Shake (The Club Girl Diaries Book 8)

by Addison Jane

  She wouldn’t get much.

  I was the poster child for well behaved teens.

  Club members were still milling around, taking photos, and helping with the decorations. No one was in a hurry to head back to the clubhouse, just content with enjoying the company of family.

  Hearing the rev of an engine and crunch of gravel coming up the short driveway, I looked up wondering if it was one of the prospects bringing the van over to pack everything inside. Instead, I frowned at the dark SUV moving quickly toward us, the feeling in my gut telling me it was moving too fast.

  Meyah’s soft laughter came from behind me, just as Phee came skipping out of the house and down the porch stairs.

  “That’ll be Heath and Bray—” she started but jumped back when the car came to a skidding stop about thirty feet from the house.

  “Gun!” Romeo screamed as the car windows began to roll down.

  The white wooden chairs fell from my hands. My instincts told me to find Meyah, to get to her, but all I could see was my little sister standing on the staircase out in the open, frozen in shock.

  She’s with Romeo.

  He’ll protect her.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  The bullets shot through the air with short, sharp whizzing noises. I tried to ignore the sound of wood splintering and people yelling as I finally forced my body forward, my feet skidding on the grass as I fought to get to Phee. She’d dropped to her knees, covering her head as the bullets kept coming, one bang after another.

  Multiple guns.

  More than one shooter.

  I didn’t have time to be gentle grabbing her arm and yanking her off the staircase toward me and into my arms, throwing both of us just a few feet toward Rose’s car which was parked at the foot of the stairs. Phee was screaming in my arms, and with every gunshot, her body jerked like she was being hit. I sunk to the ground with her in my arms, hoping the car would protect us long enough for someone to get their shit together.

  “Harlyn!” she yelled in my ear, her voice hoarse with tears.

  “What?”

  She pointed at the top of the stairs—stairs that had several holes in them where we’d just been standing—and I spotted a tuft of hair sticking out from between the thin banisters that encased the porch. “She followed me out.”

  “Fuck!” There was no one else out the front, most of the boys had been around the sides or out the back, and the kids were meant to be inside with Chelsea, helping her with the twins. I took a deep breath and made a run for it. Phee screamed at me as I scrambled up the staircase, bits of wood and splinters stabbing into my hands. I couldn’t tell which direction the gunshots were going, whether they were still aiming at the house, or whether they were aiming for the people who’d been out in the open at the side of the house.

  I was holding my breath, the adrenaline that was coursing through me made me feel like I was lightheaded, like my body was a feather, and I could float off at any moment. The moment I got close enough to hear Harlyn sobbing softly, I took in a heaving breath and lay on the ground beside her pulling her tiny body into my arms.

  She screamed and struggled against me, the noise around us was lessening, but it still sounded like a fucking war zone—people yelling at each other, the sound of guns firing and reloading, things being destroyed.

  “Har, it’s okay. It’s me,” I hissed, rolling our bodies so my back was to the firing squad and her body was protected.

  When she heard my voice, she clutched my shirt in her hands and sobbed louder.

  “Ham!”

  I looked up seeing the door was open a crack and Kev was standing just inside of it, holding out his arms to me. I moved to toss her up to him, another rain of bullets came, and Kev pulled the door shut, yelling curse words behind it. The distinct sound of the shots hitting the wooden banister and shattering the handful of pots that Rose had placed on the other side of the doorway, forced me to almost crush Harlyn in my arms, trying my best to shelter every part of her body.

  I could still hear Phee crying, but I was too scared to look. If I could hear her, that meant she was still alive. If she could scream, she could breathe.

  Through the panic and chaos, I heard glass smashing somewhere above me, but had no idea where. All I knew was we were both still breathing despite the lack of protection the porch banister was offering.

  Someone else was looking down on Harlyn and me.

  A loud boom made me jump, but not because I thought it was going to hit us, but because it was coming from our side of the battlefield.

