Where Ridley’s had a touch of red in it, this man’s was more brown than blonde.
“Ahhh,” the man drawled. “My brother’s whore.”
My blood froze in my veins.
“You’re…Connor?” I asked, trying for nice.
The man’s smile was evil.
“You got it in one,” he confirmed, moving forward until he was in the room with me.
Bile rose in my throat.
Ridley’s office was set up in a way that his desk wasn’t centered in the room; so, although Connor had stepped through the door, he wasn’t standing directly in front of me.
He was more to the side and to the left of me.
Meaning that when the bullet hole filled his forehead, it didn’t have any chance of hitting me.
It passed directly through Connor’s head and slammed straight into the wall just to the right of where he’d been standing.
Connor’s body stood motionless for a few long seconds before it dropped down, hitting his knees first, and then falling face first into the scarred wooden floor beneath his feet.
It started and finished in less than a minute, but I felt like my whole life had changed before my eyes.
My eyes went to the hallway where I’d heard the Sheriff’s voice, then my eyes fell down to where he was lying bleeding in the middle of the room.
Men had swarmed him, and a gun lay at the side of the Sheriff.
“Oh God,” I said, hurrying forward.
I dropped down to my knees, shucking off the t-shirt I was wearing and pressing it down hard on the man’s bleeding belly wound.
“Did you shoot him?” I asked the Sheriff.
“Nobody else can shoot that good,” the sheriff countered.
I laughed.
The man at my side, Leffron, laughed, too.
“You’re so full of shit,” Leffron said.
That was the end of the joking, though, because then it got chaotic.
Paramedics arrived within two minutes, and two minutes after that Ridley arrived like the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.
***
Ridley
“What the fuck happened?” I asked the room as a whole.
“A whole fucking mess of shit,” Kelly sighed, rubbing his head.
His eyes never left my brother’s prone form, however.
“How about you explain before I lose my fucking patience,” I said through gritted teeth.
I watched in silent horror as my brother’s lifeblood, an hour old now, sank into the wooden cracks of the station’s old wood flooring.
Idly, I observed that most likely we would have to get the floor replaced. There was no way in hell all that blood would be removed from the wood. It was like the old flooring had sucked it up, forever keeping it as a memento of the day.
I felt numb.
This hadn’t really happened, had it?
Something soft touched my arm, and I looked up to see Freya standing there.
I hadn’t even heard her walk up.
How had she snuck up on me without me knowing?
“You okay?” she asked softly.
My eyes studied her face, and the reason she was even gone from my side in the first place after this shit day we’d just had.
I cupped her face, running my thumb lightly over the bandage on the side of her cheek.
“You could’ve lost your eye,” I said softly, studying her, gauging the state of her health after everything that had just happened to us.
“I’m fine,” she said, smiling lightly. “I can’t believe I didn’t feel that happening,” she cupped her hand over mine. “It hurts now.”
I grimaced.
“I’m sure,” I said. “A piece of wood, even a splinter, would hurt anyone if it’s coming that fast and hard.”
When the bullet had hit the wall, pieces of paneling and wood particles had sprayed out from where it’d impacted the wall.
Freya, unfortunately, had been on the receiving end of the wood splatter. Although she had about ten places on her body where wood had cut her skin, the one by her eye was the worst.
It was also the one responsible for my freak out.
I’d arrived just in time to see the blood pouring from Freya’s head, not even noticing it’d been my own brother responsible for it all until Kelly had shown up.
I hadn’t even had a chance to go talk to the Sheriff, who’d refused to be taken away until his wife arrived, knowing she’d be scared after hearing all the ‘hullabaloo’ on the police scanner.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” Kelly said. “I don’t even know…”
He shook his head.
My grip on Freya’s face slackened, and I dropped it to pull her closer to me.
“Please leave,” I said softly to her. “Peek’s over there. Go to him. Sit with him and Alison. I don’t want you here right now. Not looking at this.”
My eyes were on Connor’s body, but my words were all for Freya.
I just couldn’t look away from the horror show behind me.
It was a horror show, too.
This was the biggest fucking joke I’d ever been told.
“Okay,” Freya said softly, placing a kiss on my jaw, finally breaking my gaze and bringing the attention to her once again. “But hurry. I think your sister needs you.”
I nodded my head and she let her body slip from my grasp, leaving me feeling empty and broken once again.
Griffin replaced Freya on my right side, and Wolf came up on my left, effectively giving me strength when I felt like breaking.
“It’s time to talk, Kelly. I never would’ve given you access to Ridley if I’d known you’d fuck him over like this,” Wolf said angrily.
I wanted to laugh at Wolf’s big brother act.
Kelly would’ve found me regardless of whether I wanted him to or not.
He needed someone easy like Connor, and I’d given him Connor on a golden fucking platter because Connor needed direction.
Apparently, the direction Kelly sent him in wasn’t the right one, though.
