Point of Return

by Stacey Lynn

  I snapped my phone closed. “Heading to the doctor’s office. Liv was there earlier.” I spoke the words over my shoulder, not bothering to look back at Prez.

  “Jaden,” I clipped through my phone once I was outside. “What do you have?”

  “Searched all over,” he said. I could barely hear him over the wind and I knew he was riding. Slow, but he was moving. “Nothing yet.”

  “I’m heading to the clinic. Keep me posted.”

  “Take a guard. Somethin’ feels off.”

  “No shit.” I rolled my eyes and hung up the phone. Jimmy and Johnny were outside, talking to the men guarding the gates. “Twins!” I yelled and they turned to me. “Get your asses on your bikes. We gotta roll.”

  They rushed over, Johnny almost tripped Jimmy, or Jimmy tripped Johnny. I could never tell them apart. I didn’t care either. I revved my bike, impatiently waiting for them to get their asses together. It wasn’t stupid to take guards; I just wish it wasn’t these two fuckin’ knuckleheads with me when I was already seconds from blowing up on someone.

  “Thanks for meeting me.”

  I shook Doc’s hand and followed him through the back door of the clinic. He had been friends with my dad and always willing to help the club out from time to time with cash handed to him under the table. His eyes were lined with concern when I entered the clinic.

  Before the door closed behind us, I gave one last warning glare to the twins. They nodded and turned their backs to each other at each side of the back alley. Back to back was the only way they could stand and not screw up.

  “You know me,” he smiled genuinely. “Always willin’ to stay on the club’s good side. What do you need?”

  “Files. Olivia Masters was here earlier today and no one’s heard from her since.” And she called her ex-boyfriend right after her appointment. Something must have happened. Why else would she have gone to Travis?

  And not me. Fuck. It killed me that she called him and not me. I shook it off, now was not the time to play the martyr.

  We stopped at a large L-shape desk out front where Doc booted up a computer. I instantly went to the files at the edge of the desk, thumbing through them, not knowing what I was looking for. I just knew I’d figure it out when I saw it.

  Then I did. Olivia Masters typed in a typewriter print on a green file folder.

  I pulled it out of the stack just as Doc muttered, “Oh, fuck. Sorry, man.”

  My hand froze on the open folder. All of it was letters, numbers, and pictures that didn’t make sense to me.

  “What?”

  He swiveled in the office chair and placed his hands on the edges of the chair. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. He ran a hand over his short, graying hair. Something sank in my gut and I knew it wasn’t good.

  I knew it was really, really, shitty.

  “She had an ultrasound done today.”

  “And?” I snapped.

  “She lost the baby.”

  Four words. I scrambled them up in my head and tried to put them in a different order of something that would make more sense. Something that wouldn’t end with the way it sounded like whatever the hell Doc had just told me.

  It didn’t work.

  My hands clenched into fists, and I felt a hit to my gut like I had just been sucker punched by someone double my size.

  Baby. Liv lost the baby.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, my throat felt like I’d swallowed sandpaper and the question came out barely above a whisper.

  Doc wrinkled his nose and brought his eyes straight to mine. “They couldn’t find a heartbeat today. She miscarried the baby.” He stood up and grasped my shoulder with one of his hands. “I’m sorry, Daemon.”

  My head dropped and my heart sunk to my feet.

  The baby. Her baby. Her and Travis’s baby.

  Somewhere along the way, I had begun to think of it is as “our baby.” I hadn’t ever told her that. And when she lost it, she called Travis and not me.

  I squeezed my eyes closed before taking a deep breath.

  “Thanks, Doc.” I spun on my heels, helping myself out the back door. The twins and I were climbing on our bikes when my cell rang.

  “We got a problem, D,” Jaden said slowly. I closed my eyes and pressed the palm of my hand to my forehead. He didn’t wait for me to respond before he continued. “We’re on Highway One right by Harbor Point.”

  “And?”

  “Just saw eight black Ducatis go by. They’re flyin’.”

  Ducati. Italian. Sporelli.

  Fucking shit.

