“Callie?” came a rough, tired-sounding voice. “Shit, I think she’s waking up again – go get that fucking doctor back in here. Now!”
More memories. Flooding back this time. Relentlessly. Another figure - one dressed in black. His face hidden as he snarled low threats and curled a hand around her throat. Making it hard to breathe, just like the tube. She’d tried to fight, remembered her attacker’s agonised howl. But the flash of a blade had caught her off-guard ...
She tried to sit up, her hands fisting in the sheets when a fresh sliver of pain lanced through her. The little cry it pulled from her only tore at her already abused throat and added to her suffering. But even that didn’t compare to the cold terror already building inside. Someone had come after her. She didn’t know who, but she knew he would come back. Her heart was racing, thumping hard. Too hard. It hurt to breathe.
She had to get out, had to get away.
Those strong fingers slipped to her wrists and tightened, making her flail weakly against being held down.
“No, sweetheart, no,” that same voice said, the tiredness replaced by urgency. “Gotta take it easy or you’re gonna pull some of this shit out ... Just lay back, lay back for me. Come on, baby, it’s okay - you’re safe. Promise.”
She stilled. “C-Colton?”
The name came out in a hoarse whisper and she was already slumping back against the pillows with the effort, but the hands that had been holding her drifted to caress her pale face and dark eyes roved over her.
“Callie … Jesus, I ain’t ever been so fucking glad to hear my damn name,” he managed. “I got ya, little girl. I got ya.”
***
It was hard to remember now that there had once been a time when he’d had it all. The patch, the old lady on his arm, and his little girl on his lap. He’d never chased any of it but, when it found him, he’d fought hard to keep what he had. Maybe that was where he went wrong. He’d closed his hands so tight around what he held dear that he’d crushed the life out of it. Killed it dead and now it was all either gone or slipping away.
His baby daughter outed as a rat and out of his life, as good as dead, his now ex-wife probably screwing around behind some other sap’s back and his club ... threatening to fracture beyond repair. He knew what it said about him as a father and a husband that the latter was the worst of it.
But the club came first. Always had, always would. That was why he knew he couldn’t let it be torn apart. Not because of him and his blindness.
Sam was right. He’d let Taylor, and her mother before her, twist him up inside until he couldn’t see straight. He’d managed to convince himself that Callie was just like them – manipulative, devious, out for what she could get. And all despite actually liking her at first, thinking she might even be good for one of his most trusted brothers. He’d let his heart overrule his head. What the hell use was a president who did that?
Not that it would be an issue for long.
A knife to the chest, courtesy of that dumb fuck he’d recruited out of desperation. Even if the girl was tougher than she looked, she was still only a little thing and sure as hell wasn’t made of steel. And Sam was right again. If she died, Colton would come after whoever was responsible. Even if she didn’t, he would still come.
Dragging on the cigar he’d lit absently, Will tilted his head back and exhaled a long, slow stream of fragrant smoke before breathing it back in through his nose. He couldn’t blame the man, but he couldn’t let it happen. Not to save his own skin though, no matter how it sounded. But he could see with absolute clarity how it would all play out – how his death at the hands of a brother would rip the club he’d worked so hard to keep whole, wide open. And a wound like that would never heal.
With the cigar clamped between his teeth, he pulled his gun from its holster and eyed it as the pieces of his only solution slowly slid into place in his mind.
Once more, he’d do what was needed. For his club.
***
She wasn’t out of the woods by a long shot, but a corner had been turned. The danger was no longer immediate and the iron band that had wrapped itself around Colton’s chest eased up just a fraction.
He didn’t give a shit if it was frowned upon, he’d given up on the chair by her bed in favour of toeing off his boots and easing himself down beside her. Taking every care to make sure he wasn’t risking pulling out an IV or adding to her pain, he let his body practically cradle hers, propped on one elbow to watch over her as she slept again. He needed the closeness and it just wasn’t enough to settle for holding her hand.
