“I had Wolf take Doogan home with him the moment we left yesterday, remember?” Griffin asked soothingly.
My legs went weak at the knees, and I sank into Griffin’s embrace like he was the soft place for me to land on.
“Thank God,” I breathed, eyes closing as bile started to rise up my throat.
I missed what they were talking about as I thought about all the things I would be needing to replace. My hair products. My clothes. My books.
“…they have your ex-wife hostage,” Peek finished.
My spine stiffened as I looked towards Peek to see him staring at Griffin over my shoulder.
I could feel Griffin’s arm tighten around my belly, but he didn’t react very much at all to the news.
“And Justin?” He asked carefully.
Peek shook his head. “Can’t find Justin. Didn’t know about Noreen, either, until Wolf searched through the boy’s pockets who tried to play firebug. They had a picture of her holding a newspaper that they were supposed to tack onto the tree out front.”
Griffin took a huge, deep breath, then let it all out through his nose.
“My dad’s following behind us with the piece of shit who tried to break into my mom’s place, as well as the other four my dad took out before they could do any damage,” Griffin said. “I got a little bit of information out of the guy who says he shot my kid, but other than that, just the standard yes or no answers.”
Every one of the men in the room stiffened at Griffin’s explanation.
“Says he shot your kid…” Peek said carefully.
Griffin nodded, and I turned into his arms to wrap mine around his chest, hugging him tight.
He squeezed back a little harder than usual, but didn’t say anything else to Peek’s question.
“Well…” Griffin’s father said as he came into the room. “I got an A+ in the art of interrogation during Desert Storm. I think it’s time you let me at him, my boy.”
Griffin’s eyes closed, and he took a deep breath.
“I want that fucker to suffer. I want him to know what it feels like to be missing a part of himself that is so integral that he no longer knows how to live a normal life…can you give me that?” He rumbled darkly.
Grunts followed around the room, but it was Peek who answered, not his dad.
“I can give you that,” he said simply. “But you won’t be in on it. You’ll be as far away as you can. We don’t need your emotions to play a part in this. We need a solid head with clear thinking. This isn’t over yet. We have a few of their men, but they still have the upper hand because we don’t know who they represent and what they’re trying to accomplish. Yet.”
“I think we should just burn every one of those motherfucker’s. I know someone that owns a funeral business. He has a really nice cremator.” Mig said darkly.
I think my eyebrows rose to my hairline at that comment.
Jesus, these men were bloodthirsty!
Not that I blamed them.
Griffin was their brother…and that meant that Tanner was important to them, too.
“Nobody’s gonna do anything to them. I got my boss working on his end to identify all these men. Four of them have already been identified as gun transporters on multiple gun shipments,” Griffin said, finally letting me go to walk to the table.
He opened a file folder and took out four photos.
“These four are already in the system. They only need one more charge and they’re back in jail for the rest of their lives,” Griffin continued. “The one that I wasn’t able to get charges filed against was the one that shot my kid.”
“Well, I’ve got you covered there,” Wolf said, opening his own file folder. “Mickey Ramsey, thirty-two. At the scene of your son’s shooting, three witnesses said they were able to identify a tattoo on the suspects left wrist,” he said, dropping a picture of a butterfly on the table. “This is the same picture you sent me last night of the man, as well as the identifying characteristics.”
I looked at the one I’d seen Griffin send last night, then at the picture of the butterfly that witnesses had described to the police officers and then had a sketch artist draw. It was an exact match.
“With his admission to killing your son to a room filled with people, we’ve got him locked down,” Wolf said. “Already have Rider on the charges.”
Rider, I assumed, was Wolf and Griffin’s boss…but I could be wrong.
I’d never heard the name before, but who else would be ‘on the charges?’
While they spoke, I thought about the last day and a half.
We’d been to Alabama and back in less than 18 hours.
Five armed men had tried to break into his mother’s house and kill us.
Someone had burned down my house, and had tried to burn down my business.
Tried to do the same to Griffin’s house.
Honestly, I was just plain tired.
Tired of shitty people in this world making life harder than it should be.
My phone interrupted my pity party, and I was glad.
Those thoughts could only lead me into darker thoughts, and I most certainly didn’t want to go there.
Not yet, anyway.
“Hello?” I answered my phone, making everyone in the room pause to allow me to speak.
I winced when I heard Dr. Parsons start right in.
“You were supposed to have an MRI today, but they said you didn’t show for your appointment,” Dr. Parsons said.
I closed my eyes and scrunched up my nose.
“I forgot,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Can I reschedule for tomorrow?”
“Today. They have an opening at one p.m.,” he said shortly.
I looked at my watch. “That’s thirty minutes from now.”
“I know, they had another woman scheduled, but she perished before she was able to make it to the appointment. Sad, but effective since you need it done. You can’t put these off. This is non-negotiable. We need to see if this mass has grown any, and we have to be on top of it. If we miss it even a month, and it triples in size, it’ll get invasive and we won’t be able to do a thing about it.”
