“One of the guys?” she asked when I hung up the phone. She’d sunk her teeth into an apple and the juice was now trickling down her arm and she licked it off her skin seductively. I had to clench my jaw and get to the point before she forced me to strip off these clothes and fling myself at her.
“Yeah, Grimm has called Church. Guess we have quite a few things to discuss,” I told her. Samantha was smiling just like I was.
It was finally over. Lynch was dead. The Sons of Satan were run to the ground. And this time, I was willing and eager to participate in any kind of celebration that the gang had planned.
“Sounds about right,” she said.
“I want you to come with me.”
“To Church?”
“Yeah, you’re my old woman now. I need to introduce you as such to the rest of the club. Besides, you should be as much a part of the celebrations as the rest of us,” I said, walking up closer to her.
She threw her arms around my waist and rested her cheek on my abdomen while I stroked her hair gently. Samantha looked up at me then, her face was bright and shining, her green eyes twinkled.
“You have no idea how happy I am, Patch!” she exclaimed, and I bent down to kiss her pink juicy mouth. I felt the same way.
Just like we had predicted, the atmosphere at the Pit, the Clubhouse, was electric with celebration. Lynch was dead and the Sons of Satan were defeated and there was nothing more that the Black Cobras could have hoped for.
When Samantha and I walked in, another uproar of cheer rang out and drinks were passed around. Rogue was there with Carli, and Grimm had brought Amanda and Hazel. Cash had invited Vivian, and their baby Lily too, to join in the celebration. It was no wonder that all the guys were thoroughly relieved. This shitstorm with the Sons of Satan had been brewing for ages and now it was finally over. We could carry on with our usual business, things could finally return to normal.
There wasn’t much to say as far as introducing Samantha to the rest of the club as my old lady was concerned. Everyone had seen it coming. Grimm officially declared that she would now be under the protection of the club and that was just an additional feather to the cap of victories. Before this, I knew Samantha’s experiences with the other club had been less than ideal. It was still going to take some time and more effort before she began to have real faith in us. But for now, I was just glad to see her this happy.
Cash came up to us while I had her in my arms. The music was loud, everyone was shouting over each other—it was going to be a long night and I had a pretty good feeling that tomorrow morning was going to be one of those when we regretted everything we did tonight.
“Doctor Singh was all praises for you after the other night,” Cash told Samantha who looked up at me gleefully.
“She’s been coy about it so far. Was she helpful?” I asked. I was passed out for most of the night, so I had no idea how Samantha had actually helped the situation. Cash was nodding his head.
“Totally. She went above and beyond. According to the doctor, he’s not sure if he would have been able to manage all of us had it not been for Samantha,” Cash continued and I felt a prickle of pride for my woman, and I tightened my grasp on her.
“In fact, he was so impressed that he was wondering if you would like to undergo some sort of a nurse’s training with him. Assist him in these discreet sorts of cases. Help us out,” Cash said. Samantha looked at me once and from the brightness in her eyes I could sense what her answer was going to be.
“Oh my God! I would love that!” she exclaimed. She turned to me next. “I never thought I could actually have a chance for a career again. This could be amazing for me!”
I leaned in to kiss her forehead and she kissed my chin in response. Nothing felt as good as seeing Samantha happy. I was going to spend the rest of my life trying to make her feel this way.
But the door of the Clubhouse burst open and even over all the music and the loud voices and the joking, we could hear the tension in the air. Cash, Samantha and I turned to the door in unison to see Bones stagger in.
He was clutching his shoulder tightly but there was blood gushing down his arm.
“Fuck,” I heard Cash grunt under his breath. Samantha immediately broke away from me and she was weaving hurriedly through the crowd to get to Bones. I followed her and she caught him just as he was about to collapse to the ground.
“What the fuck happened, Bones? What is all this?” Grimm was shouting now. Samantha forced him to sit down on a chair that someone had pushed in their direction and she was holding him up.
Bones glared at Grimm and then at me.
“It’s not fuckin’ over, that’s what’s happening. Gunther’s formed a splinter group.”
“Gunther!” Grimm thundered. Samantha was shouting orders to Bender. She wanted access to alcohol to clear the wound and Doctor Singh, our doc for more serious injuries that Bender couldn’t handle on his own, needed to be informed.
“They’re calling themselves The Smoking Beards, just like Samantha was telling us earlier,” Bones continued.
Cash and I exchanged looks. This was not good news. Bones knew it too.
“He’s looking forward to finishing off what Lynch started, and he definitely has it in for me. They tried to run me over today and took shots at me.”
“What do they have against you particularly?” Grimm asked.
“I was the one who knocked him out and held him back while Patch was escaping with Samantha from the cage. I was the one who held him down the other night during the face-off. We keep encountering each other and I keep winning. Guess he just doesn’t like to lose,” Bones said, and Samantha slushed a load of whiskey on a clean cloth that Bender had brought to her.
