Chapter 28
Harlow
I was holding both of the women and Emery against my body as my lips continued to mutter prayers. I was petrified. Gemma was huddled to my side, while Sydney could no longer hold back the shaking of her body and Emery’s face was pressed deeply into my chest. My skin and my clothing were muffling her sobs, but I knew the closer people got, the more they would stand a chance of hearing her. I kissed her repeatedly, trying to soothe the small girl as her mother and Gemma huddled close to me. I couldn’t hear anything over the sounds of sirens in the distance. After the thunderous crash, there was simply nothing. No screaming. No gunshots. Just sirens and screeching tires.
I was worried about Fox.
I was worried he had been injured. That the crash we heard was him dropping to the floor. I was worried for Hawk. Leaving behind a wife and a child to fend for themselves after something like this if it had been him. I thought about all the other guys. Men’s names I couldn’t remember, but men that were important to Fox. I thought about how they had been yelling at him. Cursing him and calling him all sorts of names, like shit, didn’t matter.
Until it did.
Shit always mattered when lives were on the line.
“Should we try to go out?” Syd asked in a whisper.
“No. They need to come looking for us. Sirens mean police. And police means there’s a better chance of someone coming for us that isn’t going to harm us,” I said.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“I watch a lot of television.”
It was the truth. I had found myself in a situation I had no idea how to navigate. The only thing I had were the things my father taught me and the situations I’d seen on television. And I knew it wasn’t real. I knew the characters weren’t real and the scenarios were fake, but it had some decent information. Lay low when windows are being shot at. Stick to the dark when moving around a threatening area. Keep as quiet as you can so no one can hear you. All stuff that helped to keep myself safe.
I thought about my father. I wondered about the part he played in all of this. I wondered if he was still ‘at work.’ I wondered if he had any sort of hand in what was going on right now. Was this his idea? To come after this club? Was this somehow orchestrated by him to try and help his case in court? My mind was spinning with realizations and understanding. The longer I stayed in that bathtub with those girls, the more I came to hate my father. The more I can to resent him for the things he had done to me growing up. All the lies I fed myself and all the covering up my mother did for him.
It was all to bring me to this moment.
This moment of understanding of who my father truly was.
Footsteps running down the hallway grabbed my attention. They were coming strong and fast, and there were multiple sets. Emery started whimpering as Sydney gathered her from me, and I rose up as quickly as I could. I saw this scene on a television show once. A man was trapped in a shower with nothing to defend himself, so he took the shower curtain bar and used it to defend himself. I yanked on the curtain, and the flimsy shower rod fell into my arms. It was practically plastic, and it wouldn’t do much, but it might distract whoever the hell was coming for us enough to get them out.
Enough to get the child out.
“Harlow!”
I paused, listening to the muffled voice.
“Was that-?”
“Harlow!!”
“Holy shit. That’s Fox,” Syd said.
“Syd! Emery! You guys back here!?”
“Daddy!” Emery exclaimed.
I recognized the voice from the shouting feud earlier.
“Oh, so that one’s Hawk,” I said.
“Gemma!”
“Talon!” Gemma jumped out of the tub and rushed toward the sounds.
I felt relief flood my veins as doors started flying open. Sydney and Emery scrambled from the bathtub and turned on the bathroom light. I shielded my eyes, holding the shower rod I had taken down in my hands. The light was bright, and it was giving me a headache, but the moment I felt those arms wrapped around me, I sank.
Collapsed at my knees and into the strength of his body.
“Harlow,” Fox said in a whisper. “I’m right here. Everything’s okay.”
Tears I had been holding back rose to my eyes. I felt his hand run down my arm, removing the shower curtain rod from the palm of my hand. I gripped his jacket tightly, pulling him deeper into me as I buried my face into his chest. My shoulders shook, and my body felt weak. Tears rushed down my cheeks as I muffled my sounds with his clothing. He held me as tight as he could, picking me up and out of the tub.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Fox said.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” I said.
“How the hell did you guys get back here?” he asked.
“She came to find us,” Sydney said. “Found us in Hawk’s room, but when the gunfire got really bad, we had to move. Gemma was already in here. She was really good. Says she got it all from watching television.”
“Television, huh?” Fox asked.
I felt him place a kiss on the top of my head as something latched onto my leg.
I looked down and saw a pair of beautiful green eyes staring back at me. Emery was smiling, with her rosy red cheeks and her puffy nose. I released Fox and bent down, scooping the small girl up into my arms. She threw her hands around my neck, then planted a small kiss on my cheek.
“Thank you,” Emery said.
“For what?” I asked.
“For keeping me safe,” she said.
My heart melted as I hugged the little girl tightly against my body. Sydney was hugging Hawk, and the two of them were staring at me. I felt Fox’s hand cup my neck, massaging the tension from my body as I kissed the side of Emery’s head. I put her back down on her feet and leaned into Fox, allowing his body weight to support mine. I looked all around the room. I took in the bullet holes that pierced the mattress of the bed and the wooden walls that held more holes. I saw bullets lodged into them and splintered wood on the floor. Everything was an absolute mess.
“I’m so sorry I got you into this mess,” Fox said.