He’d been convinced he was losing her. He’d never forget how that felt.
She stirred in her sleep, tension written over her face as she whimpered, but didn’t wake.
“Easy, girl,” he said, keeping his voice low and as calm as he could, given the waves of anger that still kept hitting him every time he was reminded of what she’d been put through. His hand soothed gently over her hair and down her arm to her hip. “Just me. Ain’t no one gonna hurt you. I’m staying right here ...”
Although she settled back down into a deeper sleep, he sighed guiltily at the blatant lie. He wasn’t staying. He couldn’t. Now he knew he wasn’t seconds from watching her slip away from him, there was something he had to take care of – something that wouldn’t keep.
But for just a little bit longer, he was sticking close. Making the most of her while he could, before Sketch prepared to try putting her on that plane as soon as she was fit to travel – and before he prepared to let him.
***
“Sam ... What you doin’ here, man?”
“What’s with the jumpy greeting, dude?” the sergeant asked, an easy-going smile on his face as he stood on the doorstep of the dingy little house. “You expecting someone else?”
“N-no,” came the stammered response. “Uh, you wanna come in? I ain’t exactly keeping a palace here ...”
“So I see.”
Stepping over the threshold, the biker lowered the hood of his dark sweatshirt and shouldered his way past his reluctant host, making his way into a tiny living room littered with pizza boxes and empty beer cans. “Guess we keep you too busy cleaning up round the garage, Trey,” he commented, giving a stack of the boxes a light kick with the toe of his boot. “Not exactly domesticated, are ya?”
“Need to ... get myself an old lady, I guess,” the hangaround said, trying an uneasy smile.
“I’d settle for a cleaner. I hear they’re cheaper. How’s the hand?”
“Huh? Oh ... Uh, fine, I guess. Teach me to be more careful ...” he said, clutching the injury to his chest and looking down at it - missing the look that crossed Sam’s face.
“How deep did it go?”
“What?”
“The chisel,” Sam shrugged patiently. “How deep did it go? It ain’t a through-and-through, is it? ‘Cause you know who you should show if it is? Colton. Dude loves shit like that. Hey, you could make it a party trick – shoving shit in there, ya know? Like ... fuck, I dunno ... a pencil?”
He hadn’t expected it to be so easy. But, as if it were the magic word, one mention of that goddamn pencil and those eyes were widening, the face paling and then the babbling started. Sam’s hand shot out and wrapped around his throat. He might have felt almost sorry for the poor bastard who'd only been following orders and was probably shit-scared of refusing, but he'd still stabbed that pretty little blonde ...
“Shut the fuck up,” the sergeant seethed darkly. “I know exactly how this fucked-up shit went down, I don’t need to hear your excuses, you pathetic little runt. Scare you, did she? The little girl with a fucking pencil?”
“I ... I didn’t mean to! She ... she attacked me – but I never meant to really hurt her. You gotta believe me!”
“I don’t gotta do anything. And trust me, I’m saving your ass here. Probably literally. ‘Cause if Colt had got to you first, he’d be shoving his knife in every hole you got. And a few you don’t.”
“You ... You’re saving me? Jesus Christ. I ... I dunno what to say. Shit. I mean, th-thank you. I’ll do whatever you want, I’ll make sure you don’t regret it, I’ll--”
Sam’s arm snaked around the back of his head even while he was speaking and Trey never even guessed what was coming, as one hard jerk and a sharp crack sent him lifeless to the floor.
“You’re welcome.”
***
CHAPTER 50
He was no fucking coward. He knew there would be whisperings, maybe even more than that. But he knew it made sense and that was all that mattered. Besides, he’d pictured himself ending up like Taylor – with the golden eagle on his back distorted under layers of scar tissue – and his damn pride had decided this was the lesser evil.
Even now though, while he knew he’d fucked up over Callie, he was still clinging stubbornly to the unshakable fact that his intentions had been pure.
