Demented Sons Series Volume One: Books 1-4 (Demented Sons MC Iowa)

by Kristine Allen

  “Ty’s safe. He’s at Marla’s.” His gaze fell on his sister. Swallowing hard, my old friend looked broken, and tears filled his eyes. “They said it looks worse than it is, surprisingly. Both shoulders were dislocated. She’s bruised and… damaged, but nothing is broken, and they don’t believe there is any further significant internal bleeding.” Dropping into the chair pulled close to the bed, he buried his face in his hands. The words he’d spoken settled over my tired brain, and dread began to weave its way up until it was choking me.

  “Damaged?” Covering my mouth, my teeth were grinding and my jaw clenched. “What the hell does that mean, Christian?” Don’t say it. Please, don’t say it. Don’t say what I think you’re going to say.

  “Kayde….” It was the barest whisper.

  “No.”

  “He—” Silent sobs broke off his words.

  “No! Goddamn it! No!” Getting shot, stabbed, blown up, none of those things compared to the devastating agony that assaulted every cell of my being at the thought of her enduring that kind of degradation. My legs gave out on me, and I dropped like a stone to my knees. Never had I felt I was a weak man, but at that moment, I looked to the heavens and tears broke free. Cursing God for allowing this to happen to the tiny, sweet girl lying battered and bruised in the sea of white of the hospital bed, I broke. “Fuck you, God. You hear me? Fuck you! She didn’t deserve that! Where were you when she needed you?”

  Fingers pulling at my hair, my body felt like it was coming apart at the seams. Anger and shock had my hands violently shaking. Murder swam in my veins as I wanted to destroy that piece of shit.

  “Why didn’t you call me? Dammit, when she called, I was traveling down here and missed the call. Fuck, she didn’t mention how bad things were. She just left a message saying she needed my help. Like it was nothing. I was already on my way, so I didn’t think much of it when she didn’t answer my call after that. After her message, I thought maybe Javier had bad info and she was just shook and here for observation. Fuck. Is she…? Did they say she’s going to be okay?” As soon as I asked it, I knew it was a vague, ridiculous question. If anyone was a resident expert of the difference between physical survival and mental survival, me and many of my buddies could attest to the fact that you could survive a lot physically, but it was the shit in your head that would destroy you. Eat you up like a cancer.

  “She called you?” His face registered surprise. Then he shook his head. “Of course she did. I told her she needed to go out of town for a while, maybe find an old friend to stay with. At least until we figured out what’s going on. It never occurred to me she would call you. I’m sorry, man, I didn’t think about calling anyone. Everything was so crazy. There was so much fucking trauma. But the doctor said… he said he expected her to make a full recovery. The swelling in her face is actually better, if you can believe that. But Kayde, you need to know… I don’t know whose, but… motherfuckin’ shit… Kayde, she was pregnant. They said maybe about three months, give or take. God, I hope it wasn’t his, but she… lost the baby.”

  Before I was even rattling back the dates, I knew. This time, it had to have been mine. Barely contained fury burned in my soul, and I wanted to tear that motherfucking asshole limb from limb with my bare hands. My child. Tinkerbell and me. A baby. Our baby. That worthless fuckwad had taken that from me.

  “I want to see him. You get me ten fucking minutes alone with him.” With cold eyes, I met his, and what I saw there I definitely didn’t like. “Christian?”

  When he hung his head, the tightly controlled rein I held on my temper strained to the point that I could feel the very fibers of it fraying. “Christian,” I ground out between clenched teeth.

  “They don’t know where he is. The last sighting was by the Mexican border. I’m still on administrative leave, and I’ve been ordered not to go vigilante. My chief is one of the few who kept faith in me and didn’t believe the shit he set me up with. Now that everything against my family came to light, and Detective Madison—Lawrence—is suspected of this and now missing, well, they are doubting the credibility of the evidence.”

  “That’s why there’s a guard.” It made sense now. When I first arrived, I almost believed her brother had arranged it to keep me out. He didn’t want her out of town to help her get her mind straight—it was for her damn safety.

