by Addison Jane
Reaching out, I tapped his cheek lightly. “You better fucking hope so,” I warned with a low growl. “Otherwise, you’re gonna be adopting me and adding me to your fucking will, so when I kill your dumb ass, I can inherit back all the fucking money you’ve cost the club.”
The fear in his eyes was so damn satisfying.
It meant he heard me.
He knew I wasn’t playing around.
Because I wasn’t.
Last night, I lost half this month’s income and one of my best men. There were people expecting shipments, and when I had to ring and tell them I couldn’t provide, the response was going to be less that just a casual, ‘oh, not a problem.’ If I missed a shipment, there were dealers out there missing their drugs. And dealers without drugs could get fucking cranky.
It made me look like the dumbass, and it put me in a bad light with some very bad fuckers.
Fuckers who the club would rather not have as enemies, or rivals, if they decided to go elsewhere to get their drugs. That’s gonna have a fucking impact, and I wasn’t above taking payment in blood.
“Set it up. Soon. We’ll be in touch,” Hatch snapped at Arthur, ready to get the fuck out of here and back to the clubhouse. He was the first out the door, Brew, our Vice president, right behind him. He was fucking fuming.
Arthur Mitchell was lucky because Hatch came in here looking to put a bullet in his fucking head and be done with it.
Royal Bastards Miami, we were businessmen. We had spent years making investments, picking and choosing the best businesses, the top fucking drugs, and perfecting the chain of distribution.
To Hatch, this shit was fucking unacceptable.
And I couldn’t fucking agree more.
“Come on, you assholes,” I called.
Deep slammed the door to the bathroom open a few seconds later and walked out with a wide grin on his face as he tucked his dick back inside his jeans.
“Captain,” Deep saluted Arthur with a smug smirk and a salute as he strolled past.
Sketch slipped out next, not saying a single word as he followed Deep out into the hall.
The wife appeared in the doorway, her clothes back, on and her eyes looking worriedly across the room at her husband. “Arthur, you don’t get it,” she pleaded nervously, her fingers twisting the expensive gold bracelet on her arm. “They made me do it. I didn’t have a choice.”
A hard burst of laughter shot from my mouth, and I shook my head, patting old Arthur on the chest as I made my way to the door. “Yeah, she’s right. We made her come to the clubhouse every week for the past few months so she could get railed by Deep across the pool table.” Looking back over my shoulder, I caught Arthur’s mouth fall open, practically hitting the floor. My gaze shifted to his cheating-ass wife, and I reached up, touching the corner of my mouth where I could see she still had some remnants of the boys on her face. “You’ve got a little something here.”
Her tongue unconsciously snaked out, collecting the drop of cum and dragging it back into her mouth.
“Elaine!” Arthur screamed as I stepped out and into the hall, my heavy boots forcing the floorboards of the huge old house to fucking creak and move beneath me. “How could you!”
The arguing voices continued to follow me even as I tramped out through the tiled foyer and the two large double doors at the grand entrance to the dramatic mansion. My brothers had already started their rides as I jogged down the stairs, throwing my leg over my Harley and not waiting a second before bringing her to life beneath me.
The large gates closed behind us as we roared out of the property and down the long, palm tree lined driveway.
Arthur’s home behind me was worth tens of millions of dollars.
And I guaranteed a lot of the money he used to buy it was dirty.
Yet, we were the criminals?
It was almost fucking laughable just how the world loved to wear their rose-colored glasses. The ones that tainted us and made shitbags like Arthur Mitchell look like fucking heroes. There was no way I was fucking perfect, far fucking from it actually, but at least I didn’t try to hide who I was.
I wasn’t afraid to wear my choices on my skin for the world to see because when it came down to it, I did the things I did for the club.
For my fucking family.
Not because I was selfish or because I was greedy.
But because The Royal Bastards valued loyalty, and brotherhood, and doing whatever the fuck you had to do for the club.
My morals—those you could question every fucking day.
But my loyalty was indestructible.
And whoever this asshole was who took my drugs last night was about to find that shit out firsthand.
SAGE
“You ready to go?” Aria asked as she walked toward my desk, twirling her keys around her finger.
“I thought you’d never ask.” I sighed heavily, quickly signing out of my computer, leaving it for one of the nightshift girls who’d just strolled in.
The ER was crazy on the best of days, but today, in particular, it had felt never-ending.
Thankfully, I was just a receptionist.
I felt for the doctors who had to treat some of the people who walked in here, especially that one guy today who was so drunk he thought his legs were numb, or his was back broken, despite walking himself into the waiting room.
Climbing into Aria’s car, I leaned back into the seat with a satisfied sigh. “How was your day?” I mumbled, trying to keep my eyes from closing as we pulled away from the hospital, and Aria weaved her way through the busy city streets.
We always headed out to the edge of town, closer to the glades to try and avoid the rush of traffic. The drive home to Florida City was already a little over thirty minutes, but if we went through town, it could sometimes take over an hour.
It was just more peaceful that way.
That, and the drivers around here made me anxious and Aria a little road ragey.