  Boom.

  A shotgun. One with a lot of fucking power, most likely from upstairs.

  “Ham!” Kev’s voice broke through again, and I didn’t even stop to check things were okay, I hooked my hands under Harlyn’s armpits. Prying her away from me and with all the strength I could muster, I lifted her up and over me as Kev stepped out the door. He whipped her away and ducked back inside, rushing off with the little girl, no doubt to hide her with the other kids.

  I tried to breathe in relief, but I knew I was still out in the open.

  Still a sitting duck.

  Even though we’d finally got our shit together and were beginning to fight back, there was still a chance they had reinforcements coming. There was a chance that they had more weaponry than we would have assumed, and I was about to take a rocket launcher right up the asshole.

  “Not my fucking family, asshole,” Blizzard growled as he stepped out the door, not even bothering to look down where I was huddled on the wooden porch boards. He was already raising a semi-automatic M 15, the look on his face telling me he was fucking looking for blood.

  He didn’t waste a second in retaliating, and now that things were becoming a little clearer, I noticed that not a lot of gunfire was coming from the SUV anymore. Instead, the car seemed to have decided it was time to get the hell out of there, the wheels spinning but failing to grab traction as it fought to make its exit.

  Too fucking late.

  Blizzard let fucking loose, the rapid fire of the semi-automatic like music to my ears, raining down hell on these fucking assholes who thought they could come in here and hurt our family and get away with that shit.

  Hell fucking no.

  I finally forced my body to sit up, delighting in the view as the doors of the SUV tore open like an aluminum can shred to pieces, as more of my brothers stepped out from the destruction with a vengeance in their eyes and their guns fully loaded.

  Wrong day.

  Wrong fucking club.

  Op and Eagle both stepped out of the front door with their own weapons not stalling for a single second before opening fire. I don’t know how long I sat there watching this once sparkling car turn into a fucking mess, but it seemed to go on forever, and I had to wait it out even though my head was screaming, go and fucking find Meyah.

  Then suddenly, the gunfire stopped. My ears were ringing, and my head was spinning. I couldn’t figure out what the fuck had just happened, or how to get my body up off the porch. There were voices and people rushing around me, but I just felt limp, exhausted.

  “Fuck,” Eagle cursed, standing over me, his body wobbling back and forth—or was that me wobbling? “He’s been shot.”

  I frowned. “Who?” I mumbled.

  “Skins!”

  I couldn’t fucking figure out what was going on, everything was hazy. I just wanted everyone to get the hell out of the way and get to Meyah.

  Where the hell was Meyah?

  “Man, I’ve called a friend, she’s about five minutes away,” Skins said as he crouched down beside me, lifting my left arm and turning my body away from him. I was about to ask him what the hell he was doing when a sharp pain shot through my entire body, and I roared out several curse words, some which I wasn’t even sure made sense. “It looks like it’s in the tissue of his hip, not far from the surface.”

  The stabbing pain was like a shock restarting my body sending another jolt of adrenaline through me. “I go
t fucking shot?” I groaned, suddenly wanting to crawl into a ball and find some kind of position which would take the pain away. I twisted and wiggled unable to figure out if it was making it worse or better. “Where’s Meyah?” I demanded.

  “Stop moving, asshole,” Skins scolded. “Blizzard, for fuck’s sake, put pressure on this and make him sit still.”

  I gritted my teeth in annoyance. “Where. Is. Meyah?”

  Skins rolled his eyes. “She’s gone with Hadley. She’s fine other than a couple of scrapes.”

  Blizzard took Skins place beside me, pressing a rolled up towel against the wound on my hip. “Kev, there’s a car cover out the back in the garage, you need to cover that fucking mess down there.”

  Kev rushed down the stairs taking two at a time.

  I relaxed against the wall, leaning my head back as I tried to focus on the fact that Meyah was fine and knowing I would just have to be okay with that for now because it sounded like Hadley and Leo needed her. “Hadley?” I managed to ask, looking up at my VP.

