Making A Move (Rebels 0f Forbidden Lake Book 6)

by Elana Johnson

  Keep her daughter safe.

  I can’t have her, but I can keep them both safe.

  “Fine,” I say like I don’t care if I ever kiss Karly again. My heart wails now, and the beeping goes wild.

  “He’s crashing,” someone says, and a coolness hits my chest. “Page Doctor Stevenson.”

  “Fine,” Daddy says as the dream drifts away. I start to shake as the two scenes merge. As bright lights assault my eyes, as I realize I’m lying prone in a hospital bed.

  “Take him and show her.” Daddy’s last words reverberate through my mind just before I’m fully awake.

  * * *

  Maverick thrashed against the hands holding him down, fought to open his eyes. He grunted, something scraping his throat.

  “He’s going to rip out the tube,” a woman said, and Maverick did just that, a heat searing his throat in an unpleasant way. But at least he could yell now.

  The words were intelligible, but everything hurt. Absolutely everything, but nothing worse than his back. He screamed, and his eyes finally popped open to see several nurses scurrying around the room.

  “Sedate him,” someone said.

  “He ripped out the IV too,” another said.

  “Call security.”

  “Doctor Stevenson is almost here.”

  Maverick yelled again, lashing out at the nearest person with his foot. It didn’t move much, because he’d been chained to the bed.

  “Calm down, sir,” one of the nurses said. She had dark hair like Karly, and Maverick focused on her. “Good,” she said, taking a step toward him. “We know you’re in a lot of pain. We’re trying to help you.”

  White hot agony ripped through him as soon as she’d said it, and three more people burst into the room. Maverick switched his gaze to them, but even his eyeballs hurt. He groaned, tears pouring down his face.

  “Help,” he said, and the nurse nodded to someone.

  “We’re going to sedate you again,” she said. “I’ll give you more morphine this time.”

  “Please,” he moaned, the ripping sensation in his back, his thighs, his chest too much to bear. Someone stabbed him with a needle in his upper arm, but he barely felt it with the other waves of pain coiling and striking in every bone, every muscle.

  “Double his dose,” the doctor said, striding forward. “This man’s in extreme pain.”

  “We’re sedating him again, too,” the nurse said. “He seems to absorb the drugs faster than we anticipated.”

  “And he’s huge,” a third woman said as coolness spread through his body.

  “Make sure he doesn’t wake up for a while,” the doctor said. “I can’t do the surgery if he’s not asleep.”

  Asleep drifted through his mind, and Maverick settled back down. Flashes of pain still made his legs jerk and his back spasm, but soon enough, he floated in the blissful blackness, Karly’s face just out of his reach.

  * * *

  The next time he woke, sunlight streamed into the room. The smell of leather and ice cream told him his brothers were there, and sure enough, Vice leaned toward him and said, “Hey, Boss is awake.”

  Footsteps followed, but Maverick was still taking stock of all of his parts. He felt like an animal had crawled into his mouth and died, and he was definitely creaky in joints and muscles.

  “How long…?” he croaked.

  Gerald sported a row of stitches along his forehead that would give him a new scar to go along with his nickname. Scars. “Six days,” he said. “Medically induced coma.”

  “How’s everyone else?” His memories blurred along the edges, darting into his mind and out before he could truly examine them. But he knew he hadn’t been alone in that parking lot in front of that huge office building.

  “Alive,” Vice said, lifting his cast arm. “A few bumps and bruises. We’re fine.”

  “Hog?” The man had gotten out of line on the ride to the building, and Maverick hadn’t seen him in the parking lot.

  “Found ‘im,” Gerald said. “He’s down the hall still. Ian too.”

  “Bad?” Maverick wanted to reach up and scratch his scalp, but his hands were still attached to the bedrails.

  “’Bout like you,” Davis said, stepping forward. “But Doc says you’ll be out in a few days. Now that they’ve got all the bleeding stopped. They wanted you to wake up today, and you were a good boy and did it.” Davis grinned at him, the relief and worry mixing in his eyes.