“I sold ten of the same button-up shirts to one guy today,” she answered with a complete lack of enthusiasm, her fingers flicking on her wipers as a few drops of rain fell from the heavens.
Smiling, I turned my head toward her. “You mean in different colors?”
Her dry laughter answered the question. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But no. The same shirt, the same color,” she confirmed with a shaky giggle. “And he tried on every single one.”
“He did not.”
“Uh, yes,” she threw back, the laughter now moved into a disgusted shudder. “Yes, he did.”
“Was he good looking?”
A sharp laugh burst from her lips, and she shook her head. “Sage… he bought ten of the same shirts!”
“And?” I argued. “What does that say about his looks?”
“Nothing, but can we say predictable?” The word itself had me screwing up my nose. “You hate predictable.”
“Maybe I could get used t—”
“Holy shit!” Aria screamed, slamming her foot on the brake.
I gasped, the roar of a Harley desperately moving down in gears was almost deafening, and not in a good fucking way.
I looked up just as a motorcycle shot through the intersection. He didn’t even stop or damn-well pause at the stop sign on the side road, and Aria had to slam on her brakes to avoid collecting him. My hands hit the dashboard hard, bracing my body for any kind of impact while my eyes followed the bike, watching as it’s rear-wheel slid to the side, taking its rider with it until he was basically lying flat against the road.
Fucking horizontal.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Aria cursed, trying to keep control of the car as it fishtailed slightly, throwing both our bodies from side to side before gaining traction again on the wet road. Aria pulled the car off onto the grass and quickly threw it into park, her hands visibly shaking. “Sage, you all right?”
Both of us were breathing heavy, a whooshing sound filling my ears as my heart tried to handle the pressure. She moved her han
ds back to the steering wheel, gripping it tightly like it was the only thing keeping her steady at that moment. Her knuckles were going white, almost matching the color of her face.
My heart just would not slow down, racing so hard I knew at any moment I could have been sick, fucking everywhere.
Thankfully, my brain was a little quicker off the mark than my twisting gut.
A sharp breath filled my lungs. “The biker! He came off the bike.”
It was like being jolted with a Taser, the moment we realized that we were okay. But the guy who flew across the road in front of us, definitely couldn’t have been.
We both fumbled with our seat belts, and I tore open my door fighting the jelly feeling in my legs as I started sprinting toward the side road that the biker had shot down in front of us. My Converse shoes slipped and skidded on the grass at the road’s edge, my heart feeling like it could jump out of my chest as I stumbled to the intersection.
My eyes darted around, trying to see through the light sprinkle of rain that was still trickling down. It was light, but misty and hot as hell, making it hard to see anything more than a few feet away.
It was the shine of the motorcycle’s chrome wheels even in this shitty weather which forced my body forward. The large powerful machine was crumpled up against a solid concrete fence post about two hundred feet down the road on the left side. I ran toward it, squinting my eyes as water dripped down my forehead, obscuring my vision slightly, but I could still see very clearly that it was almost snapped in half.
Another wave of nausea swept over me, and I wiped my hand over my face, trying to remove another layer of water.
Aria’s footsteps scuffed against the asphalt behind me.
“Where is he?” she yelled urgently, spinning in damn circles, searching and searching.
The road had worn away a lot of the black paint job on one side of the bike, and the front wheel was indented and bent at an awkward angle where it had possibly come in direct contact with another post before landing there.
Please, someone, tell me he wasn’t on that thing when it hit the post.
Please tell me I wasn’t about to be searching for two halves of a body.
I spun around and around desperately scanning the rest of the road. My stomach sunk when I caught a hint of red mixed in the green grass a few feet away on the opposite side of the road, slumped against a tree.
Holding my breath, I stood and watched for a couple of seconds.
There was no movement.
“Call an ambulance,” I yelled as I forced my shaking legs to run toward the lifeless body. I threw myself onto the wet grass beside him, trying for the life of me to remember what I had been taught during my first-aid training. I worked in a damn hospital, I should know this, I should be better at this. The man was face down, he was wearing thick denim jeans, but the right side on them was worn away almost completely, and his skin had been shredded by the asphalt.
I gasped at the amount of blood and raw flesh—it was an image I would never forget.
Pursing my lips and trying to hold back the bile stirring in my belly, I sat back for a second.
Just trying to breathe.
Just trying to talk myself into not passing out.
I swallowed furiously, forcing the bile back down before scrambling forward. I reached out, knocking hard against his collarbone to try and wake him up. “Hello! Are you okay?”
I waited for a moment, but there was no response, not even a flicker. His face was turned slightly toward me, his features telling me he was only young, maybe even still a teen. He had a half helmet on, one that only covered the top of his head.
It had a club logo on it.
One I’d seen around more often than not.
The emblem was sharp and clear. There was no mistaking exactly what it was.
The skull.
The crown on its head.
“Is he alive?” Aria asked, her voice raised over the now pelting rain.