  Dragging my emotionally drained body back to standing, I walked to the other side of her bed. Moving her like she was made of fragile spun glass, I gently lifted her hand to rest in mine. Seeing her slender, bruised hand lying in my massive palm made her appear even smaller. Squatting down and leaning over until my lips barely brushed over her soft skin, I whispered, “My Tinkerbell. God, baby, I’m so fucking sorry. How do we come back from this?”

  “Kayde. We need to get her out of here. As soon as she’s cleared to travel, we need to get her somewhere safe. The doctor said she could be ready to leave by Thursday. Maybe tomorrow. Two more days tops, anyway.” Then under his breath, but I still heard him, “This wasn’t what I had in mind, and I can’t fucking believe I’m saying this…. Shit.”

  After he composed himself, he looked me straight in the eye. “You need to help me. You need to take her back with you, away from here. Where you and your club can keep her safe.”

  The air whooshed from my lungs. Pretty sure it took a lot for him to admit that he wanted me to help and to keep her safe. “Did she tell you I tried to get her to come back with me after she left him? When my abuela passed?” Fuck, it had been months and it still hurt to say it out loud.

  “What? No! She didn’t mention a word. She said y’all connected and made up, but I didn’t know it was like that.” The shock on his face would have been funny under any other circumstances.

  “Back then, she made it very clear she didn’t want to leave y’all. Don’t think she’s going to agree to that now either.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s not going to get a choice now. He’s proven how dangerous he is. Kayde, he tried to burn her alive in the house when he found out he was had. Still don’t know how he found out and how he escaped. There have to be others he’s working with, so we don’t know who we can trust. I think I have a plan, but it hinges on you being willing to risk her temper.” He was a brave man. She may be small, but she be mighty, and God help the man who told her she was doing something she didn’t want to do. Especially after everything that had happened. But if it meant life or death, I was willing.

  “Okay. We’ll do it. As soon as the doctor says she can be moved. What’s the plan?”

  We sat there ironing out the plan for about an hour. Once we had the details straight, he stood, stretching his back. “The chair pulls out into a bed. It will probably be like a toddler bed for your big ass, but at least you’ll be close. Doc said she should sleep all night because of the pain meds they gave her. I need to go check on Dad and Ty. I’m staying at Marla’s with them, just in case. After what happened to her sitter, Em, I don’t want to risk Tyler’s mom like that.”

  “What? Why the fuck didn’t any of them call me? Javier didn’t say anything about Em. Just that they wouldn’t even let him in here to see Sera. What the hell happened? Is she okay?” One more reason to kill that fucker.

  “He left her for dead in the apartment with her daughter and Ty. She’s in a room on another floor with quite a concussion, but they said she should be okay. Thankfully, my sister is a smart girl. She called 911, then left the phone connected under the covers. That’s how the officers got to the apartment so fast and they knew to start looking for someone by the name of Lawrence. Of course, initially the guys who responded were from a different substation and didn’t know her or Lawrence, and they had no idea it was one of our own they were looking for. They also didn’t realize I was her brother. Not that they would have told me anything since I’m a piece of shit in the department’s eyes still.”

  He paused to scrub his face with his hands. “Anyway, she kept him talking long enough for the operator to get
some of the information. They pinged her cell phone, and it led them to Em’s apartment. The kiddos were still sleeping when they got there. I can’t even imagine if one of them had woken up and found Em bleeding out on the floor. He only had her for a little over twenty-four hours before it was pieced together. We were on our way to his house, but his neighbors smelled smoke and called it in, so the fire department was there first and were the ones to find her and get her out. Thank God. If she had been honest with me about the shit she endured, I might have thought to go directly to that asshole’s house. My buddy Xander was the first one in the room. He wouldn’t give me details, but he said that scene would haunt him for a long time. Shit, her friend Amy was working because they were short-staffed and she got called in. The nurses said she lost her shit. I can’t even imagine.” Furrowing his brow, he looked sick. Hell, I felt sick.

