Not loud. Not high-pitched. It was one of those guttural sounds that seemed to tear out of somewhere deep. She looked everywhere, then at Blackjack, at me, and knew. Old ladies always know before you say the words.
“Where is he?” she demanded. “Where the fuck is he, Evan?”
Her blonde hair was a mess from the wind, mascara smeared under her eyes from crying in the car. She still looked like sin walking, but right then she just looked wrecked.
The bar had already thinned out. Most of the brothers and club bunnies had drifted toward their rooms or the lot. Word travels fast even when nobody is saying anything out loud. Quinn had stormed into the clubhouse like a hurricane, shoving past anyone in her way, Bee-lining straight for the back hallway until Tanya and Rebecca had steered her back towardthe main room. Blackjack told her to sit. She didn’t.
“Tell me he’s okay,” she said. “Tell me he’s here somewhere. Tell me this is some stupid prank or some stupid job or some stupid whatever.”
“Quinn,” Blackjack said. His voice was softer than usual, but the words still hit like gravel. “He wrecked. Bike went out from under him. Ambulance got there fast. He’s in surgery now.”
She went white, then red. “What hospital?” she snapped. “I am going. Right now.”
“You are not going anywhere tonight,” Blackjack said. “They are working on him. You show up in that state, you are just going to get yourself hauled out or locked up. Jersey is going in the morning. He will see him, talk to the doctors, then call you the second he knows anything more.”
“That is not good enough.” She turned on me, eyes wild. “You tell him. Tell him I’m going.”
I stepped in close and caught her by the shoulders. She tried to jerk away. I held firm. “Quinn,” I said. “Look at me.”
She did. Barely.
“He’s alive,” I said. “That is more than we usually get when a brother eats asphalt at a high speed. Blackjack is right. You go in there now screaming and clawing, they will have security on you in two minutes, and you will be banned from the building. Let them do their job tonight. I swear to you I will be there as soon as the sun is up.”
Her breath came fast and ragged. “You swear.”
“I swear,” I said. “On my cut. On his. On everything.”
She hit my chest with her fists three, four times. Not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to make a point. Then she sagged and let her forehead press against me.
“I cannot lose him,” she said. “He is such a fucking idiot, Evan. He leaves his phone dead. He forgets to eat. He rides like he is being filmed every five seconds. He watches the same four episodes ofMiami Viceon repeat. He hums that god-awful theme song in the shower. He is mine. You bring him back to me.”
“I intend to,” I said.
Tanya appeared at her side with a full glass. “Drink,” she said gently. “Then drink again. Then crash in the back room. We will wake you when Jersey calls.”
Quinn snatched the glass and tossed half of it down in one swallow. Her hands were shaking. Rebecca came around the other side and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“I am going to avenge him if anything happens,” Quinn said suddenly. She looked up at me, eyes glassy and lethal. “You hear me? I will stab whoever did this myself.”
“You can get in line,” I said. “But yeah. If he doesn’t pull through, no one apart of this will walk away smiling.”
She jabbed a finger into my chest. “You swear to me,” she said. “Swear you will make them bleed.”
“I swear,” I said. It was easy. My throat still felt tight from hearing Blackjack say, “critical,” in Church. “On my life.”
She exhaled and some of the fight drained out of her. Tanya and Rebecca steered her toward the back, murmuring to her in low voices. The other old ladies drifted in behind them, a soft wall of perfume and tattoos and tough hands. They would get her drunk enough to sleep. They always did when she got this worked up.
I watched until Quinn vanished into the hallway.
Blackjack came to stand beside me. For a moment neither of us spoke.
“She is going to be a nightmare if he dies,” I said.
“She is going to be a nightmare if he lives,” Blackjack replied. “That’s how you know it’s real.”
I huffed out something that was almost a laugh. It died quick.
“Get some rack time,” he said. “You’re riding at first light.”
