by Addison Jane
“I’m going to have to call my dad,” I whispered. “He’s gonna have to bring us back to get the car.”
“We could Uber.”
Aria—she’s always there to help me avoid uncomfortable situations.
“I better call him.”
I didn’t want to. He’d make this a big deal.
“Do you hear that?” Aria whispered, distracting me and my destructive thoughts for a moment. I cocked an eyebrow at her, but as I did, I heard the noise getting closer.
Motorcycles—there was more than one of them.
We both scrambled to our feet and swung the ambulance doors open.
There were at least six or more cruising slowly down the road we had stopped Aria’s car on. Half of them turned down the side road toward us, while the others revved their engines and took off again.
I noticed the bright red color stood out against their backs. The same red that had helped me find the hurt biker on the ground.
The same red outline.
The Royal Bastards MC.
HYPE
“Anything?” Brew questioned, stepping inside the small hospital room.
I’d been here a few hours now, just flipping through magazines and talking to Sketch like he could fucking answer me back. It was the only thing keeping me sane. The hospital gave me the creeps—so white, so clean, so damn medical.
At least the beeping of the machines had simply become background noise. But it had taken an hour or more of thinking I might have to rip my ears off for that to happen.
“Stable, but no change,” I informed Brew as I dragged my aching body from the hard hospital chair and stretched my arms up over my head. Several joints clicked, and I couldn’t fight the satisfied sigh that left my mouth. “Doctor is probably due to do rounds again soon.”
We were in the intensive care unit.
When Sketch came off his ride, he did some serious damage to his body. Not only was he going to need skin grafts to reconstruct one of his legs where it looked like someone had taken to it with a cheese grater, but he’d also ruptured his spleen and did some severe damage to his liver and other internal organs. We could have so easily been fucking planning a funeral right now.
“You have any idea what happened yet?” I asked, my eyes focusing in on the machine that was helping Sketch breathe. The way it rose and fell was somewhat hypnotic.
Brew moved in closer to the bed, his eyebrows knotted. “Nah. Hatch said cops won’t let us have his bike until their team is done with it,” he muttered, a sharp edge to his tone. “And even then, they’ll probably ruin anything that might tell us if there was foul play, or if the kid for some reason was just distracted.”
“We both know what fucking happened.”
Brew frowned but didn’t look at me.
We’d had to delay several fucking deliveries because of the fuck-up from the other night. And there were assholes out there who just didn’t understand. They wanted their drugs, fucking addicts themselves. And this? This shit was a warning of what we were going to be dealing with if I didn’t figure out how to fucking get them.
Sketch had been prospecting at the club for almost a year now, and he was due to get his patch sometime fucking soon. I’d seen him ride more times than I could count, so I was seriously doubting he was incapable of riding in the rain, or that he would have been so fucking reckless.
I’d been him once, we all fucking had, searching for our patches, doing what we needed to do so we could earn those all-important colors.
A lot of people didn’t understand it. But honestly, I learned a long time ago just not to fucking care. I found something here that I needed, and I would fight tooth and fucking nail to keep it.
This world, it was just fucking different.
And definitely not made for everyone.
Sketch, it was made for him. The kid was quick, he was smart, and he was loyal to a fault. And in a world full of people just waiting to slip the blade of a knife into your back, loyalty was one thing the club demanded without fail.
To be a part of The Royal Bastards MC, you had to have more than just a love for motorcycles, more than just an itch for violence. Your love for the club was something I just didn’t believe you could fake. It was a burning part of your soul. It was like air—something you couldn’t survive without. That was how Sketch was with the club.
“He wouldn’t risk his patch because he was being stupid and driving too fucking fast in the rain.”
Brew turned his head just slightly and nodded. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he admitted quietly. “But I don’t want to get too fucking worked up about it until we know he’s coming out of this shit.”
“Why does it matter?” I countered with a scoff. “Result’s going to be the same.”
Whoever it was that caused this was going to pay with their life.
Accident or not.
“The result will be the same,” he agreed with a nod. “But depending on what happened, it’s the process that will be different.”
We both knew what this was, but instead of jumping in head first, I nodded, deciding to keep out of this one and follow my vice president’s lead.
This was how wars were started.
And right now, my focus was getting my shipments rolling again.
Deep stepped through the door, coffee cup in one hand, a couple of pieces of paper in the other. “You’re welcome,” he rasped, shoving the papers at Brew.
Brew glared at my club brother, snatching the papers from his hand and squinting as he lined them up in front of his face.
“I can see your dick,” I commented, cracking my neck and pointing to Deep’s crotch.
He shrugged, sipping on his coffee and not even fucking bothering to zip his damn pants up. “I had to make sacrifices to get those files.”
“You fucked the bitch at the front desk, didn’t you?” I snorted, shaking my head.
“He did,” Warden confirmed, stepping into the already overcrowded room and pushing the door closed behind him. “What he’s not telling you is that she’s in her late fifties, and I had to listen to her beg to spank him because he’d been a naughty boy.”