  “Goddamn, Christian.” With all the shit I’d seen over the years, and I’d seen a lot of pretty gruesome shit, I didn’t want to even imagine that scene involving the woman I loved. It started to set me off again, just thinking about it.

  Looking me dead in the eye, he shocked me with his words. “I can’t believe you let her go to Tyler all those years ago. You always loved her. Why did you stand by and let her marry him, then stay here even after he was gone?”

  “Jesus, I wasn’t in a good place after Tyler died. She didn’t need me in her life. Then this last time? She begged me to trust her to be able to take care of herself.”

  When he walked around the bed and extended his hand, I stood. Foregoing his hand, I wrapped my arms around him. “Fuck that, Christian. Regardless of how you feel about me, I miss you and I still love you, man. I’ve missed you like hell these past few years. Thank you for being here for her.”

  “She’s my little sister, where else would I be? I just wish I’d known sooner. Maybe I could have prevented all of this.” He hung his head, then looked up to me with tired eyes. “And yeah, love you too, man.”

  With a heavy heart, I watched him leave the room. After the door softly clicked, I returned my gaze to my little pixie.

  The vision in front of me was still beautiful, even though her features were barely recognizable. She had more bandages on her body than a damn mummy. Both wrists were wrapped, as well as her upper arms. Her poor face. Thank God, they said none of her facial bones were broken. Soft tissue should heal; it would just take a while. According to Christian, the doc said she may have a few superficial scars, but most would be hidden. A visual reminder of her ordeal in the mirror every day would have made her emotional recovery even worse. I’d seen it with enough of my brothers over the years.

  Pulling the chair up close to her bed, I held her hand and just talked to her. “Angel, I want you to know he won’t get away with this. I’m going to hunt him down and kill him like the animal he is. I promise you. Our baby will be avenged, and so will you. Or I’ll die trying.” Spilling all my fears and dreams, I kept talking to her, even though she slept like a princess.

  After I had talked myself out, I stepped over by the window to make a few calls. Christian and I had a plan laid out, but I had some explaining to do. The one call I dreaded making was to Snow. Since I went off half-cocked and didn’t tell him what was up before I jetted out of town, he was going to be pissed that I didn’t fill him in.

  “What the fuck, Joker? You just call me, leaving a message saying you’re on your way to Texas, but don’t say why? Then you go radio silent? How the fuck was I supposed to know if you were alive or dead?” Like I thought, Snow was a mad mo-fo.

  “Prez, I’m sorry. My mind wasn’t right. It’s bad.” It took the better part of an hour to fill him in. By the time I finished, with a promise to keep him updated and his promise not to tell any of the brothers yet, it was almost midnight and I was about to drop.

  Pulling out the little chair bed, I looked at it skeptically. Fuck it. I’d slept on worse. Scooting it over next to her bed, I reached my arm up so I could hold her hand. Taking in the damage to her battered body had my anger brewing and my heart dropping to my feet. Someone could have reached into my chest and ripped it out, as dead as I felt inside. Pushing the loss of my unborn child to the back of my head to process later, I closed my eyes. Damn, she didn’t deserve this.

  With her tiny hand held in my own, my heart started beating again, just for her.

  “Save Me”—Hinder

  DAMN, I HATED WAKING up after pain meds. Everything always felt so heavy and my head was foggy. It was why I never took anything stronger than Tylenol since Ty was born. I was too afraid of not being clearheaded for him. Top off my muddled feeling with every part of my body being stiff, and I woke miserable. When I reached up to rub my eyes, I realized my left hand was held gently in a big hand. Following the hand to the arm and up to the face had my breath catching in my throat.

  Smoky gray eyes watched me, unblinking. “Kayde? When did you get here?” When I dozed off last night, my brother was here, and he had told me I needed to find a way to get out of town for a while. Without stopping to think it through—and I blamed that a little on the pain meds and a little on knowing if I thought too much, I would chicken out and not call him—I had waited only until my brother went to get coffee and then called Kayde. He hadn’t answered, but I had left him a message explaining that something had happened and I needed his help. That was putting shit mildly, but I didn’t want to leave the whole sordid story in a voice mail message. I couldn’t put that on him.

