***
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 look 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.