by Ryan Michele
There was nothing for any of us to do.
We should’ve combed the woods that night and looked for her. But hell, I didn’t even think of it. It was quite a ways away from the building. How she got herself there, I had no clue. Walking it normally was a trek. Her being hurt, no clue.
My girl was strong. Always knew that. She took a licking and kept on ticking. Never let anything get in her way.
Being her father, I should’ve known she would go into hiding. I should’ve known she’d seek shelter. She was that woman. Who we raised her to be.
It was the fear that gripped the life out of me, and I’d have to live with that for the rest of my life. We should’ve looked then she wouldn’t be this bad off.
Fucking hated it. But it was my fault.
24
Crow
“Rylynn Hutton’s family,” the doctor came out the door saying, thumbing through some papers he had in his hand. We all stood up going to him. When he looked up, his steps faltered, but he gathered himself and kept coming.
“You’re her family?”
“Man,” I said.
“Father,” Rhys added.
“Mother,” Tanner chimed.
The doctor nodded looking between us. “She’s dehydrated, and we’re pumping fluids into her. She says that she fell after an explosion and that was how she got her injuries. Her arm is infected, but we’re putting cream on it and giving her IV antibiotics. It should heal fine. We’re not worried about that.” He sucked in a deep breath and his not worried about meant they were worried about something. Dammit. “Her leg. We had to rush her back to surgery for it.”
My gut twisted and heart ached. I wanted to be there with her, not standing out here. Holding her hand standing by her bed, even if she was asleep, I didn’t care. She was so damn strong, but I’d gladly give her my strength to help her pull through.
“When we removed the glass, it cut through an artery.”
“Fuck me,” I said, wiping my hands over my face knowing in that second of time just how close we came to losing her. My world started spinning as the grief from the last two days threatened to take me down a rabbit hole I didn’t want to go down.
“She was smart and kept the bottle in the wound. If she would’ve pulled it out, she would’ve bled out.” He let that hang then continued. “We got all of the glass out and repaired the artery. She lost a lot of blood, so we gave her some of that too. The infection is the problem though. You need to prepare for the fact that if we don’t get it under control, we may have to amputate her leg.”
Tanner fell into Rhys giving him all of her weight as I looked down to the floor. She didn’t deserve this shit.
“We’re giving her one of the strongest antibiotics we can through her IV. We’ve cleaned the wound out, but it required a lot of stitches. Right now, all we can do is wait and see if the antibiotics kick in and kill the infection. Her vitals are good so far. She’s a fighter.”
My head jerked up knowing she was with everything inside of me. “Can I see her?”
He nodded, but the relief I wanted to feel wasn’t there, and I’d figure out why when the doctor spoke again. “If you all three go in, two need to come out in five minutes. Only one person in there with her at a time, and you have to wash your hands very well as we don’t want to give her anything else to worry about.”
Sharing Rylynn would be hard. I wanted to stand on guard by her side and make sure nothing happened to her. Protect her by using everything at my disposal.
Rhys, Tanner, and I followed the doctor, washed our hands good, and entered the room. Rylynn was hooked up to four machines with tubes and wires going this way and that. Her face was pale, and a sheet covered her up to her torso giving us a view of a hospital gown.
There was no vibrancy. No fire. No spunk. No sassy mouth. Just Rylynn laying there.
I fucking hated this shit.
She has to heal!
Rhys and Tanner had their time. I wheeled the chair the doctor sat in and pulled it up to the bed on her uninjured side. Reaching under the blanket, I grabbed her hand gently feeling her warmth, feeling her pulse, and knowing she was alive.
She was alive. That was the only thing that mattered. My fingers didn’t leave her pulse. I needed to feel it. Needed to know she was with me.
Worst case scenario—she lost her leg, but I’d be by her side every step of the way. She was mine and not going anywhere.
25
Rylynn
Beeping and the smells of bleach and pine woke me from sleep. Drowsy and dreary, my eyes opened telling me yes, I was in the hospital. White walls surrounded me, along with machines and a television on but no sound in the corner.
My hand was toasty warm, and there was my Grizzly. Fuck, I loved him.
I gave his hand a squeeze, and his head popped up waking him from sleep. It was selfish, but I needed to see his blue eyes to tell me this wasn’t a dream. That I was here, alive, with him. Not stuck in the woods by myself.
“Hey,” I croaked out. Whatever they gave me pain wise was awesome. It knocked the pain down so far, I could run a marathon. Okay, maybe walk down the hall, but my guess would be that was a big no-no.
“Hey, Pixie.” His voice wrapped around me.
“Love you, Crow.”
His eyes closed then opened slowly. He leaned down and kissed my hand. “Love you so fuckin’ much, Pixie.”
“I’m good.” I felt damn good actually.
His eyes blinked, and a bewilderment came over them. “Gotta tell you somethin’.”
He looked so bleary-eyed making me wonder if he had any sleep at all. My heart hurt for him.
The sadness in his face told me exactly what he had to tell me. My leg. I’d known it in the woods. Felt it with every movement. Saw the colors it changed to. Then I didn’t have the energy to worry about it. Now though. I didn’t either because it was either risk losing my leg or die out there. I chose to live. While it would change my life completely, I would make it work.
