we arrived, she was gone and JJ’s now losing his head.”

  I’m not surprised, but I did hope she would change her mind and stay. It’s a strange feeling, but as my body relaxes knowing we have Ellis, it soon tenses again knowing the search for Harper goes on.

  “We’re going to need the Doc, he’s bleeding faster than a running tap.”

  “I don’t care what happens, keep him alive, Sparky, and get your asses back here.”

  I hang up and squeeze the phone in my hand. I find Harper’s last message and shoot off a quick text.

  ‘We’ve got him, please call and I’ll have someone come and get you.’

  Then I call the doc, he answers on the third ring and promises to be here before his patient arrives.

  I turn around, sliding the phone in my cut pocket and Slade still hasn’t moved. Crossing the bar, I lean one hand the table in front of him and one hand on the back of his chair, I crouch down and wait for him to look at me.

  “Sparky has Ellis, he’ll be here within the hour, brother.”

  “What about Harper?”

  Over my shoulder, Lily hangs around like a bad fucking smell and I sigh, pulling myself back up to full height.

  Shaking my head, I say, “She wasn’t there. She says she can’t come back.”

  I walk around her, not interested in having a conversation with her and go and wait outside.

  I’ve taken great pleasure in killing our enemies before and this will be no different, in fact, I will take greater pleasure in ending Ellis’s life. I soak in the heat as I plan my next move. JJ is going to want to go straight out and search for Harper, the brothers are going to want blood flowing thick and fast caused by their hands when it comes to Ellis, and we have many Crows to hunt down before they regroup and fix their foundations. One thing I know for sure is my club can move forward, taking small steps, because that’s what we do in a time like this. I hear them approaching before Sparky rides through the gates, followed by our brothers and a van driven by the prospect. I’m on my feet and heading straight for him before he comes to a full stop.

  I slide the side door open and there he is, the cunt who has destroyed my family. Someone’s belt is tied tightly around his thigh and his jeans are soaked with blood. His lip is bleeding and he has a nice shiner on his right cheekbone. I don’t care what condition he comes in, as long he’s alive.

  “Alright, motherfucker. I’m very happy to see you.”

  Leo

  Bang. Echo. Bang. Echo. Over and over, she’s there and then she’s not. I thought I could drink my way through the pain, cheat it in some way. Now I know it’s all a lie, all it has done is trap me deeper in the grief. I’m better off staying in this room. She’s all over the cabin, her perfume, her things, our memories, she’s at the club, she’s everywhere but here.

  I tip the bottle to my mouth and nothing comes out. Not surprised, I’ve been drinking faster than a dehydrated dog on a hot summer’s day. The bottle clangs to the carpet as I struggle to my feet and grab the smokes from the bed. I reach for the light and sit by the window. I don’t know what’s worse, being out here in the middle of nowhere not hearing a thing, especially other people going on about India, or being alone with all the shit running through my head in the silence. Turns out, I don’t need to dwell on it. There’s no knock before the door is thrown open and I look up to see Zachery bouncing through, too damn happy with himself for our current situation.

  “We’ve got him,” he declares.

  Three simple words and everything stops.

  Everything.

  Tossing my smoke out the window, I lean over the bed to grab my cut and end up falling on my face. My bruised cheek screams at me and I push it to the side.

  “You need to sober the fuck up; everyone is waiting on me to collect you.”

  “How?”

  His brows knit together in confusion and I roll my eyes.

  “Where did they find him?”

  I can’t imagine he would give himself up. The fucker loves himself too much.

  “Harper called your dad, she stabbed him and then tied his wrists to the radiator pipes and then cranked the heating up so when he moved too much, he got burned.”

  “She stabbed him?” I’ve thought it before, that girl is far stronger then she gives herself credit. She’s a survivor and a fighter. “How is she?”

  He shrugs his shoulders and pulls me up to my feet. I wobble but keep myself up, my head clears with every second that passes.