“Bones, this is going to hurt but you need to bear with me, okay?” Samantha spoke to him directly now, interrupting our conversation. He looked at her and nodded, just as she pushed the cloth down on his bloodied wound. Bones growled, a deep animal growl within his body and he squeezed the sides of the chair, but he didn’t let a single cry escape his lips.
Over his head, Cash and I glared at each other in fury.
Gunther was coming after us and Lynch might have been a crazy old fucker, but Gunther was definitely clinically insane. This was not good. This needed to be dealt with. And it looked like Bones had already faced the brunt of it.
“The doctor is on his way,” Bender informed us, and Samantha was busy cleaning the wound while Bones breathed harshly, looking up at us now.
“It’s Gunther this time but we’re going to get him,” he said, his body swaying a little with the pain and the shock. “I always come out winning against him.”
Sneak Peak at Bones
Thea
Ten Years ago
I was accustomed to spending a lot of time by myself now. I was a loner and most of that pattern of behavior had to do with the fact that I had been a loner all my life. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a family. Technically I had parents and an older brother, and that was the life I had grown up knowing, but it wasn’t the life I ended up eventually leading.
We were just kids when everything changed. When we left our parents and things were finally beginning to look up for us.
Finally, I thought, we would not have to tie our fate to our parents. To the lives that our mother and father had chosen for us. The one that they forced us to live because they were addicts and did not care about the conditions that they were bringing their children up in.
At least I had my brother, and at least he had me. He was always going to be the only family I had ever known and now, he was making some big changes that was going to change our lives forever.
Our apartment wasn’t much but it was something. It was better than the nothing that our parents made us live in when we were younger, just a few years ago. The place they still lived in and where we’d escaped from.
Now, we weren’t kids anymore, not as far as the real world was concerned. I had just turned seventeen a few weeks befo
re, and my older brother, Drake, was now a strapping young man of twenty-one. We knew how to take care of ourselves and each other.
The other thing I was aware of about my brother was that I knew he had his own life now, was that he was an adult, he had a more serious life away from mine. Before this, it had always just been the two of us against the world. Against mom and dad and their heroin addiction. Drake was always there to protect me, to cover my eyes to stop me from seeing mom’s body writhing and shaking on the floor when she overdosed. He was there to clutch my hand tightly at night, staying awake with me when I had nightmares.
And now, he was a grownup and I knew I needed to act like one too. Our life was moving on and everything was changing for the better.
Now that Drake had found us our own apartment, out of the heroin and crack infested neighborhood that we had grown up in; I could finally keep this place clean. I could finally focus on graduating high school. I could maybe think of a career and making something of myself, unlike the other kids in that neighborhood.
Drake had his own aspirations.
I knew he was involved with a local street gang, and they in turn were involved in activities which made sure there was always food on our table and our rent was paid in time. Drake was going to make sure we didn’t get kicked out of this place and that we wouldn’t have to return to where our parents still lived.
But apart from the street gang, I also knew he had his eye on something else. I’d seen the way his face always lit up when he saw those boys on bikes pass us by on the streets. He stared at their leather jackets and patches longingly. He could never take his admiring eyes off a man from a motorcycle club. He wanted to be a part of them. That was the group he really wanted to belong to.
For his sake I hoped his dream came true sometime. I loved my brother more than anything else in the world and I just wanted him to be happy. One of these days he would be, I told myself. And he’d get what he wanted.
Drake didn’t always come home for dinner and even though I missed him and wished he was there to watch TV with me like before, I knew he was out there doing what he needed to do to earn us a living. So, I never complained. Where would I be without him? He saved me from everything.
But the night before it happened, he came home, just as I was filling a small bowl up for myself with pasta.
“Got any leftovers?” he asked, smiling wide as he walked into our little kitchen.
“You’re home!” I threw myself at him, giving him a big tight hug because I was always that glad to see him. Drake pinched my cheeks, just like he used to when I was a kid and plucked the bowl out of my hands.
I only pretended to be annoyed with him. I wasn’t really mad. I would gladly give him my dinner any night of the week.
There was some leftover pasta and I half-filled another bowl with that and followed my brother to our cramped living room where he turned on the TV and threw himself on the couch. Just like how he used to stare at the club members admiringly, I glanced at Drake in the same way from the corner of my eyes as we ate. He laughed and ate while we watched a sitcom. Not that I was really interested.
“How come you’re home early tonight?” I asked when the commercials came on. Drake shrugged.
“It was going to be a quiet night and I thought I’d give my little sister some company. Aren’t you happy to see me?”
“Of course, I am! If I knew you were going to be here for dinner, I would have cooked something more.”
“Maybe next time we can go out for dinner, to a proper restaurant or something. How about that?” Drake scooped a forkful of pasta into his mouth and we smiled at each other delightedly. Things were really changing around for us. Going out to eat at an actual restaurant might not have been a big deal for other people—but for Drake and me it was.
All our childhood, we had never experienced anything like that. Our parents barely even knew we were around most of the time or recognized us.
“That would be something, yeah,” I said, and Drake reached over and pinched my cheek again. I tried to swat his hand away.
