by Brook Wilder
“Just stay with her,” I told the lawyer. “Until you know who is getting her.”
I wasn’t about to tell him what I knew, but I did know that he would protect her with his life. We all would, no matter how annoying she got.
“Thank you, Zack,” Harley said again as I walked out of the room.
I found Sydney in the hall. She dangled the keys in front of her and I took them.
“You are going to let me drive?”
She smirked.
“Don’t get used to it. I don’t know where I am going.”
I gave her a wink as we walked to the front desk, where I got my things in a clear plastic bag. Reaching in, I pulled out my cell phone and Glock, tucking it in my waistband as we walked outside. Almost immediately, my phone vibrated in my hand.
“Yeah,” I said, holding it up to my ear.
“Cartel is on the move,” Grayson said into my ear. “I think they are heading to the Travis house. Word is out that Harley has been rescued.”
“Shit,” I swore as Grayson hung up.
“What?” Sydney asked as she led me to the car.
“That was Grayson,” I answered her, opening the door on the borrowed car. “Cartel is on the move.”
Sydney climbed in to the passenger seat, and I cranked up the car.
“What if he’s lying?”
I looked over at her, raising an eyebrow.
“You think he’s the kidnapper?”
“Gray hair, right-hand man, it all fits,” she answered as she buckled up. “Think about it. Who sent us to the informant? Who is sending us on this mission? What if it’s Grayson that wants the club?”
I didn’t answer her as I pulled out of the parking spot, pointing the car toward the Travis home. She did have a point. But Grayson? He knew everything about the club, about the brotherhood and his president. Grant included him in everything he did. Surely, he hadn’t faked a turf war just to get the cartel and DHMC fighting so that he could rise to the top. That would take some balls and a shit-load of planning.
“You are thinking about it,” Sydney said quietly as I turned down the street.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I muttered.
“The whole thing hasn’t made any sense,” Sydney added, reaching for her phone. “I’m going to call for backup.”
“Tell them not to arrest me this time,” I growled reaching for my own phone and dialing the clubhouse.
There was no answer, only a recording that the line was busy and could not be reached.
“I can’t reach the house.”
“Backup is on its way,” Sydney replied, throwing her phone on the dash. “What if it’s Grayson? What will you do?”
I gripped the steering wheel, dodging a car in front of me.
“Then I will kill the son of a bitch.”
Inside I hoped it was not him. Grant would be heartbroken, and the club would begin to worry if anyone could be trusted. A traitor in the midst usually meant more than one traitor was there.
Turning down the next street, I slammed on the brakes as I saw the blockade in the middle of the road.
“Get down!” I shouted at Sydney, reaching for my gun.
Sydney ducked as a spray of bullets hit the car. I threw the car in reverse, firing a few rounds out the window before pushing the car away from the danger. The car careened wildly before I crashed it into a fence, the airbags deploying a second later.
Sydney coughed and fought her bag as I opened the door, using it as a shield as the gunfire got closer. Shit. We were trapped. We could run, but I didn’t know how far we would get before they hunted us down.
I had to get Sydney out of here.
“Zack!” she shouted from the other side of the car, the bullets pinging the front of the car. “We have to get out of here!”
“I’m thinking!” I shouted back, firing a few rounds in the direction of the gunfire. There were a few houses on this road, some that would provide ample coverage while we waited for someone to show up.
“You see those houses to your right?”
“Yes!” she shouted back, firing off a few rounds. “Are we going for cover?”
“Unless you have a better plan! On the count of three!”
I fired a few more rounds before looking over at Sydney.
“One, Two, Three!”
She took off as I rounded the back of the car, firing over the top and striking one of the cartel members that were firing back. He fell back with a yelp, and I took off, the spray of bullets following closely behind.
Hell, if we didn’t get any help soon we would be sitting ducks.
I reached the corner of the first house, catching up with a wide-eyed Sydney, who had her back pressed against the cool stone.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said with a grim smile. “You?”
“No holes,” I joked, checking my bullet count.
I had no back-up ammo on me and I doubted Sydney had any either.
That, and she wasn’t wearing a vest today.
“Tell me you have a plan.”
“N-no,” Sydney replied. “I don’t have a plan other than hope that they run out of bullets first. Where is the backup?”
That I was wondering myself. A bullet pinged off the brick beside my head, and I peeped around the corner, killing another gringo that had gotten too close. We weren’t going to die here today.
