Rusty Nail

by Lani Lynn Vale

  He would not go get Nathan, at least not without Wolf’s or my permission first.

  So no, I wasn’t falling for this man’s bullshit that he was shoveling.

  “What happened to him?” I asked, letting the fear and worry that I was feeling fill my voice. “Is he okay?”

  The man walked forward until his hand was resting on Nathan’s back. “He is right now…” he smiled at me, letting me see those freaky eyes up close. “But he won’t be for long.”

  I stiffened and tried to turn my body to get the man’s hand away from Nathan, but when I moved, the man smiled and tightened his hand until his fist was wrapped around Nathan’s shirt.

  “I want you to call him.”

  I nodded my head.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll call him.”

  He grinned at me.

  “You’ll use my phone.”

  I nodded again.

  I didn’t want the man to follow me into the safe room. That was a secret, and if he knew about it, it wasn’t so secret or safe anymore, was it?

  “Okay,” I said. “But I don’t know Wolf’s number.”

  I didn’t. He’d put it into my phone when I’d first met him, and then I’d never thought twice about calling him after that. How stupid was it that I didn’t know that?

  Hell, I didn’t know anyone’s number…except for one.

  And my brother was standing right there, so there was no way in hell I could call him.

  “That’s okay,” the man smiled. “Rafe here knows it.”

  That didn’t surprise me.

  Was Rafe playing a bad guy?

  I knew a little bit about what he was doing, just that he was undercover and involved in some big investigation that Wolf was also somehow involved in.

  Whether this was the same man he was investigating, I didn’t know.

  But I did want to know, and I would know. Soon.

  Now, though, I decided to go ahead and use the pale blue-eyed man to call Wolf and let him know that I thought something fishy was going on.

  “Rafe, the number,” the man asked, snapping his fingers.

  “Alright, Fry. Simmer down,” he ordered, pulling out his phone.

  He rattled off a number, and this Fry guy punched in the numbers and pressed dial before putting it onto speakerphone.

  “’Lo?” Wolf’s angry, pain-filled voice answered.

  “Hi, Wolf. This is Agent Fry, here to check on your lovely lady and child like you asked me to,” he called jovially into the phone.

  “Raven?” Wolf asked softly. Carefully.

  “Yes, Wolf?” I asked, knowing when he was mad.

  And mad wouldn’t even touch what he was feeling right now. He was pissed. Hot. So angry he would be vibrating had he been near me.

  “You don’t follow directions,” he said, sounding almost bored.

  “No,” I agreed. “But Agent Fry brought Nathan over here to me with another man. He said you were hurt.”

  Before Wolf could reply, Agent Fry took the phone away from me and placed it to his ear, turning away from the two of us and letting me see my brother for the first time.

  Raphael’s face went from passive to angry in the half a second since I’d last looked at him.

  I raised my eyebrow at him in question and shifted Nathan in my arms.

  “Where’s Nancy?” I whispered.

  Raphael’s eyes went haunted, and the shake of his head said it all.

  Nancy wasn’t good.

  Whatever happened to her to get Nathan with me had been bad, and I prayed that whatever was wrong with her that she would be able to recover from it.

  “Search her, Rafe,” Agent Fry called over his shoulder. “Make sure she doesn’t have anything on her that she can use against us in the next ten minutes that it takes Wolf to arrive.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked carefully.

  Agent Fry’s crazy eyes came to me, and he smiled. A smile so fucking chilling that I felt the ice all the way across the room.

  “What’s going on is that I’m about to kill your man, and you’re going to watch.”

  And suddenly I wasn’t standing with my back to the wall anymore. Suddenly, I had my brother’s hands running down the length of my arms and legs as he searched for anything I would be able to use against them.

  My brother did a shit job though. He skimmed right over my cell phone. Let me hold on to the set of keys that were in my pocket—a set of keys that had a deadly and wicked keychain on them that was meant to shove into people’s eyes.

  He also skipped over the gun. The same gun that Wolf had placed in the back of my pants before he’d left.

  At the time, I’d thought he was being overzealous.

  Now, though, I was understanding just how right he’d been to worry.

  “She’s clean,” he said. “Where do you want us to go?”

  “Put the kid in their room. Both of you come out here.”

  “If the kid wakes up, he’s going to be scared since we took him from his grandmother’s. I propose we stay in the backroom while you await Wolf,” Raphael said, gesturing behind him at Nathan.

  My arms tightened involuntarily, and I realized I was doing a lot better at this than I would have been had Raphael not been here.

  And I realized something; in the middle of whatever bullshit that I was in, I trusted my brother.

  Meaning I knew he’d take care of me and not let anything happen to me.

  Surely if I trusted him with my life, I could trust him with my heart again.

  Agent Fry’s eyes came to where Nathan was resting, and then back to me.

  “Fine, whatever. At least the fuckin’ dog isn’t here,” he mumbled. “But make sure you keep an eye on her. She’s likely a flight risk. Fuck!” Marky Mark was at the clubhouse. Had been there since this afternoon when Alison had picked him up from the groomer’s. Thank God. I had a feeling if he’d been here, he would be dead right now. He ran his hands through his hair. “Do you know how fucking hard it’s going to be to get another shipment in on such short notice?” He licked his lips. “Fifty-seven fucking girls! I had buyers for most of them!”

