by K. J. Dahlen
We glared at each other, suddenly wanting to be as far away from one another as possible but bound together like family by our love for Jax.
“Jax is the love of my life. He’s my responsibility.”
“Yes, but I’m Jax’s VP. Devil law says he’s my responsibility,” he snapped back, angrily.
“To hell with your outlaw biker laws!” I exclaimed, breathing heavily.
Dino took a breath and averted my gaze. Suddenly mindful that we were in a public place, he looked from left to right down the narrow corridors of the hospital. Luckily, the hallways were empty just now.
Nonetheless, Dino dropped his voice to a whisper, “Don’t talk about this here. Any of it. There are too many prying ears. You don’t want Jax to wind up in even deeper shit. Do you?” he added, shutting down my argument for the time being.
Jax’s doctor told us he’d be in surgery for the next few hours, but the grim expression on his face caused fear to run through my veins…the dark fear that Jax could die and leave me forever clutched at my heart.
Even if Jax pulled through this, I had a sinister feeling that our lives may never be quite the same.
Finally, they allowed me into his room in the ICU. He was full of tubes, lines, and IV, there were monitors hooked up to him. I sat down next to his bed and my body felt so heavy I actually thought I might never rise again from that chair. Grief threatened to overwhelm me. This was the nightmare I had feared. My Jax near death. Hatred for Jumper threatened to rise up, causing me to scream. I tamped it down, lest they kick me out of his room. I never felt pure hate before. Never knew the urge to kill, maim, and murder like this before. But as I stared at the man that held my heart in his fist, lying there so broken and barely breathing. I knew that I too, could murder in cold blood.
What had I become? I didn’t care though at this point, really.
Jax didn’t move the whole night. When I woke intermittently through the night to check on him, I’d started to imagine away the blood and the bruises on his body ‒ as though he were only sleeping. His body still, his eyes closed and peaceful.
Yet, peaceful was far from what I felt.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chloe
The first hint of morning light filtered through the open blinds of Jax’s room in the hospital. I woke to the smell of coffee mingled with the mild bleachy smell of the hospital and a deeply ominous feeling in my gut. Sitting up suddenly, I looked at Jax – weak and drugged out of consciousness, wishing that he’d open his eyes. My gaze settled on a thick gash across his left cheek. It was over two inches long; Jax was damn lucky it hadn’t caught his eye. I’d hoped that sleeping beside him might have done something to help him. It turned out it only served to comfort me.
“The doctors won’t bring him round yet. He’s too badly hurt,” Dino said from the chair by the window, taking a long gulp of his coffee.
Goddamnit. Sighing heavily, I stretched my back upward and faced Dino.
“Apparently, Viper has been arrested. It’s about time. She’s been walking a tightrope with the law for decades,” he continued. “Bruno’s all right though. After a round of questioning, the police will let him out of the joint later this morning. It could’ve been a lot worse for the guy – being the only one on the scene where Jax laid shot and his blood on his hands.” Dino paused. “There was even a police officer posted outside of this room late last night, until a doc told him he was wasting his time if he was waiting for Jax to regain consciousness. It woudn’t surprise me if more show up this morning to talk to us though, so make sure you’re ready for that. Don’t tell them anything. Understand?”
I nodded, blinking my eyes to stop them from tearing up again as they had multiple times throughout the night. I took hold of Jax’s left hand and stroked it with my thumb. “Please tell me Bruno got what he wanted from the Cartel. Tell me he got his money and won’t have anything to do with them again.”
“Marco’s got the money we were owed. Two-hundred-thousand in cash. And the Cartel went down. No more drugs coming through Devils’ territory. The only outstanding debt is a bullet that’s owed to Jumper.”
I winced at the mention of that maniac’s name. I felt nothing but hate in my soul at the very thought of that monster.
“Don’t you think you should talk all this out with your mother, Chloe? She doesn’t even know Jax is in the hospital,” Dino, interrupted my thoughts.