Looking over at Sydney, I drank her in before reaching for her.
“You go on, run. I will hold them off.”
She looked at me, horrified.
“What? No. We don’t leave each other this time. We are both in this together.”
“Syd,” I swallowed. “You have to go.”
“No,” she said firmly, shrugging off my touch. “It’s either the both of us or nothing at all, Zack.”
I stared at her as she returned some fire, her gun flashing to rapid succession of shots. What had I done in my miserable life right to deserve someone like her?
Turning my attention back to the threat, I counted the bullets in my head, carefully firing off rounds that would hit their mark. Once the bullets ran out, I would force Sydney to run. I couldn’t allow her to die out here today.
Me, I would go willingly, as long as I knew she was safe.
A dull roar filled the air and I laughed as the multitude of bikes tore down the road, all scrambling for cover as the groups of cartels resumed their fire.
“It’s the backup.”
“The club,” Sydney breathed, lowering her gun. “They are here.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Sydney
We weren’t going to die after all.
I checked the bullets in my gun once more, noting the very few I had left. Below us, the sound of gunfire filled the air as the turf war raged on. I watched in amazement as the bikers hid expertly in the spaces they could find as the cartel fired on them, much like the maneuvers we used in the police academy. The club seemed not as prepared for what they were walking into and I bit my lip.
They were going to get slaughtered.
“I have to go help,” Zack said suddenly, looking at me. “Cover me.”
“Zack, no,” I begged, grabbing his arm. “You will get killed.”
“I have to try,” he said, touching my cheek. “I love you. Dammit Syd, I do.”
My breath stuttered in my chest. He couldn’t say something like that and then go charging down there into the fray.
“Please don’t go.”
He gave me a dead stare, so many emotions crossing his face.
“Stay here.”
“Zack!” I yelled as he took off toward his brotherhood. I fired a few rounds toward the melee, sobs tearing at my throat as I watched him. I could not lose him now.
Not when I had finally found him.
Suddenly, he went down, and I nearly lost it, tearing out of my hiding place toward him, my heart in my throat. No. I couldn’t lose him. This could not be happening.
Sirens blazed in the distance, and I knew it was my own backup coming, but I didn’t care. Dodging the bullets, I reached his side, a sob escaping me as I saw the spread of blood on his chest. Oh God, he had been shot!
“Zack!” I yelled, shaking him. “Dear God, open your eyes!”
His eyes fluttered, but I could see the pain reflecting in them, the rapidly growing paleness of his face. This was bad.
“Is he hit?”
I looked up to see a biker I didn’t recognize at my side, ducking as a bullet whizzed by.
“Help me.”
He nodded and grabbed Zack by the arm, slinging him over his shoulder.
“Let’s go.”
We tore across the grassy field toward a truck, moving farther away from the gunfire. My blood was pumping throughout my body as the biker laid Zack in the back of the truck, jumping in.
“Drive.”
I took one look at Zack’s pale face, the blood coating his body and jumped in the driver seat, grateful to find the keys in the ignition. Likely they had fled at the sound of the gunfire.
Turning over the engine, I tore down the road, past the gunfight and to the highway, tears streaking my face. I couldn’t lose him now.
It wasn’t fair. There was so much I had to tell him, so much that we owed each other.
***
Hours later, I sat in the intensive care room with Zack, holding his cold hand in my own. He was hooked up to all kinds of tubes and lines, a breathing machine keeping him breathing while the heart monitor beeped out a rhythm. Zack looked nothing like the tough biker I knew him to be, his entire chest wrapped in white bandages, his skin waxy pale. I had cried enough in the last four hours to fill a damn lake, and even now I felt the tears leak from my eyes, dripping down my cheeks and onto the borrowed scrubs that had been given to me. My clothing was in a bag on the floor, soaked with Zack’s blood.
I still couldn’t believe what was happening.
Rubbing a thumb over the top of his hand, I watched as his chest rose and fell with the breathing machine, wondering if he would ever be the same. The doctors had said he was lucky, that the bullet had nicked an artery, but not tearing through it completely. If it had, he would have never made it to the hospital. The bullet had lodged in his chest right above his tattoo, and it had taken two hours just to remove the damn thing and stop the bleeding. They said Zack had lost over half his blood volume, and I believed it.
The scene had been ugly, and every time I closed my eyes I saw him falling in that field, the blood all over him. I had nearly lost him.