I sighed. “I can be there. Thank you, Dr. Parsons.”
I hung up and turned to Griffin, who was watching me now with his arms crossed over his chest, and a scowl on his face that would make most grown men quake in their boots.
“You missed your appointment?” He asked for confirmation.
I nodded. “Yeah. But he’s scheduled me at one.”
He nodded. “One of them will take you.”
I shook my head. “No, y’all are busy. I can drive myself.”
Griffin was already shaking his head in disagreement.
“No. Not now. They burned your house down last night. They sent men after us today. You’re going with someone. End of story,” he said pointedly.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine.”
He nodded. “Who wants to volunteer?”
None of them raised their hands.
I wasn’t upset, though.
Babysitting duty wasn’t as fun as kicking bad guys’ asses, apparently.
“I’ll take her,” Griffin’s father said.
I blinked.
“Uhhh,” I said worriedly.
Griffin grinned. “Dad, I know you’re trying to help, but you aren’t trained like you used to be. You’re getting soft.”
Griffin’s father snorted. “I think not, son. I can take you.”
Griffin raised his eyebrow at his father.
“Yeah?” He asked, moving to his sidearm faster than I could blink.
Griffin’s dad, however, was just as fast, if not a little bit faster.
Only he didn’t have a firearm in his hand.
He’d thrown a knife across the room, and it landed in the wall about two inches shy of Griffin’s hand.
“You were saying?”
Chapter 20
I wish I was lucky enough to count sheep when I fell asleep like I did when I was a kid. Now I count my failures.
-Hard Truth
Lenore
“Call me Carrick,” Griffin’s father ordered.
I nodded. “Okay.”
I looked down at my hands, but used my peripheral vision to study him.
He’d insisted on driving, so I’d handed him the keys to my car that’d miraculously shown up outside the club house, and got into the passenger seat without another word.
“Now, to answer your question that I can see in your eyes: no, I’m not crazy,” he answered.
I rose my eyebrows at him. “That’s not what Griffin said when he was telling me about you and why his mother had to have security.”
Carrick grinned.
“I didn’t say I didn’t used to be crazy, but it’s been a lot of years. And he hasn’t seen me in ten of them…at least until the day of Tanner’s funeral,” Carrick said softly. “I’ve been on a cocktail of anti-anxiety meds, depression meds, and I’ve been going to therapy for damn near twelve years now. I’m about as stable as the next person, I guess,” Carrick explained.
I smiled, staring down into my lap.
“So you never met Tanner?” I asked softly.
Carrick shook his head. “No. Although I knew about him. Rayleigh gave me updates on him. Gave me pictures. I bought him birthday and Christmas presents. I just wasn’t there because Griffin didn’t trust me.”
“Are you upset about that?” I asked quietly, turning to study him.
He looked a lot like Griffin, only he had a lot more laugh lines.
His hair was completely gray, no longer the lovely shade of blonde that Griffin’s was.
He had the same blue eyes, only in a face that was tanner.
He had the same bulky build, and the same sense of style.
And I liked it.
I liked that the two of them were so much alike.
In the fifteen minutes or so I’d been riding with him, I realized that Griffin and Carrick were a lot alike.
“No. Why berate him for doing the same thing with his kid that I wanted to do with my own?” He asked seriously.
I shook my head.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
He winked at me. “You’ll know what you’re capable of doing once you have a child of your own. Like that papa of yours, surviving that gator attack.”
I raised a brow at him.
“How do you know about my father?” I asked curiously, turning my attention back to the road in front of us when a downpour started to take over the world around us.
The skies opened up, and thunder boomed overhead, making me grateful I had a large umbrella in the backseat the size of a small Texas town.
He grinned. “I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere. Just because my son lives five hours from me doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on in his everyday life.”
I nodded in understanding.
“Wish I could’ve done more for him once Tanner was gone, though,” he muttered to himself, his statement barely audible to my ears. “I would trade places with Tanner in a heartbeat if it’d make Griff smile like he used to. Although, I saw a glimmer of the old Griffin this weekend after he saved that baby.”
I smiled.
“He’s pretty amazing, my man,” I confirmed. “And I’m happy he’s smiling again, too.”
Carrick pulled into the hospital and parked in the very back of the lot, as close to the exit as he could get without being in the ambulance bay.
I smiled to myself, realizing, once again, how much they were alike.
“Will they let me come into the room with you?” Carrick asked hopefully.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“I have no clue, but my guess would be no. It can’t hurt to ask, though,” I pointed out, getting out of the car and grabbing the umbrella from the back seat.
He nodded and followed me into the hospital, staying a foot behind me nearly the entire way.
Getting wet when he didn’t have to.
Once at the check in station, I gave the lady my name and took a seat where Carrick indicated.
