“Red?”
We didn’t have more than a moment to get nervous before I heard Zion’s voice.
“Where are you?” he called. “Mrs. E.?”
The man with the gun motioned for her to reply, using his pistol like a pointer. The other man looked at me and lifted a finger to his lips.
“Now’s not a great time,” my grandmother called out in a remarkably calm voice.
Zion laughed. “Echo’s on his way over, so I know you’re decent.”
When neither of us answered his cheeky remark, Zion went silent. I wasn’t foolish enough to think he’d left. He wasn’t the sort of man to leave without answers, and we’d had enough trouble that no matter how calm my grandmother sounded, he’d know something was wrong.
A minute later, Zion came around the corner.
“Dumbass,” the man without the gun rasped. The other one said nothing.
Zion didn’t stop. He walked forward until he was between us and the two men. “Get the fuck out. Now.”
The armed man shook his head. Whoever he was, he must know Zion or he wouldn’t keep silent. That was the only thing I could think: Zion would recognize his voice. I heard the telephone ring again. I wished I could get to it, but there was no way to do that without getting past the intruders.
I realized then that Zion was unarmed—because of me, because I’d asked him to be. If he’d had his gun, he’d have drawn it by now. I did that. I asked him to come unarmed. There were two intruders, one with a gun, and Zion was unarmed.
“Zion, just . . . they can take whatever they want,” I said.
“Of course they can, lovie,” my grandmother added.
The green-masked intruder lifted his gun again and waggled it.
“Shoot me or get out,” Zion taunted.
“Zion,” I said, but my grandmother grabbed my hand and tugged me backward. I wasn’t resisting enough to injure her, but I wasn’t going as quickly as she wanted.
She jerked on my hand. “Come on, lovie.”
I didn’t have a solution. What was I going to do? Open the bleach and throw it at the robber? Charge him and try to get to our kitchen knives? They weren’t even sharp enough to do much damage if I could get at him. Zion was better equipped and more experienced with violence.
My grandmother pulled me back, and much like he had the day I was hassled at the bar, Zion didn’t look my way at all. His attention was solely on the man in front of him.
“You can walk away right now, but if you stay”—Zion shook his head—“bad things come to those who mess with the Wolves’ families. Unless you’re from out of town, you have to know that. There is no one more important to us than these two.”
The man lowered his gun slightly, not all the way, but like he was considering it—or maybe his arm was aching from holding it out. I didn’t know. I wanted to believe the best.
Maybe everything could still be okay.
Maybe this could end without trouble.
Then I heard Beau’s voice from the front hallway. “I called the sheriff, Maureen.” The door slammed behind him. “Should be here any minute. Dumb as a post, that one. Told me to wait.”
I stepped closer to my grandmother.
“Call Echo,” Zion yelled out to Beau. “Back out the door and call him.”
Beau laughed. “Who you think sent me to check on the ladies, boy?”
The armed man turned to look at Beau as he came around the corner.
Beau held a shotgun in his hands, not aimed, but held there ready to lift. For a moment, I wanted him to raise it, to shoot the stranger under the grotesque green balaclava. For all my discomfort with weapons, right now I was wishing Beau would use his gun.
“Put that peashooter down.” Beau shook his head at the intruders. Like Zion, he didn’t seem to take them very seriously. I was starting to think I was the odd one because I was alarmed, but a glance at my grandmother proved that theory wrong. She looked tenser than I could recall ever seeing her.
“So you’re the jackasses been causing all our late-night troubles. You best hope the sheriff gets here before Mr. Echo,” Beau taunted.
“Shut your mouth,” Grandma Maureen snapped.
But it was too late—the man with the gun lifted it and aimed it at Beau.
Zion grabbed the gunman and knocked him to the ground as the weapon fired.
At first, I thought everything was okay. Zion had disarmed the man. Sheriff Patterson was right behind Echo, who had run into the house looking like the sheriff was actually in pursuit of him.
