Red Eyes MC: Books 1 - 3

by Grey, Blair

  Just then, my pager started going off. I sighed, throwing my fork down. “I’m at dinner,” I grumbled, even though I knew they wouldn’t be calling me unless they absolutely needed me. Some sort of bad accident, probably. All hands on deck.

  “I’ll hang out down here for a bit,” Rachel promised. “If you get a chance, come back down, and we can finish eating. If not, I know where your staff room is. I’ll label the leftovers for you, and you can eat whenever you get a chance. You’re not on for the whole night, are you?”

  “Just a partial shift,” I told her. “And then back at it tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Call me if you need anything,” Rachel said, standing up so that she could give me a quick hug before I dashed off.

  “Thanks,” I said sincerely. She was always there for me, no matter what I had going on, and I loved her for that.

  “And start thinking about cutting back on your hours!” Rachel said in a low voice. “You’re going to be a mom soon!”

  That got a laugh out of me. I shook my head. “Not for nine months. If I’m lucky.”

  “That’ll be here in no time,” Rachel said, winking at me.

  I wished I could stay down there with her, but my pager was buzzing again. I raced back to work.

  “What’s going on?” I asked when I made it back upstairs. One of the other nurses caught my arm, spinning me around and leading me down the hall.

  “You had worked on him before, and I’m pretty sure he’s the guy who’s been in here to see you a couple times,” she babbled as she led me down the hall.

  That was all she needed to say before I realized just who I would see behind those doors. I felt my heart sink, and for a moment, I wanted to protest that I couldn’t do this. But I needed to see him. I needed to make sure he was okay.

  I took a deep breath and walked through the doors. Sure enough, there was Marcus. He had been beaten to within an inch of his life. I sank toward the floor, my knees giving out beneath me.

  35

  Marcus

  Sunday

  Ouch. I stared up at the ceiling, trying to figure out where the hell I even was. It wasn’t home. No, this was far too clinical for that. It wasn’t the clubhouse, either, even though the place hadn’t exactly felt homely since the Unknowns had ransacked it. I tried to remember what the last thing to happen to me had been. But I kept coming up blank. I didn’t even know what day it was. I just knew that I hurt from head to toe.

  And that there was some incessant chirping noise coming from my left. Some machine.

  I managed to turn my head to the side just enough that I could see the thing. Hospital. I was in the hospital. That was the only explanation for all the sterile white and the tubes sticking out of my arm.

  I felt like I was going to be sick. How the hell did I end up here?

  Leila was the first person I thought of. Oh god, had she been out with me when all of this had happened? Whatever it was that had happened? I remembered bits and pieces of my week. That Lex was Leila’s father. Had he done this?

  And then Ray showed up, standing over me, and it all came back. I tried to grin, but I ended up grimacing as pain shot through my face. “Hey, Ray,” I rasped.

  “You sound like shit,” Ray said, folding his arms across his chest. “You look like shit, too.”

  “Go figure,” I muttered. “I feel like shit, too.”

  Ray grunted. “Well, you look better than you did yesterday, that’s for sure.”

  “Yesterday?” I asked in surprise. “What day is it? How long have I been in here?” As my heart rate spiked up, the monitor next to me began to chirp even faster.

  Ray glanced at it for a moment. “If you don’t calm down, they’re going to sedate you again,” he said. “And I think Leila will cry if she misses you being awake again.”

  It was enough of a warning. I took a few deep breaths, forcing myself to calm down. It was never pleasant, waking up in a hospital. It hadn’t happened to me many times in the past, but there had been a couple of incidences.

  “That’s it,” Ray said approvingly. He dragged a chair closer with his toe and sat back in it, looking for all the world like this was just a casual visit, like he did this all the time. I knew he was just trying to keep me calm, but I couldn’t help feeling nervous. How long have I been in here?

  “In answer to your question, it’s Sunday,” Ray finally told me. “You’ve only been in here for a couple nights. You were fucking lucky, all things considered.”