“I might lose my leg,” I told him as he got closer to me.
He stared at me in shock. “You’re okay with that?”
I shook my head, but stopped because my neck was tight, probably from sitting against a tree. “Of course not. I don’t want to lose my leg, but if losing it means that I can be here with you now instead of dead in the woods, I pick this, Crow.”
“I should’ve combed the woods.” My strong man. He’d probably been beating himself up about it as soon as he got to the warehouse. Guilt. There was no reason for him to feel it. There was no doubt in my mind that not a single day that went by from now until the end of time he’d feel this way. Somehow, I’d need to stop it.
“Stop. You didn’t know. Wipe it from your head because I don’t want to hear it again.”
His brow raised at my clipped tone. “Already bein’ bossy. You feelin’ good?”
“Damn right.” I smiled. “Babe, there’s so much to tell you, and I don’t even know where to start.”
“The beginning.”
“Right.” This was going to be hard for Crow, but it needed to be said and out there. The bitch was dead.
In my pain-filled haze, my mind simply thought, “The witch is dead, the wicked witch.” Except I wasn’t Dorothy, and this wasn’t Oz. I killed someone who mattered to Crow. Regardless of the why, he needed to hear it from me.
26
Crow
The beginning. It was the best place to start, but as soon as Rylynn started, the rage burned through me wanting to escape. Each word she said tightened the coil.
“I was re-watching the feed from the basement door. Live feed popped up, and I saw Lemon and another guy I didn’t know opening the gate.”
My body went stock still, and dread pounded in my gut. Fucking Lemon was down there? Fucking stealing from his own club?
“I went to call you, but the doorbell rang and Sophia was there. She was crying, and I thought something had happened to you. It took me off gua
rd, and she tazed me.”
That fucking bitch. Years. Fucking years I’d held that woman up on a pedestal for being a wonderful mother. Always nice. Always patient.
Then she stole Rylynn out of my goddamned house. All I could do was nod for her to continue, or I’d lose my shit and those fucking wheeled IV machines would make good bats for me to fuck up this hospital.
When I found her, I’d kill her myself.
Rylynn’s voice was croaked, and I grabbed the water from her small little table, putting the straw to her lips. “Thank you,” she said after taking a healthy swig.
“Do anything for you, Pixie.”
She smiled, but it was small. “Things are a bit jumbled, so I may not make sense. Stop me, okay?”
“Yeah.” I grabbed her hand and held it, sitting down.
“There were three of them. Sophia, Lemon, and someone named Starling.” The ice in my veins went colder. “But it was Sophia who was running the show.”
This couldn’t be. Running the show. Years I’d known her and she never acted like this. But I believed it because I believed everything Rylynn said. She would never lie to me. That I knew down to the marrow in my bones.
“What do you mean?”
“It had something to do with Ebony, and something that was supposed to blow up. That part I didn’t quite get, but they said whatever it was failed. So they needed plan B. That was texting you from my phone to come to the warehouse. You and your brothers were supposed to come in to get me and die in the explosion.”
My head shook. “Why?”
She shrugged then winced, but continued. “They thought I was still knocked out. Sophia told me that she wanted you, but you wanted me. All of this shit was because she loved you. She told Starling and Lemon that she had to protect her kids. Like you’d hurt her or something. She had Starling wrapped around her finger. I even listened to her give Starling a blowjob so he did her bidding.”
I growled low. I’d never hurt my fucking kids. “Hurt my kids?” I asked.
Rylynn shook her head. “I don’t know what that was about, but my thoughts were the black eye that I gave her. I think she told Starling that you gave it to her instead of me.”
Anger bubbled and raged. That fucking bitch. “Fuck me. How’d you get away?”
She coughed, and I got her water once again watching her sip. “If you can’t go on that’s okay.”
Her head shook. “No, gotta get this out so I can let it go. Sophia had some guy come in with her, and I was to get some kind of injection. It was going to kill me. Instead of the needle going in me, it went in the man and he gasped his last breath while I was subduing Sophia.” She paused, took a deep breath, and let me have it. “She’s dead, Crow. She was inside that building alive when I shot the barrels and everything went up in flames. Starling too.”
Hated this for my boy. Hated it for Lucia. Hated that they’d have to live a life without knowing the woman Sophia used to be. The Sophia she turned out to be though, no way would I allow my kid to be raised by her. Fuck, I hated her. Hated. Her.
If she wasn’t dead already, I’d do it myself.
“What about Lemon?”
Her lips went to the side of her mouth, thinking. “I don’t remember if he was there but, Crow, you’ve gotta have someone check. I overheard them saying that Lemon transferred money somewhere, and the only way they could get it was if Lemon put in a code.”
Reading between the lines, Lemon could still be alive and on his way to Costa Rica by now. Fuck.
“How did you get to the woods?”
“Crawled. Everything hurt, but I had to.” As she told me about her time in the woods, a steel band wrapped around my heart. She had it forever. It beat for her. If I could take her pain, I would in a heartbeat. She put herself in danger to save my club. Not just me, but my club. If I could put myself in her place, I would without a single hesitation.