“He’s not wrong.” Deep shrugged, propping himself up on the windowsill.
“These the girls that stopped?” Brew questioned, his eyes narrowing on one of the papers, in particular.
“Yeah, thought it would be handy to have their details. Maybe see if we can catch up with them, see if they saw anything,” Warden explained, propping his shoulder against the wall. “I’m not optimistic, though. Given the guys at the scene said Sketch was fucking dead and these two bitches did CPR, managed to bring him back from a very intimate meeting with Satan.”
“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath, leaning back against the end of the hospital bed and fighting a cold shudder that was working its way up through my body. The kind of chill you only got when death was close by.
“Aria Devlen,” Brew noted before flicking to the next page. “And Sage Calder.”
Calder.
A heavy frown knotted my brows.
Where the hell do I know that name?
“Spotted them out in the waiting room, must be waiting for a ride so they can head home,” Warden announced, lifting his eyebrow at the confused look on my face. “What’s with the frowny face?”
“Our old buddy, Arthur, the other day mentioned the name of the new guy,” I answered, my feet already carrying me toward the door. “Jason Calder.” My brain was ticking over. A million things rushing through, pieces and pieces falling together to form this puzzle.
And I was really starting to like the look of the picture.
“You think there’s a connection?” Warden asked, following me as I stomped down the white hallway, the lights dimmed since it was now some stupid fucking hour of the morning.
The hallway ended, both of us pulling to a stop as we searched the reasonably empty area of the Emergency Room.
“There,” Warden murmured, poi
nting subtly toward a couple of girls in the corner with hospital blankets wrapped tightly around their shoulders and their heads dipped together. “Sage is the one with the red hair.” The other girl with mousey brown hair, her eyes were closed, her shoulders rising and falling evenly as she slept on her friend’s shoulder.
Sage, though.
She was something else.
Her wavy red hair—it wasn’t natural, it was bright and in your face.
She had it swept to the side, falling down one part of her chest as Sage sat slumped, her eyes looking down at the phone in her hands. I wanted to get closer. Intrigued by this stranger who felt the need to pull over on the side of a fucking road and give one of my boys back his life.
There was this innocence surrounding her.
This sweetness and softness to her features.
But then the opposite with that sharp blood-red hair—that was something else.
Something defiant.
“Sage!”
Something I could use.
She sat up straighter, her eyes searching for the sound of his voice.
Jason Calder.
He rushed in, uniform and fucking all, stomping toward his daughter.
“Hey, Daddy,” she sighed, leaning into his arms as he crouched beside her, his hand brushing her hair back from her face.
My fingers curled into a fist.
“I can practically hear your fucking brain turning. You thinking that’s our way to fix this shit?” Warden asked, the both of us watching as he walked the two girls toward the exit. “Use the girl to get to Daddy?”
“Yeah,” I noted, rolling my shoulders.
And I think I’m going to fucking love it.
SAGE
“Excuse me, miss?”
“Yes,” I gasped, spinning around in my chair and collecting the full cup of coffee beside me. “Shit!” I cursed, the hot liquid missing my lap by just inches then tumbling to the floor.
Mentally, the curse words kept coming as I dropped to my knees with an entire box of tissues, dabbing at the creamy-colored stain. The young guy who’d been itching for my attention, just silently moved to the girl next to me. Not offering to help, or even asking if I was okay.
The truth was, I probably wasn’t. I probably should have stayed home today and allowed the images of last night to pass rather than really soak through my skin.
It was never easy to see people hurting or dying. I’d been working with that part of life for so long now, I thought I’d become pretty damn efficient at blocking it out. But I was wrong.
“Sage.” I looked up, my shift manager smiling down at me softly, shaking her head. “Go and take a break, get some fresh air. You should be at home. Resting.” The scowl on her face let me know if I fucked up again today, that she wouldn’t have a problem going over my head about this.
I needed to get my shit together.
Get my head back in the game and just fucking focus.
After making a new coffee, I took the cup in both my hands, letting it warm them. I swore I could still feel the chill of last night. The cold air, the rain that completely drenched me and just wouldn’t let up. But not only that, the look of his body just lying there.
Not breathing.
Not moving.
Gone.
I couldn’t tell how long it had been since the people had left.
They’d called my name as they searched the house from top to bottom.
How’d they know my name?
How’d they know my mom’s nickname was Dove?
What were they looking for?
Where was Dad?
With my hand shaking, I reached for the tiny door, clicking it open softly and as gently as I could, pushing it open without toppling the plant that was pressed against the other side. My mouth was dry, it had to have been hours, and if I didn’t move soon, I was going to pee in my pants.
My entire body cringed as the potted plant scraped across the floor, the sound echoing through the silent house.
My knees scraped painfully against the wood as I wiggled my body from inside the tight space, collecting the cobwebs on my Minnie Mouse pajamas on the way out.