  I breathed out a sigh of relief. But then, I frowned. “And Leila’s been to see me?”

  “She was on duty when they brought you in.” Ray shook his head. “You apparently gave her a pretty bad fright.”

  I looked away from him, trying to figure out how I felt about that. I knew that Leila and I hadn’t left things on the best of terms. And I remembered wanting to fix that. But right now, I could hardly sort out my emotions. I must be on some pretty powerful painkillers.

  “You are,” Ray said, sounding amused, and I realized that I had spoken out loud. “But your plan worked.”

  “My plan?” I asked blankly. Ray stared at me for a long moment, looking worried, and I finally started laughing. And then, I started coughing. “Motherfucker,” I said when I managed to breathe again.

  “You asshole,” Ray said. He paused and cleared his throat, looking away. “We really were worried about you, kid,” he said. “I don’t know what happened in that clubhouse, but they really got you good.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed, thinking back to Friday. It felt like that had all happened forever ago, but I supposed being knocked out for the better part of two days would do that.

  Things had worked out just like I’d meant for them to. I’d found the back entrance into the Unknowns’ hidey-hole weeks ago. Because there had to be a back entrance to the place. As I’d watched them, I’d started realizing that they weren’t all coming out the front entrance, especially not after I had attacked that guy that one time.

  The back entrance had been pretty easy to get in through. There wasn’t much security. Not even a lock. Sure, I’d had to get over a fence to get in there, but it wasn’t that difficult. I guess they figured no one knew about it. Or maybe they were just stupid.

  So one evening, I crept in through the back entrance with a bag full of drugs that I had bought off Braxton. Just because the club wasn’t mixed up in drug trafficking, it didn’t mean that certain members didn’t have access.

  I slipped into the Unknowns’ hideout, and I hid the drugs in strategic places. The kinds of places that one would think to look for them if they thought there were going to be drugs in there. But not too obvious, either. This had to be believable. I had to make sure that people would really believe the Unknowns had brought all of this in. My job couldn’t seem rushed. It couldn’t seem like I had panicked and just left them out in the open. That wouldn’t be realistic.

  I planted the drugs around the building, and then I called the sheriff.

  He hadn’t believed me at first. He’d recognized my voice and told me to quit fucking around and wasting his time. But I’d insisted that he come over here and check it out. Told him that I was working both sides and that maybe, just maybe, we could work out a deal between us.

  That was all that it took.

  “What happened at the clubhouse that night?” Ray asked quietly. “This wasn’t part of the plan.”

  “I know,” I said. I shrugged and winced at how much that small movement hurt. “I planted the drugs just like we talked about, and I convinced the sheriff and his guys to come over. I assume that all worked. But I must have tripped something because on my way out, I ran into Lex and a bunch of his goonies.” I paused. “It was stupid. I should have just let it go. But I told him that I was in love with Leila and that I was going to take him out of the picture.”

  Ray snorted. “For a guy with brains, sometimes you really are an idiot.”

  I grinned crookedly up at the ceiling. “I know,” I said.
“But I really couldn’t help it. That was when they all went apeshit, though. Started beating the crap out of me. I guess that’s probably about when the sheriff and all them arrived.”

  “That answers a couple questions, at least,” Ray mused. “The sheriff’s been by to see you twice. I think he wants to make sure you’re still going to talk. He won’t say a word to me, but he’s definitely been very interested in you.”

  I snorted. “I’m not gonna two-time you, Ray, don’t worry.” I peered over at him. “But they got those fucking Unknowns, right?”

  “They did, last I heard,” Ray confirmed. “A whole bunch of them, on felony drug-trafficking charges. We’ll see if it sticks in court or not, but it sounds pretty promising.”

  “Good,” I said. My eyes fell shut, and I contemplated going back to sleep. But even though my body was exhausted and needed its rest, my brain was flying through ten thousand things per second.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Leila. I remembered what Ray had said before, that I had given her a scare when I’d shown up here in the hospital. Where was she now? Was she still mad at me?

