Gunn

by Jayne Blue

  I turned. Switch was slumped against the side of the building, his legs splayed out. He had a piece of fabric pressed against his side. I realized it was the satin shawl that went with Ava’s gown.

  I slid to my knees and started chest compressions on Emily. Judd pressed his hands against the wad of cloth on her wound. I did what Ava asked, but I didn’t need to have medical training of my own to understand how grave this was for Emily. Her eyes were open, her pupils fixed. She wasn’t breathing and there was so much blood on the ground beneath her. Judd caught my eye and we understood each other. We would do as Ava asked. But Emily probably wouldn’t make it.

  Sirens blared in the distance and my heart dropped. Thank God. Maybe there was time after all. Red lights flooded the parking lot as two ambulances barreled in. Adrenaline coursed through me. I wanted to run to them. I wanted to tear down the driveway and look for Gunn.

  There was no need. It was as if I conjured him just with my thoughts. Three Harleys ripped down the driveway. Dex was in the lead, followed by Curtis. Gunn brought up the rear, protecting their backs.

  He kicked up dust as he screeched to a halt and dismounted. Two paramedics ran to Emily’s side. Stumbling, I rose to my feet.

  Gunn was there. He was everywhere, filling my senses, lifting me into his arms. He squeezed his arms around me and pulled me to the side of the building.

  “Are you okay?” We said it together. I felt his face, ran my fingers over his shoulders, under his jacket. Sweat poured from him, grime from the road darkened his face. But he was whole. We both were. It was going to be okay.

  “I don’t think Emily’s going to make it.” My words burst out of me in a sob. I’d been holding it together, now I felt like the ground had opened up beneath my feet. There was only Gunn tethering me to sanity.

  His eyes searched my face. “Marcus, Angel, and Ford are still out there. Nobody can get a hold of Sly.”

  Cold horror filled my heart. Sly and Scarlett had ridden off alone just before the gunfire. I tried to sort it all out for myself. I’d heard a car. Something big. It sped past the clubhouse as the fireworks went off.

  “Oh God,” I said. “You don’t think …”

  “I don’t know.” He pulled me close. “Son of a bitch. I don’t know. Dex, Curtis, and I split off. We’re going to try to find him at the airport. But I had to come back. Dex too. We had to know. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I nodded. The thought of Gunn leaving again ripped me apart. But I understood. God. If anything happened to Sly and Scarlett …

  “Who was it?” I asked. I don’t know why it mattered. I just wanted something to hold onto. I wanted everything to make sense.

  “We don’t know yet,” he said. “But we have to assume the worst. If it was the Hawks, they’ve changed the rules. You don’t go after families. You don’t spray gunfire into a fucking wedding party!”

  Gunn jammed his fist into the siding. Shocked, I tried to pull him away. “Don’t do that. Gunn, if nothing else, you’re going to need your damn hand to ride.”

  He clenched his jaw. He’d drawn blood. When I tried to look at it, he jerked his hand away. “Promise me,” he said.

  “Baby, what?”

  “You stay here. Go up to your room and lock the door. You don’t come out until you hear from me. We’re putting the clubhouse on lockdown. The probies, Big John, Tiny, and Charlie will stay here with the families. I’ll call you when I know something.”

  “Gunn …”

  He raised a finger. Dex shouted to him. It was time for them to mount up again. My heart lurched. I wanted to pull him to me, beg him to stay. As he stood before me, pain haunting his eyes, I had the strangest premonition that I’d never see him again.

  No. I wouldn’t give into it. I would not let Scotty’s ghost drag me into despair. Gunn would be okay. He wasn’t Scotty. He would come back to me.

  Gunn gave me a desperate kiss, gripping my arms so hard it hurt. Then he made a circular motion with his finger and signaled to the rest of the men. They mounted their bikes and rode away.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Brenna

  Gunn was gone. Ava was gone. She’d rode in the ambulance with Emily. They took Switch away too. Minutes stretched to hours and I didn’t know what to do. I changed out of my dress and took a shower, trying to wash away the tragedy of the day. It helped, but I knew I couldn’t sleep. I put on jeans and a sweatshirt and headed down to the kitchen.

