The memory of him was so real that I had to blink hard to refocus on the world in front of me.
My body swayed as I widened my eyes to stare back at Trigger.
“You with me, Drew?” he asked in a whisper, taking a controlled step forward.
Widening my nostrils, I inhaled and exhaled slowly, watching as his eyes taunted mine.
“I’m not a man of honor, and I’m not ashamed to admit that. What I am is the real deal. I’m a real man, and real men do whatever they have to do to win,” he whispered at me, taking a final step closer until there was nowhere else to go.
He stared into my eyes, holding them hostage.
And then I felt the nick of something sharp slice through my skin, just under my ribs.
Wincing, I pulled in on myself, scowling up at Travis, who simply stared at me with no emotion.
I’d been cut, deeply, my head spinning from the pain.
The noise of my brothers grew around me, but I was locked in on my enemy. The rest of the world was fading to nothing.
“Fuck you,” I spat as bile rose in my throat.
“See you on the flip side, brother,” Trigger breathed, and in a strike so powerful, he rained his punches down on me, one after the other, after the other, after the other.
I brought my hands up to fend him off, my body not giving in just yet, and I fought back, ducking and weaving, despite everything being on fire while the icy fingers of death trailed its finger down my spine at the same time.
Scars were being reopened.
Skin was being torn from my chest.
Sweat mingled with the blood.
Stars appeared in front of me, mixing with red and black until I wasn’t sure where I was or who I was with anymore.
With one last swing, I lunged forward, hoping to connect with something that felt like flesh and bone. Instead, I missed, and my legs gave out from under me.
I fell, my body straight and uncooperative, sailing to the cold, rough ground with a thud, my cheek hitting the deck and bouncing back up before hitting the concrete once more.
The sound went off, the silence piercing and painful in my ears.
The taste of warm metal collected in my mouth.
And when I tried to open an eye, my whole world tilted, with Ayda’s blurry face scrunched up in the distance.
I love you, darlin’. I failed you.
Then the pain stopped, and I closed my eyes, letting myself sink into the black.
Chapter Thirty-Two
AYDA
The moment Drew’s body hit the concrete I was on my feet. Across the room, The Hounds were in various states of attack, trying to break free from their guards so they could reach, and save their president. Jedd was doubled over, one of the two Navs surrounding him coming in for another swing while he was down. Slater was in a knockdown, drag-em-out fistfight with two more enemies, his hair a mess. A bloody streak tore down his chest as he moved from one Nav to the other, only allowing himself to be distracted by Drew’s body when he was between the two attacking him. Kenny was face down on the concrete, held down by a couple more as he bucked and struggled, his cheek being pressed into the dusty rubble beneath him, and Deeks was holding his own with two men over by one of the machines he’d tried to circle around. Moose was with an injured Ben, the two of them working their way through the swarm of Navs that stood between them and Drew, neither one of them caring for their own lives anymore… only the club’s president.
It was pure bedlam, but all I could think about was Drew and the dark pool of blood that was slowly growing around him. I tried to run, to get to close enough to help him, but I found myself just as restrained as the rest of them. Only none other than Eric Tucker himself was holding me back. He was still weak. I could feel that in his shaking limbs, and his desperate grip on me was using every last vestige of his strength.
“So help me, God, if you don’t let go of me!” I screamed in a blind rage, my hands swinging at his arms to dislodge him. “Eric, let me go!”
“Ayda, think, goddammit.”
Think? He wanted me to think while Drew was laying face down on concrete, very likely bleeding to death.
“Do you want to end all of this once and for all?” he growled, his hand tightening around my upper arm as he pulled himself to his feet, using me as leverage. I was so close to hyperventilating, my body trembling like a tuning fork. All I could think about was getting to Drew, and my pathetically weak body was being restrained by a man who’d been half beaten to death.
“W-what do you think?” I finally stuttered, trying to shake him off. Panic was rising, clawing its way from the deepest depths of me.
“Trigger is going to kill Drew, and he’ll kill you if you get in his way. Drew won’t fight to live if you take yourself away from him on some suicide mission. Don’t you get it, Ayda? Drew’s got too much to lose, so you have to keep yourself safe, and give him something to damn well live for.”
Those words made me stop and stare at Eric. His eyes were so similar to Drew’s that looking into them made my heart ache. A quiet keening of pain rose in my throat, my gaze flickering to Drew.
“This motherfucker said no rules, right? Which means his assholes can’t contest anything we do to help Drew win that fight now. That asshole is showboating for his men. He’s egging his boys on to take out The Hounds, knowing they will fight to the death to save Drew. You and me are all that’s left. You gotta get out there and get me a gun. I swore to Drew that... I can’t…” He sounded as frustrated and worried as I felt.
We both glanced to where Trigger was circling Drew, the knife catching the light as he moved, both of us growling as he kicked Drew’s side and sent a ripple of anger through The Hounds that were already fighting. Eric was right—Trigger was trying to stir up every guy in our MC, and taunt them to continue the fight.
