He shook his head. “You’re not calling them,” he started to get up, but he wobbled, his eyes looked like they crossed and he dropped back down, panting, clutching at his wound.
I leaned over to help him, getting him back onto the bed. I took the gun out of the back of his pants. It was a split second decision, I knew he was never going to hand over the phone without me having the upper hand. A plan was beginning to take shape in my mind, one that could keep Mace alive but also get me back home.
“Fuck,” he hissed.
“I’m not going to shoot you,” I said. “But I am going to call my family.”
His eyes drifted shut before he snapped them open again, he was struggling to keep focused. The mixture of the pain, alcohol and painkillers were obviously getting to him. I hated to threaten him, but I had to.
“Give me the phone. I swear to you, I’ll convince them. Once they find out you saved me-”
He laughed and he tried again to get up but dropped back, grimacing in pain. “They’ll kill me.”
“If we don’t do something, your own club will track you down and kill you. I’m sorry to say it Mace but I’m the only chance you’ve got of surviving this. Is that what you want? You want to die?”
“If you want to call them, fine, go ahead and call them. But let me go.”
“Go? Where would you go?”
“What do you care?”
We stared at each other. I should just let him leave. I shouldn’t care that he would be chased by the people who were supposed to be his family. That he might be caught and killed. He was a part of them. Shit, he may even have been involved in the decision to take Declan, to hurt Connor. I blinked back tears.
No, he couldn’t leave. He knew too much, he was too valuable. We needed him to help us figure out how to end this. I couldn’t let him leave. I lifted the gun and pointed it at him. I saw the betrayal in his face and felt awful doing it but it was the only way.
“Throw me the phone.”
“I won’t betray my club.”
“Any more than you already have?”
His eyes hardened, he looked like he was one step away from punching something. “You’re going to get me killed.”
“Let me worry about that. Phone. Please.”
He tossed it to the end of the bed. I picked it up and asked for the passcode which he gave me begrudgingly. I knew both my brother and Hudson’s number by heart but as I stood there, I struggled over who to call. Warren should be the obvious choice but with Connor dead, I didn’t think he would be able to pull himself back coming face to face with Mace.
Hudson was a hot head too but I’d always been able to talk him down. When we were kids. I wasn’t sure I still had that power over him but I had to try. Plus, I needed to see him. I wanted him to wrap me in his arms and let me know everything was going to be okay.
I tapped Hudson’s number into the phone. Mace didn’t move. Guess he figured there was no point. This was happening whether he liked it or not. The phone clicked on after about three rings and I heard the voice that made my legs go weak.
“Hudson.”
Chapter Twelve
King had torn us new ones when we got back to the compound. He’d taken War and I into his office and let rip about how disappointed he was, how we needed to follow orders and how everything could have gone to shit because we were going rogue.
War argued back and at one point, I thought they were going to come to blows but they’d both backed down and King admitted that despite us being a pair of stubborn uncontrollable dicks, we managed to do some good. But he was still worried about their officer being killed.
I’d felt seventeen years old all over again, that was the ticking off we used to get. It only made War angrier, he didn’t like being treated that way and made sure King knew about it. He’d stormed off after asking if King was done. He’d waved him off.
I didn’t know until I went looking for him that he’d took off from the entire compound. I text him, standing at the bar, it wasn’t safe to be riding around alone. He replied with two words. ‘at Connors,’no further explanation needed.
Sitting in the bar for a while by myself and drinking some whiskey didn’t ease my mind. We kept hitting brick walls, following one lead that got us no closer, then on to another, just to come to the exact same outcome. War had been periodically texting Mace through the nightbut never got a response. Maybe he figured at some point the guy would reach breaking point and answer. I doubted it though.
When I went up to my room, knowing I needed sleep again, I’d dug through an old box in my bureau and found a torn, yellowing envelope. I hadn’t looked at those photographs for years but now, I was drawn to them. Some of them were of my mom, dad in a lot of them but I skipped over those ones.
One of them was a picture of me and her in the fairy garden she’d created in the back yard. She used to tell me she was convinced I was going to be a girl which was why she created the little space. She always followed it up by telling me I was so much better than what she had expected.
