by Naomi West
Max looked a little shell-shocked, but he complied. Once he was out of reach, I finally heaved a sigh of relief.
Chapter Eighteen
Halley
I stared down at Jake's weak body and reached out for the umpteenth time to touch his hand, hoping that those gentle touches would eventually ground him and bring him back to the present.
Hospitals had always terrified me, from the time that my grandparents had died when I was a kid. There was always that smell to them, and that look that doctors gave you when there was nothing more that they could do.
That look may not have been directed towards me this time, when it was Jake who was there, lying limp against their pale green sheets, but that didn't make me feel any better. Every time I saw the doctor, I expected to see one of those looks.
Fortunately, it didn't come.
I was surprised, that day, to see the way his eyes flickered, as though they might open at any second. Of course, he had only been shot in the leg during some sort of mission for the Devil's Route—but I didn’t really know what he'd been up to. And with the way that he'd been lying there for the past few days, dead to the world, I kind of thought that … well...
And the color of his eyes! The thing was, he'd been out for so long now that I almost thought I had forgotten the peculiar shade of green that overcame his eyes most of the time. I thought I had forgotten.
But it didn't matter now. What mattered was that both Max and he were in the hospital, with injuries of varying severity.
“What are you thinking about?” Jake asked suddenly, and my hand stilled against his.
I jolted as though he had shocked me. “I didn't realize you were awake,” I said in surprise.
“I didn't think I would be,” Jake admitted to me. He shook his head. “Where's Frank? Is he—”
But before he could even finish the question, I was shaking my head, tears standing in the corners of my eyes. “I'm so sorry,” I said, my voice sounding raw and pained. “I'm so, so sorry.”
Jake held up a hand to interrupt me. “Where is Frank?” he asked. It was clearly the only thing that he could think about, and he had to have the answer to that question before he heard anything else.
I settled back in the chair and closed my eyes. “I'm sorry, Jake,” I said, and I was sure he could see the tears standing in the corners of my eyes. “Frank … well, with that bullet to the stomach, it's a surprise that he survived long enough to even make it to the hospital. But there was nothing more the doctors could do.”
Jake stilled, staring up at me, but I couldn't meet his heartbroken gaze. “I was there, though,” Jake said. “I mean, I saw him get shot, but—”
“Jake, you couldn't help him,” I said. “I mean, sure, you got him out of there. But that doesn't mean you can save a man who has been...” I trailed off, remembering the way Jake's hands had been smeared with blood when I'd finally seen him again, despite the nurse's best efforts to clean him off. “You did everything you could.”
“No,” Jake said hoarsely. “No, I can't believe it. I don’t believe it. I refuse to believe it.”
“Don't worry, though,” I said, trying to make my voice as soothing as I could. “We followed his funeral instructions to the letter, everything that was laid out in his will. And Max is running the club right now, making sure that everything’s fine.”
“It's Max's fault that we're in this mess to start with,” Jake growled, trying to sit up. “And it's his mess.”
“Easy there,” I said, catching his shoulder and pushing him back down onto the bed. “Relax, just relax. Jake, I know that this is hard for you.”
“Hard for me,” he snorted. “Jesus fucking Christ, woman, you think this is just 'hard' for me? This is—”
“I know,” I interrupted, my voice still in the same falsely soothing tone as before. “But Jake—”
“I'm going to kill that fucker,” Jake vowed. He shook his head when I opened my mouth to even consider arguing with him. “No,” he said firmly. “Look, Halley, I know that you have your personal things—your morals and your etiquette and whatever else, but I'm going to kill that fucker. For what he's done to you, for what he's done to Frank, for what he's done to the Devil's Route. He doesn't deserve to—”
“What are you, God?” I scoffed. “You don't have any right to go on making decisions about who lives or who dies.”
I was right, and Jake knew that. He stared at me for a long moment, and this time, I could see tears forming in his eyes. Then, he finally turned his eyes away from me, and I could see him weep.
Chapter Nineteen
Jake
When I woke up to see Emilio Alvarez standing over my bed, I thought at first that he was a figment of my imagination—that maybe I was dreaming that he was there. But no matter how many times I blinked, he was still there, unwavering, and I was finally forced to accept the fact that he was really there. I swallowed hard, trying to find my voice and trying to ignore just how vulnerable I was, lying there in the hospital bed, barely able to move with all the things the doctors had me connected to.
I cleared my throat. “You've come to kill me, just like you killed Frank?” I asked, my voice rough.
Emilio frowned at me, but he didn't move. “No,” he said. After a long moment, he sighed, shaking his head, and sat down in the seat at my bedside. “You have to understand, Frank's death had nothing to do with me. I didn't order it, I didn't want it. Maybe for some of you younger guys, there isn't the same sense of honor that there used to be. But when I first joined the Flames, we would never have just gone out and executed our competition. That's just not how these things work.”