Once again, at the closest point to the exit, with our back to the wall, facing the door.
Like father like son.
I didn’t have to wait long, though, which was a rarity for this hospital.
“Can he come in with me?” I asked the lady.
She shook her head. “He can wait in the hall outside the MRI room, but he can’t be in the room with you.”
I nodded. “That’ll do, thank you.”
Twenty minutes later, I was laying inside a huge, hulking machine, trying valiantly to tune out the annoyance of the machine clicking and clanking away.
At first it wasn’t too bad, but the longer you sit there, the harder it becomes to ignore.
And, by that point, I had a splitting headache that I was sure would turn into a migraine from hell in less time than it would take to snap my fingers.
A loud roar of what I assumed was thunder and not the machine sounded overhead, and I sighed when everything around me went black.
Seconds later, lights came on, and an odd, eerie, glow filled the room as the emergency lights blinked on.
The machine, however, was done for.
I assumed it wasn’t needed during a power outage, so I looked down the tube, pulling my head out of the lovely cage that held me still.
“Can I get out?” I called loudly.
Nobody answered, and I started to freak out.
I’d never been what one would call ‘claustrophobic,’ but being in this tube wasn’t really that great for my nerves in the first place.
So I started to shimmy out, using my heels for purchase until I was out of the tube and able to sit up.
And I wished I’d never come out.
Especially when I saw a man wearing a black mask and gray scrubs pointing a gun at me.
My eyes darted around, and I saw the bodies of the medical staff on the floor behind the glass of the observation room.
“W-what…”
I didn’t get to finish my sentence, because in the next instant, he pulled the trigger, and I fell backwards, hitting my head on the large machine behind me.
I raised my hand up to my head, wincing in pain as my hand met something warm and wet.
I pulled my hand away to look at it and saw red smearing my fingers.
“She’s done…” the man said, turning to someone beside him.
“The old man’s down, too. Took out Peter, Brady, and Paul, though,” whomever was behind him said. “And the other team’s about to breach the perimeter of the lake house.”
My heart sank.
And I watched as the two men left the room, unable to move a single inch from where I was.
I must’ve had a concussion or something from when I hit my head, because I couldn’t make my brain work correctly.
Couldn’t make my mouth speak the words that were screaming to get out.
The only thing that did seem to work were my eyes, and I watched the door for long moments after the men exited the room.
I wasn’t sure how long it was when I saw the door inch forward a couple of inches, and Carrick’s gray head pop through.
He was on the floor like me, and the moment he saw me, his eyes went wide.
I blinked at him, and he dropped his head to rest on the ground for a few long seconds before he started to painfully crawl inside.
There was something wrong with his legs. It was almost like they were broken.
His arm was at an odd angle, but nothing else looked wrong until you looked beyond his legs.
There was a smear of blood following behind him, staining the floor in dark red streaks as he pulled himself towards me.
“You alive?” He asked once he was within a few feet of me.
I blinked.
&
nbsp; “That a yes?” He asked.
I blinked again.
“Good. Because if you’re not alive, we’re gonna have problems.”
I blinked again.
He nodded and rolled over to his back, painfully.
“Shot me in the back. And I broke my arm in the fall,” he muttered.
He must’ve read the question in my eyes, because I knew I didn’t speak it.
He pulled out his phone, and he spoke all of four words into the speaker before he passed out from what I assumed was blood loss.
There did seem to be quite a bit of it now…but it may be because I was bleeding, too.
“They shot us. Radiology.”
Shot us?
I wasn’t shot, was I?
I didn’t feel shot.
My head did hurt, though.
But that was because of the way I’d fallen back…wasn’t it?
I didn’t know how long I sat there, slumped against that machine.
Could’ve been two minutes…or fifty.
I didn’t know.
But I’d never been so happy to see a doctor in his white coat before in my life.
“Two in here, too!” He yelled.
I smiled.
Or at least I tried.
Because I knew I’d make it now.
I’d held on.
And Griffin would be here soon.
Chapter 21
When shit hits the fan, and everyone around you is losing their mind, find the silent guy. The one that looks calm enough to take a nap. He’s about to fuck something up, and you’ll want to follow him.
-Rule of Thumb
Griffin
“They shot her in the head,” I muttered in shock.
The doctor nodded his head. “Right. But as far as we can tell, nothing seems really wrong with her. The most damage was caused when she was thrown back from the force, and the following concussion. The bullet entered through here,” he said, pointing at a bandaged part of Lenore’s head. “And exited here.” He continued, pointing at the back of her head, just under her left ear. “But it missed her brain nearly completely, turning the moment it hit bone to travel along the curve of the skull.”
He demonstrated this by drawing a U shape in the air.
“It hit one part of the brain,” another doctor said from the doorway.
Whiskey Neat (The Uncertain Saints MC Book 1) Page 19