  “No one knows, she ran before any of us got there. She let your dad know where he was and did one.”

  That doesn’t make sense. She came to the club with me to help, she did it so we could be free of him. If the club has him, she’s now free, we all are.

  “Why would she run?”

  “I have no idea, Leo. Get your ass out this room, splash some water on your face and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  As soon as he’s gone, I listen out for the coffee machine and dash to the bathroom. Running the cold water, I fill the basin and plunge my face under the water. I need more than a splash, I need a healthy dose of wake the fuck up now.

  I’m going to rip him limb from fucking limb with my bare hands. There isn’t enough hours in the day for me to run through everything I’m going to do to him. Drying my face, I dash the towel in the laundry basket and jog down the stairs. Half a mug of black coffee waits for me and I sink it back, relishing the burn down my throat and into my chest.

  Zach stands by the back door, puffing a normal cigarette -something I’ve never seen him do- and stares out into the yard.

  The dripping of the coffee machine is the only noise in the room while he waits for me.

  “Why aren’t you beating my ass? You fought me and fucked my bike over when you found out I was with Indie, but not when I get her killed?”

  He lets out a heavy breath and continues to stare out into the yard. He doesn’t look at me, I’m not sure if it’s because he can’t or won’t.

  “I was there, Leo. How the fuck was you supposed to free yourself of three guys holding you down? Your ego is the size of the town, but you aren’t no superman.”

  “And they’ve really got him?”

  He nods but no joy covers his face anymore.

  “Come on, we should get going. He might even be dead if your dad didn’t the Doc there in time.”

  “Harper really stabbed him?” I keep asking him because I don’t believe it, well, I do believe it, she just keeps surprising me and does nothing what I expect her to do.

  Nodding, he flicks his cigarette into the yard and closes the door behind him, locking up.

  “When did the prospects leave?” I ask, as we walk out the front.

  Only our bikes are here. The rest are gone.

  “They left when I got here.”

  We ride side by side the entire way to the club and the prospect rolls the gates open when he sees us approaching. Over sixty bikes are parked up, but I don’t see one brother lingering around outside. With Zach close behind me, we step inside, and the place is crammed with bodies. The only one I don’t see is Ellis.

  “Where is he?” I yell and Ricky turns jerking his chin towards the back of the bar. “Being patched up, Harper done a good job on him. We’re lucky we found him alive.”

  Lucky? I snort. He’s like a cockroach, hard to kill and always there somewhere. Only, now he’s here, he will be exterminated. Pushing through my brothers, I look around for my dad and he’s with Sparky, sitting in his office.

  Their heads are bent together, and dad is pissed but his face is relaxed. I rap my knuckles on the open door and his relaxed manner falls. He takes in the bruise above my cheek, and his eyes roam from my boots to my head, ending on the bruise.

  “You’re looking healthier, minus the eye.” There are no apologies from him, not that I need one. Only a thread of guilt dancing around him. He shouldn’t feel bad, he witnessed me lose my mind, and
while I’m struggling to deal right now, death wasn’t the answer.

  “I’m here to kill him, that’s it.” I can’t think further then him taking his last breath.

  Dad nods and Sparky keeps out of it. I head back to my brothers and sit at the bar, ignoring the wet stain on the floor. I breathe through my mouth so I don’t have to smell the bleach in the air.

  “Whiskey, double,” I order and make no eye contact with anyone. The drink appears in front of me and before I can put the glass to my lips, I hear, “Go to your daughter, Leo. Just until you’re needed.”

  I can do without my mom in my ear right now.

  “She’s fine with Kristen.”

  “Kristen’s not fine, and Rayna is yours.”

  She means she’s ours.

  “I’m well aware, mother. Leave me be.”

  I shrug away her hand from my arm and turn my back on her. My daughter is with her grandmother, she’s fine for the moment. She doesn’t need to be around me with my whiskey breath and free-falling tears. I sink back three drinks before my dad is stepping out of his office and moving to stand beside me.

