I immediately recognized the name.
He was the doctor Lenore had told me about…her cancer doc.
He held up a computer in his hand and walked swiftly into the room.
“I’m sorry to barge in like this. But when I heard about what happened to Lenore, I pulled her file of the scan she had this afternoon before the shooting happened, then compared it to the one you had done once you had the bleeding under control,” Dr. Parsons continued.
He stopped directly between the doctor that’d been talking to me, Dr. Jeffries, and I.
And on the computer were two scans.
One was what I assumed was this afternoon’s, and one that was the one Dr. Jeffries had just shown me.
After comparing the two, I couldn’t see a single difference.
“I hadn’t realized she was being treated for brain cancer,” Dr. Jeffries said.
Dr. Parsons nodded. “This is the mass I was treating her for, it hasn’t grown in well over a month. In fact, it hasn’t grown at all since I’ve started seeing her. From what we can tell, the mass is benign, but because of its location, it causes her to suffer from severe migraines on occasion.”
She hadn’t had one of those since I’d started seeing her, but just before she’d left for the appointment today, she’d mentioned that she felt one coming on.
“Okay, so what’s the difference between the two scans?” I asked, looking closer, but not seeing anything.
“The mass is gone,” he said, indicating where the mass was located on the earlier scan, and then pointing to where it should’ve been on the later scan.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “So what does that mean?”
“Essentially?” Dr. Parsons asked. “It could be that the bullet did what we were unable to do, and removed it by forcing it out. Or it could be that it wasn’t a mass, per se, maybe it was more of a cyst, and it ruptured during the fall. I’m not sure we’ll ever really know, though.”
I nodded. “And what does that mean for her?”
Dr. Parsons closed his computer and set it down on the bedside table next to Lenore’s bed.
“I don’t know, yet. And we won’t know until she wakes up,” he explained. “The reason we didn’t operate is because it was inoperable…at least for us,” he said, walking forward to the board. “This part of the brain is called the brain stem. It controls her breathing.”
I nodded.
“But she’s still breathing on her own,” I said smartly, looking over at Lenore where she laid peacefully on the bed. The only thing signaling that anything was wrong were the two white bandages on her head covering the bullet’s entry and exit wound.
“Yes,” he continued. “Which is what we were worried about when we decided not to operate.”
“So what does that mean? That we won’t have to worry about this anymore?” I asked.
Dr. Parsons smiled. “For right now, I think Lenore is going to be just fine. In the future, I’d still like her to have regular scans done every three months, then move to every six if everything continues to stay clear.”
I couldn’t tell whether I was relived she was shot in the head, or upset.
It was a combination of both.
“So why is she asleep if she’s okay?” I finally asked, studying the woman that I loved.
“She’s in a medically induced coma. It’s just a precaution. We’re giving her body a chance to focus its energy on healing, not routine functions, and we’re also waiting for the swelling to go down,”
I nodded warily. “Okay.”
“Are there any other questions we can answer for you?” Dr. Parsons asked.
I took a seat at Lenore’s side, and looked at her.
I almost lost her today.
“No. Well…I’m going to have to leave in a few minutes on police business. So you’ll need to explain this to her parents who haven’t gotten here yet,” I said, picking up Lenore’s hand.
“We can do that,” Dr. Parsons said, patting my shoulder as he started to exit the room.
“Dr. Parsons?” I called. “Dr. Jeffries?”
They stopped. “Yes?”
“Thank you.”
Dr. Jeffries smiled. “Your welcome, but I didn’t do anything. It was all on your lady, there. She’s the fighter, not me.”
Indeed, my girl was a fighter.
But she wouldn’t need to fight for much longer.
Not with me at her side.
But now I was about to wipe the earth clean of ten people responsible for tainting our lives with their brand of evil.
With one final kiss to Lenore’s hand, I stood up and walked out the door.
Calm on the outside, raging in the inside.
***
“Give me the names!” I roared.
I slammed the man who was responsible for shooting my child into the wall behind him, suspending him at least six inches off the floor as I did.
“Perry. A-Abraham P-Perry.”
My blood ran cold.
He was a preacher I’d quarreled with when I’d first moved here. The one who’d refused to give me a ride on his expensive boat to show me around the area.
Mr. I can only use my boat for church related purposes. No exceptions.
Although it seemed a minor occurrence then…now it wasn’t.
I dropped the man, and he slammed to his knees, no fight left in him to hold him up.
“You better hope you gave me the right information, or I’ll take your limbs off, and burn the stumps so you don’t bleed to death,” I growled, giving him one last kick before I surged out the door.
I’d deal with him later.
There were bigger fish to fry right now.
***
An hour later
“This is all you have on him?” I asked, scanning the paperwork Wolf had just handed me.
He nodded. “This was all we’d been able to get on him. He’s a fuckin’ preacher for Uncertain’s only fuckin’ church.”