He wanted every one of us to die, and for it to look like it was our idea.
It was up to Eric and me to stop this.
I turned back to Eric. “Where the fuck am I going to find a gun?”
Releasing a painful lungful of breath and wrapping his arm around his ribs, Eric nodded to one of the guys guarding Travis. His back was to us, his broad shoulders filling out the cut with the Navs’ patch across the back.
“He has one in the back of his pants. If you can get us close enough, grab the gun and get it to me. I’ll do the rest.” He gave me a stern look—a look that Drew had once given me himself. He reminded me so much of his son. “After that, you get yourself to safety.”
“But—”
“Trust me.” He groaned in pain. “For once in your goddamn life just trust me, Ayda.”
I stepped into him, my shoulder easing under his armpit to support most of his weight. I moved us as quickly as I could manage, dragging him away from the altar and into the fight that raged around the open space of the warehouse. It felt like I was standing in the middle of a football game. Men were throwing themselves at other men, the coppery smell of blood and sweat mingling and tainting the air, making it thick and heavy. The grunts of pain and growls of rage were followed by thunderous steps as they charged at one another like raging bulls. Eric and I were walking straight through the center of it all.
Eric grew heavier with every step we took. More of his weight seemed to come down on me as exhaustion and fatigue set in, his breaths hard and labored while blood oozed from the cuts Trigger had left on his chest. If Drew’s life hadn’t been on the line, I probably would have slowed down and helped him more, but my driving force was now in my line of sight. Although every step felt like I was carrying three men on my back, I took it, and forced myself to go to the next and then the next until I was panting with as much effort as Eric was.
“Leave me here and go now,” Eric groaned when we were only ten feet from our target. He was holding his side with his other hand and fighting to stay on his feet when he uncurled his arm from my shoulders and stumbled forward. “We’re running out of time.”
&nb
sp; He wasn’t wrong.
Trigger was already growing bored with the fighting around him, and Drew was beginning to stir at his feet—two things that didn’t leave us with much time to get the job done.
“Be careful,” Eric said, barely blinking as I stepped away from him.
I nodded, focusing on the one thing that could force me forward.
Drew.
I broke through the fight that Kenny was in the middle of. Kenny had been surprised at my presence and had worked around me, his instinct to get me the fuck out of there overruled when another Nav stepped in on his other side and took a pot shot. I’d seen that defiance in Kenny’s eyes and pushed onward, finding myself barely three feet from the Nav that Eric had pointed out to me.
I could see the gun sticking out from the waist of his jeans, and I hoped to God that the weapon would be in my hand long before he realized what I was doing. But before I could take so much as a step forward, one of the Navs smacked into my body, sending me surging into the guy who I’d been sneaking up on.
The moment I collided with his broad back, he was spinning with a roar of rage. On instinct, his hand wrapped around my throat, and he held me close, reaching around to his back to grab his gun, but it was too late for him.
The moment our bodies had made contact, I’d moved without thinking and pulled the thing free.
“Bitch!” He said it with so much rage and hatred, spit splattered across my cheek, and I saw Trigger’s attention move to me from the corner of my eyes.
I mentally pleaded with him to keep his attention on me instead of Drew. Watch me die! But Trigger didn’t care about me in the grand scheme of things. He cared about winning, and I now happened to be in the perfect place to watch him murder Drew mercilessly.
In a pure moment of desperation, my heel slammed into the Nav’s instep before I bounced my foot from the concrete and swung my knee up, sending his balls traveling to his throat, the pain forcing him to release his grip on me.
As I stumbled away, my first instinct was to check on Drew. Trigger was already bearing down on him with his knife raised, ready to end it all while Drew was out cold.
It just couldn’t end this way.
It couldn’t.
Fear made a scream form on my lips, but fear also made me swallow it whole.
Drew’s life was now in my hands, and I only had a second to make the call.
I knew that I wasn’t a good enough shot to hit a moving target, and the only person I knew for sure who could, was more than ten feet away on the other side of a fight. There was no way to make a run to Eric, and I turned to find him in desperation and found him frozen, his eyes on Drew and Trigger with horror painted over his features.
“Eric.” The sound came out strangled, yet he heard it, and he looked right at me.
One glance.
Eric gave me that one glance, and I risked everything by tossing the gun through the air with all the strength and determination I had.
It was a one in a million shot.
A risk I shouldn’t have taken, and when Eric snatched the gun from the air and closed his hand around the grip easily, it made me blink in shock. One twist of his wrist and he had the barrel aimed at me in a heartbeat.
“Down.”
I fell to my knees and heard the shot just as the shocking and painful impact of my knees on concrete rocked through my body. I scrambled on hands and knees, spinning just in time to catch the look of amused shock on Trigger’s face as a drop of blood trickled slowly from a small hole in his temple.
His eyes remained open, a look of shock forever etched on his face, and the knife tipped over the edges of his fingers, falling from his hand as his muscles seized.