Beau cackled and aimed his shotgun at the other man. “Let’s see who you are under your hoods.”
Then I saw blood.
Zion wasn’t moving.
My grandmother was jerked into Echo’s arms. “Zion?”
My knees felt unsteady. I let go of my grandmother’s hand and took two steps forward.
He wasn’t moving. Zion was still on the floor, and blood was puddling around him.
I wasn’t sure if I’d kneeled on purpose or if my knees gave out. All I knew was that I was crawling across the floor to Zion. He didn’t move, didn’t answer me.
The sheriff said something. I had no idea what, though. I couldn’t focus on anything but Zion.
The man under him, the one with the gun, squirmed out from beneath him.
“Quincy!” The deputy snatched the first man, the one who hadn’t shot Zion.
Meanwhile, the sheriff grabbed the man who had shot Zion and shoved him toward another deputy who had apparently arrived at some point.
Echo squatted down and put his hand on Zion’s throat, checking for a pulse. “He’s alive.”
He rolled Zion to his back. Blood had soaked his shirt. I couldn’t even tell where the bullet had entered. It was all blood.
Echo ripped Zion’s shirt off. The bullet had entered near Zion’s left shoulder, near his collarbone.
My grandmother’s voice broke through the roar in my head. “Lovie, help is coming.”
Echo took one of my hands and put it on a shirt he’d shed and balled up against Zion’s shredded skin. “Hold this. Tight.”
Mutely, I did as I was told.
I was vaguely aware that the sheriff and his deputies had escorted the shooter and Quincy out of the house. I noticed my grandmother walking away. It all felt like it was in a haze, though.
My grandmother came back and put a towel under Zion’s head. The pale yellow cotton turned red.
“He’s hurt,” I said stupidly. “His head. There’s something there too.”
“He hit it,” Echo said.
And I nodded. I wasn’t sure what else to say or do. There was nothing in my life that had prepared me for kneeling in blood next to my boyfriend’s father. The best I could say was “I’m sorry. This is because of us and—”
“He’ll be fine,” Echo interrupted.
I nodded again, trying not to sob or pass out, wishing this weren’t real. I’m not sure how long we stayed like that; it felt like a minute and an hour all at once. But then the paramedics were there, and in what felt like mere moments, they were taking Zion out to an ambulance.
When I looked around, I realized that several other Wolves were there in my house now. Noah was one of them. I hadn’t noticed any of them arriving.
“Dash will bring you to the hospital,” Echo said.
A biker I didn’t know handed Echo a shirt.
Echo jerked it on and looked at my grandmother. “I need to go with him.”
She kissed Echo’s cheek. “We’ll meet you there.”
Once the paramedics left with Zion, my grandmother walked me to the bathroom and helped me wash the blood from my hands.
“What you need is a shower, but I know you want to follow him. This will get us through for the time being,” she announced in the same no-nonsense tone she’d once used when I broke my wrist trying to do tricks on my bicycle.
Once the blood was gone, she ushered me to the bedroom. “Get changed while I deal with
the sheriff. Then we’ll go to the hospital.”
BY THE TIME we got to the ER, it was a sea of black leather. That sea parted as Noah escorted us to Echo.
My grandmother met his eyes, and whatever she read there was enough for her own expression to relax a bit.
“He’s in surgery,” Echo told us.
“And?” I asked.
He shook his head. “You know what I know.”
“Sit down, Eddie,” my grandmother ordered gently. “You need to sit before you fall.”
He did so. I stood silently at her side as my grandmother looked around the room, and in that moment, I could see that she was now the one in charge of this assorted group of worried bikers. “You, there. Come here.”
A biker walked over to her. “Ma’am.”
“Echo needs his jacket,” she ordered. She reached into her bag and dug around until she found her keys. She held one out. “Take this off my ring and go to his house. It’s too damn cold in here to not have his coat.”