I frowned right back at him, my brain feeling sluggish. Maybe it was from all the drugs that they were pumping into me—painkillers and whatever else. But I just couldn't seem to make sense of things. “What do you mean, you didn't kill him?” I asked. “If you didn't kill him, who did?”
“That's Max's doing,” Emilio said, his tone flat. “I'm actually surprised that he hasn't arranged for another hit on you just yet, but I guess he must be biding his time, waiting until the suspicion over all of this has gone down a little. Also, it's going to be a hell of a lot easier to kill you once you're out of here. He may be stupid, but he doesn't want to deal with a mess of security footage, nurses, and bribes.”
“Wait,” I said, shaking my head. God, if only I wasn't so groggy! Then I could make sense of all of this. “Are you trying to tell me that Max arranged the whole thing just so that his own father would be gunned down?” I remembered Max's ashen face back in the building, remembered the way he had refused to go help out any of the others. He had known, I realized, disbelief coloring my realization. He had known that they were going to kill his father, and he still hadn't done a god-damned thing about it.
And that was probably what Max wanted even; that was the part that was sickening. He probably thought that if the Flames killed Frank and I, maybe he could take over as leader of the Devil's Route, and then he could have everything that he'd ever wanted.
There was just one problem, and that was that I was still alive. Although with the way things were going, it might not be that way for long.
I eyed Emilio. “Why are you here, if not to kill me?” I finally queried.
Emilio shrugged a little. “To offer you a choice,” he said. “I don't feel that we owe you a debt, per se, but I do know that it was a member of the Flames who killed Frank, whoever's orders they might have been operating on. So rather than just tell you how things are going to go from here on out, I'm going to let you decide the fate of your club.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “And my choices are?”
“I assume you want to be the one to avenge Frank's death, by killing Max,” Emilio said. I nodded curtly, and he smiled. “So, do that, then. And once that's done, you will formally disband the Devil's Route MC, and that will be the end of all of our troubles with you.”
“I could never disband the club!” I snapp
ed. “That's absurd. Frank worked his whole life building it up, and the guys deserve better than that.”
“Your other option, then, is to allow yourselves to be absorbed into the Holy Flames MC peacefully. We don't really want to go to war with you, we just want to take over all your areas, all your people, and most importantly, all of your revenue. It's been too long that we've been fighting over territory here. Better that we—”
“You know that's never going to happen,” I interrupted, scowling at him. “I'm offended that you think I would even consider—”
“Oh, you'll do more than consider,” Emilio said, smirking at me. He leaned in close. “Because you know what will happen if you don't do either of those things?” he asked. “We know about your girlfriend and your son, and although I stop short of killing innocents to get what I want, that doesn't mean I couldn't make your life a living hell.”
I swallowed hard, hands clenching into fists against the sheets. “You wouldn't dare,” I snarled, but inwardly … well, I didn't really know what the man might or might not do. There was a reason he was losing more and more men recently: he was becoming dangerously impulsive, just like Max. There was no telling where those impulses might lead him.
I wished Halley was there in the hospital with me, where I could keep an eye on her and keep her safe. I wished I were healed and healthy and strong and that I could look out for both her and Cole, outside of the hospital. But unfortunately, at the moment…
Emilio stood up, his business with me finished. “Think long and hard about it,” he told me in parting.
Chapter Twenty
I hated using crutches, but I also agreed with the doctors that I didn't want to reopen my leg wound, and that meant hobbling around and keeping myself mostly immobile for at least another week. Really, I just wanted to get back out there on my bike, letting the speed and the wind wipe away all my frustrations and anger and pain.
“All right, are you sure you're comfortable there?” Halley asked, adjusting the pillows behind me for the umpteenth time. She frowned critically at my setup on the couch and shook her head. “That doesn't look very comfortable,” she said.
“It's fine,” I insisted, rolling my eyes even though I was secretly amused by her antics and appreciative of her efforts to take care of me.
“Okay,” Halley said doubtfully.
“Look, I have to talk to you about something,” I told her the real reason I'd asked her to pick me up from the hospital.
“Let me make you some soup first,” she said, already moving towards the kitchen. “I've got chicken noodle, tomato bisque, cream of—”
“I'm not sick,” I interrupted. This time, I couldn't keep the amusement off my face. “I mean, I was shot in the leg—I don't have the flu. I don't need to eat soup for every meal.”
“I know,” Halley said matter-of-factly. “But I also know that they're still pumping you through with painkillers, so I thought it might be easier for you to drink a little soup and not worry about cutlery. And then you could go back to sleep and rest, which is what you're supposed to be doing, even if you're not sick.”
She had a valid point, if I was being honest. It wasn't that I couldn't use my hands, but my fingers seemed to always be a little longer than I expected or otherwise just strange feeling.