  So how had he gotten here so fast? And how had he known where to find me? Christian never would have called him.

  My heart felt light and happy with him being so close. His presence just did that to me. Then everything came crashing down as my ordeal spun through my head on fast-forward. The memories of why I was there in that bed, IV tubing a maze and monitors beeping. Oh shit. Knowing I must look hideous, I tried to cover my face, but he held my hand firm without hurting me. Instead, I turned my body away and pushed my face in to my pillow.

  Shame washed over me. I didn’t want him to see me like this.

  “Don’t, baby. Please don’t hide from me.” Flinching, I screwed my eyes tightly shut when his free hand stroked my hair from my face with a featherlight touch. “Sera, look at me.”

  “No. God, Kayde, don’t. You shouldn’t be here. I don’t even know what I was thinking, calling you. It was stupid.”

  “Are you saying you expect me to walk away and leave you alone and hurting? Not happening. Sorry. I’m here, and that’s where I’m staying until you get sprung from this place. And I was already on my way down before you even called. Javier called me.” The sound of his voice was a soothing balm, but I didn’t want to get used to it.

  “You hate hospitals. That’s what you told me. So feel free to go. I’ll be fine. Besides, dammit, I don’t want you seeing this. I don’t want you feeling sorry for me. Or worse, feeling disgusted by me.” God, why wouldn’t he listen and take the out I was giving him?

  “Trust me, you’re right. Hospitals aren’t my favorite place, but this is where you are, so I’m not leaving until you do.”

  God, he was so damn stubborn… and such a beautiful sight. But no, I wasn’t going to look at him. I was afraid if I did, I would give in and beg him to stay. It left me feeling so torn. Like I was playing tug-of-war with my own head, heart, and emotions. On one hand, I was so afraid and wanted to pull him close and let him protect me, have him deal with all my demons for me. On the other, I was ashamed and embarrassed and didn’t want him to see me for the weak, broken person I was. I was also deathly afraid of how his soft, caring eyes full of love would turn to hate, blame, and disgust when he found out the truth of what I had caused.

  My voice was muffled in the pillow. “You were right. I was so stupid. I should have listened to you. Is that what you want to hear? That I did this to myself? Me. My own stubborn idiocy. The blame all lies at my own damn feet. You have no idea the extent of what I’ve done.” My voice broke at the jagged breat
hs that escaped. Keeping my face averted, I didn’t want to see the love on his face transform to hate when I told him.

  It was a struggle to get the words out. “I swear, I didn’t know. I figured it was the stress of my life messing with me.” His hand gently lifted my head, then stroked my cheek until I opened my eyes and faced him.

  “What are you even talking about, sweetheart? I don’t blame you for what happened. You didn’t make him do this to you. There is no blame to lay at your feet. This is all on that piece of shit, not you. Don’t let me hear you say anything like that.” His words were firm and still heavy with love. Love I didn’t deserve.

  Burying my face in my hand, I started to cry the tears that just wouldn’t stay dammed up any longer. I heard him stand from the chair, and then I felt the bed dip on the side he sat on before he carefully leaned over me. Those beautiful lips of his brushed softly across my arm, then on my gowned chest. “Shhhh. Babe, I’m here. It may not seem like it, but everything is going to be okay. I promise. Please don’t cry.”

  “No. No, it’s not. Nothing can ever make this right. I didn’t know though. I didn’t know. Oh God, Kayde. I…. He….” His arms wrapped around my hips, with his legs curled at the foot of the bed, as he gently laid his head on my belly. Sobs tore from me at the thought that he should have been like that talking to our child. If only I hadn’t been so foolish. My fingers threaded through his dark, spiky hair, holding him close to me, sucking comfort from him like a succubus. Despair driving me, I whispered, “I lost our baby.” The last came out in a mournful cry. I didn’t understand why this had to happen. That tiny little human was an innocent in all of this.