The moment Trigger’s body fell, so did the silence of the warehouse, making the impact of him hitting the concrete ring out all around us.
The fighting had stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
Yet, my thoughts were on one thing and one thing only.
Drew!
The scream of his name in my mind was so clear. I was moving, scrambling on hands and knees toward him before I’d made a conscious thought to do so. I reached out with force, my fingers finding the chilled skin of his, the screaming truth of our reality now brutal in my mind as I crawled closer.
No, no, no, no, no.
Drew still wasn’t moving.
He was cold.
I raised my head to scream at anyone to get help, but the sound was muted as a blast came from the front of the building. An army in black stormed the room like a flood in the desert. The white ATF badge emblazoned across their chests as they held their guns raised on the men bleeding and bruised, all staring at Drew and me with the same horror I felt inside.
Pressing my head against Drew’s in resignation, I wrapped an arm over his motionless body in an attempt to protect him.
The way he’d given his everything to try and protect me.
Chapter Thirty-Three
HOWARD SUTTON
CHIEF OF POLICE
Babylon Police Department
“Nobody move!” Winnie shouted, her voice sharp.
“On your knees!” an ATF officer yelled.
“Hands behind your head!” another cried.
There were noises everywhere. Grunts, cuss words, angry faces, and bloodstained skin all around.
With my gun aimed in the air, I scanned the crowds, seeking out The Hounds’ patch on leather and only seeing Navarro Rifles tattoos and colors at every turn.
“I said nobody move!” Before I could turn to see who Winnie was yelling at, a shot rang out, followed by a heavy, guttural moan that sounded like three-hundred pounds of man flesh falling to the ground.
Then I saw Jedd.
Followed by Slater.
Kenny, too.
Relief flooded me when Moose’s long hair was pushed from his face, his hands rising slowly in surrender.
My eyes, slowly adjusting to the diluted light, looked up toward the faux altar that had been placed inside the ropes of a ground-level boxing ring, and then they fell to the blood-splattered floor.
I saw the body of Travis Gatlin first, and I swallowed in relief, unable to scream with joy because of the law enforcement around me.
A small whimper came from somewhere nearby, and my eyes followed the sound, finding Ayda on the floor with her head pressed against another as she ran her hand over a lifeless body.
The body I soon realized belonged to Drew Tucker.
“Jesus Christ, no,” I breathed out, unable to stop the cold shiver of dread that spread down my spine, turning my toes cold as I slowly lowered my gun. “No.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
KENNY PALOMO
Patched Hound
I couldn’t look away from Drew.
He hadn’t moved in so long.
Why wasn’t he fucking moving, man?
The ATF were shouting out orders left, right, and center, their men and women armed and moving through us like we were all strapped up and set to detonate. They were taking no sides. Every living creature inside this warehouse was guilty in their eyes. The way their bodies were crouched as they moved through us, smooth but cautious, ready to fire at any moment… it said it all.
I should have been scared.
A life behind bars was calling. I should have been scared.
But the only fear I felt was for our president—the one who hadn’t moved or even flinched since an army of people came charging in to handcuff us all.
“Why the hell isn’t he moving, Slater?” I whispered, my mouth slack before I managed to swallow the ball of fear residing in my throat. “He isn’t getting up. Drew always gets up.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
SLATER PORTMAN
Sergeant at Arms
“Get the fuck off me,” I hissed, shrugging an ATF fucker away when he came around the back and pressed the butt of a gun to my skull.
“Hands at the back of your head… now!” he yelled like he thought I even gave
a shit.
Raising my hands slowly, I entwined them and did as he asked, pushing up on my knees so I was at his mercy.
None of this mattered.
The ATF didn’t fucking matter.
The only person who mattered was unconscious, face down against the ground, blood pouring out of his limp body. Ayda lay next to him with tears streaming down her face as his name fell from her lips over and over. She couldn’t even hear the ATF around us. She couldn’t see Sutton charging toward her like a father desperate to protect his child.
She couldn’t see the way we were all holding our breath, waiting for our president to move.
But he wouldn’t move.
He. Just. Wouldn’t. Fucking. Move.
Tears filled my unblinking eyes as I stared at my brother. My best friend. The man who’d done more for me and this club than I could ever put into words. The man I’d never seen stay down for so long—not even with a bullet in his arm or a knife wound across his chest.
Ayda’s wails of desperation tore free, the sorrow and grief in her screams echoing around the warehouse, sending goosebumps across every part of my body.
“Come on, you son of a bitch,” I whispered through gritted teeth. “Get up, brother. Please. Do it for me.”
Drew always gets up. He always gets up.
Chapter Thirty-Six
RICHARD ‘DEEKS’ TWEEKS
ORIGINAL
Patched Hound
I’d lived long enough to sense real fear in a room.
Half the men were staring at their dead leader, wondering what the hell to do next.
Without Forever: Babylon MC Book 5 Page 22