Marco flicks his chin to a guy across from me. The guy is swift as he jabs a needle into the kid’s neck. He flails and then goes limp. “God, Marco!” I glare at him accusingly. “I just needed something to dull the pain, not to knock him out. I have nothing here to monitor him while he’s unconscious.”
“He has you,” Marco shouts again, and a few men in the room step back, clearly used to their boss’s wrath, meaning bad things would happen.
Steeling my spine, I roll my shoulders back and use my stethoscope to find his heartbeat, listen to his pulse, then bring it down over his abdomen. There’s a faint noise that catches my attention and my eyes close. My greatest fear in this situationis coming true. “He has an internal bleed somewhere. Whatever cut him nicked an organ.”
“Can you find it?” Nico asks, and this time I direct my glare at him just as accusingly.
“Do I have X-ray vision?”
Nico rolls his eyes like I’m being a stubborn child. Gritting my teeth, I look at the body in front of me. I’ve seen Brody, Dr. Ricci, Dr. Arling, and even the peds surgeon, Dr. Young, perform surgeries over the years, some similar to what this kid needs. Working in the ER of a large city, I’ve often helped treat stab wounds, bullet wounds, and severed limbs. But, usually, I’m just the nurse. I hand the scalpel, I perform CPR, I staunch bleeding, I’m an extra pair of seasoned, professional hands. Never have I performed a surgery on my own with no guidance on what is needed.
My hands lift, and from memory alone, I start to cut, poke, and prod exactly how I’ve seen my colleagues do it. My hands slide inside the man’s stomach first, causing a spray of blood from the body. The room erupts in gagging noises and groans. The men shuffle back farther, some of them even turn their backs. Not Marco, though. His fingers tighten on the gun in his hand, but his gaze never leaves me. With deft fingers, I find the little tear and clamp it before feeling around for anything else. Satisfied that’s the source of the bleeding, I get the suture kit.
“I need a light over here,” I mumble, and after a few seconds of back and forth, one of the men steps forward with a flashlight. He keeps the light shining where I need it, but turns his head so he isn’t looking. I shake my head, scoffing lightly. They can kill a man in cold blood, torture guys for information, but they can’t watch a surgery.
It takes longer than I expected and hoped for, but I finally get the tear stitched. The only saving grace is the bags of blood that have now been dropped off as well. The kid’s complexion isgetting paler, his pulse lower. He needs a transfusion now. “Take this, and cut this piece here,” I instruct a different man until we have the blood bags rigged up and ready to go. I watch as they feed into the kid, and I start unpacking the gauze in his gut. The process of stitching up this big of a tear takes a long time. I have to use force and a clamp to help hold the skin together, while I salvage muscle and tissue. Only when I tie off the stitch do I let myself breathe.
Rising to my feet, my knees almost give out. They’re shaky, and it feels like needles are stabbing me everywhere while blood rushes back down to my feet. I check one more time on his heartbeat and his lungs, listening to him breathe in and out. It is shallow, but that could also be from whatever they shot him up with. I listen around his abdomen and sigh in relief when I don’t hear anything that would suggest internal bleeding.
I step away from the carnage, swallowing down my fear and panic. My body vibrates, and a cold sweat dots my brow and the back now that the adrenaline is wearing off. I broke the law. My license could be suspended. I could have killed that kid. I had no business operating on him. My eyes move around the room, feeling the space closing in around me. I want to run, to shower, to let my aching muscles collapse against the tiles while the hot water washes away this nightmare. My fingers rip off my gloves, and I drop them to the floor. I take one step to leave the room, and Marco is there, grabbing my arm.
“Will my son live?”
I suck in a painful gulp of air, and my stomach threatens to roil. “Your son? I thought it was a cousin. You let me–”
“We couldn’t take him to a hospital. No one knows he’s mine,” Marco says again, firmly.
My eyes search his, flickering over his face for a sign of humanity at this point. “I did the best I could do. He isn’t out ofthe woods. He needs care at a hospital. The next few hours are vital and even then…”
My voice trails off, and the tears I’d been holding all night threaten to spill. Fuck, I’ve never been so scared. Still terrified, if I’m being honest. Marco shoves his weapon back in the holster at his back and reaches for me. My body senses the danger and recoils in response. In the next second, though, I’m hauled into his chest, his arm wrapping around my waist. I start to struggle right when he leans down, his lips brushing against my ear. “You belong to me now, Winnie. If you don’t want anyone to find out what happened tonight, you’ll do as I say when I need you.”
Marco carries me from the room, holding my body pinned to his chest while he takes the stairs. Instead of heading in the direction of my room, he turns down a different hallway and my struggles increase. He chuckles but the sound is hollow and full of mockery. “You’re not getting away from me anymore, my pet. I enjoyed the chase, but after tonight, you’re mine.”