He hadn’t been looking to straight up kill her and he hadn’t gone looking for gratuitous violence against her. Just enough to test her mettle and make sure she wasn’t a risk to his club.That was all he’d needed. That was a president’s job after all.
All the rest was white noise now. An unforeseen curveball. He was a leader – he wasn’t a goddamn psychic.
But he wasn’t denying he’d gotten it wrong and catastrophically so, as far as the future of the club was concerned. But righting wrongs was in his job description, so no sweat. This was on him and he accepted that.
This wasn’t about him denying Colton vengeance, taking the easy way out. This was just him putting his faith in the right people for a change. Turning to some hangaround had been a big error of judgement. He knew the men he could trust, and had known it for more years than he cared to think about.
So he should have trusted them when it came to the girl, just like he was trusting them to pick up the pieces.
Colton was every inch a soldier. Sam was smarter than anyone else gave him credit for. They’d get it in the end. And the end was finally just over the horizon. It had been a hell of a long journey.
“Battle born,” Will murmured, stubbing out his cigar. “Guess I'm just battle weary.”
And with his cut neatly folded on the table beside the gavel, the president’s patch cut off ready for the next man to step up, he leaned back and closed his eyes. The steel was cool against his temple.
He smiled.
And pulled the trigger.
***
Epilogue
"Thought I'd let you go without saying goodbye, huh?"
"Colton ..." Callie simply dropped her bag and let herself be wrapped up tight in his waiting arms. She hadn't seen him in weeks – since after Will's funeral in fact - and, throwing her better judgement to the wind, she gave in to the urge to kiss him and got no protest in return.
With one hand sliding dangerously low on her back, the other buried in her hair, Colton seemed to put everything into that last kiss as he all but crushed her to his chest. And, practically melting into him, for one crazy moment she thought of ripping up her plane ticket right there.
But Casey was depending on her. Between juggling his family - complete with a newborn who'd arrived three weeks early - and preparing to launch his new project, the guy was nearing the end of his rope. Not to mention desperate to see her after everything he'd had to be filled in on from thousands of miles away.
Besides, the contracts were already signed with Sketch's blessing. She was officially on the books at the newest branch of Addiction and her new colleagues, not to mention a camera crew, were waiting for her.
"What if I told you ... What if I asked you to stay?" Colton said, when they finally broke apart. His voice was even gruffer than usual and he kept her close, his arms around her waist and hers around his shoulders, their foreheads resting against each other as he looked into her eyes.
"I don't think I could ever say no to you," she said, her hand sliding to his cheek with her confession. She smiled ruefully as he turned his head to press a kiss into her palm. "But ... I think I have to do this, Colt."
Those dark eyes seemed blacker than ever, but the lips that sought hers out again were unexpectedly gentle - their earlier fire doused by an awareness of the reality they were facing. Or maybe by her tears.
"Only girl I ever really gave a shit about and you're running out on me," Colton said, cupping her face in his hands to wipe away the tears with his thumbs. But, even as the sound of a tannoy announcement forced him to look up for a second, she thought he understood. "That's your flight they're calling, kid."
"What? But it's too soon!" Callie exclaimed, suddenly flustered now that it was really happening and he was right there in front of her. She hadn't figured for him being there when the moment actually came. "Colt, I'm not ready ... I don't think I can ..."
"Don't reckon there's anything you can't do," he said, managing a rare grin as he reached for her bag and pushed it towards her. His last kiss was hard, but all too brief. "Go on – go conquer the fucking world, darlin'."
She didn't know what to say. There was only one response that seemed at once both infinitely right and totally wrong. He had to know what was racing through her mind though, simply because he always had.
Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Callie took a deep breath and a step towards the gateway - before turning and throwing herself back into Colton's inked arms to hug him tightly and press a tearful kiss to his cheek. "I ... Take care of yourself, Colt," she whispered, her voice choked with emotion.