“Oh Zack,” I breathed, wishing he would open his eyes to let me know he was still in there.
He was heavily sedated to allow for the healing to begin, but I just wanted to know that everything was going to be alright in the end.
That I wasn’t going to lose him.
“Shit.”
I turned to see Grant Travis walk into the room, his face pale as he looked at Zack. The president of the Horsemen looked haggard, much older than I remembered, and nothing like the confident man I knew him to be.
“Is he?”
“He’s not out of the woods yet,” I said softly as he approached the bed. “Another day or so and they will know the damage.”
He fell into the chair beside the bed, wiping his hand over his face. I was surprised to see the glimmer of tears in his eyes.
“When they said he had gotten shot, I couldn’t believe it. The kid was bullet-proof.”
“No one is bullet-proof,” I replied, pressing a kiss to Zack’s hand, hoping that he could feel that I was here. “H-he tried to save lives.”
“We lost many today,” Grant said after a moment, emotion in his voice. “Five in all.”
“I’m sorry,” I said seeing the grief on his face. “I know it’s hard.”
He turned toward me.
“You love him, don’t you?”
I nodded, my heart constricting.
“I do, very much so.”
I really was starting to believe I had never stopped loving him.
Grant stared at me for a moment.
“Good, he deserves to be happy. Can I tell you something, Sydney? He’s never truly been happy at the club. I would never kick him out. He’s like a son to me. But from the moment he walked in that door, I knew something was missing, and I believe that something was you.”
I swallowed the tears that clogged my throat.
“He wanted nothing more than to be a Horseman.”
Grant laughed softly, leaning back in the chair.
“He will always be a Horseman. He will always have the brotherhood at his back, but he almost didn’t have you in his heart.”
I watched as the older man looked at the man in the bed fondly, as if he did truly care.
“Do you know that I went with him that night he got the tattoo of your initials?”
Now that surprised me.
“Why?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t know. It was my idea actually. I knew I had screwed you over by our little initiation and knew he had lost something very important to him. What better way than to remember you by?”
“I-I lost everything,” I forced out, feeling as if he needed to know. “I was prepared to do whatever he wanted after graduation, but after the word got out I couldn’t face him or this town.”
“I’m sorry,” Grant sighed. “I don’t know what else to say.”
I ran my hand over Zack’s again, thinking about the bitterness I had carried around for years for this town, the man in the bed, and the man in the chair. I had hated them all for what they had done to me, but now… well, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t walking away any more. I needed Zack. I needed to stay in this town.
Grant stood and walked over to the bed, lightly touching Zack’s shoulder, careful to avoid the bandages.
“Get better,” he said softly. “So, you can give me hell about what I couldn’t see right in front of me.”
“It was an insider,” I said as Grant stepped back. “You know who.”
Grant looked at me, his mouth set in a firm line.
“I do. It was Grayson. He kidnapped my daughter, he did this shit to Zack, he got my men, his brothers, killed today. I will not rest until his head is on my desk.”
I shivered at the coldness in his eyes. I wasn’t about to tell him what he wanted to do was wrong. After what happened today, I would happily help him hunt down the bastard.
Grant walked toward the door, stopping to look back at me.
“Let me know when he wakes, will you?”
“I will,” I said softly.
He gave me a nod and disappeared through the doorway, leaving me to watch over Zack once more. Grant might be a hard ass, but it was clear to me that he did care about the man in the bed.
Though no one could love him as much as I did.
I just wanted the opportunity to tell him so.
***
The next day, the chief stopped by.
“How are you holding up?” he asked as he stepped inside the room.
I sighed, looking over at the bed.
“I’m okay. He’s doing better and survived the night.”
“Good,” Chief Turner said, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops. “He’s a lucky bastard.”
My eyes drifted over Zack’s body, from the top of his head to the sheet that covered his legs.
“He is chief.”
He cleared his throat, looking over at me.
“You know that they coerced that kid into recanting his statement. I was forced to drop all charges against Zack Hale.”
Inwardly I sighed in relief.
“What about me?”
He arched a brow.
“What about you? You didn’t do anything wrong. He was a free man at that point.”
“But I was the one that called Don Monroe,” I blurted out. “I got the charges dropped.”
“Sydney,” the chief started, shaking his head
. “We all know why you did it, and honestly I can’t say that I blame you. You two are meant to be together, and no matter what kind of advice I give you, you are going to ignore it in favor of what’s in your heart.”
