There’s no way he’s the rat. He cares too much about this club. There’s just no way.
“I’ll worry about that when Butch and Axle survive,” I said. “But—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’ll live,” Butch said from the back just before mumbling a few swears. “Axle should be fine too. Father is right, though.”
I looked in the rearview mirror. If Butch said he was going to survive, well, damnit, I had no choice but to believe Butch.
I finally allowed myself to smile. Maybe I really was becoming a leader.
But if that actually was happening, then I had one final task to affirm myself.
I had to initiate a run into the line of fire for what had just happened.
Angela
Igaped in horror at the Breaking News alert.
“Shootout at Carter’s Auto Repair, casualties unknown.”
I began to fear the worst, even if I had no idea what had actually happened. What if Lane had gotten killed? He wasn’t responding to my text messages. I tried to call him, but it went to voice mail.At least no one else has answered for him. Then I’d know he really was dead. But still...
There was only one place where I knew I’d find Lane or at least would find other members of the Black Reapers. I knew I ran some serious risks being seen at the hospital, and I knew that in my current panic, there was no way I was going to be able to formulate an effective cover story, but making sure Lane was okay mattered first. Besides, I told myself to get over it—I wasn’t the mayor of this town, I was a dime-a-dozen government official. To think that people would just know me was a bit presumptuous.
I hadn’t even changed out of my work clothes as I sped back into town toward the hospital, constantly praying that Lane would be alright. It felt like it would be a mighty cruel fate if life had given me an extension of my best friend in the shape of her former lover, only for life to immediately take him away. It would be the ultimate cruel twist of fate. I couldn’t call him my boyfriend, let alone say that I felt any way more beyond really liking him, but he wasn’t just some casual encounter. He wasn’t just some hot guy I had slept with. He wasn’t just a rugged man who had an opposite career as me.
The fact that he had been with Shannon made me feel like I knew him already, even if I had only just met him within the past month. Furthermore, I knew he was a good man from what I knew of his past. I felt justified in caring about him so much, and if anyone wanted to question it, I really wasn’t in a mood to care.
I parked at the hospital and noticed two bikes and a couple of black vans parked at the entrance, along with several other bikes scattered in the parking deck. I wished I had taken the time to know what Lane’s bike looked like, but it was too late to try and play that guessing game. There was just no way that among the dozens of bikes there, I could peg that one bike for being his.
I tried to sprint into the emergency room, but my heels prevented me from running too fast. Telling myself that broken ankles would not help, I reduced my movement to a very fast walk, hoping that if Lane was one of the victims, he didn’t go under before it was too late. I breezed past the receptionist and the waiting area, following the scent of oil and gasoline that identified the trail of the Black Reapers.
I went through a door and turned left, finding several bikers milling about outside. A few other girls, dressed in rather minimal clothing, also waited outside. The feeling was one of nervousness, but not panic. Though the bikers all seemed on edge and prone to snapping, I didn’t get the vibe that things were about to go sideways too badly.
Still, I did not see Lane in the group. That probably meant that he was going to be one of the bikers undergoing an operation of some kind.
I took a deep breath, told myself to remain as calm as the others here, and walked door by door. The first room I saw had a black man with what looked like the Army logo tattooed on his chest. He also had a gunshot wound on the other side of his chest. His vitals checked out fine. If memory served me right, that was Axle.
I went to the next room and saw an enormous white man with a thick beard lying on the bed.Butch.His vitals were stable as well, and in fact, he seemed alert.
But there was no sign of Lane.
I moved through the crowd, checking every face, even if the height didn’t match up to Lane’s, thinking that maybe I had just missed something. But now, there was no Lane in sight. I took a seat in a chair in the hallway, doing my best to look as calm as possible, but probably doing very poorly at that.
It wasn’t like I was a known woman in the club. Actually, when I thought about it, the only impression most club members had of me was that I was a government official who had come in to sweep the Reapers away. What would happen if they saw me?
As it turned out, I got the answer real fast when a young man I recognized as Michael “Patriot” Giordano approached.
“Can I help you?” he said. “Wait, you’re the government girl. The one who threatened to clean things up here.”
I opened my mouth to say I had come to make sure Lane was fine, but to do so would sound shallow and like a lie. I didn’t think Patriot would give me the chance to explain everything that had happened either.
“What are you doing here? Have you come to press some bogus charges? Clean up—”
“She’s with me.”
Both of us turned our eyes to Lane, walking down the hallway from the other side, a serious expression on his face. I couldn’t even begin to express how relieved I felt at seeing him not only fine but looking tall and certain in what he needed to do. I moved toward him for a hug, but he gently put his hand out and held me at arm’s length.
I could not lie, that hurt.