  Raphael pushed me back toward the back hallway of Wolf’s house; I started backing up, sensing when to cut and run.

  “Be back,” Raphael said as he guided me out of the room.

  I went willingly.

  The moment the door shut, I whirled on him.

  “What the fuck is going on?” I hissed at him.

  Raphael held his hand up to stop me before I could get too animated about what was going on, and shoved me in the direction of the safe room. Wolf had explained about the safe room in an earlier conversation, apparently.

  “Get back in there,” he ordered. “I want you to lock it and not open it. Not for any goddamn reason. Not for me getting my head blown off. Not for Wolf getting his blown off either. Not for any goddamn reason. Do you understand?”

  I swallowed, a ball of fear keeping me from breathing correctly.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Good. Go. Don’t come back out.”

  With that, he pushed me in the direction of the door to the safe room, and gestured with his fingers for me to hurry up.

  Punching in the numbers, I pushed the door open, and Raphael closed the door hard behind me.

  Nathan’s big body stirred, and I looked down at him when he lifted his face from my shoulder.

  “Rave?” he whispered. “Tired.”

  “Yeah, baby. Go back to sleep.”

  His face scrunched up and then he nodded his head before laying his head back against my shoulder.

  By this point, my hands were aching uncontrollably, and I had to put him down or I’d drop him.

  He was a big boy. Way bigger than any kid in his class or on his baseball team.

  As I laid him down on the bed that was covered with a scratchy gray blanket, I looked down at him and wonde
red what in the hell I was supposed to do now.

  Was I supposed to just wait here and see what would happen?

  Would I need to call the cops?

  I had worked myself into a fine hysteric, going from looking at the monitors on the walls that showed me Wolf’s house to Nathan’s sleeping face, and was nearly convinced to call the cops when I realized that I still had my cell phone. Meaning I could call Wolf.

  Jesus Christ!

  Nabbing my cell phone, I pressed Wolf’s name and put it up to my ear.

  It only took him five seconds to answer it, and by the time he did, I could tell he was on his way.

  “Raven?” he answered urgently.

  “I’m okay. I’m in the safe room.”

  “Nathan?”

  “He’s with me,” I replied soothingly. “We’re okay. Raphael and that guy, Fry, they wanted Nathan away from us. Raphael was able to talk him into putting me in the bedroom with him.”

  “Who’s there with you?”

  “Nobody but Raphael and that Fry guy,” I whispered. “Wolf…what the heck is going on?”

  My eyes went to the bedroom where Raphael was wearing a hole in the floor from his pacing and went back to Nathan’s still form.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, sounding relieved. “That’s good to know. I’m on my way. We’ll be there in less than five minutes.”

  I bit my lip. “So what do you want me to do?”

  Wolf made a soothing sound.

  “Handle what you need to handle in that room. DO whatever you need to do, but do not, under any circumstance, leave that room,” he ordered.

  That being the second time I was ordered not to leave, I understood doubly well that I was not to leave. If the two main men in my life thought I shouldn’t, then I wouldn’t.

  No way in hell.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll stay in the room.”

  “Good.” He took a deep breath and the sound of a motor started in the distance. “You may see something you don’t like on those videos; I’m asking you to turn the monitors off until you hear the special knock I showed you on the door earlier.”

  I pursed my lips.

  “Wolf…” I started, but he stopped me with one word.

  “Please?”

  I swallowed thickly.

  “Just don’t get shot in the head. I’ll be good.”

  Little did I know that I wouldn’t have to worry about that one, mainly because the damn man had already been shot in the head once tonight.

  ***

  It took Wolf fifteen minutes to arrive, and the moment he did, Raphael alerted me that he was there.

  I watched the screen avidly as I waited for Wolf to ride up on his Harley.

  At first, I thought he’d gotten a new helmet, but the longer I looked, the more I realized that what he had wrapped around his head wasn’t a helmet at all, but a bandage. A black bandage that resembled vet wrap or Cobain.

  I leaned forward until my nose was practically touching the screen, and smiled when I saw the men pull up beside him.

  Griffin was on one side of him, and Peek on the other.

  I had no doubt that the others were on their way.

  And they didn’t disappoint. By the time Wolf made it to the front door, every single one of the members pulled up behind him.

  All except one, and that one, Mig, worried me.

  He was supposed to be here over an hour ago, and he still wasn’t here.

  On a whim, I picked up my phone and found Annie’s number, and then hit send as I watched what was happening in front of me.

  “Hello?” Annie asked breathlessly.

  “Annie?” I asked urgently. “Is everything alright?”

  “No!” Annie wailed. “Oh, God. The kid, Xavier…” she hesitated. “He tried to kill himself tonight. Peek must’ve left Mig’s information or something, because Xavier called and told Mig that he was scared. That he tried to kill himself, and had swallowed an entire bottle of pills from the cookie jar in the kitchen. The one that is filled with Vicodin.”