  “Follow ‘em. Be right there.” I hung up the phone and called Bull. I began talking before he answered. “Jaden saw eight Ducatis down by Harbor Point, need all the guys out there.”

  I hung up without waiting to hear what he’d say.

  I saw the blue flashing lights before I hit the last curve.

  I knew instantly.

  Harbor Point. One of Olivia’s favorite places to go since we were kids. She loved watching the large sailboats and shipping barges going by on the water. Why didn’t I think of that place before?

  “NO!” I screamed as I jumped off my bike before it was fully stopped. I heard it lay down and crash into the back of Liv’s parked car.

  Four hands grabbed me right before I hit the pavement. I saw her. Blood.

  So much blood all over her.

  “She’s okay.”

  I shook off the words. She was not okay.

  “She’s alive, Daemon.” I heard the voice again and looked behind me, shocked to find Switch as one of the men holding me back. I was shocked even more that it sounded like he cared. “Let them work.”

  He nodded to the paramedics that surrounded Olivia.

  I fell to my knees. I screamed. I know I did because my throat was raging in pain by the time I stopped, but I had no idea what I yelled. I felt Jaden, Switch, and other men behind me.

  It was then I noticed Travis laying on the ground not far from her. I blinked and the blood started making sense. It was theirs.

  And no one was working on Travis.

  I hated hospitals. I hated the smells, and the desperation of the workers, and the people who sat in the waiting rooms. I hated waiting for death to overtake the people trapped behind the curtains, or enclosed in the rooms with only a window opening to a brick wall where the bright fluorescent lights were brighter than any emotion carried by anyone while they roamed the halls.

  I knew where I was before I could find the strength to open my eyes.

  I was back in the hospital with another bullet wound in my body. Based on the pain that shot through me as I tried to shift in my bed, I had been hit more than once. All on the same right side where I had been shot before. Lucky me.

  A warm, strong hand clamped down firmly on my left shoulder and I squeezed my already closed eyes tighter.

  I knew who it was. I could smell him. I could smell the familiar burn in my nose of his smoke and cologne. This time, he was here for me.

  I pressed my teeth together and looked away from him.

  This time, I didn’t want him here.

  A flash of red flew into my mind and I saw Travis slump to the ground, red blooming on his chest before he ever hit the ground. I cringed and bit my lip to keep from crying out his name.

  It was my fault he died.

  It was my fault both of them died.

  “Liv,” the voice said. I heard the scraping of a metal chair against the linoleum floor. It echoed in the room and was the only sound I heard above the consistent beeping of whatever machines that were hooked to me. “Liv. Baby, wake up.”

  I shook my head and a pain shot from my shoulder up to my neck.

  Daemon’s hand moved from my shoulder down to my left hand and he squeezed it tightly. “You’re gonna be okay, Liv. I just need you to open your eyes and look at me.”

  I refused. Through the haze of whatever drugs I’d been given, I knew none of this was Daemon’s fault. Yet, I couldn’t bear to
look at him. I didn’t want to see his pain.

  And I didn’t want him to see mine. I didn’t want him to see the pain of losing my child and my one-time friend all in the span of mere hours from one another.

  “Go away,” I said. My dry throat burned and my voice cracked. I pulled my hand away from Daemon’s and placed it on my stomach.

  “I’m not leaving you, Liv. Not this time.” His voice was firm.

  I heard a shifting sound and the faint scraping sound of metal again. Then I felt his soft and firm lips on my forehead. “I’m never leaving you again, Liv.”

  I felt the physical pull of darkness surround me and I gasped out one loud breath before it began to consume me, pulling me back to sleep.

  I waited until Liv was back asleep before I pulled out my phone.

  No way in hell was I leaving. I had made that mistake before. This time, my ass was firmly planted in the uncomfortable as hell hospital chair until she was released.

  I didn’t give a shit if she told me to go.

  “Ryke,” I said, my voice shaking as he answered.

  “What’s up, brother?” I heard his smile through the phone. Music came through the background. Jesus. Was he always at a bar on his leave from the oil rig?

