Chapter 21

Glock

We came out bloodied from the house, and we knew that we wouldn’t have been able to make it out of there alive if our other brothers from the club hadn’t come to our rescue.

After some guys from the Dragon Knights found Brick lying dead in the basement, all Hell broke loose like I had predicted. They came hard for us, and we fought back equally hard.

By the time it was over, the Dragon Knights had gone scampering away, but none of my brothers were fatally injured; even though we were all carrying bruises and wounds.

The Rusty Pelican was charged up now. The drinks were pouring freely while we all celebrated. Chances were, that with Brick dead it would take the Dragon Knights even longer this time to rise up from the ashes.

Noelle was working on the wound on my shoulder, while I sat on a bar stool now, downing can after can of beer. She was stitching me up, and I was clenching my jaws through the pain.

“Sage refused to go back home,” she whispered to me, while my brothers celebrated loudly around us. The music was loud too, but I’d heard what Noelle had said.

“Is she still at the warehouse?” I asked her, glad for the distraction from the stitches she was giving me without anesthesia.

“She was until we heard that you guys were back here. Brooklyn dropped her over to her mom’s house before we came here. We invited her to come with us, so she could join us in our celebrations, but she refused,” Noelle replied. I didn’t have to ask her to know why Sage had refused to come here.

It was partly because she wouldn’t have believed that she belonged here among us, and partly, she probably blamed herself for what had happened tonight. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t Noelle’s or any of the other women’s either. They had made a decision based on the fact that we weren’t answering our phones. We should have kept an eye on our phones, so technically it was our fault.

“She’s a good woman,” Noelle continued, and I drew my shoulder away from her. She was done with the stitches now. I knew where Noelle was trying to go with this, and I didn’t care for her opinion, or anyone else’s on my relationship with Sage. They had no idea how I felt for her. They didn’t know how desperately I wanted to keep her safe.

“She was very worried about you,” she added, just as Axel joined us. He’d already congratulated us when we came in, and now he was drunk and in an even better mood.

“Glock!” he hollered and thumped my back in congratulations. I smiled as we knocked our cans of beer together and took large gulps of the drink. Noelle walked over to Tank and melted into his arms.

“You got the fucker!” Axel added and sat down on a stool beside me. When I had first walked into the Rusty Pelican, I was worried if Axel might take the news badly. He hadn’t given us the orders specifically to kill Brick yet. We were just supposed to keep him under observation till the final decision was made. But Axel had rejoiced when he heard about how I killed him.

“It’s not over though, Axel,” I said, and he nodded his head knowingly.

“I know there will be retaliation. But those headless chickens can’t function without Brick, I know that too. They’re going to run around like crazy motherfucking idiots,” he said with a laugh and drank some more of the beer.

“That’s all we can hope for,” I replied, and we smiled at each other.

“That was a job well done, Glock,” he said and thumped my back again. Axel had too much to drink tonight, and he was full of praises.

“And that little redhead of yours…she got us into a bit of trouble tonight, didn’t she?” he continued, and my muscles stiffened. There was no way that I was going to allow anybody to blame Sage for this.

“She was trying to rescue a girl who needed her help. That’s what any one of us would have tried to do if we were in her position,” I was quick to jump to her defense and Axel thumped my back again.

“Don’t worry, Glock, I’m not pointing fingers, in fact, I would like to speak to her, the first chance that I can get,” he said, and I stared at him with my brows crossed.

“About what?” I asked, a little rudely.

“Well, the other women have been speaking to me. They told me how helpful she has been, how genuinely she wants to work with them and I think Sage could be an asset to us,” Axel replied, and I stood up from my stool with a jerk.

“I don’t think it would be a good idea, Axel, she has a job waiting for her in San Francisco. She has to go back there soon, there’s no use getting her involved in all this,” I said and crushed the beer can in my hand.

“Don’t you think it should be her decision, Glock?” Axel asked me with a smile. I got the feeling that he had a pretty good idea of what was going on. He knew I was trying to be protective of her, but it wasn’t working.

I said nothing to him, and Axel stood up from his stool too.

“Get her to come and see me tomorrow. We can hash the details out together. Don’t you think we need help in whatever way we can get? These are tough times, son,” Axel said, and with that, he had turned from me and walked to the group standing beside me.