  Maverick wanted to reassure them all, but he couldn’t find the words. He knew his body would heal, and he could only hope the Sentinels would too. “News?”

  “All over the news,” Lucas said. “And I’m pretty pissed at you that you left me to deal with that.” But he wasn’t really mad, and Maverick knew it. He tried to reach for Lucas, but again, the ties on his hands prevented him from doing it.

  Lucas fist bumped him against the rails and said, “It’s good to see you awake, Boss.”

  “King?” he asked next, though Karly was at the front of his mind.

  “I’ve been taking care of him,” Davis said. “He misses you though.”

  Maverick nodded, his throat so swollen and so sore and so dry. He coughed, and someone lifted a straw to his lips. He sucked, the cold water the best thing he’d ever tasted. He leaned back and closed his eyes, determined not to ask about Karly.

  She wasn’t his to ask after anyway. Next time, the Hawks would kill him and his men, he knew that.

  So he kept her name tucked away, her face filling the back of his mind, as Lucas and Davis talked about what had been happening with the club and around town since Maverick had suffered his brutal beating.

  He couldn’t care about any of it, though he tried. That spark that had come alive inside him the first night Geezer had brought him to the clubhouse simply wasn’t there anymore. The joy he felt at being with his motorcycle brothers had gone cold, though he was grateful and glad they were there. Maybe it had been kicked out him.

  But Maverick knew better. If anything, it had been kissed out of him by a beautiful brunette with a one-year-old daughter.

  He listened to all the news, and he expressed gratitude for those keeping everything going with the Sentinels.

  “Oh, and we voted,” Gerald said. “You’re in good standing with the club. You didn’t do anything wrong—knowingly.”

  He nodded. “Thanks, Sergeant.” After his boys left, he fell back against the pillow, utterly exhausted.

  “Time to pick a new leader,” he murmured to himself. Now he just needed to decide whose name to put forward. Who loved the club as much as he did. Who’d fight for it, and the things they believed in, and the right to be bikers and upstanding members of the community.

  Jordan was the best choice, though Maverick knew Davis’s heart and that he’d be an excellent Boss someday. “But maybe he should be Vice first,” he told himself. “Maybe co-Vice with Lucas.” The three of them—Jordan, Davis, and Lucas—had been some of Maverick’s best finds in Forbidden Lake.

  The Sentinels had protected them. Given them a second chance at life—a good life. And their loyalty was unmatched in the club—besides Gerald. But he was so good at Sergeant at Arms, and with Maverick leaving, there would need to be some stability.

  He could only hope that his abandonment of the club would allow him to get Karly back into his life. If he waited long enough, the Hawks would move on to something else. Some other drug ring or turf war with another club.

  And then he could steal Karly away and they could disappear into the night and be a family.

  Maverick sighed just as a nurse entered his room. “All right, Mister Malone. Time to get up and go for a walk.”

  He snapped his eyes open. “You’re kidding.”

  “I am not.” She smiled at him like she’d just told him there was a Santa Claus and he’d brought everything Maverick could possibly want—Karly tied in a red bow. “You’ve been in that bed for seven days. If we don’t get you out of it soon, you’ll be in troubl
e.”

  She reached for his hand and added, “I’m going to release you now. Please don’t punch me.” She seemed like she was teasing, but there was definite wariness behind her eyes.

  “Have I done that?” he asked. “Punched a nurse?”

  “Several,” she said. “Did you know you have a very high tolerance for both pain and medication?” She released his hand and stepped back.

  Maverick clenched and unclenched his fingers, rotating his wrist around in a way that made the bones pop. “I didn’t know that,” he said.

  “I’ve seen them give more meds to a horse.” She smiled at him, but Maverick wasn’t sure if he should be comforted or not.

  “Now, easy,” she said, releasing his feet and his other hand. “We’ll just go once around the floor and come right back.” She helped him swing his legs over the side of the bed and so many things pulled in his back.