  Mo was already there. She’d changed and showered too. Now she was making a huge pot of chili. She gave me a sad smile as I walked in.

  “Can I help?” I asked.

  She pointed to the stove with her ladle. “Keep turning that meat. When it’s brown, stick it in that bowl and start browning the next pound. You’ll find it in the fridge.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  It was good to see her like this. I had every sense that Mo felt as helpless as I did. But her man was right here. Charlie had taken a seat at the bar. He had the probies on clean-up duty. No one would get any sleep tonight.

  I browned the ground beef, grateful for the chance to do something ... anything. But the waiting tore at me. Gunn could be anywhere. No one knew anything about Sly or Scarlett either. The cops were working their way through every witness at the reception. I knew they’d get to me eventually too.

  “I can’t tell you it gets better,” Mo said. “The club’s legit. But there will always be another club or another gang trying to take away what they’ve built. This is the first for you, Brenna. It won’t be the last. You have to decide right now whether you’re built for this or not.”

  Mo’s words came out of nowhere and hit me in the chest like an anvil. I set down the spatula she’d given me and turned to her.

  “How do you do it?” I asked. “This part. How do you get through it?”

  She let out a hard breath. “I don’t have a good answer for you, honey. Everyone has to find their own. I cook. I take care of the boys. Ava’s the healer. Scarlett? Well ... it’s not my place to tell her story, but she came from a similar background to club life. Put a weapon in her hand and she’s a better shot than any man in the club. Hell, even without a weapon in her hand.”

  “Wow.” I smiled. “Someday I’ll have to ask her to tell me that story.”

  “Don’t ask unless you really want to know,” Mo said. There was no levity in her tone. She was deadly serious.

  “I love him,” I said.

  She finally smiled. “You’d think that would settle it. It doesn’t. That’s what makes it so hard.” She came to me and put a hand on my cheek. “Just ... be sure. I love that boy like my own son. I can love you like a daughter. You did well today. Almost like you’re born for this life. You weren’t though. But if you’re in. You have to be all in. He won’t change for you.”

  “I don’t want him to change. I just want him to be ... safe.”

  Mo laughed and went back to stirring her sauce. She scooped some out and held it out to me, gesturing for me to taste it. “That,” she said, “you’ll have to get over.”

  The sauce was hot, but delicious. I gave her a thumbs up as I wiped my mouth on a towel. Mo’s eyes went dark. I turned. Gunn stood in the doorway, his face a hard mask. I dropped the towel and ran to him. I threw my arms around him but he didn’t embrace me back.

  “We need to talk,” he said, his voice like stone.

  I took a step back. I’d seen that look in his eyes before. It took me back seven years to my brother’s graveside. My throat went so dry I couldn’t even talk. Gunn turned and headed for the stairs. I looked to Mo, but she’d already turned her attention back to her sauce pot. My heart dropped to my feet as I followed Gunn up to my room.

  He got there first. I froze as I came to the doorway. I couldn’t take another step. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There were two suitcases standing next to the bed. Every drawer was slightly open as well as the closet door. He’d emptied it. I knew if I opened one of the suitcases
I’d find everything I owned inside.

  “Gunn …”

  “Don’t,” he said, his tone still flat. “It has to be this way.”

  “What way?”

  Something broke in him as he looked at me. His eyes filled with pain for an instant, then hardened again. “Scarlett’s cousin Emily died on the operating table. Switch isn’t out of the woods yet. The bullet nicked his liver. He’s lucky he didn’t die in the ambulance.”

  “Sly and Scarlett?”

  He gave me a quick nod. “They’re okay. Whoever this was didn’t go after them. But that changes nothing.” His gaze fell on the suitcases.

  “Fine,” I said. “If you think it’s safe for me to not be here for a little while, I’ll accept that.”

  “No,” he said, almost shouting the word. “Not for a little while. For good, Brenna. This is no place for you.”

  I took a step back. I knew what he was saying. It shattered my heart into a million pieces. At the same time, I saw Emily’s lifeless gaze in my mind. I saw Scotty’s. I knew Gunn saw them too. Still, the thought of leaving here, of leaving Gunn. It forced the air from my lungs.

