Another coughing fit took over, and her body jerked violently against my chest. When it passed, she whispered, “You know, I’d argue with you, but I feel like dying. I can’t handle one more thing. I’m so tired, Grey. I’m tired of feeling guilty…tired of constantly being pulled in fifteen different directions. If I’m honest, I’m tired of living this life.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and nodded, feeling as if a knife had lodged itself in my chest. There was no free will… never had been. No matter how much I fought it now, her course had been set before she was out of elementary school.
Just like her mama, she’d given up her own dreams to chase someone else’s. For Celia, it had been mine. For Kate, it was her sister’s.
We might’ve come from different places, but I knew what it meant to feel trapped. We were backed into a corner, scrambling to find a way out. I tightened my hold on her body, wishing like hell that I was a man who deserved to be her father.
Daddy, you awe squeezing me.
The broken pieces of my heart fell from my eyes and onto her face, causing her to blink up at me in confusion for a few seconds before her eyes drifted shut.
“Daddy’s here now.” I kissed her damp hair as I rocked her in my arms. “Ain’t got much of a plan yet, but I’m gonna get us out of this, Katydid. You just rest and let me take over for a while.”
While she slept fitfully in my arms, I stepped inside the confessional and laid my soul bare. I found I didn’t need a priest or a formal prayer as I prayed my Act of Contrition; the pain fell easily from my lips with every word.
There was no absolution for souls like mine, but in desperation, knowing there was a slim chance anyone upstairs would hear me, I recited the words I hadn’t spoken since I was ten. “Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”
Time was running out.
I couldn’t do it on my own anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Grey: December 2016
“Grey?”
I jerked awake, blinking until the room came into focus. I’d fallen asleep in my office again.
I pressed my fingers against my stiff neck and tried shifting it from side to side before grumbling, “What is it, Jarvis?”
He held up his laptop, and I gestured for him to come in. There was an excitement in his eyes that I hadn’t seen in years, and I leaned across the desk, suddenly wide awake. “You found them.”
“I did—well, Sullivan and I did. Their proxy was shit.”
Sensing that I wasn’t following, he clarified, “A proxy server is kinda like Inked on Broadway. It looks like a tattoo shop, but really, it’s a front for the club. The proxy masks their location and could ping anywhere in the world, making it impossible to track. Normally, we use high anonymity proxies to keep everything under the radar.”
I scratched at my forehead with a nod, trying to keep up. “So, how’d you do it then?”
“They used a transparent proxy,” he said with a grin, before once again realizing I had no idea what the hell he was getting at. “It means that they told the website that they were a proxy, but it passed along their actual IP address anyway. It’d be like putting a sign out in front of Inked that said, ‘Tattoos, but also money laundering.’ Took some digging, but we got their location narrowed down to a single block.”
I jumped up. “I want eyes on that block. We can ride—”
“Pres,” Jarvis said calmly. “We already got Nomads in place, per your orders.”
“How? I didn’t even know.”
He tapped the screen and enlarged a surveillance image. When I saw their colors, I slammed my fist against the desk. “Goddammit. It was the motherfuckin’ Serpents sendin’ pictures of my daughter?”
“That’s not all.” Another image filled the screen, and I moved until my nose was almost touching it. I knew damn well I needed glasses but was too stubborn to do anything about it. He enhanced the resolution until every patch on the kutte became crystal clear. “We got Cobra.”
“They still down around the Houston area?”
His grin widened. “Nope. They decided to be where the action was. I pinged ‘em about an hour north of Amarillo. Gives us plenty of time to get there, take care of shit, and get you back in time for Dakota’s wedding tomorrow…” He checked his watch. “Or I guess tonight as it’s after midnight now.”
I glanced up at the light knock on my open office door, surprised by the two men standing in the doorway. “The fuck are you two doin’ down here?”
Angel stepped inside while Wolverine remained where he was. “They’re my girls… now and forever.”
Wolverine nodded somberly. “We’re ridin’. Been a few years since I laid eyes on ‘em, but they’re just as much family as my jackass sons. Someone crosses them, they’ve crossed me.”
Sliding open my desk drawer, I retrieved a cigar and lit the end, fighting the urge to run and bury my face in a mountain of blow. I knew I needed a clear head, but I also needed the feeling of invincibility that I’d only ever found in drugs.
This was the last of the men who’d hurt my wife. I’d given Celia the other two. This one was all mine. Ending him wouldn’t stop the war with the Sons, but it would end the one I’d battled for sixteen years.
“Jamie,” Wolverine said as he moved in front of me, planting his fists against the wooden desk. “We’ll finish it like we started it. Together.”
His words calmed the cravings better than the cigar, and I pushed my shoulders back with a firm nod. “Let’s do it, old man. Let’s send those motherfuckin’ snakes to the Reaper for the last time.”
I spent the majority of the ride up past Amarillo trying to account for any obstacles that could be used against us by the Serpents and strategizing ways we’d be able to beat them.
Jarvis slipped out in front and led us within blocks of their hideout. “Nomads moved out an hour ago and formed a perimeter. Nobody’s come in or out.”