And then she was gone.
***
Back at the clubhouse, Colton watched the dark amber liquid swirl in his shot glass before knocking it back and pouring a refill from the bottle he'd procured from behind the bar on his return from the airport.
He'd taken the scenic route home, not caring about the view, just wanting to prolong the inevitable - walking back through that door without her, knowing that he'd let her be the one that got away. Knowing that he hadn't said the words that would have made her stay.
He'd spent so long shying from it and yet he now knew that all it meant was something you couldn't live without, something you needed. And there were some things he couldn't imagine not having in his life – the club, his brothers, his bike ... and her.
Dealing with the whole truth of what had happened to Callie had been rough and it had taken a hell of a lot of restraint not to turn his anger on Sam. With both the man who'd stabbed her and the one who'd orchestrated it, however inadvertently, dead and gone and neither by his hand ... That had left him with a lot of pent-up frustrations and no one to take them out on. He wasn't over it yet, wouldn't get his head round it for a long time.
But in the meantime, they had a club in crisis to keep whole and the only people who knew the full extent of the damage were him, Sam, Johnny and Gunn. Keeping the mother charter president out of the loop was never going to be an option. The rest of them though, they were better off in the dark.
They'd taken it one step at a time, holding the funeral off as long as they could to buy some thinking time. If he'd had his way, a shallow grave would have replaced the usual glossy black coffin and all the trappings. But that would have raised too many questions, so instead he'd been forced to wrestle the rage down and lock it up tight.
The vote for a new president would wait until the dust had settled. Johnny and Sam were holding shit together until then. Brothers were still reeling from the shock of Will's passing and the mystery shrouding his final hours wasn't helping. Long-term, it'd probably all come tumbling out eventually. For now, they didn't need that kind of loss of faith in the man who'd led and influenced them for so long. Even if he was gone.
Colton’s shoulders slumped as he drank, and the memory of the weight of that coffin came flooding back. It had been a hell of a burden to bear, for all the wrong reasons, and Sam had watched him like the ticking time-bomb even he knew himself that he was. But he'd gotten through it, in the end.
That night, barely out of h
ospital a week, still hurting and all too aware of what her future held – what they'd conspired while she healed - Callie had come to him.
He'd meant to send her away. Delaying the inevitable was just making it harder on them both and she was recovering from a brutal attack and major surgery, all because of her connection to him. He still couldn't stand that and didn't know how she could either. He'd meant to send her away.
But he'd always been a selfish bastard when it came to her and the prospect of one more night with her in his arms had been too much to pass up. And all night, they'd been content to lay like that in his bed - him staring up at the ceiling in the darkness, her face nuzzled against his neck. While she was there, the noise in his head was a little quieter.
Once more, she'd saved him.
Before, it hadn't even been just from that bullet, back in what felt like another lifetime. Even setting that aside, she'd given him something to hold onto that was just his - a reason not to get lost in all the shit out there. And now, instead of telling her, he'd let her walk away. He'd let her go.
There wasn't enough whiskey in the world.
***
The sound of boots clumping across the clubhouse drew his attention. Although it felt like every charter in the northern hemisphere had passed through lately, a rare lull had fallen and was there to be broken. But a glance revealed only Sam and Colton silently turned his gaze back to his glass, at least in the second before his double-take. The sergeant, as he pulled up a chair, looked even more like shit than he had of late.
"Got a knock on the door at 2am," Sam said flatly, raking a hand through the spikes of his hair in distraction. "Not that I was asleep anyway."
Colton waited for more, watching as the fidgeting hands wiped over an exhausted face and then fumbled through pockets, hunting for something and coming up with a nearly empty pack of smokes.
"Just opened the door in the dark and shoved my gun in someone's face," came the mumble around an unlit cigarette, as the hands searched again and retrieved a lighter. "Didn't even give a shit if it was the damn cops."
Ink (The Haven Series) Page 32