Behind me, I can hear the opposite passenger door crank open, my eyes darting back to watch a man in blue—a blue uniform—reaching in to grab Ash. A paramedic?
I look back at the man who has me in his arms and gasp. Dread claws at me. Thirty-or-so years old. Eyebrow scar. Leather jacket. Tattoos. A patch.
A biker.
No, no, no!
I find a fragment of strength. “Put me down!” I think I screech, but it comes out like a chirping baby bird.Baby…Mybabies.“I need to stay with them! No! I need to stay with them!” My head lolls, a wave of disorientation crashing down on me, sweeping me under consciousness.
I groan as he carries me across the road where cars are scattered, upside-down, on their sides—it was a pile-up. He lays me on a patch of grass, my arms and feet connecting with the soft, warm blades before my spine flattens.
“Who are you?” I breathe.
“Help,” he offers, gruff.
Help?“But you moved me? Why did you move me?” I mouth the words, each hard to expel. “I need to be with them. They need me. I need to be with them. You don’t understand.”
Breath stutters from me as I feel torn in two—my heart is in the SUV in pieces, two little boys who will one day call me Mummy. I can’t wait for that day. I want that day so much.Please, God, let me have that day.
“You don’t understand. You’re not a mother. They’ll be so scared. I need to be with my babies.”
“The others were being grabbed by the ambos, lady,” he states, tone reassuring, an attempt at soothing. “Stay calm. Someone had to get you out; the car is on fire. I’m the medic for my club,” he assures. “I wouldn’t have moved you if I weren’t sure I could. You responded well when I checked your legs, arms, and neck. I don’t think you have a break. I was very gentle, but don’t move anymore just in case. I think you may have a concussion.”
My lips are trembling. “My babies.”
My babies.
Mummy is just over here…
He lifts his head, dirt and blood caked in his brown beard, smeared across his neck and leather jacket, and scans the area, stopping on something in the distance. “They’re being put in the ambulance right now, with your bodyguard.”
I pant. So…“Are they ali?—”
“Alive? Yes. All three.”
“So…” I try to catch my breath, to clear my vision, to slow down and hold on to hope. The lingering sense of dread won’t end. Something inside me screams this nightmare isn’t over. I can’t believe it is. That crash. It is… “It-it’s over? We all survived? They will be okay? Right?”
Then I hear the unmistakable timbre of Clay Butcher roar my name. “Fawn!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
fawn
“Boss! Come back here!”A familiar Italian voice calls out, the sound finding me on the grass. It belongs to one of the henchmen, but I don’t quite understand his words.
I whimper, rolling my head to the side.
A rogue tyre rolls past me.
I focus beyond it to find Clay Butcher crossing the street between flashes of people, damaged cars, angry black tyre marks, and heaps of metal pieces. He stalks towards me, eyes like arrows on a target, haunted and stunning, one hand pressed just below his ribcage, one arm swinging to pull his huge, formidable body towards me. He islimping.There is blood seeping from between his fingers, fast—too fast.
His blue eyes burn.
I sigh. “Sir…”
He drops to his knees beside me and sweeps the hair from my face, narrowing his searing blue gaze, wrapping me in the warmth and safety of his attention. As he takes in the sight, his jaw pulses.
“Sir. My babies.”