  “I already talked to your friend’s dad. I actually talked to him weeks ago when you told me it was even a possibility. I thought it might be a good idea for a backup plan. I just didn’t think we’d need it.”

  “What?” I shook my head as if that would help to clear it.

  “Christine,” he said. “Her offer still stands.”

  “What offer? What are you talking about?”

  “Prague,” he said. “Your flight leaves in a couple of weeks.”

  “Prague.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You’re not serious. I didn’t even apply.”

  “It’s handled,” he said. “The club has sway at Harrington. We’ve got sway everywhere in Green Bluff. Christine’s dad is a huge donor at the college too. You can sort out the paperwork when you get there.”

  “You don’t get to decide this!”

  “Yes!” He crossed the distance between us in two, forceful strides. He had his hands on my upper arms. “I do get to decide this. You saw what happened today. That could have been you, Brenna. You were standing three feet away from Emily. God rest her soul. She didn’t deserve that. You don’t either. I won’t stand by and let this shit drag you down. I couldn’t save Scotty, but I can save you. Get the fuck out of Green Bluff. Get the fuck out of my life. This is a chance for you to start over. Away from all this bullshit. Me. The club. Your piece-of-shit old man. Do it.”

  He’d torn my heart right out of my chest. “No. I won’t.”

  Some of the hardness went out of his eyes and he dropped his hands to his sides. “If we’d never gotten together. If I could erase the last five months of your life. Your friend Christine offered you this chance to study in Europe. Don’t stand there and tell me you wouldn’t have taken it.”

  I opened my mouth to answer him, but no sound would come out. I could barely imagine what my life would have been like without Gunn in it. He had become my world. My heart. My soul. Now he was asking me to pretend it hadn’t happened. I couldn’t. We both knew it. We also both knew he might be right.

  It gutted me. Twisted my insides and broke my heart. There was movement behind me. Judd and Tiny stood in the hallway. I realized with cold clarity why they were there. They had orders to escort me out of the clubhouse. I tried to steel my heart as I looked at Gunn one last time.

  Mo had been so right. It would be so much easier if I could just hate him. Loving him just made everything harder. The only thing I could do was refuse to cry. I grabbed the handle to my suitcases and turned them toward the door. Gunn called after me, but I couldn’t even say goodbye.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Gunn

  Sly was supposed to be flying out for his honeymoon. Instead, he put his new bride on a plane to accompany her murdered cousin’s casket. I couldn’t get the image of Emily Shaw out of my mind. She was young, pretty, smart. She had her whole life ahead of her but she made one wrong choice. She got too close to the Great Wolves M.C. I couldn’t let the same thing happen to Brenna, no matter how much it hurt to send her away.

  “Your head straight?” Sly asked me. I sat on the back of my bike, the engine revving. He had a hand on my shoulder, his fingers gripping me hard as steel. His expression held a dead look I hadn’t seen in a long time. This shit got way too close to somebody he loved too.

  “My head is fucking straight,” I assured him. He’d asked it of everyone. What happened to Emily shook the whole club to the core and nearly split us apart. Angel, Switch, and I wanted to bring a war vote to the table. We were outnumbered though. Dex, Sly, Tiny, Charlie, Marcus, Ford, Big John, Jake, and Curtis called for restraint. The numbers split along family lines. Angel, Switch, and I were the only ones without wives or kids. We had less to lose. At least, that’s what I told myself. Brenna was safe. In one week, she’d be on a plane out of the country. Safe. Gone. Now I just had to get her out of my heart.

  “I don’t like it, Sly,” Angel said. Other than Scarlett, he was taking Emily’s death the hardest. He’d only just met her, but they hooked up at the wedding. An hour later, he held her after she’d been shot. Something like that is enough to twist a man’s head and heart. Part of me wanted to counsel him to sit this one out. I knew he’d try to break my jaw if I tried.

  “You don’t like what?” Sly asked. There was an edge to his voice. He had to keep control of the crew or we were all fucked.

  “Too much fucking around. I say we go in now. We go hard. We take out Kagan’s brother. They broke the code, Sly. We don’t go after families. It was your wedding, goddammit!”