“Fine,” I said. “Soup would be great. Whatever kind you want.” I then waited impatiently for her to return with the meal so that we could talk. The thing was, I had to tell her about Max and about Emilio's threat. I had to get her and Cole to someplace safe until I was strong enough to protect them myself.
“What's wrong?” she asked as she came back into the room, sensing my unhappiness. “Does something hurt?” And there she was, at it again with the stupid pillows.
I shrugged her hands away. “I'm fine,” I told her gruffly. “I just...”
Halley frowned at me and slowly sank down to sit on the coffee table. I reached over and laid a hand on her knee, closing my eyes and turning my face up towards the ceiling because I couldn't bear to see her reaction to the danger that I'd put our son in.
“Emilio Alvarez came to visit me while I was in the hospital,” I told her. “If you haven't heard his name yet, he's the leader of the Holy Flames MC, one of our rival clubs. Our most powerful rival club here in the city.”
“Okay,” Halley said slowly.
“The club that we planned the raid on,” I explained deliberately. “The raid where I was just shot.”
I couldn't help cracking open an eye to see Halley's expression when she gave no verbal clue of what she was thinking. She was frowning, but she didn't look too upset — yet.
“What did he want with you?” she asked slowly. “Obviously, he didn't hurt you or anything; the doctors would have noticed if he had done something like that.”
I inclined my head towards her, acknowledging the truth of that. “He came to threaten me,” I told her. “And he came to…” I frowned, head falling back again as I took a deep breath. “He wants to take over the Devil's Route MC.”
“Well, of course he does,” Halley said, shrugging a little. “Isn't that what all of you guys want, to get more territory and income and whatever else? But—”
“Wait,” I told her. “You haven't heard the whole story.” Halley obediently fell silent. I rubbed at the bridge of my nose. “He wants me to either disband Devil's Route or else to let the Flames peacefully absorb our members into their ranks. I can't let either of those things happen, of course, not when Frank worked so hard to get the club to this point, and not when our values are so completely different from the Flames' values. But if I don't choose between these two options, Emilio has ... threatened you and Cole.”
Halley stood abruptly, looking absolutely livid. “And what, you'd rather choose your drinking buddies over me and Cole? I'm sorry, but—”
“They aren't my drinking buddies,” I snapped. “A motorcycle club is a brotherhood. I've known most of these guys since I was a fucked-up teenager, and they helped me — along with Frank — to grow into the man that I am today. They've always been there for me, and it wouldn't be fair for me to turn my back on them, not when we're all still reeling with the loss of Frank, not when they're depending on me to lead them. As Max said, I now have a conflict of interest that maybe is clouding my judgement, but I'm trying my best to be rational here.”
Halley stared at me for a long moment, her chest heaving, and then finally sank back down onto the table. “Okay,” she said, her voice small. “So, I guess Cole and I will just have to look out for ourselves.”
“Believe me, Halley, if I were strong enough to protect the two of you, I'd be right there at your side through all of this,” I told her fiercely. “But the problem is this whole...” I gestured towards my leg.
“Why can't the club continue to protect us?” Halley asked.
I shook my head. “Because too much is happening at the moment,” I told her truthfully. “I can't justify tying up club resources, and more than that, I'm not sure how people would view that, in light of recent events. Of course, Frank's death had nothing to do with you, but with everyone still reeling from that, there are bound to be some people who are looking to blame anything they can.”
Halley shook her head in disbelief. “That's not fair,” she said. “I had nothing to do with that!”
“No, but Max was involved in Frank's death,” I told her grimly. “At least, that's what Emilio tells me and I believe him. And Max was the most vocal opposition when I asked for the Devil's Route to have men guard you and Cole because he was afraid of what would happen if we diverted our resources. And look what's happened.”
Halley bit her lower lip. “So, what do you suggest we do?” she asked. “Hire a private security force?”
“I don't even know if that would help,” I admitted honestly. “What you have to remember is that the Holy Flames MC has been in operation for a very long time, and they know a thing or two about picking off people. Instead, I want you and Cole
— and your parents too, probably — to go far, far away, until all of this blows over. I'm going to try to talk to Emilio and convince him that he doesn't actually want to do this, but I need you to—”
“You can't go talk to Emilio,” Halley said tearfully, reaching out a hand towards me, lacing her fingers in mine. “The last thing I want is to be halfway across the country and find out that you've been killed as well.”
I sighed, closing my eyes because I knew I needed to remain strong despite her tears. “Halley, it's not like we really have options in this situation. Emilio has already threatened to do something — although he didn't say what — against you. And there's Max to consider as well. And then there's Devil's Route as a whole.” I took a deep breath before saying the words I really didn't want to say: “I'm not asking you to leave. I'm telling you that you have to leave, and to distance yourself from me as much as possible. I'm not even sure we can chat or—”