While a celebratory cheer rang out as they all lifted their cans in the air, I couldn’t stop thinking about Sage and how she should have never come back to Long Beach.

***

It was three in the morning by the time I got to the front of Sage’s house. The lights were all out, but I knew which window was hers. I had spent countless nights gazing up at the window after Sage had left.

Now that I sat on my bike, looking up at the dark window of her room, I felt like I was seventeen years old again. I could feel the same anxieties creeping up on me; wishing and hoping that Sage was okay, that she could be happy, and the realization that I missed her. Although now, there was another added emotion that I was feeling; that despite how much I was still in love with her, I wanted her to leave. Just for my own peace of mind.

I got off my bike and picked up a few pebbles and threw them at her window. They rattled against the glass. I was a twenty-seven-year-old man throwing pebbles at the window of a twenty-seven-year-old woman. I nearly smiled at the thought of what my brothers would say if they caught me doing this.

In a few moments, I saw Sage at the window, she was looking out at me. I spread my arms out and shrugged my shoulders, and then she had disappeared from the window again.

I waited for a few minutes, leaning back against my bike until I saw the front door of the house opening. Sage was stepping out in her nightclothes. She was in a red silk slip, that was short beyond words, reaching way up over her thighs. She had slipped on a silvery silk robe over herself, that barely covered her body. Her red hair was a flaming curtain behind her. Noelle had done a good job of cleaning away the wound on her mouth, and though I could still see the signs of it there.

She took the steps one at a time from her porch, before finally, she was standing in front of me. Her eyes were large and green in the moonlight as she stared back at me, and suddenly, I felt tongue-tied.

“How are you doing?” I managed to ask her, and I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my pants. She shrugged her shoulders and wrapped her arms around herself like she was cold.

“I was feeling better once I found out that you were still alive. How are you doing?” she said and looked at the gunshot wound on my shoulder. Noelle had wrapped the wound in gauze and told me that it would take a few weeks for it to heal, and the bullet had only grazed my flesh and hadn’t done any permanent damage.

“As good as new,” I said, and Sage smiled weakly.

“Noelle is a magician,” she said, and I nodded my head.

“More like a witch with secret dark powers,” I added and we smiled at each other.

I watched as Sage breathed in deeply, her eyes grew small, and I knew that she was about to say something that I didn’t want to hear.

“Glock, I really thought that you were going to die tonight in there,” she said, and I clenched my jaw. I had spent the last few years, since I joined the MC, without being answerable to anyone or being responsible for anybody. With Sage here now, the fact that she had been worried for me, made me feel strange.

“I was fine. It’s all a part of my job,” I replied and she shook her head.

“I can’t wrap my head around how you go out there every day and take part in something like that. I don’t understand how the other women deal with their men living lives like that,” she said, and she had her brows crossed.

Within a few moments, she had realized what she had said, and she licked her lips nervously and looked away from me.

“Not that I’m saying you are my man or anything, I just don’t know…” she said hurriedly, and I took a step towards her. I put my hands on her slender shoulders, and the touch of her warm body calmed me.

“You don’t need to explain yourself to me, Sage, I can imagine how you felt tonight, after everything that you went through. I want to know what they did to you, what Brick did to you,” I said, peering into her eyes. She stared back at me and then shook her head and looked away.

“They didn’t do what you think they did, and it doesn’t matter how much they hurt me…not now that you’ve killed him,” she said in a soft voice, and my hands traveled up her neck until I was holding her face tightly, and staring right into her eyes.

“Sage, whatever happens to you, even the smallest thing—will always matter to me, no matter where you are and how far from you I am. I want you to know that ” I said. She gulped as she looked at me and then nodded her head.

“And whatever happens to you, will matter to me too. Which is probably why I can’t believe the life you lead,” she said hoarsely, and I pulled her to myself and pressed my lips to hers.

My tongue parted her mouth, and I was kissing her strongly. We had come so close to losing each other, and no other woman was capable of making me feel this way. I tipped her head back so I could kiss her even harder. I could feel her mouth throbbing in mine, and I wanted more.

Sage pulled herself away, just as my hand slipped in between her robe. Her eyes were on fire, and she had a grin tugging the corners of her swollen lips.

“Come upstairs with me, Glock,” she said in a whisper.