I checked and re-checked my gun as we moved. The building was silent as we approached, and I glanced over at Comedian. “This seem strange to you?”
He nodded. “Not a fuckin’ prospect in sight.”
“Could be a trap,” Bear added, warily watching the grimy windows for signs of life.
My muscles tightened in readiness, even with all the variables in play. The monster in me craved a good fight, but I didn’t like ambushes; didn’t like not knowing what I was walking into.
“Nomads are sure they’re here?” I asked Jarvis.
He checked his phone and nodded. “We’ve got a sniper nearby that is confirming no one has exited the building.”
“But did anyone even fuckin’ go in?” Wolverine snapped. “Place looks like a goddamn ghost town.”
We moved around the building, but Wolverine was right, it was as if we were in the wrong place. “Check again, Jarvis,” I demanded.
“Grey, they’re here. If you wanna wait ‘em out…”
“No. We’re endin’ it tonight.” I raised my hand up. “Move in.”
My skin began to crawl, and I tightened my hold on my gun when I realized one of the doors near the back was sitting wide open.
None of this felt right.
Comedian moved toward it in a crouch before lowering his gun with a shake of his head. “Fuck!”
I quickly realized why. Serpents littered the ground, their bodies contorted in ways that shouldn’t have been physically possible. The scent of death hung heavy in the air, but there wasn’t a drop of blood anywhere.
“It’s like motherfuckin’ Jonestown around here,” Crossbones noted as he picked up an empty shot glass.
Glass crunched under a boot, and we immediately turned; weapons raised.
“That’s right.” A man stepped into view, holding a blade to a Serpent’s throat. “You wanna drive out a nest of snakes, sometimes you have to go after the fuc
kin’ rats first. A little strychnine and all your problems are solved.”
We’d killed a lot of people over the years but had given most of them a fair chance at fighting back. Poisoning was a coward’s way of putting a man down; something best left to bored housewives looking to move on to their next husband.
Wolverine didn’t flinch. “You’re wearin’ the kutte of a prospect. You turned on your own brothers?”
He shrugged and moved close enough for me to see the patches on his hostage’s kutte.
Cobra.
I didn’t give a fuck if he put a million Serpents down, but that one was mine.
“Give him up and we’ll let you go,” I said, feigning disinterest. “Don’t give a fuck what you did to them, but that one crossed my club.”
“See, I don’t think you will.” He shifted forward, and Cobra winced before making eye contact again; pleading for me to save him.
He was facing the Reaper but begging for Hades.
I yawned, knowing full well I was going to put a bullet in both of them the first opportunity I had. “You just did me a favor, and the way I see it, you no longer have a club. Hand over your Pres and join me. We share the same enemy.”
The man grinned up at us. “Partner, that sounds like a great plan. There’s just one problem—”
Cobra opened his mouth and tried to speak, but the words came out garbled as the blood spilled over onto his lips.
They’d cut out his tongue.
“The Sons don’t negotiate.” He ran the blade across Cobra’s throat and shoved his body toward us before turning his back on us to casually walk away.
I took the headshot and dropped him mid-step before looking around in confusion. “The fuck just happened?”
Comedian stepped over bodies and turned the man over, firing another round through his forehead before relieving him of his kutte. “Prospect,” he roared.
Alex reluctantly walked over. “Yes, Comedian?”
“You asked me the other day why we strip search new recruits. Ain’t ‘cause we wanna fuck ya, it’s ‘cause we wanna make sure you don’t fuck us. What’s this look like to you?”
He knelt beside him. “It looks like the Sons’ colors… sir.”
Comedian cocked his head to the side and looked back at me. “Why the fuck wouldn’t they have checked for that?”
Nothing made a goddamn bit of sense anymore.
I toed Cobra’s body with my boot and studied his face, feeling as if there was something I was missing. There was a double-headed snake coiled around a ruby on his middle finger, but no sign of the ring he’d branded my wife with.
With a low growl, I ripped the kutte off and tucked it under my arm. It’d be the only trophy I got.
I should’ve felt some sense of victory, but the uneasy feeling I’d had since we arrived only intensified the longer I looked around. We’d been played by the Sons, but why?
Why had they gone after the Serpents?
They’d been known club enemies of ours for as long as I could remember. If anything, the Sons should’ve partnered with them to try to take us down.
Bear’s cell phone began vibrating, and he stepped outside.
“Torch, light it up,” I sighed, before following him out.
“You got it, Pres.”
Ending Cobra should’ve ended the threats against my family, but the Sons had been one step ahead, and for the first time in my life, I realized just how bad things truly were.
There was no way out.
Putting a gun in my mouth wouldn’t save them. Killing every man who ever laid a hand on her wouldn’t end this.
I’d dealt with one breakdown after another before sobering up; had always been one step away from destroying my own life.
It never mattered.
The game changed once I got clean, but so did my responsibilities. The kid who couldn’t see anyone past himself was gone, replaced by a man who knew what was at stake and who was counting on him.