  He sucked in a breath and held it, and she said, “Take your time. I’ll get the chair.” A few moments later, she pushed it right up to him, and he put both hands on the handles. “You’re going to push me, Mister Malone. Try not to go too fast.” She grinned at him, sat down in the chair, and added, “Whenever you’re ready.”

  Maverick didn’t think he’d ever be ready, but he drew in a deep breath, leaned his weight on the handles of the wheelchair, and stood up.

  He could do this. He would get better so he could walk King at midnight like he wanted to. So he could get Karly back into his life. So he could be Navy’s father.

  One step at a time, he told himself, taking the very first painful step, the nurse in the wheelchair encouraging him to take another.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Karly stood in front of the mirror in the penthouse, making sure every button and every seam lay exactly right. Sami and Andy had taken Navy to a petting zoo for the afternoon, despite the chilly temperatures.

  Karly had claimed she would be taking a much-needed nap and then ordering pizza for everyone that night.

  Her heart hoped she could still do that. Well, not the nap part, but definitely the pizza part.

  It had been a week since she’d watched two paramedics load Maverick onto a stretcher and wheel him into the back of the ambulance. Everything inside her had wanted to go downstairs, but Andy’s strong arms kept her in place.

  She’d gone to the hospital once, but a man named Jordan with a broken arm had intercepted her in the parking lot. “You can’t go in there, ma’am,” he’d said. He wasn’t wearing leather or cuts, but she knew who he was. Maverick had told her enough about his boys for her to know.

  “I have to see him,” she’d said.

  “Not if you want to stay alive,” Jordan had said. “He’s not awake anyway.”

  “He’s alive?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She’d sighed, turned around, and said, “Please let him know I tried.”

  Jordan had caught up to her then, stepping right in front of her so that she almost plowed him over. “You want to be with him?”

  “Yes,” Karly said, vocalizing the deepest desire of her heart. “I love him.”

  A smile burst onto Jordan’s face. “Look at that. Boss found himself another girl.” He seemed amazed by this, but Karly didn’t know what to make of that. Sure, she’d listened to Maverick talk about Ruby, but maybe she hadn’t realized how broken up he’d been about losing her.

  Was he as upset at losing Karly?

  “Look,” Jordan said, sobering. “If you want to be with him, really be with him, you need to negotiate a deal.”

  “A deal?”

  “Yes.” He stepped around her and started toward the hospital entrance with a loping gait.

  “What does that mean?” she called after him.

  “You need permission, Karly,” he called without looking back or stopping.

  She inhaled, closed her eyes, and said a prayer. Because she was about to go to the Hawks clubhouse and ask for permission to be with Maverick Malone.

  She took one of Andy’s sets of keys from the very neatly organized drawer in the kitchen, and clicked the key fob to figure out which one it was. A big, boxy truck Karly couldn’t even climb into. No problem. She shimmied up in her skirt and moved the seat forward.

  Getting out of the parking garage took some wizardry, but she managed it. And then she followed the directions Tyson had scribbled for her on a napkin from the bakery where she’d drawn a hawk on the sidewalk.

  A little tidbit she’d read online during her research on Motorcycle Clubs. The next day, Tyson had been there, and he’d been as mad as a spitting cat to find her waiting for him. But he’d agreed to set up the meeting, and he’d said, “Wear something nice,” as his final words to her.

  She had something nice on, and her grip on the wheel tightened as her nerves skyrocketed. Before she got to the last turn Tyson had said to take, she met a roadblock of bikes, with men either still on them or leaning against them.

  Tyson straightened and motioned for her to get out of the truck. She did, her heartbeat firing at double speed now.

  “Check it,” he said, and three men got in her truck and started ripping it apart. Tyson leered at her too. “We have to check you too, hot stuff.”

  Karly said nothing as she lifted her arms and let him and another man pat her down. They touched her everywhere, and her skin crawled, but she allowed it, thoughts of Maverick. This is for Maverick, streaming through her mind.

  “She’s clean,” Tyson finally said, taking her phone and dropping it in his jacket pocket.

