BOOTH

“Booth. That fucktard Rogue is on the phone for you,” Ford shouted from across the room, halting my determined stride to the garage to get my bike. I had to find Stella. Just standing around here waiting was driving me fucking crazy.

They took her.

Some fucking cunt put his hands on my woman and kidnapped her. There won’t be a fucking place for them to hide from me because when I find out who took her, and I got her back—because I would get her back—I was going to rip every limb from their useless fucking bodies.

“Fuck!” I shouted. I needed to take this call, and if he had anything to do with this… Fuck, I had not taken this prick serious enough.

“Speaker,” I clipped, not trusting myself to hold the phone. Every time I had spoken to this prick, I tended to break shit.

“Hello, Booth. I’ve got something of yours.”

Those words turned my blood cold. Had I fucked up? Had I taken this guy too lightly?

“Is that so,” I answered nonchalantly, playing his game.

“Remember what I said to you last time on the phone about a bar?”

I scrambled through my memory for our last call. The night he’d killed Bullet. It had been a riddle… Yeah, I remembered a blonde, a brunette… Oh, fuck no.

“Where is she?” I shouted. “She better be all right and not harmed because, if she is, you will never be safe. I will hunt you down and kill you with my bare hands, cunt,” I promised him. He had my heart, my beautiful Stella.

“I am counting on it. Now shut the fuck up and listen to this.”

There was a moment of silence, and I thought it had gone dead, but it hadn’t. There was a strange gulping sound, but I couldn’t make it out. Looking at Mannix and Steel, I gave them a ‘what the fuck’ look. Just as I was about to ask what the fuck I was supposed to be hearing, Stella’s sweet voice came over the line.

“Baby, I love you.” The words were sweeter than heaven, but they were spoken with pain and sadness. Stella was hurt. A red haze blurred my vision. Stella was hurt. The overwhelming need to kill something or someone raged inside me.

“Handsome, you have to tell S-Steel to go find Mia, she is in d-danger.” She was having trouble speaking, and with each word, I felt the effect on my soul. What the fuck had they done to her? In my peripheral vision, I saw Steel race to the front door.

“Honey, are you okay? Where are you, Honey? Beautiful, hold on. I’m coming for you,” I said frantically, my heart pounding painfully in my chest. Not my Stella! I’d promised her no one would reach her. Never again would anyone hurt a hair on her head.

“Is she okay? No, Booth, she ain’t. She has been used as a punching bag, so she looks fucking horrible. Blood everywhere, and oh, this,” he stopped talking, and I heard shuffling about, and then Stella let out a blood-curdling scream, so loud and with so much pain, I felt like I was the one being hurt.

“Stella! Stella! What the fuck are you doing to her?” I screamed myself.

“Booth, it hurts, oh God, it hurts.” Her agonised scream tore at me. My vision dimmed as I listened to my woman in pain.

What had they done? My beautiful honey.

“You’ll find her in the old abandoned car park near the old drive-in on Bedford. Hurry, Booth. The stab wound is deep enough for her to stay alive for about ten minutes, but any longer, and she will bleed out.” Just the beep of the dial tone filled the room as the phone was cut off. I stood there for what felt like hours, but it was more like ten seconds.

“Fucking move, everyone,” I barked as I ran as fast as I could to my truck, my men hot on my heals,

I jumped into the driver’s seat as Mannix jumped in the passenger side. I started up the engine and peeled out of the compound car park just behind Steel, who had taken off for the strip club on his bike after Mia. Creed and Darth followed Steel.

My honey was such a selfless person caring about Mia even in her own torment. Stabbed. How the fuck do I take that in? Her beautiful body beaten and fucking stabbed. Fuck.

It took us six minutes to get to Bedford Street, the darkness of the deserted street making it hard to see where Stella was.

“There, Pres, two o’clock,” Mannix shouted, pointing to what looked like a pile of rags. Oh, shit.

Jumping out of the truck, I sprinted over to where my woman lay on the ground. She was on her stomach, her arms tucked underneath her, and there was a pool of blood forming to one side of her. Skidding to a stop, I dropped to my knees and carefully moved her so she was facing me.

“Oh, fuck me.” Mannix groaned as he saw the mess those fucks had made of her face.

I felt tears stream down my cheeks at the sight of what Stella had endured. I was scared to hold her, but I couldn’t let her go, either. Her body was covered with bruises, bumps, and scrapes. I tried to take stock of her injuries, just as I would have on the battlefield. Two of her fingers looked broken, and she had so many contusions I couldn’t begin to assess them all.