Bear ended the call and ran a hand over his face. “That was Goblin. Carnage was shot—”
“Celia—”
“Is fine,” he hurriedly added. “Goblin’s got her, but he’s sayin’ that Carnage was ridin’ with colors… explain that.”
I couldn’t.
I finally understood what she’d had been trying to communicate to me after Dakota was arrested. She’d survived being beaten and raped, and never once admitted that she was afraid. Sure, she’d get jumpy over unexpected sounds, but anyone would’ve. I’d been convinced that there was nothing in the universe that could shake her.
Until that night.
She’d known then what we were up against and looked to me to be her stability… her defender. I’d survived Donald Quinn and gone up against clubs like the Sons without breaking a sweat, but the thought of doing anything that might hurt or put Celia’s life at risk scared the fuck out of me.
I wanted to get them somewhere safe, but safe was a fairy tale; a bedtime story meant to help kids fall asleep. Places like that didn’t exist in the real world.
They never had.
* * *
“We inserted a chest drain and his BP stabilized. He’s sedated for now, but I’m going to watch him closely for the next hour.” Nate addressed Mikey, doing everything he could to not make eye contact with me.
It was as if he knew that I’d ignored the sign posted on the front doors that demanded I not enter the facility with a concealed handgun.
Despite the fact that she’d had divorce papers drawn up, my daughter was still inexplicably married to the good doctor.
I sank back in the small hospital chair with a sigh. I couldn’t shake the shit with the Serpents. It had eaten at me most of the drive down. There was something I was missing, but in my exhausted state, I couldn’t figure out what it was.
“We’ve gone without colors and brought other chapters in, but the Sons have recruited everybody and their fuckin’ mother for the sole purpose of outnumberin’ us.”
Mikey fidgeted with his wedding band before looking up at me. “No colors ever. Drop the kuttes. From there, we’ll stake out what they’re claiming is their territory and light ‘em up.”
I’d been fighting since I was sixteen. I wondered if I’d known what it was going to cost me then if I still would’ve sent Donald to the Reaper. Maybe if I hadn’t, I would’ve finished high school… gone to college.
I could’ve made something of myself; been a man who was worthy of Celia Cross.
The scenarios in my head had changed over the years, but the one constant was her. In a thousand lifetimes, I’d still choose her.
“Fuck, Mikey,” I admitted. “I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to hold on to that lower rocker.”
I didn’t want to fight anymore.
I wanted to be a husband; a father. The one thing I’d fought against my entire life I now craved.
I wanted to be a nobody.
His hands began to tremble, and he shoved them under his thighs with a small nod. “You know, there’s a conversation we need to have.”
I’d known the day was coming but had hoped it would take place under better circumstances, when I wasn’t being pulled in fifty different directions.
He deserved better.
Mikey took my silence as hesitance and added, “Old man, I’ve listened to you my entire life. It’s your turn to listen to me for once. We both know that you’re my father and if Lauren figured it out based on our mannerisms alone, we’re fucked.”
I looked down at my boots. I should’ve known his wife was the one who’d made the connection. The girl was better than the FBI.
“It won’t be long before others notice—my mother made it very clear that if Comedian found out, all hell would break loose. Are you prepared to deal with that on top of everything else? Because I don’t know that I am.”
When I lifted my head, he was watching me intently, his chest rising and falling from exertion. If I’d just kidnapped him as a kid
and moved us all out of the country, we could’ve been living on a beach somewhere, without a fucking care in the world.
“I was a fuckin’ kid, Mikey. If I had it to do over again, I would’ve claimed you as mine from the beginning. I did my best to keep you safe from him, but I know I fuckin’ failed you. I should’ve just put him in the ground when I had the opportunity.”
As Mikey’s eyes filled, I wished like hell I would’ve taken the shot the first time we went up against the Serpents.
I’m sorry, buddy. Daddy’s so sorry.
“I know things look beyond fucked right now, but I’m going to do everything in my power to keep my family out of this—”
He clenched his jaw and nodded along, fighting to stay in control of his emotions. “Exactly what I was thinking. We could get the girls to a safe house, just until this blows over—”
“Mike—” I tried.
“I don’t know that they’d listen right away, with Dakota getting married and all, but I think if they knew—”
“Mike—” I pushed out of the chair and dropped to my knees in front of him. “Listen to me—I said I was gonna do everything for my family. My entire family—includin’ my firstborn.” When he lowered his head, I reached up and gripped his shoulder. “Look at me, son.”
He brushed away the tears with the back of his hand before meeting my gaze, and I squeezed tighter at the sight of his big blue eyes.
My eyes.
“I don’t give a flying fuck what your birth certificate says. You’re a Quinn, through and through. Known it since I first laid eyes on you. I have a plan, but what is it you always say?”
“A plan ain’t shit if everybody knows about it,” he finished with a sniff.
“I want you to run this club beside me.”
I wanted no such thing but needed to know he’d be open to living on the wrong side of the law if it came down to it. Something terrible was coming; it was no longer a question of if but when.
Protector: Silent Phoenix MC Series: Book Four Page 30