I gasp, my hands pounding on his back. He kicks open a door to a room that I instantly recognize as his bedroom. I’m placed on my feet and he steps back, releasing me. The instinct to run takes over and I make a dash for the door before being hauled up again, and slammed back on the bed. Marco towers over me, while my heart beats erratically in my chest. My stomach twists when a smile, cruel and twisted, graces his lips. Lifting his arms, he glances around the room before focusing back on me. “Welcome to the Familia.”
Chapter 18
Finn, 6 months later…
PREZ: Church in 30. Emergency meeting.
After reading the message, I pocket my phone and swing the axe one more time. Technically, it’s my day off, but I’ll go to the clubhouse since it’s an emergency. We’ve been waiting for months now for something to pop off, and it sounds like that time is now. The Familia and the cartel have been racking up the body count and pinning it on each other, which has led to an all-out war. It was only a matter of time until our allies reached out to us, needing something. With my tech skills and rank in the club, I’ve had a front row seat to the black market information being sold on each side, as well as access to their underground dealings. The cartel hasn’t figured it out yet, and I intend to keep it that way. Our lives and safety depend on it.
With enough wood chopped to last now that the evenings are getting cooler here in Tennessee, I head into my cabin to shower up and grab my cut. A slight flare of annoyance grows in my chest. I had been looking forward to spending a quiet day at my home. Grilling a steak, having a beer, and of course, my favoritepastime activity, scouring the internet for any traces of Winnie. In the past five years, she became a ghost. I looked everywhere back home and in the surrounding areas. I got burner accounts and tried to find her on social media, but I have hit dead ends at every turn. I don’t blame her for leaving. I know I hurt her and caused damage to our relationship by not being honest and hiding my feelings. And that kiss. That fucking kiss that I didn’t want and meant nothing to me. I’m still pissed it happened, but even more mad at myself for going on that run in the first place.
Needless to say, Cleaver paid for his instigation at the Vikings MC. Trigger apologized for not catching on to what was happening; he was let off by losing his patch for a year and demoted to prospect again. Prez was on my side about how things went down, and our alliance with the Vikings has been rocky at best. But he reminded me that being put in that position was on me. He was disappointed to learn from his wife that Winnie had told her I was forced to go on the runs and not that I had been volunteering. He may be the president of a motorcycle club, but Daggerz is also a family man, and he loves his old lady fiercely.
Revenge tasted sweet, but it still didn’t fill the ache I now had from Win being gone. She didn’t just leave with my heart in her pink-manicured hand, she obliterated my soul and everything that mattered. You never know what you have until you lose it, and I sure as fuck know what I lost. My girl. My other half. The woman I wanted as mine for life and I screwed it up after years of trying to prove to myself I wasn’t my father, through months of lying and hiding from her.
Taking one last look at the door to make sure I have everything locked up and secured, I head down the front porch to my bike, swing my leg over, and fire up the engine before driving the twenty minutes it takes me to get to the clubhouse. Last night was the club’s usual Saturday party, and I can’timagine most of the brothers are going to be excited for the emergency meeting. I avoid all parties like the plague if I can. Every once in a while, I make an appearance for special occasions, like Squirrel’s wedding last weekend, but the second a club whore gets too comfortable trying to touch me, I leave. Parties and hanging out at the club aren’t what I am after with club life anymore. I just want to do my job, keep my brothers and their families safe, and work on my cabin.
Everyone is already there when I pull in. Our newest prospect, who we affectionately call Slap Nuts, lets me through the gate, and I park my bike next to the others. There’s a slight dusting of snow on the ground, which will most likely disappear by tomorrow, but for now it looks nice. I stomp my boots off by the door and catch Prez’s eye. As soon as he sees me, he stands from his chair.
“CHURCH!”
All of the Enforcers, our VP, Road Captain, Secretary, Treasurer and Sergeant At Arms all move toward the room. Our cell phones are collected outside the door and then locked in the safe by Prez’s old lady. I notice that right before the door closes, Lyric, Karma’s old lady and honorary silent member, sneaks in and takes a seat. My brow rises, and I look first to Bullet, who shrugs his shoulders. Squirrel just shakes his head like he also doesn’t know what’s going on, and he’s one of Lyric’s best friends. Karma doesn’t look the least bit phased or worried. If he’s not freaking out about his girl being in here, then he must already know what's going on.
Prez bangs his gravel, his brow furrowed, as if thinking about something that displeases him. I sit up straighter in my chair when he leans his big, beefy arms on the table, his hands folded in front of him. It’s a move I’ve seen him do before when it involves something he isn’t happy about or concerned with. Usually, when something is dangerous.