Peeking around the corner, I blinked furiously, the light streaming in through the broken glass panels of the front door stinging my eyes.
Then I saw it.
Her feet.
Her slippers poking out of the living room and into the foyer.
I scrambled, my feet slipping and sliding as I fought my way toward her. Maybe things weren’t as bad as I thought. Maybe I could still save her.
“Sage, no!”
My father stepped through the door, his arms sweeping around me and lifting my body off the floor and pulling me backward. He was trying to keep me from that image. The one he knew would never leave me.
But he was too late.
The scream, it was something I couldn’t stop, a sound I knew was coming from my body, but that was so foreign. So full of pain. Heartache. Devastation.
“Sage… isn’t it?”
I jumped, my hand going straight to my heart as if to protect it from leaving my body. “Holy shit,” I cursed, spinning on my heel and pressing my back to the wall, and suddenly thanking the world that it was daylight right now and not nighttime. Because the hulking guy standing in front of me was not the likes of someone I would enjoy meeting in a dark alleyway.
I didn’t think.
And yet, there was this weird familiarity about him.
The club cut.
The red skull.
The crown on its head.
Just like the kid from yesterday.
“Sorry,” I finally managed to push out, clearing the awkward air from floating around us. “Yeah, I’m Sage.”
He held out his hand, stepping a little closer. “Name’s Hype,” he explained as I shook, his hand dwarfing mine.
“That’s you’re real name?” I asked, the words falling out before I could stop them.
The corner of his mouth curled upward, the confident smirk swirling a mixture of emotions within me. One, in particular, forcing me to press my thighs together a little tighter to try and ease the growing feeling. “No.”
I could feel the flood of heat moving across my cheeks, forcing myself to move toward to the handful of trees that made up a tiny garden just outside the front doors of the ER. Hype followed, not too close, but the sheer size of his body did nothing but fill the space.
“You saved one of my brother’s lives yesterday.”
The unladylike scoff came from the bottom of my throat as I fell onto the small park bench. A weird reaction to what I assumed was subtle praise. “It’s what anyone would have done.”
His gentle chuckle made his shoulders vibrate, his head shaking back and forth as he leaned back against the tree beside me, pulling a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. My eyes followed his every movement as he popped a single smoke from the packet and placed the end between his lips.
I couldn’t pull my eyes away as the lighter that came from his pocket, and he flicked it, the flame barely brushing the end of the stick before he tucked it away again. “Anyone else would have seen the patch on my brother’s back, and they would have just sat and watched him die,” Hype explained with a dark, rumbling tone. “We aren’t exactly favorites around these parts.”
“Guess it’s lucky Aria and I stopped then, and it wasn’t someone else,” I answered, pulling both my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms tightly around them. “A life is a life. I’m not God, I don’t get to choose who lives and who dies.”
The corner of his mouth curled upward, a steady stream of smoke billowing from the tiny gap between his lips. “You shouldn’t be so humble,” he urged, taking another long drag. “You saved him… and the club, we’re thankful.”
I didn’t like smoking.
At least, I thought I didn’t.
Then why the fuck was it suddenly so damn sexy. “I don—”
“Can you please just take th
e compliment and the thank you, so I don’t have to go back to the clubhouse and tell the boys how embarrassing this was?”
I laughed softly. “Only if you tell me your real name.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he cursed, rolling his eyes with a wicked smile. “Jesse.”
“You know smoking kills you, right, Jesse?”
“Gotta die somehow,” he threw back, his raised brows letting me know he was enjoying the hell out of pushing my buttons.
“I could think of a million other ways you could die.”
“Thought you said you didn’t play God?” he teased, throwing my words back at me.
Sexy, untouchable, quick off the damn mark.
I hated him already.
But not fucking really.
The opposite actually.
“You hate predictable.” Aria’s words echoed loudly in my head. She was right, I hated predictable, and Hype was anything but that.
I didn’t know what to expect, what he might say next, and in the weirdest way possible, that soothed me. I hated planning shit. I hated it because my brain wanted to instantly scrutinize all the fucking bad things that could go wrong.
It was like OCD.
It caught me off guard at times.
It was the reason I worked in the emergency room. It was crazy, it was out of hand, and I never knew what was going to happen from one day to the next. It didn’t give me a chance to overthink, to become anxious and begin to panic.
It’d taken years to get to a point where I recognized that was a part of me. And more, long, intense therapy sessions to figure out how the hell to deal with it.
“How is your… brother?” I asked, curious to hear how the kid was doing. I’d read a little of his file when I got in this morning, but there were very little changes in his status. He still wasn’t breathing on his own, the doctors opting to keep him in a drug-induced coma so his body could have a little time to heal.
“My club brother,” Hype corrected. “Sketch. I honestly don’t know. I was here last night, but hospitals make me itch. There are three or four ol’ ladies in there with him at the moment. My brothers will stop by to check in. But I prefer to stay out here.”