  “I need you, Ryker.” My voice cracked, and I know he didn’t hear me; but I knew he felt it.

  He got silent and mumbled something to someone. Something about a rain check on a drink. When he spoke again, it was quieter in the background.

  “What is it?”

  I ran my free hand through my hair and then scrubbed down my face. I stared at Liv in the bed. “I need you, Ryker. I need you here.”

  “What the fuck, Daemon?”

  “Liv’s been shot.” I took a deep, shaky breath. I couldn’t stop staring at her pale skin. She had lost a lot of blood. Fortunately, the bullet in her shoulder had gone all the way through. The one in her side just skimmed her. Had it hit anywhere else, she may not have made it.

  “She okay?”

  “No, Ryker. She’s not. I need you man. I’ve never asked you for a single fuckin’ thing. But this? I need you. Shit isn’t good.”

  “I can’t, Daemon. You know I can’t come back there.”

  I took a deep breath. I fought the urge to scream at the dipshit. He might be my older brother, but that didn’t mean he had his shit together. It had been too long since he faced his mistakes.

  “Brother,” I growled. It was low and vicious. I hoped he picked up on it. “My girl’s been shot. She’s lost her kid. And we have problems in the club that are bigger than any shit we’ve ever seen. I need you.”

  My voice broke over the last sentence even as I tried to punctuate it. I couldn’t help it. I clenched the phone in one hand and scrubbed my unshaven cheeks with the other.

  I felt my victory when I heard him sigh.

  “All right, Daemon. I’ll get there as soon as I can.” I exhaled a deep breath. Some of the tension in my shoulders and back released as he spoke. “I’m not stayin’ though. One week and that’s it. I can’t be there for longer than that.”

  My forehead dropped to my hand, propped up by my elbow on the armrest. “Thanks, man.”

  He hung up without another word.

  I turned my head to the door when I heard the jiggling sound on the door handle. Bull’s large and intimidating frame almost filled the doorway.

  He looked like shit. Scraggly grey hair that needed a serious wash and cut; his brown eyes fixed on the bed where Liv slept.

  “How’s our girl doin’?” He took two small steps into the room, shutting the door behind him. Never once did he look at me.

  “Doctor said she’s gonna be fine.” I ran my hand across my chin. Fuck. Liv shot. I needed to burn my eyes with bleach to erase what I had seen. I blew out a breath and went back to holding her hand. “She was awake for just a minute then passed out again.”

  He nodded and looked uncomfortable doing it. Like he wasn’t sure he belonged in the same room as her.

  I wondered if he was blaming himself for all of this. Again. Just like I was.

  This was why she left the club. She had already seen people shot and killed. She had already been shot.

  Being with me—practically forcing her to be with me—made all that shit happen again.

  A pain festered in my chest. It grew so large and so quickly I flung myself back in the chair, elbows propped up on the armrests and dropped my head in my hands.

  “Not your fault, son.”

  I ignored the old man’s voice. Maybe not. I had told her to stay away from Travis. Had she taken a member with her, she might have been okay. Doesn’t mean that if I hadn’t practically forced her to get in my truck the day she left the clinic, that she wouldn’t have been obliviously unhappy with Travis either.

  Fuck.

  “Larson didn’t make it.” I already knew that. I had stood right over his dead body on the pavement while his blood and Liv’s bled together. One shot to the chest. He wouldn’t have suffered.

  Liv on the other hand, was going to suffer. And I wasn’t sure there was a damn thing I could do about it.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and then forced myself to look directly at Bull. His large and slightly wrinkled hand cupped Liv’s knee on the opposite side of the bed. His shoulders were slouched over and his long hair fell down, hiding his face from my view.

  “She lost the baby,” I finally said. His hand squeezed her knee and he pulled his eyes to mine. He hadn’t known. I saw panic flash in his eyes and then unadulterated fury. “Not because of the shooting. She found out earlier, that was why she was with Travis in the first place.”