Connor had no one to blame but himself, though.
He’d always been a fuck up.
Over and over again, I’d bail him out only for him to land himself in even hotter water the next time.
No, Kelly wasn’t to blame, regardless of whether he had prior knowledge of this or not.
Kelly walked away from Connor’s body, straight to the picnic table outside of the station, and sat down.
Heavily.
Wolf, Griffin, and I followed them.
My eyes went to the group of my other club members almost instinctively.
They surrounded my woman.
Casten was on her left, a very annoyed looking Mig on her right, and Peek at her back with Alison at her front.
She was surrounded on all sides, and she didn’t even notice.
She was too busy watching me with concerned looking eyes.
I blew her a kiss, and her face lit with a joy that I only saw on her face twice before.
“I was at the office when your brother called on my cell phone,” Kelly started. “Said he wanted to go back.”
“Go back where?” Wolf asked, sounding pissed off with a half explanation like Kelly had just given.
“Into protective custody,” Kelly answered quickly. “I told him to come to the office, but he said he couldn’t leave his hiding spot or Hanson would find him.”
“What?” I asked. “Why?”
“Apparently, Tasty didn’t take too kindly to us blackballing his old lady from coming to him. When Coller came to see him last week, Tasty relayed all that had happened over the last couple of months, and Coller left a hot minute later, pissed off and ready for a beat down,” Kelly said. “I reviewed the prison files, listened to their conversation, and was just about to head over to find you, and then Connor, when I arrived to see this.”
I didn’t bother to turn around and l
ook where Kelly was gesturing to.
I knew what it looked like.
Knew that Connor had fallen flat on his face with a hole in his head, courtesy of the sheriff.
“Fuck,” I sighed. “Mother. Fuck.”
I was so fucking tired. I could sleep for a fucking week if only I’d be allowed to.
Agent Fork and Coldwater joined us then, bringing my attention away from Kelly to the other two.
“What’s up?” I asked them.
“Found Coller’s body, finally. One of Peek’s bullets hit him in the heart. He was floating down the river about two miles downstream from where he went in at.”
My mind was fucking blown.
For real, I didn’t know what in the fuck was going on.
“Why now?” I asked. “What the fuck is going on that he’d decide to do this now? We’ve had this going on for years.”
“This is the first time you got close enough to really shut him down, though,” Wolf said darkly. “Maybe we should just thank our fucking stars and go on with life.”
I looked at Wolf, then back at Kelly who looked like he’d been put through the wringer, and nodded.
“I guess that’s all we can do,” I obliged.
***
It was still bothering me, though.
Hours later, I was still worried about it.
“What’s got you still awake?” Apple asked as he rocked in the recliner with Emily lying against his chest.
An empty bottle sat at his right, and I knew he’d gotten up with Emily.
Although he almost had to.
Kitt had a seizure about two hours after I’d told her about Connor. Luckily the seizure she’d had had been back to what we knew them to be. Meaning she spaced out for about thirty seconds, then was back to normal. Although it’d been ‘normal,’ it’d still been scary as fuck. All of us had been waiting for it to get worse, but it never had.
“Can’t sleep,” I muttered, taking a seat across from him. “Something’s bothering me.”
“What?” Apple asked.
I rubbed my belly absently, still warmed by the way Freya’s back had been tucked up against mine for most of the night.
Although I’d been awake, I’d still held Freya, in my bed, for the past four hours before that niggling feeling in my brain finally got too much to deal with.
I had to talk it out.
I’d intended to do it with Wolf, but I looked at my new brother-in-law, saw the exhaustion in his eyes, and realized that he would work just as well as the others.
He was my brother.
He was all of ours now. A full-fledged member of the Uncertain Saints MC.
We were his, too.
He was just as screwed up as all of us. He was fitting right the fuck in.
“Something’s bothering me,” I said. “I can’t exactly put my finger on it.”
“Talk it out with me,” he said. “I’ve tried to put her down three times now, and each time I do she wakes back up.”
I smiled, knowing that was a fact.
Emily had turned into a spoiled rotten kid.
Between me, my sister and Apple, as well as the multiple men and women at the clubhouse, that little girl didn’t see a lot of crib time.
“Something about Kelly’s explanation bothered me,” I said. “I don’t know what it is…maybe just the way he was so lax in doing anything about Connor. Connor went missing right after I went into the prison. I don’t know. But one day he needed me in place to get information on the Coller Gang, and the next, he doesn’t need me at all. He even wanted me to stay in jail longer. I went back to my life, and was never once questioned in depth about what had happened while I was posing as my brother.”
“Hmm,” Apple said. “Did you ask him about it?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Well go over to Kelly’s and ask him.”
I planned to do just that.
Turns out I didn’t have to go to him after all. He came to me.
And instead of explanations, I got the surprise of my life.
Chapter 21
Sometimes I wrestle my demons, and sometimes we just cuddle.