I felt my blood pressure rise in panic. “Are you insane? No way. She’ll freak out like she always does. She’s had enough stress in the past ten days to last her a lifetime. Very bad people are coming after her, Dino. I thought you understood that.” I paused to catch my breath and my gaze slid over to Jax. “Besides, she’ll just tell me to get the hell away from Jax and his MC.”
Dino got to his feet and stared out of the window. “Jax isn’t safe here,” he said, closing the blinds.
“You think we can get him transferred to another hospital?” I asked. “Away from the Bloods. Away from the Devils. Away from the Mexican Cartel?”
Dino let out a heavy sigh. “Not likely. Even if we could, everything’s on record in places like this. All anybody would have to do to find him would be to bust their way in here and follow that record.”
“That would include Jumper. Dino, he’ll come for Jax. He’ll want to finish him off himself. The asshole probably had the Bloods’ watching you guys all over Coronado. One of them would have seen Jax being taken away in the ambulance and followed it here. You need to get him Dino!”
The door handle clunked downward and the door opened. Through the doorway came a thin, wiry haired doctor we had spoken to last night, dressed in blue scrubs and he carried a folder of medical notes. He wore black, rubber shoes and his hands were covered in latex. “It’s outside visiting hours, honey,” the man said, coldly.
Ignoring him I asked, “He is going to be ok, doctor? Isn’t he?” Desperation laced my voice. He should have known of course that as the people closest to Jax, we weren’t just going to leave him alone.
The doctor paused. “To tell you the truth, last night I thought there wasn’t the slimmest of chances that he would survive. He flat lined once in the ambulance on his way down here. And yet, still he hangs on…”
“Like he’s got something worth fighting for?” Dino interrupted.
“I suppose you could say that.”
“When will he be strong enough to be conscious again?” I asked.
“Well, the bullets are out of him but it’ll take a long time for his system to recuperate. I talked through a couple of operations that could be useful with my colleagues this morning. My concern is that if we operate now, there’s a high chance something could go wrong, if it does he’ll be too weak to be resuscitated.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” said Dino, feigning a smile.
The beeper hooked onto the doctor’s trousers sounded and he left with a, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Dino, we have to do something. If you don’t help me, I’ll fix this myself. I’m not about to lose Jax If I can help it,” I told him with conviction.
A glint in Dino’s eyes told me he felt the same way.
For a few minutes, we lapsed into silence.
My frustration broke the heavy quiet of the room only disturbed by the monitor’s constant rhythm of Jaxson’s heartbeat, “I’m sick of this, Dino. I’m sick of dead Roy’s problems haunting my mom. I’m sick of dead Antonio’s unresolved feud with Jax haunting him. Roy and Antonio’s ghosts will run their cold blooded hands across the back of our necks each and every day of our lives, I just know it. Even when we think we’re safe, they’ll always be a faint voice echoing in our ears saying, ‘I’m coming for you. And when I catch up with you, I’ll ruin you.’ ”
Dino dropped into his chair again and took another long swig of his coffee. “There’s nothing more we can do. Not yet, Chloe. Just be patient.”
With distress and a sudden urgency nearly crushing my voice box I t
old Dino, “You’re his best friend. I’m sure Jax means as much to you as he does to me. Now if you can tell me that you’re honestly comfortable leaving Jax where he is, then tell me. But I know that’s not how you feel because it’s not how I feel. Jumper is pure, dark evil and Jax needs us to protect him from the likes of him!”
Dino opened his mouth to talk.
My eyes shifted to Jax as I thought he’d moved on the bed.
With Dino’s silence, I exclaimed, “Dino, answer me for god’s sake!” I insisted, no longer afraid to challenge him. I never took my eyes off of Jax though.
His head rolled and he stirred slightly but his eyes didn’t open like I wanted them to.
Regardless, a thread of relief swam through me as I gripped Jax’s hand tightly. “Jax, it’s Chloe. Keep fighting. Keep fighting like Dino and I are about to fight for you.”
I swung my gaze over to face Dino and narrowed my eyes at him. “I’ve been patient enough. Jax is getting out of here. I’m getting him out of here. And you’re either with me, or against me.”