I shook my head. “Good cover, to be honest. Would know everything about this town, too.”
“So how’s a preacher able to afford a boat like that? Seems hellaciously suspicious,” I nodded.
We had our man.
Wolf nodded. “We’ve been watching him since that killer gave you his name. Got the approval from the boss man, as well as the warrant, leaving me with the power to do almost anything I want to.”
I grinned a tad manically.
“Good. Let’s go.”
Thirty minutes later, the entire team was dressed and ready to penetrate Perry’s house.
I knocked on the door, not worried that they’d bother to look through the hole.
I didn’t care if they saw me.
I was ready for them, too.
The first man I saw when I entered through the door to Abraham Perry’s place was the man I’d seen on the security cameras across the street from the hospital.
The one who’d thrown the black mask in the trashcan when he thought he’d been far enough away from the security cameras.
And…I’d give him credit. He had been. At least from the hospital’s.
He hadn’t been from the drug rehab place across the street who’d been battling a bunch of petty thefts.
I didn’t even pause to think.
I pulled my .45 out, aimed it at the man’s chest, and fired.
He stumbled back as the bark of the gun sounded in my ear, then fell slowly to the floor as he clutched his chest in his hands.
Two more men ran through the door, weapons drawn, but the two men at my side, Mig and Wolf, took them down, too.
The next two on the outside of the door’s entrance were smarter.
They fired through the walls.
What they failed to do, though, was aim for where we were actually standing.
Which wasn’t in the line of fire.
Lesson one in tactical training.
; We were down on the ground, and the moment they poked their heads around the wall, they were taken down.
“That’s five. There’s only six reported in the house, and most likely he’s already in the panic room,” I said through my mic that connected me to the other four men that’d come with me.
Casten, Ridley, Wolf, and Mig confirmed my thoughts as they scanned the last few rooms.
Finally, we came to the very last room where the panic room was supposed to be, according to the information we’d been able to extract from the ‘friend’ that gave us Abraham Perry’s name.
“Bet it’s wired,” Wolf said, looking around the room. “He knows we’re here. I’ll bet he has a hidden latch here somewhere.”
The five of us moved throughout the room, pulling everything off the walls and bookshelves.
I went to the desk and upended it, smiling somewhat evilly when I saw the small button on the floor where the desk had previously occupied.
“Got it,” I said, pressing the button.
The bookshelf that spanned the entire width of the room started to move to the side, revealing a plain white room beyond it.
Then the shooting started.
I dove behind the desk I’d upended, and the rest of the men found their own cover behind various chairs and couches.
We didn’t waste time in opening fire.
Men that came out shooting had something to hide.
“Does he have a fuckin’ machine gun?” Wolf yelled as the bullets started to tear through the room.
Boom-boom-boom.
Over and over and over, the shots came, not slowing down whatsoever.
“Sounds like he kept one of those belt fed AR-15’s he was trying to unload in Arkansas a few months ago,” I yelled.
We knew, eventually, the ammo would run dry, all we had to do was hold on until that happened.
Or we would have, had the man handling the AR known how to handle a gun.
Apparently, he only knew how to sell them, because only moments after the shooting started, a scream of pain and panic filled the room.
I chanced poking my head around the heavy wood desk, and started laughing when I saw Perry on the floor, crying because he’d burned his hands.
“That barrel gets hot when you shoot that many rounds through it that fast, dip shit!” Mig called as he slowly stepped out from behind a recliner.
I moved from behind the desk, and approached the man slowly.
Even though our intel told us there were five men in the house, there could’ve just as easily been more.
And I wasn’t one to take the words of common criminals.
But luck was with us.
As Mig got to the man first, he cleared the room and moved the AR away from Perry’s blistered and bleeding hands.
“That looks like it hurts,” Casten said, kicking Perry’s hand with one steel toe, booted foot.
Perry screamed.
I might, or might not have, laughed.
I was a sadistic bastard like that, though.
“Now,” I said, crouching down on my haunches. “You’re going to tell me why this bill was so important that you felt it was necessary to kill my son to get it passed.” I leaned forward slightly, letting Perry see my eyes. “And you’re going to make me understand. Because I gotta tell you, man, I’m having a hard time, struggling to stay in control here, seeing as I have the man who pulled the trigger in holding, and I’m looking at the man, who claims to be a man of God, that gave the order. So, start talking, and you’d best not leave anything out.”
When he didn’t move fast enough, Mig delivered a vicious stomp onto Perry’s blistered hands.
Perry screamed.
Once again, I smiled.
Did I mention I loved my brothers?
Chapter 22
I want to make a difference, and I can make thirty differences per magazine.
-Bumper Sticker
Griffin
“Should’ve known it was because of his fuckin’ kid,” Wolf said as he and I walked side-by-side into the hospital. “That’s the only thing that can motivate a man into acting so stupidly. Family. It’s always the same fuckin’ thing, day in and day out. They sure know how to fuck you over, every single time.”