It wasn’t that cold, but no one was fool enough to suggest that Eddie Echo’s comfort wasn’t important, especially to the face of the woman my grandmother had suddenly become.
“And you, Mike, isn’t it?”
Mike stood and came to receive his orders.
“This”—she held out a grocery sack with Echo’s vest—“needs to be cleaned. Albert’s over on East Main does a fine job with blood. Go get it in before they’re closed.”
I sank into a seat and looked over at Echo. My grandmother stood in front of the empty seat between us and continued to survey the crowd. “Who hasn’t had dinner?”
Several men raised their hands.
“Well, go on.” She made a shooing gesture at them. “Bring something back for Echo too. And you, Alamo, the coffee here is—”
“Maureen,” Echo interrupted.
She looked down at him and tilted her head.
“I’m okay,” he said in a level voice. “Zion’s going to be okay too.”
My grandmother put her hands on her hips. “Well, I know that, but I figured I might as well get things sorted out while we wait.” She lowered herself into the empty seat, and then she reached over and patted my hand. “Plus, we don’t need to take up all the chairs.”
“ ‘We’?” he repeated.
She shook her head. “The boy got shot protecting us. If I wasn’t already his legal guardian if something happened to you, that would certainly make him my boy too.” Her voice grew a little louder. “He’s been all but my son, and if you’re going to keep being too damn idiotic to own up to being his dad—”
“We talked earlier today.”
She stopped, nodded her head once. “It’s about time.”
Echo took her hand into his. “Hush, woman. I’m going to hold you a minute.” His voice grew so low that I only heard him because I was beside her. “I love you. If something had happened to you . . .”
“It didn’t,” she said just as quietly. Then she looked at me. “Zion made sure we were both safe. He’s a good boy.”
They talked, filling in gaps in what had happened and sipping the coffee one of the bikers brought us. Several covered plates of food were brought too, but all anyone did was pick at them. The waiting room was a rotating crowd of men and women in leather. They alternated between talking to us and keeping a respectful distance. The only one who stayed near us was Noah, who had arrived and positioned himself at Echo’s side like a sentinel.
I didn’t need to ask to know that there were bikers seated so they could watch the door and others positioned between us and the door for our safety.
We sat there for at least an hour before a surgeon came out. “Is one of you Edward Echo or Maureen Evans?”
“Yes,” they answered in tandem.
Echo came to his feet and held a hand out to my grandmother. She took it and stood. I wasn’t invited, but there was no way I was waiting here. I jumped up and went over to the surgeon with them.
“Your son will be fine, Mr. Echo,” the surgeon said. “He’ll be in recovery soon, and once he’s settled in the room, he can have . . . more visitors. The nurses will go over all that, but the critical news is that he’s going to be just fine.”
“No permanent damage?”
“No,” said the surgeon. “He’s very lucky.” The man paused and cleared his throat before saying, “It is, however, hospital policy that the police are called for any gunshot victims. There’s nothing I can do about that, but if any of your”—he glanced at the crowd—“family members need to leave, now’s the time.”
“The police arrived when my son was shot,” Echo said, not unkindly.
“He was shot protecting us from a home invasion,” I snapped. “This was heroism, not a crime, you—”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Echo interrupted. He pulled me into an unexpected hug. When he leaned back, he looked down at me. “Thank you for standing up for him.”
Then he walked away and went to talk to the Wolves.
I watched him for a moment. Various bikers nodded at me, including both Noah and Alamo, but they were all around Echo. A few were still obviously guarding the door, but the mood had lightened considerably.
My grandmother reached out and took my hand. Her attention was still on Echo, though.
“It’s going to be weird if I have to call him Grandpa and I’m dating his son,” I teased her.
She tsked at me, but she couldn’t stop the smile that followed. “A little less sass, lovie.”
Then we settled in to wait until the surgery was finished and Zion was in a room where I would be able to see him.