  The prospect pours me another shot as my dad enters the bar and gets everyone’s attention. They all fall silent for their president and chairs scrape against the floor as they turn to face him.

  “Brothers,” he says, and I hate that I know what he’s going to say. “Although we have the asshole who has brought much pain to our club, it does fuck all to bring back what he took from us. Some of you saw what went down, not only did we lose India, he took a prospect from us too. We all want our piece of him and we’re all going to get it. We will keep him alive for as long as we can, opening him up and stitching him back together. We’re going to take every drop of his blood before we’re done with him, I promise you that.”

  The usual speech of violence bores me. We should be down in the basement now, ending his life. I want him to suffer but every breath, whether taken in pain or not, is a breath more than India has the privilege of taking. He doesn’t deserve the torture my father seeks, he deserves nothing.

  “India is going to be missed sorely and like the others that have been taken from us, we will never forget her. We will keep her with us, always.”

  This is too fucking much. I slide off the stool and wait for my dad to call me back when I head for the stairs down to the basement, but he doesn’t. Every step down, my heart thumps in rhythm with my boots hitting the stone steps. A prospect jumps up from his chair as he guards the door and opens it for me. The Doc is packing his shit away and doesn’t look twice at me as he walks by and up the stairs before the prospect closes me in with the man who took my fiancé and Slade standing over him.

  Ellis is out for the count on whatever the Doc must’ve gave him, and Slade stands there, never taking his eyes off him, not even to watch me walk over and stand opposite him.

  His leg has been cleaned up and dressed in bandages, his jeans long gone and in a pile of cut up scraps on the floor. He isn’t a big guy, slender but fit. His hands that he put on my girl are stained with his blood and the splashes on his face has me wondering if he still wears her blood or if he washed wherever he went with Harper?

  My mind is scrambling with wanting to wrap my hands around his neck and taking him out now, him never even knowing he died. But then, he should see his death coming, like he made India see her death come. For a split second right at the end, before he…he pulled the trigger, she stood still, the pools of water in her eyes dried and a strength I’ve never seen on anyone before came over her and during that moment, I was split between not believing he would pull the trigger and completely believing she had an angel waiting for her, whispering in her ear that everything was going to be okay. Why else would her tears dry in a moment like that?

  “She was my daughter, if I took him out now, no one could question me,” Slade murmurs, his voice scratchy from not talking for so long. “But I can’t bring myself to touch him. I want to see the look in his eyes when he breaks, and I really want to fucking break him.”

  He returns to his silent watch over his daughter’s killer and I join him. I want to be here when the fucker opens his eyes.

  Cas

  The club is too quiet for the amount of brothers, women, and even having a baby around the place. Leo and Slade haven’t left the basement, suffering from the fear of him disappearing if they take their eyes away from Ellis.

  It takes me back to when we had Danny down there all those years ago. Holding him down there for days to savour the moment he took his last breath. It was enough for some brothers and nowhere near enough for others. When the pain of Oak’s death was fresh, Danny’s death couldn’t fill the hole Oak’s death had caused. Over the years, the pain has eased but I still miss his advice and his loyalty something bad. If he were here now, I’d lap up his presence and the way he could ease a room of tension just by walking in.

  The door opens and my wife walks in holding a manila envelope in her hands. Her hair falls sleekly past her shoulders and it occurs to me I’ve only seen her with her tied up a hand full of times. She prefers it free, like her, and just how I prefer.

  She sits opposite me and asks, “How are you feeling?” I came into my office to grab a five minute breather, my old lady is the only one right now I don’t mind interrupting me.

  “I’m feeling real good,” I say, and for the first time in a while I’m not lying. I feel like the old Cas, strong and able.

  “You’ve got more colour in your cheeks.”

  Great, at least I’m not looking like death today.