  Blizzard huffed out an angry breath. “Turns out stressful situations bring on labor.”

  I knew I was running on fumes.

  My soft pink dress was stained and torn, one tear going from my knee all the way to my thigh, grass stains and grazes decorated my legs, and the rest of me was just generally covered in dirt. I looked like I’d just wrestled my way through hell, which wasn’t exactly an understatement, but that also wasn’t my main priority right now.

  “Romeo, stop!” I called after Ham’s brother as he made a beeline for the exit. “Romeo!”

  Goddamn it.

  Leaping out of the hard plastic waiting room chair, not giving a shit who was looking at me, I kicked my shoes to the side and took off running. His footsteps were huge, one of his equal to what I imagined were three of mine.

  Romeo was taller than Ham and built like a brick wall. People jumped out of his way as he powered through the crowd, determination and a mission on his mind.

  Launching myself forward, I grabbed hold of his arm, both my hands wrapped around his wrist before he made it through the double doors and out onto the street. He didn’t fight me, but I could tell by the way he looked over his shoulder and down at me he was not impressed or happy with the situation we were in.

  “I need you to stay,” I told him, a little out of breath even though I’d only run less than a hundred feet. “Please, stay with me. Some of the club are on their way, but right now, I don’t want to be alone.” I looked up at him, tears welling in my eyes.

  The tears, they were real. The sappy, feel sorry for me speech that was a little indulged.

  His eyes flicked around taking in the environment around us like he was making a note of just how close people were, whether they could hear us, if they were a threat or not.

  Romeo gritted his teeth. He wanted to pull away from me, to tell me that he didn’t care or that it wasn’t his job to look after me. But I think deep down, he’d actually started to almost feel like it was. He felt guilty about what the sheriff did to hurt me, felt like it was his fault for bringing all this shit onto the club. But the truth was, the club wasn’t stupid. They knew what they were taking on when Ham came to them to ask them for Romeo’s protection. They knew it was more than likely going to be dangerous, and that there were going to be threats where people could get hurt. They’d accepted that, but he couldn’t understand why.

  “Fine, I’ll stay until someone else gets here,” he muttered, the sharp look in his eyes letting me know he wasn’t happy about it.

  I took it anyway. I needed to hold out until someone else could get here and explain to him why he shouldn’t go running out on some wild goose chase.

  We took a couple of seats back in the waiting room, my eyes glued to the doors that Uncle Leo had shot through with Hadley about fifteen minutes ago, expecting him to come flying out with my new baby cousin any moment.

  A moment that just over an hour ago, I wondered whether I was ever going to get to have.

  “So, tell me what he was like when he was a kid,” I probed Romeo for information, finally catching a small smile pull on the corner of his mouth—a rarity for sure. Ham continued to walk ahead of us, laughing it off.

  “Goody-two-shoes down to the bone.” Romeo laughed.

  I had so many questions I wanted answered, but I was cut short when I heard gravel crunching and an engine revving as it sped down Blizzard’s driveway toward the house. I didn’t recognize the vehicle. It was moving too fast. The brothers always drove slowly because of the number of kids that were around.

  My brain understood those two things but was unable to put two and two together until it pulled to a sharp stop, and the chairs Romeo was holding dropped to the ground.

  “Gun!” he screamed.

  I swore my heart stopped. My body froze as I watched the windows slowly roll down revealing not one but three guns.

  A scream bubbled up inside me, but before I could release it, I was hit with so much force that my lungs were crushed. A body came over me, two arms hooked around me, lifting me off the ground.

  The sound of bullets echoed loudly, one after another, never letting up, never stopping to give their victims time to escape.

  Romeo.

  It was Romeo carrying me, his arms wrapped around me, crushing me so forcefully I was finding it hard to breathe.

  Was that better than being shot? Or worse? Should I tell him he’s hurting me or just be thankful I wasn’t taking a bullet to the head.