Now, she’d have to heal.
After her story, she fell asleep. Pretty much, she passed out. It didn’t shock me, because that’d been all she’d done for the past few days. My mind was filled with so many thoughts, so many feelings. I hated Sophia for what she had done. Yet, for my son, my heart and soul were heavy.
I pulled out my cell and called Brewer even though he was in the waiting room. I couldn’t leave her, yet. Being away from her for short times for her parents to come in was enough for right now.
“You okay?” he answered quickly, worry in every syllable.
“No. Get somewhere quiet.”
There was some rustling over the line. As soon as it settled, the shortened story went into Brewer’s ears. With each passing second, his breathing became more and more labored. He was pissed. The rest of the Ravage MC would be too once they knew.
“I need Wrong Way to check the accounts and find that money. All hands on deck to find Lemon. If that fucker’s alive, I want him. I don’t give two shits about the markers we have to call. We get that motherfucker, and he goes to the tomb.”
“Got it,” he said then disconnected. I sat next to Rylynn and watched her sleep.
I was a thinker. A doer. I was not a man to sit around and wait.
Except I couldn’t leave her, so I would be here waiting until she was healed. And after that, I would wait alongside her until the time came when I could make things right for her and my kids because there was no life for me without them and Rylynn.
I needed her. Never needed anyone. But her, I needed.
27
Rylynn
“Seriously. You just… go off, be a hero, kill the bad guys only to survive out on your own while hurt. Can’t you just be normal?” This came from Austyn who, I learned when I started to actually think, came with all the Sumner Ravage MC.
“I missed you.”
Her hand went to her hip. “You do realize that no one is going to beat this shit.”
“It’s not a competition,” I argued.
“No. It’s not. But fuck me. Can you be a little less badass so the rest of us don’t look like pussies?”
To this I laughed. It hurt and it cost me, but I did.
A knock came to the door, and my father was standing there.
“I’ll be back later,” Austyn said, reaching for my father’s hand and squeezing it. She’d never feared my father. It was one of the many things I loved about her.
“Hey, Dad.”
He walked into the room, his shoulders having a slight droop. He was exhausted.
“Baby girl.”
I smiled. “Not a baby.”
“You’re more lucid.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact.
“Yeah.”
“Crow told us what happened,” he said, sitting in the chair next to the bed. “We’re all on the hunt for Lemon. Buzz says he’ll find him.”
My lips tipped. “That I have no doubt.”
His head shook. “Scared the shit out of me.”
I reached out, and he took my hand. “I’m okay.”
“I just…” His throat choked up, and my heart squeezed. I could count on one hand the number of times my father had cried in front of me. This right now would be four.
“I’m good.”
He sighed deeply. “No, your leg.”
“It’s a leg, Dad.” He gave me the look like he was going to yell then ground me so I continued. “I’m not being flippant. It will be hard. Really hard, and I don’t want it to happen. But I had to do what I did to be here right now with you, the family, Crow. Will it be emotional? Absolutely. In the grand scheme of life though, there was no other option for me.”
His hand came up and rested on my shoulder. Luckily the non-infected one. “You’re so fuckin’ strong, Ry. I’m so damn proud of you. A lesser woman wouldn’t have the first clue how to survive what you did. So fuckin’ honored to have you as my kid.”
“Daddy.” Tears welled in my eyes, and I didn’t have the energy to hold them back, so they flowed like rivers.
“Love you. Don�
��t you ever forget it.”
“Never.”
“And I’m walkin’ you down the fuckin’ aisle.”
At that, the tears flowed and flowed. My father approved of Crow. My dad wasn’t a man to have long conversations. He said what needed to be said, and that was the end of it. This though, he saw where things were headed for me and Crow. This was his acceptance. It meant more to me than I’d originally thought.
Now, it was everything.
28
Crow
“Careful,” I barked at the orderly as he pushed Rylynn down the corridor in a wheelchair and to the parking garage. When he didn’t listen, I stared him down. He scurried away at my stare, and I was able to give Rylynn a safe trip to the car.
We were lucky once again. The antibiotics started working for Rylynn. She couldn’t be up running a marathon, but she was released to come home. The doctor gave her oral antibiotics to take three times a day and pain meds. The nurse came in and showed me how to dress her wounds and keep them clean. Follow-up appointments were scheduled. Austyn even made a damn calendar. Rylynn was alive, and no matter what we had to do to help her heal, we were all in. She was coming home, and that was all that mattered.
My SUV sat at the curb waiting for us. I lifted Rylynn carefully and put her inside the cab, leaving the wheelchair where it was. The orderly could come and get it. My woman needed me.
Getting in, I looked over, her forehead resting on the window. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Good. Really good actually.”
This made me happy. There were times when I wondered if what happened would ride her hard and mess with her head. According to her, there was an entire team in that warehouse, and she took all those lives. Then there was the niggling fact that she killed Sophia, and she would see Greer go through that grief. More than likely hating her more than he already did. I was still keeping her pulse on all of that.