  “What you got there?” I ask, jerking my chin at the envelope still clutched in her hands. She looks down at it as if she had forgotten she had it on her.

  “Oh,” she murmurs, sliding it across my desk. “It’s for you.”

  Inside, one single sheet slides out and I know immediately what it is.

  India’s death certificate. Her fake one that we pay handsomely to be real. I read every word, my gut sinking with the lies.

  It’s different to all the others we’ve had to pay for over the years. Brothers know the life, they don’t really expect to reach old age and understand we have to do what we must to hide the real cause of death. India’s should read, natural causes.

  “How many car accidents have we had over the years?”

  “Too many.”

  Too many in-fucking-deed. My chest bursts with a shock of anger and I shove the piece of paper back inside the envelope.

  “She’s our granddaughter’s mother!” I bellow.

  “Cas! Calm down.”

  “Killing Ellis only takes the threat away, it isn’t going to fix our son.”

  Just like it didn’t fix shit after Oak died. Who was I fucking kidding? It’s been over twenty years since he came home with a bullet hole in his head and his stomach and it’s like it only happened last year.

  “Our son doesn’t need fixing, Cas, he’s irreversibly changed.”

  God, if he truly exists, knows how much I love my wife. I love her too fucking much. But, occasionally, her coldness reminds me she’s been surrounded by cold hearted brothers wearing the patch longer than I have, she’s been covered in death her whole life. Sometimes I think she’s been wrapped around me too long, then I remember who she is and why I fell in love with her.

  We both look at the door when we hear a crash come from the bar. I’m the first to rise from my chair and she follows suit and I take a deep breath and again, for the first time in a while, it doesn’t hurt.

  We round the corner as another crash fills our ears. JJ swings his arm back, his hand gripping onto a liquor bottle.

  “Put it down.”

  My presence makes him angrier. “Don’t you care she’s out there? Some fucking dad you are.”

  Rolling my neck, sick or not, I step up to the man who I’ve seen grow from a baby and stand right in his face.

  “How fucking dare you presume to know what I care about.”

  “I don
’t see you doing anything.”

  “Because you’re too wrapped up in your own worry and anger to see anything.”

  His shoulders sag in defeat and before he steps away, I latch onto his cut and pull him towards me, hard.

  “She wears your ring, but she has my blood running through her. I have many years to make up for, you should know me better than to think I’d miss out again.”

  Releasing him, I give him a little push as I let him go.

  “When it comes to Harper, shit between you and me is family, it’s personal. I’m going to be harder on you as my son-in-law than as your president, so stop throwing your weight around and go look for her.”

  It feels so fucking good to holler, like a baby crying, clearing their lungs for the first time.

  “Are you still here?” I roar as Zachery walks in.

  His hand is tightly wrapped around his old lady’s and she stays close to him when they come to a stop near the bar.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” JJ yells at him.

  Zachery frowns and looks over his shoulder to make sure JJ is talking to him. I catch Sparky’s eye and nod. He gets the hint and steps closer to his son. He rests his hand on the back of JJ’s neck and pulls him back. JJ allows him some room and then he bounces back with as much as anger as he just had for me.

  “Why haven’t you tracked her down yet?”

  “My fucking sister just died, asshole.”

  “Harper’s your cousin,” he yells back and then looks at me. “Order him to track her down, he knows how to do the shit Slade does.”

  Roaming from JJ to Zachery, I sigh and step between them.

  “JJ, go and get some air. Zachery has lost his sister, I’m not asking him to do shit right this minute.”

  Shaking his head, he shrugs out of Sparky’s grip and storms outside. The twins are quick to follow him and that doesn’t leave me with a good feeling.

  “The next brother who lays a hand on another brother will face consequences they won’t want to fucking face, you all hear me?”

  Heads nod and ayes float around me as I stand in the middle of everyone. Facing the prospect, I swing my hand out. “Clear this mess up.”