I looked up at him as I turned, pressing myself deeper into his body.
“If you want the truth, you wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for my father,” I said.
“How do you figure?”
“When I was at my house earlier today, my father had to leave early. Said he had to go to work. You show up, things take place, I come here, and it seems very convenient and coincidental that the club my father’s defending in court shows up to shoot up the club my father’s trying to pin things on,” I said.
Fox tightened his arms around me, but no one said a word. I heard footsteps coming down the hallway and stopping just shy of the door. My heart ached. They all knew the corrupt man my father was. They all knew the disgusting things he had probably done to get people like The Devil’s Saints off. Silent tears streaked my cheeks as I drew in a shaky breath, prompting Fox to run his hands up and down my back.
“We don’t know that for sure. That your father had any sort of a hand in this,” Fox said.
“Beast has been unstable for a while,” Hawk said.
“Beast?” I asked.
“The President of The Devil’s Saints,” Fox said. “But I’m sorry you had to witness this firsthand. Be in the middle of something like this. I live a dangerous life. It’s one I’m proud of. One I run with a family I’ve come to love. But it’s dangerous, and I promised to protect you. And in the process, I put in harm’s way even more.”
“It’s over, and all I wanna do is move past it,” I said. “And if you want the truth? You’ve protected me more today than my father has my entire life. If even a part of what you guys are saying is true, then he’s been doing this all my life. All the signs point to it. And even though he knew I was in danger and he knew there were threats out there, he kept doing what he was doing. At least you’re trying to get rid of them. He never did.”
I looked up into Fox’s face and could see the conflict running around behind his eyes. He dropped his lips to mine, warming my body as his arms cloaked my back. I ran my hands up his chest, feeling his beating heart and taking in how his chest moved with his breaths.
Life was pumping through his veins.
Fox was alive.
“You wanna get out of here?” Fox asked.
“Hell yes. Please,” I said breathlessly.
“Lots of cops out there asking questions. If they want to talk, don’t lie to them,” Hawk said. “Just tell them you were in these back rooms during the gunfire.”
“I can do that,” I said.
I turned and saw the rest of the club standing at the door. They had stoic faces on, but they were all standing tall and proud. I counted each of their heads to make sure they were all there as I tried to remember how many there were to start with. Fox took my hand and led me down the hallway, the tattered lodge filled with police officers taking statements from everyone. Laiken was giving a statement in the corner and cops were already pulling over Hawk and Sydney to talk. An officer came up to us, but Laiken quickly intervened
“Someone else already got their statement,” she told the other officer. He nodded curtly and moved onto Gemma. I let out a sigh of relief, and Laiken smiled at me.
Fox steered me through the crowd, trying his best to keep me from having to relive everything.
I looked down at the ground and saw a body covered with a sheet. I stopped in my tracks, my eyes grazing over the sheer size of it. My eyes widened as I looked up at Fox and I could see the anger in his eyes. I looked at the body, trying to figure out who it was. Was that a Devil’s Saints? A Road Rebels? Someone else? Possibly another woman? My stomach churned as Fox kept leading me towards the door, trying to get me out of there as quickly as possible.
I looked back one last time to see one of the police officers lifting up the sheet, and that was when I saw it. The tattoo on the leg of the dead body.
It was a horned Devil with a broken halo in its hand.
“Don’t worry. He’s not one of ours,” Fox said.
I don’t know why that gave me solace, but it did.
Fox led me out to his rusty old bike, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Bullet casings littered the ground, and the lodge was fraught with more holes. It was a devastating sight, and one I wanted to get away from. Fox threw his leg over the bike and kicked up the stand, then motioned for me to slide on behind him.
But for some reason, I was rooted to the ground.
Belated shock was rolling over my system. I felt my body floating up to the clouds. I saw the skid marks on the road and heard the very faint roar of motorcycles in the background. I felt my hands begin to shake as my breathing picked up. The sounds of bullets echoed off the chambers of my mind as tears sprang to my eyes again.
“Harlow? Harlow, can you hear me?”
Fox’s voice seemed so far away. I turned my face up to look at him, but he was spinning in circles. My body was teetering. Swaying in the sunlight as my feet went numb. Every part of me was spinning out of control and somehow standing still at the same time. My mind was racing with every single possibility. How things could have gone so wrong. I heard Emery crying and Sydney screaming. I saw blood in places blood shouldn’t have been. I closed my eyes as I felt something strong grab my upper arms, then a warmth pressed against my forehead.
“You have to breathe. When you can hear me, nod your head. You have to breathe. When you can hear me, nod your head.”
I nodded my head against the warmth on my forehead. I drew in deep breaths through my nose and let it out through my lips. The more deep breaths I took, the more centered I felt. The stronger my body became and the closer the sounds of the daytime were to my ears. The wind was kicking up, and birds were chirping in the distance. The sun felt hot on my skin, and Fox’s strong grip became reassuring instead of numbing. I fluttered my watery gaze up to him, taking in the worried stare he was giving me.
“Come on. We’re going back to my place. There’s a bath waiting just for you,” Fox said.
Then he slipped onto his bike, helped me wiggle behind him, and I clung to him as we rode back to his apartment.