  “Do you really love her?” Ray asked, as though sensing I was thinking about her.

  “I do,” I sighed. I glanced over at him and then felt myself blush. I hadn’t realized it, but we weren’t alone anymore. There, standing in the doorway just over Ray’s shoulder, was Leila.

  36

  Leila

  Sunday

  I walked slowly, hesitantly, into Marcus’s room. “You’re awake,” I breathed.

  “I think so anyway,” Marcus joked.

  I scowled at him, hoping he realized just how not funny all of this was. God, I didn’t think I had ever been more worried about a patient before. Nor had I felt so helpless before. I’d wanted to fix him. To stitch him back up and to set all his broken bones. But just looking at him, it was like all my training had gone out the window. I hadn’t even known where to start. Fortunately, there were other qualified nurses and doctors in the hospital, and they got him sorted out, anesthetizing him and then going through the full scan of his injuries.

  The list was long. Enormous, really. And there had been a really long night—Friday, was it?—when I’d been worried that he wasn’t going to pull through.

  It had terrified me. I’d thought that I had already lost him but losing him for good felt entirely different. Knowing that I would never see him smile again… that had sliced right through my body.

  I had been numb when Bobby called me to tell me what had happened at the clubhouse. When he told me that Dad was in jail, all I could think was “Good riddance.” Bobby didn’t know about the assault; je’d just heard about the drugs. But I knew Dad must have had some hand in this, too.

  And sure enough, he had. I had heard everything that Marcus had said to Ray. Up to and including the fact that he loved me.

  “I’ll give you two some privacy,” Ray said gently, removing himself from the room and shutting the door carefully behind him.

  “You idiot,” I said, shaking my head. I could feel tears in my eyes. God, it felt like I’d been crying all week, but no matter how much I tried to stop it, I couldn’t. Was this what the whole pregnancy was going to be like? I definitely hoped not.

  I sank into the chair that Ray had vacated. Marcus’s hand twitched on the edge of his bed, looking for mine, and I slipped my fingers into his, soothed by that gentle contact.

  “You were here before,” Marcus said in surprise. “You held my hand.” He narrowed his eyes. “Or was that Ray?”

  I laughed and shook my head. “No, it was me,” I told him. “After that little stunt you pulled before when you refused to let anyone else help you, they brought me up here to deal with you the night you came in. But I… fainted.” I blushed and looked away.

  Marcus didn’t tease me about it, though. Instead, he looked stricken. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said.

  “What the hell were you thinking?”

  Marcus sighed. “I was thinking that if I didn’t do anything, then I was never going to get to see you again,” he said. “And I hated the idea of that.”

  “So you decided to take on the Unknowns single-handedly?” I asked. “And Ray let you?” I’d wanted to have this conversation with Ray, to ream him out for all of it from the moment he’d arrived at the hospital. Two things had stopped me: I was too worried about Marcus to be picking fights, and I could tell that Ray was nearly as worried as I was.

  I wondered about the two of them. They had sort of a father–son relationship, I eventually concluded. And with this little baby growing inside of me, I imagined I could tell exactly what Ray was feeling right now, seeing his boy spread out in a hospital bed like this.

  It was going to be a long road to recovery, and the hospital wasn’t the place for Ray and me to bicker about whose fault that was.

  Marcus was shaking his head, though. “The fight was never part of the deal,” he admitted. “That was me going against everything that Ray had told me to do. And I shouldn’t have done it.” He made a face. “I got pretty lucky, I guess.”

  I laughed in disbelief. “Yeah,” I said. “You got pretty damned lucky.”

  Marcus was quiet for a long moment. “I’m going to have to leave. At least for a little while, until things calm down. I doubt I managed to take out all of the Unknowns in one night.”

  “You didn’t,” I said, shaking my head. “Or at least, not from what I’ve heard.” When he gave me a sharp look, I shrugged. “I’ve got my sources. Not because I’m part of the club. But because it helps to know who my father has pissed off and whether they’re likely to come after me.”