“Stop that! I’m not a kid anymore!”
“You’re always going to be a kid to me, Thea,” he laughed and pinched my nose between two fingers and tugged at it. When I was a kid, I was always afraid he’d really be able to steal my nose from me.
I rolled my eyes at him now.
“And you’re always going to be my obnoxious older brother!”
He laughed at that and settled back in the couch. The commercials were over, the sitcom was about to resume and pull his attention from me again. But I couldn’t help but sport a big wide smile on my face because these moments were precious to me. Reminding me always of how important my brother was to my life. How when I got out of here and made a career for myself and got a good job, I was going to make sure I looked after Drake; the way he’d always looked after me.
Drake was gone by the morning, as usual, and I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye or ask him when he’d be back or what he was doing for the day. Drake was a free bird and I knew I’d just have to wait and hope I’d see him again soon.
I went about the rest of my day as usual, which consisted mostly of studying for my exams, cleaning around the apartment and daydreaming about a bright future.
The truth was that I was finally at a place of peace in my life. I didn’t have to worry about my parents or money or educating myself. I wished my brother was around more because I enjoyed hanging out with him, but that was pretty much my only complaint.
It was a lazy Saturday and I ended up not doing much. I was too lazy to even study for long. Instead, I worked on my dream board in the privacy of my bedroom. It was a secret project I’d been working on for a while now. Collecting all my hopes and dreams in one place for me to admire and aspire towards.
Now when I looked back at it, at even the thought of the dream board I was building around the time—it made me laugh at myself because I realized how silly I used to be. Dream boards are for dreamers. For people who are not willing or able to take their lives and fate into their own hands. But back then I didn’t know any better.
I truly believed that I could conjure up a happy future for myself; just by fantasizing about it.
So, I was in a dream-state, hazy daze, feeling light and exuberant about myself that day because I thought I was staring a bright future right in the eye. I was floating on clouds for the rest of the day and when the doorbell of our small apartment rang in the night, just sometime after dinner; I thought it was Drake, coming home for dinner. Twice in one week, and in a row!
I was excited when I pulled the door open, hoping to see my brother’s happy face on the other side, asking me if he could steal my pasta from me again.
But the sight that greeted me on the other side of the door shocked me to my core. My blood ran cold and I screamed like I’d never screamed before.
Drake was covered in blood. There was so much blood on his shirt, with more gushing out, drip-dripping on the floor as his two friends Rob and Mark dragged him into the apartment. I couldn’t even tell where the blood was coming from. His chest? His back? Was it a gunshot? A stab wound? I couldn’t tell anything.
“Drake! Oh my God! Drake! What happened to you! Drake!” I was screaming and crying, while Rob and Mark deposited him carefully on our couch. Drake had his eyes open, but the eyelids were fluttering, drooping. I could see him trying to murmur something, but it sounded like gibberish.
“Just get him some water, Thea!” Rob yelled.
“Hospital. We have to take him to the hospital. I’ll call for an ambulance!” I huffed, filling a glass with tap water and bringing it over to him. I knelt down on the floor in front of him, holding the glass to his lips. Drake couldn’t move, he didn’t know where he was or what was being asked of him.
I couldn’t stop the tears from gushing down my cheeks. In all these months of Drake getting himself involved with the street gang, I never once considered the fact that my brother coul
d be in danger. In real actual danger. I believed he was invincible, that he would always keep himself safe from harm for my sake.
“Drake please…don’t go…please…I’m going to call for an ambulance,” I whispered to him now, taking his bloodied hand in mine.
“There’s no point. It’s too late now, Thea,” Mark said, standing over us. I clutched my brother’s hand, the way he used to when I was a kid and I was having a nightmare. Drake continued to murmur something. He was staring up at the ceiling. I could see how the light was diminishing from his eyes. He blinked rapidly and didn’t recognize me. He’d lost too much blood already; I knew I was going to lose him. He was going to go in a few minutes. Nothing could save him now…nothing could save me.
“What…what happened to him?” I asked in a hollow voice. All I could do now was kneel beside him, cry, stroke his cold sticky hand. Wish I was someone else. Somewhere else.
“He got stabbed, in the gut.”
“By whom? Why?” I hissed. I didn’t know what I was feeling right then. Anger? Sadness? Desperation?
“This guy called Gunther. He’s crazy.”
“Why? Why did he stab Drake?”
“We don’t know. Maybe he provoked Gunther in some way, maybe there was no reason for it. Nobody knows why that motherfucker does the things he does.” Rob was speaking above me. I didn’t have to look at him to know that he was distressed too. These guys were close friends. We were all united in our desperation for Drake.
“Gunther…” I whispered his name, while Drake’s pupils seemed to dilate and then he batted his eyelashes rapidly and stared up. Nothing was moving anymore. Not even his chest.
I let out a loud cry and threw myself on my brother.
“No! Drake! No! Please!” Those were the only words I could think of. The only thing I could do. I couldn’t wrap my head around how this could have happened.
Patch (The Black Cobras MC Book 3) Page 18