“Oh, Honey, I am so, so sorry, my beautiful Honey,” I said softly to her, my lips pressed against hers. Please, God, don’t take her from me. Don’t make me go through life without her. Don’t make me lose that smile, that voice, that love she gives me every time she looks at me.

“Ambulance is one minute out, Booth,” Mannix said. We’d called the ambulance as we left the compound, knowing that all the time we could save would help Stella’s survival. I believed Rogue when he said she had ten minutes before she would bleed out. The cunt would pay for this. I would hunt him down even if it took me the rest of my life.

“Pres, press this to the wound.” A shirt was shoved in my face, and I wasted no time finding the area where she was stabbed and held it firm and hard to it. The pressure of it caused Stella to moan in pain, and each moan was like a bullet to my heart.

“Stay with me, Honey. Stay with me and live so we can grow old together. Please, don’t leave me, Stella. Don’t leave me alone. There isn’t anyone else I want to do this with, Honey, so please don’t make me.” I bawled like a baby, holding the shirt to her wound, keeping her alive and with me. In the background, I heard the siren of the ambulance getting louder and louder.

“Baby… he... he knows you…” Stella croaked. A cough erupted from her throat, and the movement obviously hurt her even more.

“Stella, don’t talk, Honey. We can talk later. Be still, baby.” I didn’t care about anything but Stella getting to the hospital and fixed up.

She was shaking her head, her eyes wide and desperate.

“He is mad at you… wants you to suffer. Wants you to… to see what it’s like to lose someone you love,” she whispered. The effort in telling me took the last of her energy. Her breathing was more laboured, and I heard gurgling in her lungs. The fuckers must have punched her over and over there. She started to cough, and I saw blood come out onto her chin. Jesus Christ, she had internal bleeding.

I clenched a fist of Stella’s hair, careful not to pull. I had never wanted to kill someone as badly as I did then. A soldier learnt not to want to kill another human being because the weight of it stayed with you forever—but right then, I relished the thought.

“Shh, Honey, don’t talk. You’re going to be fine. There is no other option. I won’t live without you, Stella.” I let my hand travel over her cheek where a large, black bruise was already forming, and the swelling was getting bigger as I sat there and watched it.

“I love you, Booth. I love you so much.” The words were brittle and rasped, and I nearly didn’t hear them.

I shook my head no. “Don’t you give up on me, Stella Hogan. Don’t you say goodbye.” Pressing kisses all over her face, I left nothing untouched by my lips. Bruises, cuts, soft porcelain skin not touched by the brutes who had dared to harm her. Then I started to hum ‘Perfect’ to her, the song I had heard her sing so many times around the compound, and it said everything I felt about Stella. I didn’t know all the words, and I didn’t even pretend to know how to carry a tune, but I could hum it to her.

So I did.

***

Three hours and forty-seven minutes. That was how long ago the doctors from the ER had wheeled Stella away to surgery. I was kicked to the waiting room to sit and wait, and wait, and wait to see if my happily ever after was going to be ripped out from underneath me.

Mannix was with me when they took her away, and he had to hold me back when she left my sight. Didn’t they know that without her, I was nothing? Without that perfect creature in my life, I might as well die, too.

“Booth.” Mannix got my attention just as Deck, Steel, Creed, and Darth entered the waiting room. Steel had Mia tucked under his arm. Getting up, I strode to her and took her into my arms, crushing her to me. Steel still held onto her shirt like he couldn’t let her go, and I noticed it was his long-sleeved tee that he’d had on at the club earlier. I felt her tiny body shudder against me, and her racking sobs hurt my already torn-out heart.

“Mia sweetheart, it’s okay. Shh, Stella is going to be fine,” I reassured her, everyone else in the room, and myself. I refused to accept any other answer.

“It was Gary and his sons. They took her. They hit Squid over the head and knocked him out, tied him and put him in the men’s toilets.”

Fuck, I knew those cunts had to have something to do with it, but how?

“Yeah, sweetheart, we found him. Squid is fine.” He may be fine but he was going to be off detail duty for a while. His training should have prevented such a rookie thing happening to him.

“Did they say anything that we can use, gorgeous?” Creed asked her, placing his hand on the small of her back and making gentle circles with his hand.

Mia nodded her head against my chest.

“They said the information they were given was good and something about paying good money for info on the club was worth it.” Mia retold what she had heard, and I could see she didn’t understand any of it, but I did. Someone had given them information about the women’s whereabouts, someone who knew them and knew my club. A fucking informant. The need to kill intensified. There would be hell to pay if it was someone close to us.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, there was another guy with them, a big guy who seemed to be calling the shots. He spoke to Gary like he hated him but needed him.” As soon as Mia said this, I stiffened. Could this be Rogue? Fuck me.