  With a thump, I landed back on my ass falling onto the grass as he tipped up what I realized was the round table that Hadley and Leo had used to sign their marriage certificate. Not only that, but it was still on the table, and Romeo had just tossed it onto the ground, in the dirt.

  “We’re gonna make a run for it,” Romeo ordered, turning to face me. “We need to get behind the house and get inside. No doubt Blizzard has an arsenal of guns in there, and we don’t know how many more of these guys are gonna show up.”

  My ears were ringing, but I nodded knowing what Romeo was saying was true.

  The gunfire seemed to be coming sporadically now, like they’d stopped just firing aimlessly, and were now shooting for targets. We were those ducks in that carnival game. The ones that just floated past with no protection that you had to shoot and make fall over.

  I loved that game.

  I was good at that game.

  I never imagined I’d be the damn duck.

  “You ready?” Romeo asked, crouching low, his hands ready to push off the ground once I gave the word. His eyes were narrowed and focused like he was a man on a mission, like a fucking navy seal ready to take on an army of men.

  “No.” I wasn’t ready.

  Romeo reached out, taking my hand in his. “Trust me.”

  “I do.” The response was instant and honest. I trusted Romeo even though he was kind of fucking scary. Even though he was the reason I’d been left scarred and broken. Even though, right now, I was scared of how many people I loved could be hurt or worse, and I had no doubt in my mind that it was because he was here.

  It didn’t matter.

  He didn’t wait for me to second guess it as he leaped to his feet, and we ran through what was left of the most amazing and stunning wedding setting I’d ever seen, that moments ago had been full of family and friends. Had this happened then, it would be almost surely littered with bodies.

  He dragged me with him trying to keep my body ahead of his as we ducked and dodged through seating which was now partially shredded, and a confetti of ribbons and flowers that looked like they’d been shot out of a cannon.

  The bullets started again, and Romeo hooked me around the waist pulling me back behind one of the large oak trees, the trunk thick enough to hide the both of our bodies. With my back pressed against the bark, I could feel shot after shot after shot pound against the tree, each bullet wedging itself further into the wood, fighting to get to us.

  “Shit,” Rom
eo cursed, gripping his shirt in his hand, and growling as he tore a large chunk off the bottom. He dropped to his knees, mumbling sorry before I realized what he was doing. “You must have caught it on something.”

  He wrapped it around my leg and tied it in a knot. I cursed when I realized there was a trail of blood dripping down. Blood was bad, really bad, but now wasn’t the time to have that discussion. “Yeah, caught it on a flying bullet.”

  “Meyah!” We both turned to the house which wasn’t far, but the space between us was open, and there was nowhere to hide. Uncle Leo was cradling Hadley in his arms, loading her into the back of Blizzard’s truck. “She’s in labor!”

  My heart stopped, and I looked up at Romeo. “I need to go with them. I need to make sure she’s okay. You don’t know how much it will destroy him if something happens.”

  Romeo’s eyes moved from where we stood to where Uncle Leo was. Things were quiet now, the gunfire had paused, but they could just be waiting for us to make a move.

  “How fast can you run?” Romeo asked, looking down at my leg cautiously.

  “As fast as I need to in order to get to that truck before he leaves.”

  Inhaling deeply, Romeo once again grabbed my hand almost crushing mine with his hulking fist. “On your mark…”

  I took a deep breath. “Get set…”

  “Go.”

  Looking down at the piece of shirt which was still wrapped around my leg, holding tightly to the wound, I was still unsure of how it had come about. It wasn’t extremely painful, so I figured it was just a slight graze. Unfortunately, a slight graze on my body often looked like I’d been part of a massacre.

  I tucked my torn dress across my thigh hiding it from view, knowing if someone came in, whether it be old lady or brothers, they would more than likely make someone have a look at it, and then I might miss the birth.

  Had Romeo not been there today, things could have been a lot different.