“Is that a threat, or a sales pitch?” Dino remarked.
“Quit it with the smart ass comments for Christ’s sake.”
Dino stared at Jax for several beats, before sliding his eyes back to me. One of his eyebrows quirked upward as he asked, “You got any ideas?”
A mischievous half smile played on my lips. Returning Dino’s smile with a smirk, I told him all that he needed to know for now, “Absolutely.”
The tone of my voice was soft, but my eyes ‒ like my soul ‒ had hardened.
Next time, in Black Devils MC Book 3: The Last Vow…
PREORDER BOOK THREE
Chapter One
Chloe
Balboa Hospital…
“Remember, you keep your mouth shut when the cops come around asking questions,” Dino warned, rising from his seat to stand opposite me, at the right hand side of Jax’s bed.
I palmed Jax’s cell from the table beside his bed and slid it into my pocket. If the police did come after Jax, I wanted no evidence of his involvement with that goddamn cartel. It was bad enough that Bruno’s arrangement with the cartel had flooded drugs into Coronado. It was bad enough Jax had nearly been killed. Now, he could be arrested if they found out about his connections with the cartel.
I turned my head from Jax to Dino. I noted his expression, he looked as angry and fired up as I felt. Jax didn’t deserve any of this. I stared down at Jax again, and placed a palm across the side of his face. My stomach tightened. He felt colder and looked paler than was usual. In my mind’s eye, I pictured Jumper coming back to finish us both off. Here. Together.
I asked Dino, “You think I’m going to wait around to watch Jax’s situation get worse?” Answering my own question, I shook my head, “We’ll be out of here before they have half a chance to question any of us.” My gaze shifted to the door to Jax’s hospital room. Dino and I looked out of the glass partition. A solitary cop slept with his head against the wall outside.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a reply from my dad: “I’ve got you covered’ it read. From that point, my head was in the game.
“We need to get him out of here before Bruno, the cops, or Jumper shows up,” I told Dino. I paced to the door and pressed down the handle of the door using as little force as possible. This wing was surprisingly quiet for a city hospital, and I didn’t want to wake the cop.
When I stepped out into the hall, the only sound was a janitor ringing his mop in a plastic bucket down the hall. Any minute now, the hall would be lined with bikers and curious detectives, notepads in hands, anxious to poke their nosey questions into a world in which they didn’t belong.
I traveled down the wide corridor to a staff break room beside the double doors that led to the ward. I’d noticed them last night when I’d gone to get a coffee. It didn’t sound like anybody was around, but I gently nudged open the door and glanced inside to be sure before I entered. My eyes locked on what I was looking for. Late last night I’d seen a nurse rush into the room, covered in a patients vomit, and rush out with a fresh pair of scrubs to change in to. As I had suspected, here they were. The stack of purple scrubs sat on the shelves against the far wall. I took two pairs and shoved them under my sweater, and tugged two plastic, bouffant, surgical caps from a box that sat beside them then made a swift exit.
When I returned to Jax’s room, I closed the blinds on the door’s glass partition. “We don’t have long.” I said, handing a surgical cap and scrubs to Dino.
Jax stirred but his eyes didn’t open.
“You still haven’t told me how you plan to pull this off,” Dino noted.
“Follow my lead, okay?” I told him, my voice now a whisper.
A long and heavy silence followed as we pulled on the scrubs and hats. A silence only broken, intermittently, by the soft drum of the heart rate monitor.
Fully dressed, Dino persisted, “Listen to me,” he said, “We can’t bust him out of here in broad daylight—” he cut himself off, countering his argument then he sighed. “But we don’t have time to wait around either.”
I nodded. Not taking any chances, I swept the hospital room for every last one of Jax’s things and either shoved them into the go bag or into the deep pockets of my scrubs. Finally, I switched off the cardiac monitor, before pulling the electrodes from Jax’s chest so that an alarm wouldn’t sound when we moved him.