  “Truck’s clean,” another man announced, and Tyson nodded to his bike.

  “You’re with me, sweetheart.”

  “I have to ride that?” She glanced at the bike. Yes, she’d been on Maverick’s before, but only for a few minutes and not in a skirt this tight.

  “Yep. And wear this.” He shook out a blindfold and waited for her to get on the back of his bike. Seeing no other choice, and hoping and praying she wouldn’t regret it, she did as he said.

  He tied the blindfold in place, the knot digging into her skull in the back. Then he got on the bike, guided her arms around him, and said, “Lean with me,” as her only instructions.

  She yelped as the bike shot forward, leaning right into him, the threads on the hawk on the back of his jacket scratching her cheek.

  Karly tried to keep track of how long they rode and which directions she leaned. But the road was a snaky little thing, and she eventually just tried not to fall off the back of this death trap. She couldn’t believe she’d fallen in love with a Motorcycle Club leader.

  But she had.

  Finally, Tyson slowed and stopped, and Karly got off the bike with shaking legs. She waited for him to remove the blindfold, and he said, “Stay right behind me. I mean it. Right behind me.”

  Karly didn’t like the way the others looked at her, but for some reason, she trusted Tyson. So she glued herself to his back, finally taking his hand to make it easier to determine which way they’d be going.

  Through a maze of dark hallways with doors leading into unknown rooms they went, the smell of cigarette smoke—and stronger stuff—mingling with body odor and whiskey.

  They finally came to a central room with twenty-foot ceilings. It was marginally lighter in here, and a man with long, greasy hair stood from the desk where he’d been looking at a laptop.

  “This is her?” He came toward them, his presence commanding and powerful. “Ah, I can see that it is.” He grinned at her as if he were a king and she his only, precious daughter. He took both of her hands and pulled her away from Tyson. “You look lovely, my dear.”

  Karly suppressed a shiver. “Thank you, Daddy,” she said.

  He seemed pleased by her politeness, and he motioned for her to come sit at a table with him. “Something to drink?”

  “No, thank you,” she said, gaining some confidence. “I’m sure you know why I’m here.” She sat and crossed her legs, watching the other wolves spread out and t
ake positions around the room. Even Tyson kept his distance, and she wondered what Daddy had done to earn their fear and respect.

  “I have an inkling,” he said, motioning to someone. Not ten seconds later, a tumbler of alcohol sat in front of him. He didn’t touch it, his eyes trained on Karly.

  “I’m willing to negotiate,” she said. “I don’t want to be associated with your club.” She almost spat the last word, but she pulled back on her emotions. “Your dealings were with my husband, not me, and he’s been dead for fifteen months.”

  Daddy looked amused, which only irked Karly further. She collected her thoughts for a moment before continuing. “You don’t own me. I know nothing of what he did for you. He never mentioned it. He kept no records at the house. I have no knowledge of any money anywhere.”

  And she’d looked. When she wasn’t at the hospital trying to see Maverick or drawing hawks in chalk in front of the bakery, she’d gone to the bank. “My husband doesn’t have a secret safety deposit box. Our accounts don’t have any extra money in them. You can check it all.” She leaned forward. “I know nothing, and I want to be released from your surveillance, your club, all of it.”

  Daddy steepled his fingers, the kindness slipping right off his face. He looked like Lucifer himself as he considered her, but he finally said, “You’ll stay here while we confirm everything you’ve just said. Then I’ll let you know.” He stood as if that would end the meeting, and panic cascaded through Karly.

  “How long will that take?” she asked.

  “However long it takes,” he said.

  “My daughter—”

  “Go,” he barked to his men, and they left the hall. He turned back to her, his eyes as cold as glaciers now. “I don’t care about your daughter, Miss Lydell.”

  And she knew he didn’t. She had no phone. No way to contact her sister. She’d left no note. No one knew where she was, and Karly settled back at the table, her eyes never leaving Daddy’s.

  She could wait a heck of a lot longer than him. After all, she was a mother with a baby who didn’t like sleeping at night. She could outwait anything.