  It still didn’t answer the question I had lingering in my head about how Sporelli’s crew knew where Travis was. Or why they went after him. I hoped, for their sake, she was collateral damage and not the target. Not that it mattered much. They’d still be dead, but they might not suffer as much.

  Since Liv was shot, I hadn’t given any time to go over what had happened. But I’d have to deal with it soon. No one could pull this off, not in Jasper Bay, and not expect retaliation.

  Had it just been the cop… well hell, that would have been one less death on our hands. But hittin’ one of our women? They would bleed for it. And I wanted to make sure they did slowly, painfully.

  The anger, the need for revenge and vengeance bubbled in my blood. The room began to spin, the walls closing in on me until I felt like a caged animal.

  I couldn’t sit here not doing a damn thing while rage boiled inside me. I’d go mad.

  Pushing back the chair, I winced at the high-pitched metal squeal. Bull’s eyes shot to mine.

  “Stay with her. I’ll be back.” I ran my hands through my hair and then clasped my fingers together, bending my knuckles to relieve the pressure. It didn’t do shit. Bull eyed me. I knew he understood. He probably felt the same rage and need that I did.

  “She won’t want me when she wakes up.”

  “I’ll get Faith.” I was already pulling out my phone. “Or Finn; I don’t think she hates him.”

  I bent down, kissing her lips gently and promised I would return in a bit. I didn’t know if she could hear me, but I had to work off the adrenaline and insanity pulsing through me.

  “Faith,” I snapped as soon as she answered the phone. “I need you at the hospital.”

  “I can’t.” She stuttered over her words and her voice was sad coming through the phone. My fingers gripped the phone tighter as I stopped in the hallway outside Liv’s room.

  “What do you mean, you can’t?”

  “Cain won’t let me leave. He said I can’t be around you.”

  My head dropped. I had always liked Faith. Hated what Ryker did to her. I hated that her life had been destroyed after her dad ratted out the club. I wasn’t the only club member who didn’t blame Faith; but once Ryker left her, there wasn’t much we could do either.

  What I did hate… was that Black Death thought they now owned her.


  “They don’t own you, Faith. It’s a job not a sentence.” I also hated that she was whoring out her body for profit that I knew her cut of was barely enough to live on.

  “Actually, Daemon,” she said sadly and with a heavy sigh. “They do.”

  She hung up. I heard the click in my ear long before I processed the words she spoke. Then I filed Faith’s shit away for another day and met Finn in the waiting room.

  “Need you to stay with her ‘til I get back.”

  He nodded, not saying a word to me and walked down the hall. It wasn’t until he was gone that I saw a similar dark pain in his eyes that I knew was in Bull’s and mine. It wasn’t for Olivia. Something else chased the man.

  Which was just somethin’ else to shake off for another day.

  Then I looked at Jaden and threw my head toward the exit door. “I need to fight.”

  “Fuck!” I bent over and threw my taped hand over my eye. I shook it off and stood up. Jaden bounced on his feet on the other side of the ring, fists raised. I spit out a mouthful of blood.

  “You’re not focusing,” he said, coming at me again.

  I blocked his punch and swung at him. And missed. The second and third time, I didn’t. This may have been sparring, but I was too revved up to be paying attention. Beating the shit out of my best friend probably wasn’t the best idea. A monster was tightly coiled inside me, waiting for the moment I allowed it to bust free.

  “Stop,” I called the match and stepped back from Jaden. Both of us were breathing heavy. His lip was bloody and my left eye was starting to swell up. “This isn’t working.”

  I unwrapped my tape and grabbed a bottle of water from the edge of the ring. We were dripping with sweat. Boxing and fighting always helped release my excess adrenaline.

  Today, all I kept thinking about was the pool of blood I had found Liv in. My mind was racing with ‘why in the fuck would the Sporelli family have anything to do with Nordic Lords, Jasper Bay, or why they’d shoot a fucking woman?’.

  “Your ribs all right?” I asked Jaden when he met me at the side of the ring. He threw his arms over the top rope and leaned over it, spitting blood. I could see a large red ring on his left side and knew there was a matching one on his right.