“Did you get a look at him, Beauty?” Hunkering down, Steel took Mia by the hand and held it to his lips. He had called me when Stella was first taken into surgery and told me he had found Mia and Rainn in one of the supply closets at the strip club, just like Mia had reported on the phone. Rainn had been hit once in the face, and she was plenty mad about it, too. Mia was unharmed but scared out of her mind for Stella. She had begged to be the one taken, and I could tell from Steel’s voice that shamed him. The phone call from her earlier and his rejection of her still played on his mind, not to mention the humiliation he’d suffered at the hands of Callie at the compound. I’d made sure she wouldn’t ever come back in. All the prospects and members were told she was not allowed entry ever again, and if they did, they were out, too.

“Not really. He stood in the shadows, but I could see he was really tall, taller than you,” she said looking at Steel. He was well over six foot—we all were, but Steel was the tallest of us.

Okay, so finally a clue, but was it Rogue? He was obviously targeting just the women, and I quickly looked at Deck and started to panic.

“Shiloh? Teach? The others?”

“It’s okay, brother. Jason is there, and Ford and the prospects. Plus, Jason told his captain about Gary, and they posted two squad cars out front of the compound. They are safe, brother. I wouldn’t leave if my family was unprotected,” Deck reassured me, giving me a chin lift. I knew he wouldn’t put Shiloh in danger, but this fuck was two steps ahead of us all the time. What the fuck was his problem with me? And why was he going after our women? This wasn’t making any sense to me.

“Booth, when we found Stella, she mentioned something about this fuck knowing you. What else did she say?” Mannix asked. He had lost it when he heard that Rainn had been hit, and he punched a hole in a door of the emergency room, which had cost him a few hundred bucks. When the administrator of the hospital came down to see why he did it, they were very understanding of our situation but told Mannix he still needed to pay for the damage, which he happily did. Glad they hadn’t called the cops on him.

“Um, she said something like he wanted to hurt me, see me lose someone I loved. He knows me.” I tried to remember everything Stella said, but at the time, I was more concerned about all the injuries she had. Scared like fucking shit more like it.

“Who the fuck is this?” Steel shouted. He was frustrated just like the rest of us, and now Mia was in danger, too.

If Rogue’s MO was to go after the women of the club, was Mia the next target or Rainn?

Mia shifted in my arms and turned her face to Steel. When he saw her, his whole face softened.

“Come here, Beauty,” he said gently, which she did immediately. Steel might be a dick to her, but she loved him regardless. Steel wrapped Mia up in his arms, her tiny body swallowed up by the massive sniper.

“Family of Stella Hogan,” I heard called across the room. Striding quickly, I made my way to where a doctor stood still dressed in scrubs.

“I’m her fiancé.” Well, I was. I told her we were getting married, and she said ‘okay, baby,’ so that was a yes in my book.

“Can I speak freely here, or would you rather we go into a more private room?”

“No, here is fine. This is her family,” I told him. I saw the relief on Mia’s face when I said that. She felt like she’d failed Stella, I knew and even understood it, but there was no need for such guilt on her shoulders. She’d tried to save my honey, tried to bargain for her life. There was no better loyalty.

“She came through the surgery better than I expected. Her facial injuries and the bruising to her body are very extensive. All will heal in time, but there will be a few small scars on her face. Her lung collapsed, but we reinflated it with no problems, and the good thing was there was no blood in there. Her body took a hell of a beating, and we were concerned about more internal bleeding than there was. The real issue is the stab wound. It was very deep, but the knife used missed every single important thing it could have hit. The person who stabbed her didn’t know what they were doing or deliberately stabbed her in the wrong spot—or the right place, as the case is. Oh, we also took a biopsy of the lump in her breast. It was on her chart, so we took care of that for her, too. The results should be back in a few weeks.”

My mind was reeling with everything the doctor was saying, but I was clinging to the fact she was alive. I needed to lay eyes on her, feel her, hold her. Breathe her.

“Can I see her?”

I didn’t need his permission. A fucking armed tank would not be able to keep me from going to her.

“Of course. She woke up from the anaesthetic a few minutes ago and was asking for someone called Booth. Is that you?”

Nodding my head, I looked back at my men, Mia, who was wrapped up in Steel, and everyone with a relieved expression. I gave them a chin lift, then turned and followed the doctor down the long corridor. I wanted to push him out of the way and sprint to her room, but I didn’t. I took the time to pull myself together because Stella needed me to be calm. She didn’t need the president of the Wounded Souls now. She needed her man, the man who loved her more than his own life, more than his club. The man she was going to marry as soon as she healed.