Standing at the foot of the bed, I clasped both hands tight around the metal frame and Dino and I exchanged a look. I tugged the bed toward me, causing the wheels of the bed to roll away from the wall with a squeak.
Dino shimmied into the gap between the wall and the head of the bead as he took hold of the other side.
“You ready?” I asked.
“As we’ll ever be,” said Dino, tugging the white sheet that covered Jax’s body upward to cover his face a little. High enough to conceal his identity but not so high that we’d alert any more suspicion than we were already going to.
As we rolled Dino’s bed out of the room, the hospital janitor eyed us up and down but didn’t say a word.
“He’s out of surgery. On our way to recovery,” Dino said hurriedly. The wheels and frame of the bed screeched over his voice as we hastened to the wards exit and out through the double doors.
I directed us toward the elevator and pressed the down button for the ground floor. I turned back to Dino; we shared an anxious look.
Come on. Come on. Jax is a mere three floors and a few yards out into the parking lot away from freedom.
The doors drew open and I instantly gave the bed a sharp tug to move inside. I collided with a professional looking man with a stone face who was exiting the elevator. The badge on his black blazer jacket said, ‘Hospital Administrator.’ He’d been carrying three paper files, which were now on the floor.
“Shit! Sorry,” I gasped, bending down and fumbling to pick them up. My heart pounded.
The man didn’t help me. When I rose with his papers, he was chewing on his inner cheek, impatiently. As I handed back his files, his eyes narrowed on mine and he leaned in close to me.
I was sure we were busted. Then his eyes dropped to my feet, as he cocked an eyebrow at my black ankle boots. “It’s hospital policy for you to be wearing regulation shoes. Soft soles. No heals. Toes completely covered,” he said, his voice all business.
I opened my mouth to respond but before I could say a word, he spoke again, “What wing are you from?”
“Oh well, actually, I’m more of a transfer..um..student… it’s more of a placement, really.”
“St. Burns’. East wing,” Dino interrupted, his voice confident.
With a huff, the man adjusted his blazer jacket pretentiously and continued on his way, the clicking of his shoes echoed as he passed us down the hall. “If I see non regulation clothing on you again, I’ll alert your superior.”
I looked at Jax but he didn’t stir. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” I whispered.<
br />
Dino and I wheeled Jax into the elevator and the doors drew closed. Fewer than ten seconds later, they opened to the busy foyer of the ER. We stood adjacent to the exit. The hospital was bustling with medics, patients, and ambulances pulling into the hatched area of the ER. It was packed with foot traffic and injured people on gurneys, so we didn’t look out of place to have Jax with us. Another patient was wheeled into the elevator as we brought Jax out.
Here goes nothing. “Transfer patient, coming through!” I yelled over other din, waving one free hand in front of my body to create a path for Jax to move through.
As Dino, Jax, and I moved thought the main doors of the hospital, I could only pray that my father would be there waiting for me as I’d planned. My eyes darted around looking for him but the area was packed. We wouldn’t be able to stand here long.
Relief flooded my body when I heard the words, “Transfer patient coming though!” My dad had made it. He was dressed in a paramedic’s uniform as he joined us.
Just as the driver to the ambulance one bay away from us hopped out to assist getting a gurney with a man on it out of the vehicle, my father jumped into the driver’s seat.
We moved toward the back of the ambulance.
Wheeling the gurney into the hospital, the driver called back to my dad, “Thought I had this unit all night?”
“Nope. Change of plans,” Jesse replied. “Orders from above. Gotta get the transplant patient to the other hospital.”
At his words, four other paramedics took the trolley from Jesse. “We’ve got it from here, thanks!” one man said. They started helping Jax into the ambulance, hitching him up and wheeling his bed inside.
Dino and I went around the front as I tore off the scrubs I wore over my clothes, and I followed into the back of the ambulance, telling them I was his sister.
Dino went around and got into the passenger seat of the ambulance.
The doors closed behind us.
I felt the ambulance start to pull away when I heard somebody yell from outside, “Wait! Wait!”