I didn’t comment.
I’d have done anything…absolutely anything…to protect Tanner.
But if he was a grown man like Ellis Perry, Tanner would’ve been on his own.
I’d learned over the last four hours of the interrogation of the elder Perry that his son, Ellis, had gotten himself into trouble just because of the fact that he was a dumbass.
If Perry had been smart, he never would’ve sent his son to do a man’s job.
Not that Ellis Perry didn’t qualify as a man at twenty years of age…he did.
Ellis Perry had been transporting the goods his father had had shipped from the Gulf of Mexico to a small town in Arkansas when he’d gotten pulled over at the border of Texas and Arkansas
All would’ve been fine had he not left a small packet of weed out on his front seat.
Ellis, thinking the best thing he could do in this situation was not to lie, had told the officer that it was weed when he’d asked about it.
So the officer had arrested him, then his car had been searched for other illegal contraband.
The officer thought he’d be getting more drugs…he’d been wrong.
He’d found over fifty AR-15’s in crates that had been hidden by the camper over the truck bed.
It’d made the young officer’s career…and had ruined Ellis Perry’s life.
So his father did what all fathers want to do, but most don’t act on.
He’d protected his son, and had started threatening people to get what he wanted.
When that didn’t work, he moved to blackmail.
When that still didn’t work, he moved on to killing someone else’s son to get his point across.
Needless to say, it’d worked.
Justin had caved immediately.
What Perry didn’t count on was me.
Nobody ever did.
I was vastly underestimated.
“I’m gonna run by the cafeteria…do you want some coffee?” Wolf asked.
I nodded.
I hadn’t had anything to eat in well over two days.
As Wolf parted ways with me, I walked quickly to Lenore’s room, anxious to see her.
However, I froze outside of her room when I saw Remy talking to Lenore.
He had her hand in his, and he was talking to her in low tones.
“He’s a dangerous man, Lennie. He’s always going to bring danger to your home, because that’s what his job is. He’s a Texas Ranger. He’s not going to give up his job, and even if he did do that, he won’t give up his motorcycle club,” Remy said. “They’re a bunch of vigilantes with vendettas. They’ll forever try to right the wrongs of society, because that’s just the type of men they are.”
“I don’t care. I want him to be happy. If I die because of something he’s involved in, it was meant to be. I love him. I won’t let you persuade me otherwise,” Lenore’s soft, melodic voice said.
I closed my eyes.
Was my life appropriate for a woman?
Would me being who I was endanger her?
And if I did endanger her, would she be able to protect herself?
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that she couldn’t.
She didn’t have the skills to protect herself, and even if I did teach her self-defense, she didn’t have the mentality to shoot someone.
Although she was a spunky woman with an amazing attitude on life, she didn’t have what it would take to live with protecting someone by taking their life.
And she might have to do that if she stayed with me.
I’d do everything I could to protect her, but there wasn’t a way for me to protect her for the rest of our lives.
At some point, she’d be alone.
Just like my son had been.
And look where my son had ended up.
Dead.
As these nasty thoughts sifted through my head, I backed up further and further until I was at the end of the hall.
Then even further until I was at the elevators.
And as the doors closed on the floor that Lenore was on, I realized that I’d just made my decision.
Lenore would find someone else.
She’d find someone…someone like Remy…that would be able to protect her.
That would be a good father to her kids.
That could actually have kids with her that would be protected.
I exited the elevator with my heart in my throat.
I got on my bike…and rode.
I didn’t have a destination in mind.
But anywhere would be better than there.
Anywhere would be better that didn’t remind me of her.
***
Three days later
“You should’ve listened to me, Justin,” I said, hunkering down so I could look straight into Justin’s eyes. “You should’ve done what I said, but you didn’t.”
I moved my knife to run along the fucker’s throat.
The tip of the knife dragged along his delicate skin, leaving a faint white line as it did.
It didn’t cut the surface of his skin, but it did let him know I was serious.
“I want you to know,” I said, putting both of my elbows on my knees. “That I will forever be watching you. When you get out of this prison in fifteen years, I’ll be there waiting to take you home. I’ll be with you every step, ensuring that you never live another happy day for the rest of your years.”
Justin squeezed his eyes shut.
“I’m sorry,” he cried. “Thank you for saving my wife.”
I glared at him. “At one point she was my wife, too. She may be a bitch, but nobody deserves what you had a hand in doing to her. No thanks needed.”
I shook my head, dropped the knife into the cup holder of my work car, and got out.
I dragged Justin out, pulling him into the police station by his arm.
Once I was at the desk that would allow me to turn over my suspect, I gave one last word of advice to Justin before I left.
Whiskey Neat (The Uncertain Saints MC Book 1) Page 20