  Sly caught my eye then went over to Angel. He squeezed his shoulder hard, just like he’d done to me. “I told you. They caught the guy who shot Toby Barlow. Husband of a chick he was banging. There’s no connection to the Hawks. It was his own initials he carved in Toby’s face. Sick fuck. As far as the rest of it, we follow this lead on the shooter’s van through, Angel. Then we’ll take it to the table again. We clear? Security tapes showed the same fucking van that ran down Josh at Gunn’s shop the other month. Josh blew out the back window. The other night, it was fixed. By the end of the hour, we’re going to know what Dulaney’s auto-body knows. We clear?”

  Angel blew a breath out hard through his nostrils. “Clear,” he finally said. Sly was done talking. He gave the go-ahead sign and climbed on his Harley. I was itching to go. I was itching to draw blood. If Sly didn’t get there first, I knew I’d get my chance.

  I wasn’t there in the old days when the Great Wolves earned their patches running guns. Sly changed all that. He carved out a better future for us. And yet, no matter how far we ran, we seemed to end up back here, in the darkness. Today, that was fine by me.

  Ed Dulaney never saw us coming. Sly had paid off the three mechanics working under him today. Angel and I took point. Guns drawn, we found Ed in his office, kicking back a brew.

  Angel charged him, knocking the chair right out from under him. I grabbed Ed by the throat and backed him against the wall. His eyes went wide with terror. I knew his type. If he got through this without pissing himself, he ought to get a gold star.

  Fresh rage came over me and I took the first shot. I landed a blow right on the bridge of Ed’s nose, breaking it. He spit blood but I kept him against the wall.

  “What the fuck, man?” he cried. “I’ve got no beef with you.”

  “Good,” I said. “So then I’ll make this quick, now that we have your attention.” Sly walked in and Ed lost his chance at a gold star. Sly had earned the right to avoid getting his hands dirty like this. But he wanted Ed Dulaney to know how much shit he was really in if he didn’t give us what we needed.

  Sly had a grainy color photo from the security cameras outside the Den. They caught the back of the black van as it drove away from the parking lot.

  “Recognize it?” Sly asked.

  Ed shook his head. “I told
you. I’ve got no beef with you. I seen a lot of vans like that one.”

  “Good. I’m looking for one you might have fixed up in the last couple of months. Busted back windows. Think real hard, Ed. Angel and Gunn are in the mood for some fun. You look fun to them.”

  Ed started to cry. “I don’t want in the middle of this shit.”

  “Then pick a side, asshole,” I said. “But think real carefully. Cuz you’re looking at the winning team.”

  “I don’t know, man. I swear to God. I don’t keep track.”

  “Yes, you fucking do!” Angel couldn’t contain himself. He caught Ed right in the solar plexus. Ed crumpled in my hands. I eased up and he slid down to the ground.

  “It was Kagan’s man, wasn’t it?” I asked. “Brian Kagan. Ring any bells?”

  “Kagan?” Ed sputtered. “You fucking serious? I’m not suicidal. You think I’d touch anything he brings in here?”

  “I sure hope not,” Sly said. “Go look up your records, Ed. I want them all.”

  Ed collected himself just long enough to get to his feet. I scrunched my nose. The poor fucker reeked. His fingers trembled as he opened up the laptop on his desk. Angel stood over his shoulder.

  “Hurry up,” I said. I didn’t like this. We were too exposed here. Sly wanted a show of force. It was a good plan, but it also meant we’d made a show. If the Hawks were out for blood, it wouldn’t take long for word to get to them that we’d all showed up here. Part of me wanted it. I wanted the simplicity of a straight-up fight. None of this drive-by bullshit. Fist to fist. Gun to gun. Blood for blood.

  Sly was getting antsy too. None of us had drawn down yet, but it was getting close to that. Ed Dulaney was stupid, but he wasn’t an idiot. He had to know if Angel’s contact had already tipped him off about the repair work, there would no use to lie about it. It was the last small piece Sly wanted so we could be sure. We’d follow the trail straight back to the Devil’s Hawks M.C. and end this shit tonight.