Chapter 28
ZION OPENED HIS eyes to find Echo, Mrs. E., and Aubrey watching him. Aubrey sat beside his bed, her hand on his. Mrs. E. sat in a chair a little farther away, and Echo was looming over everyone like he was too tense to sit. They were all safe. Whatever happened after he got shot must’ve worked out okay because they were all here and safe. Zion felt like his pulse slowed down significantly at the sight of them.
“Everyone okay?”
Echo nodded.
“Beau?”
“He’s fine,” Mrs. E. said, coming to her feet and stepping closer to the bed. “I thought he was going to get himself arrested, but Eddie pointed out that a lawsuit would be messy. Sheriff Patterson shut up pretty quickly at that. He was more concerned about Quincy.”
“Quincy?”
“How about you keep quiet, and we’ll fill you in?” Aubrey said. Her fingers entwined with his. She squeezed his hand. “You need to rest and be calm. You were . . .” Her words faded, like saying the word was too much.
He looked at her. “Sorry about getting shot. I didn’t have my gun, and I wasn’t going to let any of you—”
Her sob cut him off, but she didn’t say anything. No one else spoke either, and Zion wasn’t sure what to say. “I didn’t mean to,” he added, trying again to make her feel better. “Beau was—”
“Shut up, son,” Echo said. “Poor Aubrey’s just finally stopped sniffling on me, and now you’ve got her crying again.”
Mrs. Evans sighed and came to stand beside the bed. She put her hand on Zion’s shoulder. “You did a brave thing. Aubrey’s just been worried. So was your father.” She glanced at Echo and scowled. “We’re going to start you in some remedial parenting classes as soon as he’s out of here, Edward.”
Tears still slid down Aubrey’s cheeks, but she flashed a smile at her grandmother and Echo. Whatever issues she’d had with Echo seemed to have vanished.
“ ‘Edward’?” Zion repeated, happy to encourage whatever was making Aubrey smile.
Echo gave him a look that wasn’t as intimidating as his usual glares. “Stick with Echo or Dad, son. Only person that gets away with calling me that is Maureen.”
Mrs. Evans stepped back from the bed and took Echo’s hand in hers. “We’re going for a walk, Edward. Leave the children to talk.”
Then she tugged Echo from the room, and Zion was left al
one with Aubrey.
“Are you okay?”
Aubrey looked at him and shook her head. “I was so scared. You were bleeding, and I . . . I . . . It was awful.”
“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t entirely sure what he was apologizing for, scaring her or getting shot or probably both, but he was sorry that she was upset.
After a few minutes, she started to fill him in on the fact that the sheriff hadn’t been involved in the break-ins after all, he was just covering because Quincy got mixed up with some unsavory characters at his job. “Quincy made a promise to the contractors, but then the senior citizens refused to be intimidated, so he hired some people to help him make people nervous . . . I guess he didn’t know what else to do or have money to pay them off.”
“So he shot me?”
“No.” Aubrey squeezed his hand. “He paid a few guys to help intimidate people, stir up trouble, and it got out of hand. Quincy wasn’t the one to shoot you.”
“But it was him organizing everything?”
Aubrey shook her head. “Organizing? No. Setting into motion? Yes. He was an idiot, and he’ll end up either doing time or, if he’s lucky, with a suspended sentence. All he wanted was a way to make some easy money, and I guess he thought that making deals with shady contractors was safe or something. He explained over and over that he didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.”
They sat there for a few minutes before Zion said, “I talked to . . . Dad. That’s what I was coming to tell you. I’m going to enlist. I can still see the Wolves because, well, they’re family, but I wouldn’t work for them anymore.”
“He said you finally asked him about being his son,” Aubrey interjected.
“Right.” Zion shifted, and then promptly winced as the movement pulled on the still-tender stitches. “So, what do you think . . . about me enlisting?”
Aubrey was crying again, but she was smiling too. “That’s what he wouldn’t tell me. He said you had a plan, and you would tell me yourself when you woke.”
Undaunted: Knights in Black Leather Page 21