  “Speaking of your father,” Marcus said. He cleared his throat, looking awkward. “I’m sorry. I didn’t kill him, but he should be in jail at least for a little while.”

  “A long while, as it turns out,” I said. “Turns out that he was wanted in a couple other states, so everything you did here just helped them to put him away.”

  It was hard not to be cheerful about it. It meant that I would never have to worry about him messing up my life again. Or at least, not for a while. I still wondered if they would need me to be part of the trial. I sure hoped not. What was I going to say about the man? I hardly knew him, and I had no idea what sorts of illegal things he might have gotten up to over the years.

  I just knew I didn’t want any part of it.

  “And you’re not mad about that?” Marcus asked carefully.

  I laughed and shook my head. “I don’t have a relationship with him anymore,” I said firmly. “He was never there for me, growing up. To be honest, I hate the guy.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Let the anger fade away. He hadn’t managed to mess things up between Marcus and me, no matter what he had tried.

  I was quiet for a long moment. “So you’re going to go away?” I finally asked, even though I didn’t really want to hear the answer.

  “I have to,” Marcus said. He paused. “But I was hoping that maybe you’d come with me. It wouldn’t be forever. Just until things calm down around here. This is home, ultimately. I’ll be back. And you don’t have to come with me. But as you probably heard, I love you. And I want you there with me. Wherever ‘there’ happens to be.”

  I stared at him for a long moment, trying to decide. I had been doing a lot of thinking over the past few days, but I still felt no closer to making a decision. It wasn’t just my future that hung in the balance here. It was the baby’s future as well. I had seen firsthand the kind of life that this child could be doomed to, with someone like Marcus as a father.

  God, it would kill me if I had to see my son come through the hospital doors looking like that one day. I didn’t think I could handle that.

  And I wanted to be mad at Marcus, too. The fact remained that he hadn’t told me what I was getting myself into. He hadn’t told me that he was in Red Eyes. After he had been so mad about me withholding secrets from him, after he had been so mad about th
e artificial insemination thing, how was that fair?

  But I couldn’t seem to hold on to my anger. It had kept slipping away over the past days until now there was barely a flicker of it left. No, I couldn’t stay angry, because seeing Marcus there, in a hospital bed, looking so frail, I had to realize that I loved him. Just like he loved me. I couldn’t bear to lose him from my life.

  I couldn’t bear to let him leave town without me.

  “There’s something I have to tell you before you start planning our futures,” I said softly, pulling my hand back and looking away from him. Again, those stupid tears.

  I had to tell him, though. I couldn’t lie to him any longer. I knew that he was going to leave town, that I was going to lose him. But he needed to know about the child. His child. I didn’t expect that it would change things. If anything, it would probably send him running from town even faster.

  He didn’t want this. He wouldn’t want anything to do with me, after this.

  But I still had to tell him. Before it was too late.

  Marcus sighed, seeming to know exactly what I was about to tell him. Or maybe not exactly what I was about to tell him. “You already went through with the artificial insemination plan?” he asked.

  I looked over at him in surprise. His face was turned toward the ceiling again, his eyes closed, as though if he shut his eyes, he could shut out all of this, anything that he disliked.

  I stood quickly, a lump in my throat. “I should go,” I said, not having the guts to tell him the truth, that the baby was his. He didn’t want a kid. He had so much as told me that. No use screwing up his life. And it was better for me this way anyway, wasn’t it? I would get to make whatever choices I wanted. I would never have to worry about my child growing up in a motorcycle club, constantly in danger just because of who his father was.

  But before I could leave, Marcus caught my hand, tugging me over toward the bed even though I could see that the move hurt him. He put his hand against my stomach. “I want to be there for you,” he said honestly, looking up at me. He swallowed hard, but when he spoke again, his voice was even more hoarse than before. “I’m terrified, I’ll admit it. I want to be a good father. I don’t want to fuck this kid up.”