A man with piercing blue eyes looked up at me with a crooked grin. “Just a flesh wound,” he assured me. “Chloe thinks I need stitches so here I am.” He turned his arm to give me a better view of his triceps.
“Yep,” I nodded. “I think five stitches will have you fixed up. I’m sure you know the deal, but keep it clean and dressed for the first few days and take all your antibiotics.”
“Got it, Doc. Thanks.”
I nodded. “Thank you and… I’m sorry about all of this.”
“Don’t be. We got more of them, and we got that asshole,” he said with a grin and wrapped his arm around a pretty brunette.
I moved on to the next patient, a prospect named Sledge with a long scar down the left side of his face that looked a fewyears old. “My ribs are bruised or broken. Dr. Katey is looking for an x-ray machine so I’m good.”
I moved on to the next table where Rocky and Vandal sat with their legs elevated on chairs. “Fellas.”
Rocky pointed at Vandal. “Bullet grazed his shoulder.”
I nodded, slapping on a pair of gloves as I got to work, cleaning the wound and then patching him up. Like the last time, the injuries were fairly minor, but the clubhouse looked more like the ER on a Saturday night, than a bar. “And what about you?” I asked Rocky.
He looked a bit embarrassed. “Twisted my knee when I spun around to shoot one of those Russian motherfuckers. Dunno if I got nicked by a bullet but something got me,” he grunted. “Now I’m gonna have knee problems for the rest of my fucking life. Just what I needed.”
I bit back a smile at his dramatics but then realized that once again these men were hurt because of me. “I’m sorry about all of this,” I said to them both. I appreciate everything you did tonight but…” I broke off and shook my head. “I just wish it could’ve gone differently.”
“Don’t apologize,” Rocky growled. “That’s what we do around here. You don’t know it or feel it yet, but you’re one of us.”
“Okay, I won’t apologize, but thank you,” I said and knelt down to roll up the leg of his blood soaked pants. “What’s your pain level?”
“Eight,” he bit out.
“So a ten,” I said to myself, working quickly to clean the wound. Thankfully, despite all the blood, it was just a graze. After cleaning the wound and assessing his joint I stood. “Looks worse than it is, you’ve skinned your knee but the wound is superficial. There’s a lot of swelling, no dislocation, and I’m pretty sure you haven’t torn the ligament, but I’ll see if we can get a scan ordered. With rest and targeted PT you should be back to normal in a few weeks.”
“Weeks?” Rocky shook his head. “Not possible, especially not now.”
“You want to be riding when you’re old and gray?” I asked.
Rocky laughed and pointed to his salt and pepper hair, “Already got some.”
“Older and grayer, then. The knee joint is complex, you can often shake off injuries when you’re in your twenties, but you need to take it seriously if you want to avoid long term trouble.” I folded my arms and stared at him.
He stared back.
“Rocky got a owie.” The little voice belonged to my boy.
I looked down and my heart clenched hard. He was so sweet and innocent, but this was now a regular part of his life that I couldn’t shield him from so I nodded. “Yeah, Rocky got an owie, but he’s going to be just fine if he does what the doctor tells him to do.”
Rocky bit back a wince and nodded. “I’m good kiddo, your mama fixed me up and gave me a lecture to boot.”
TJ giggled.
“Come on up, little man. You can watch your mama work, and you’ll learn why it’s so important to be careful.” Rocky scooped TJ up and held him close with one big arm hooked around his waist.
My heart cracked wide open at those words. This big, gruff biker was so tender with my son, which I really shouldn’t be so surprised by at this point. There were plenty of children running around and despite the hectic nature of their lives, these men were hands-on parents.
TJ was safe with them. Now that James had been stopped, did this mean I no longer needed to run? I wanted to think that my nightmare was over, but I’d been running for so long I was scared to believe that finally, I could have a future without having to look over my shoulder.
Chapter Nineteen
Falcon
The cells we had set up underneath the auto shop had that distinct scent of motor oil, sweat, iron, and stale blood. No one other than the patched members knew this place was down here, and no one would ever expect that twelve feet beneath the shop was this room, meant for answers and vengeance. Concrete walls surrounded us, a single bulb swung from the ceiling, casting the room in a glow that was both too dim and too bright. Two tables were pushed together to form one long table, and it was covered in all the tools this kind of job required.