Ignoring the ache that had begun in my chest, I leaned down, trying to listen to hear if he was breathing but there was nothing. I looked over my shoulder, my eyes catching the petrified gaze of my best friend as she pressed her phone to her ear, her hair now drenched and sticking to her face.
“He’s not breathing,” I screamed.
Aria’s eyes widened, and she stuttered for a second before repeating what I had just told her into the phone. “I need to do CPR. Help me roll him over.”
“Can we do that? What if he has a neck injury or something.”
“What if he doesn’t, and I just sit here and let him die,” I yelled back at her.
Aria gritted her teeth, swallowing a hard lump in her throat. “Goddammit!” She threw the phone onto the wet grass and quickly kneeled beside me.
The young boy was well-built, so it took both of us to roll him onto his back. Aria quickly picked up the phone again as I unclipped his helmet and checked for a pulse.
None.
Not a single damn flicker.
“Yes! I need an ambulance,” Aria yelled. “Like, now!”
I tried to ignore her shaking voice as she rattled through the details of where we were and what had happened. There was no time to wait for them. Taking a deep breath, I promptly pushed his leathers to the side and tilted his head back slightly, mumbling to myself as I went over the process in my head. I’d done the courses every damn year since I was a senior in high school. We were required to keep up to date with refreshers under hospital policy. My fingers traced the line from under his arm to his chest, inhaling slow and steady as I interlaced my other hand over the top and braced my hands on his chest.
“Just do it,” I murmured, trying to psych myself up. Reminding myself to ignore any noises, any cracking, while attempting to remember what our first-aid teacher told us about broken ribs being nothing if you could get their heart going again.
Locking my elbows, I started pumping, keeping count as I went before blocking his nose and breathing deeply into his mouth.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Four.
My body was protesting, every single muscle screaming at me to stop, but I pushed on, the need to find life inside this kid fueled me.
“Check his pulse,” Aria urged, shifting uncomfortably next to me.
I did.
Still nothing.
So I kept going, starting the process again.
Thirty. Two breaths.
Thirty. Two breaths.
I had no idea how long we were there.
My body ached.
My arms feeling like they might just fall off at any second.
And to top it off, I was scared either Aria or I were going to go into shock at any moment from the damn rain that was seeping into my skin and chilling my body, but at that point, if I wasn’t passed out from exhaustion or hypothermia, it meant I could keep going. I couldn’t walk away from there without knowing I’d almost killed myself trying to do the right thing.
“Sirens,” Aria exclaimed, her body sagging in relief.
The sound sent a rush of tears to my eyes, making it hard to breathe through the compressions. Before I knew what was happening, there was a rush of noise and voices. Someone braced their hands on my shoulders, forcing me to move out of the way in a not-so- polite way, so they could help. I fell to my ass, shuffling backward slowly as EMTS crowded the boy with their bodies and equipment.
A couple of guys took over compressions while someone else sliced cleanly through the kid’s T-shirt and placed some large pads on his chest and placed this balloon-like thing over his face to breathe for him.
I’d seen it all before, it was nothing new.
But for some reason, the idea of losing this kid now—a guy I didn’t even freaking know—well, my heart just wasn’t ready.
I held my breath.
Scared that if I let it out, the world around me would crumble.
“Clear!”
They all froze,
leaning back and raising their hands in the air.
The machine spoke. I couldn’t make out what it was saying through the now heavy rain, but I heard someone yell, “He’s breathing! She bought him back!”
They hurried to turn him on his side while a stretcher was rushed over and placed next to him.
I released the gut-wrenching sob that I’d been holding onto, and tears started to slip silently from my eyes. Aria dropped herself beside me and wrapped her arm around my shoulders, and we watched solemnly as they placed an oxygen mask on the boy while talking to him loudly.
“Girls.” We both looked up to find a policewoman standing over us. “Come on… let’s get you two warmed up,” she offered with a soft smile. We followed her to a second ambulance and climbed in, finally free of the rain that had now become a torrent. They wrapped us in blankets as we sat on the small bed. I couldn’t stop my body from shaking, no matter what I tried. Aria didn’t seem any better, gripping my hand tightly as the EMT looked us over, and the young policewoman and her partner asked us questions about what had happened.
We tried to explain the best we could, but a lot of it was just a blur of adrenaline. And we really didn’t have the answers they were looking for.
Where did he come from?
What happened exactly?
Was there someone behind him?
Chasing him?
Neither of us were sure.
“You think he’ll be okay?” I finally found the courage to ask once my body temperature was feeling closer to normal.
The policewoman smiled tightly, letting me know just how confident she was. “It’s a bit touch-and-go at this point, but you girls should know that you have given him the best chance at survival. If you hadn’t stopped, he would have been dead. But you did, and he’s got a fighting chance.” She gave us both a small hug before leaving.
“I need you girls to come to the hospital,” the EMT told us, once again checking our vitals. “Shock is always a worry after events like this. So, I just want to be sure you’re okay, monitor you for a good few hours before we send you home.”
“I’ll get everything packed up, and we’ll head out,” his partner agreed, leaving us inside the ambulance. Aria and I were on the bed together, snuggled close with our blankets in silence.