  My belly rolled as I remembered Wolf showing me that cookie jar.

  I looked down at my still-casted hand, the one that just a few weeks ago I’d broken for the first time in my life.

  Now the cast was an ugly shade of pink that showed every single speck of dirt, drop of blood, and frayed gauze from where I’d tried to itch the inside of my arm with a coat hanger.

  “Oh, God.” I whispered. “Is he okay?”

  “Yes,” Annie sniffled. “But Mig and I are with him in the ER. He’s having his stomach pumped right now.”

  Deciding not to burden her with any more information on what was going on, I said, “Keep me updated, okay? I have Nathan and it’s not going to be easy to get to the ER to see him until the morning.”

  Annie murmured something in agreement, and then said, “Gotta go. I’ll keep you informed.”

  As she hung up, I saw Wolf make his way into the main room, and groaned when I got my first good look at his face that wasn’t obscured by shadows.

  He was covered (and when I say covered, I mean fucking Carrie covered) in blood. It was caked on the skin of his neck. Between the webbing of his fingers. The gray t-shirt he was wearing was saturated. His jeans were a dark shade of blue when I knew for a fact he left in jeans that were so fucking faded that they appeared white.

  His hair was sticking up in every freakin direction, and his beard was stiff and straight instead of bushy and neat like he usually kept it.

  “What are you doing in my house?” he asked. “Where is my kid and woman?”

  Raphael came out of the bedroom and Wolf stiffened, playing the role of a surprised man perfectly.

  “What are y’all doing here? Where’s Nathan and Raven?” he snarled.

  I watched as men started pouring inside of the house, flanking Wolf’s back, and staring at the man in front of them like the crazy loon he was.

  “You’re outnumbered, Fry. Put down the gun and get the fuck out of here,” Wolf said. “Maybe try not to point your gun at the sheriff who’s in the room.”

  Fry didn’t move the gun he was pointing at Wolf’s face.

  Raphael, however, chose that moment to pull his own gun out.

  He made an arc, swinging it high over the Uncertain Saints heads, and then aimed it directly at the rogue agent that was so screwed in the head.

  To even consider the fact that he had a fair chance at accomplishing what he came here to accomplish was surprising to say the least.

  What was more surprising was the grin he leveled on Raphael.

  “I fucking knew it!” he cried. “I knew you weren’t really mine!”

  Raphael grinned.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve never been yours.”

  Agent Fry’s eyes went absolutely electric. “That’s why I have a fail safe.”

  “And what is that fail safe?” my brother asked him.

  “Always carry it around with me,” he said, opening his shirt.

  All the men in the room, including my brother, stiffened.

  “You’re going to die,” Wolf snapped, taking a step forward. “Are you fucking crazy?”

  The angle the cameras were at, and where the men were positioned, kept me from seeing what he pulled out of his shirt and had in his hand.

  The men, though, had absolutely no trouble seeing what Fry wanted them to see.

  And when they started backing up, I knew whatever Fry was holding was serious.

  Deadly serious.

  And then Wolf’s shoulders moved, giving me my first good view of what was in his hand.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  I pulled my phone back up, dialed 9-1-1, and then placed it to my ear.

  “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” the man asked.

  Quickly I spouted off where we were, but I couldn’t give them the exact address because I didn’t know. I vowed right then and there that when I
survived this, and I would fucking survive this, I was going to memorize Wolf’s number and fucking address.

  “A man is in our house with a grenade,” I whispered, even though the men in the room beyond me had no chance of hearing what I had to say. “He pulled the pin, and there are seven men in the room beside the man with the grenade. Two are Texas Rangers, one is the sheriff. He’s going to kill all of them if he drops that grenade.”

  Then, to my horror, Fry threw the grenade at the men.

  In reaction to the thing flying at their heads—whether it be live or fake—they all scattered.

  All the men moved at once as a unit.

  They weren’t fast enough, though.

  Not nearly fast enough.

  Chapter 23

  You don’t have to be crazy to be my friend. It’ll happen on its own…just give it time.

  -Wolf’s secret thoughts

  Wolf

  “You can’t go!” Hannah cried. “You’ve got a gunshot wound to your head!”

  I pushed off the gurney where I’d been placed when I passed out, and stood up on my own two feet.

  “What’s going on?” Peek asked.

  “Fry’s at my place. With Raven and Nathan.”

  The entire room went wired at the mention of that.

  “Where’s Mig?” Peek asked.

  I shook my head.

  “I’m afraid to ask,” I admitted.

  Core appeared and gestured to me, and I took the moment of confusion between everyone to slip out past Hannah, who was arguing with Griffin and Peek.

  Peek followed me with Griffin following him.

  Core and Casten were somewhere behind them, and together as a unit, we exited the diner and made our way to Core’s boat which was brought around by one of the police officers.

  With my heart in my throat, we made our way as fast as Core’s boat would take us to where we’d left our vehicles.

  My heart was pounding a million miles an hour and not just because of the blood loss.

  My cell phone rang, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw who was calling.

  “Raven.”