-T-shirt
Freya
I rolled out of bed, my back suddenly cold as Ridley bolted from the bed and disappeared into the hallway without a sound.
I slipped on some sleep pants, ones I’d gotten myself at the store on the way home from Ridley’s office, and padded barefoot to the door.
Since I heard low voices in the living room and saw the door to Core and Kitt’s room open, I peered inside, checking on Kitt.
She was sprawled out on her back, her eyes closed and the only thing covered up was her left foot.
I wanted to laugh, but instead went inside, picked up the blanket, and repositioned it to cover her entire body sans her head.
She didn’t stir, but her breathing was strong and steady, giving me the peace of mind to leave the room despite knowing she’d had a seizure earlier.
Instead of heading to the living room to the left, I cut through the back hallway that led to the kitchen.
Two hallways and a laundry room later I arrived at my destination.
Grabbing a glass from the cleaning rack next to the sink, I walked to the fridge and got some ice out of the freezer, then grabbed a Dr. Pepper from the fridge before walking to the kitchen.
Before I could get there, though, a knock sounded from the front door, diverting my attention.
Before I could even get it all the way open, Ridley was at my back, his hand going around my belly to pull me to the side and out from in front of him.
It was a protective action, and one that made me want to smile.
I didn’t, however. I only moved slightly with the gentle push and came to a stop directly next to the wall, hugged in tight between the front hallway closet and Ridley’s hard arm.
Ridley gave me a look, then opened up the door without another word.
“What are you doing here?” Ridley asked whomever was there.
I strained to hear the stranger’s reply, but then Ridley moved back and waved his hand out to the side of him.
His free side, not my side, allowing Ridley’s body to block mine as the man entered through what little space Ridley allowed him.
“What are you doing here?” Ridley repeated.
Movement at the mouth of the hall had me looking up into the worried eyes of Core before he disappeared behind the wall that led to the rooms.
My guess was that he was putting Emily back into bed before he also joined whatever was going on here.
Core, I’d noticed, was extremely protective of Ridley, just as Ridley was protective of Core.
Although their relationship had started out being rather rocky, seeing as Core had knocked Kitt up, any bad blood between the two of them was now gone.
They both had common interests, Emily and Kitt being at the top of that list.
“We need to talk,” the familiar voice of a man I’d only met twice, said.
Once, at the prison, and the other time only this afternoon or actually yesterday since it was so late.
Ridley had explained to me that Kelly was a part of an organization that specialized in black ops.
I’d wanted him to expound on that explanation, but Ridley had declined, and I’d been too tired to argue at the time.
Now, though, I really wished I knew a bit more about the man.
“Okay,” Ridley said, pushing me further into the corner, telling me with his body that he wanted me to stay where I was. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”
The two of them left, Kelly completely missing me hidden behind Ridley’s large body.
I waited until they were in the kitchen with the door closed before I went up to the door and stuck my head against it.
“What are you doing?” Core’s deep voice asked from behind me.
I jumped, turning to look at him gu
iltily.
“Nothing,” I lied. “What do you want?”
He ignored me and tugged on my hand, leading me around the kitchen, through the laundry room, inside the pantry, before coming to a stop at the door.
We both stopped and listened, each of us reluctant to announce our presence as we stopped in startled disbelief as we listened to the man tell us that he purposefully left Ridley’s brother out to dry. Encouraged him to do stuff that he wouldn’t have normally done all because he wanted vengeance for his wife.
“He deserved it,” Kelly said tightly.
Nothing.
Not a curse. Not a sound.
“I…” Kelly hissed in a breath. “Your brother raped my wife.”
Pin drops.
You could hear the sound of silence as we all digested that news.
“Your brother and Coller,” Kelly continued. “She’s…she’s not doing good. She tried to kill herself last night…and I just…snapped.”
It was then that Ridley’s voice finally sounded in the silence of that announcement.
“I won’t say anything to anybody but my president. He needs to know, but I won’t pursue this, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Ridley responded gruffly.
“No,” Kelly cleared his throat. “No. That’s not why I came over here. I just felt like you needed to know. So that you could have closure,” he hesitated. “I’m not even asking that you keep this to yourself. I just…couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t fix it.”
Ridley stayed quiet for so long I thought they’d left, so I peeked out from around the doorway, and then immediately jumped back when I saw Ridley staring directly at the small room where I was standing.
My eyes got wide as I looked at Core.
“He saw me!” I whispered frantically.
He started to chuckle under his breath, then pushed me out of the way so he could come into the kitchen, dropping the bottle he still had clutched in his hand in the sink.
“Kelly,” I heard him say.
I peeked around the corner again, this time waving at Ridley.
“Can I come in?” I mouthed.
He shook his head once, his brown eyes clearly saying leave before I spank your ass.
I scrunched my nose up at him, but did what I was told.
Dirty Mother (The Uncertain Saints MC Book 5) Page 19