DECK

I slammed my truck’s door and stalked towards the front door of the compound.

Today at the construction site, so many things had gone wrong. The entire job had become worse than a nightmare. It took Darth and me promising to see to the rest of the job personally before I could get the homeowner to leave the property and let my guys get back to it.

I couldn’t wait for that job to be over with. Luckily, the husband, having a building history himself, was sympathetic to the issues we were having and helped to keep his wife at bay.

Pushing the door open, I made my way into the main room. I had a few things I needed to speak to Booth about, but I really needed a drink first. I was not a huge drinker anymore, well, not since Shiloh was born. I’d never known how much you needed your wits about you when you were in charge of a child.

Instantly, my mind strayed to my girls, who were never really far from my thoughts every minute of every day.

I hadn’t been happy watching them drive off earlier. Something seemed off for some reason. The shit with the rogue soldier had the entire club on edge, especially me. Mainly because we didn’t know who he was, why he was doing it, and who or what the fuck he was going to mess with next.

We didn’t have enough resources to keep all the girls under watch. And now, with Lucky down and injured for God knew how long, and all the problems that were suddenly arising in all of the club’s businesses that required us to be present at them, we were stretched pretty thin.

I was having a really hard time letting go of control and allowing Dundee, the newest prospect we’d brought into the club, to protect my fiancée and daughter. Insisting Charlie leave it for another day would have been a waste of time, so I really should have driven them myself. We could have made an overnight trip out of it. Minus Stella, of course.

Going behind the bar, I got myself a draught and was just about to take a pull when Ford burst through from his small office and into the main room.

“Fucking hell, Deck, we got a major fucking problem,” he shouted, getting the attention of everyone in the room. I could see he had a full-size piece of paper in his hand that looked like photo paper. Christ almighty. What the fuck now? Taking a quick minute, I drank half of my beer because something told me I was going to need it.

“War room,” he said in a harsh tone and took off in the direction of our meeting room, not even bothering to see if anyone was following him. He knew we would. Ford wasn’t the kind of guy to fly off the handle for no reason, so when he was like that, I knew there was something big going down.

I heard the stomping of boots behind me and knew Steel and Mannix were coming. They had been in the middle of a game of pool when Ford demanded our attention.

When I walked into the war room, I saw that Booth and Creed were already there with deep scowls on their faces as they watched our normally funny but odd tech guy as he paced the room in agitation.

“What the fuck, Ford?” Creed bellowed. “You’re making me dizzy. Stay the fuck still and let us in on what the fuck is wrong.”

Ford stopped his pacing and walked to the whiteboard. We wrote schedules and routes for bike runs on it, and it had clips for notes and such. Taking one of the dog clips, Ford put up the paper that was in his hand. We all moved in closer, and I swore to fucking Christ I nearly vomited all over the floor.

The photo showed a picture of Booth’s truck driving down the road from the compound with Dundee on his bike behind it. The whole picture had a red scope target circled around it.

The fucking prick was watching us.

He knew the women and Shiloh were in that truck. The fucking cunt had eyes on us all the time.

The fucking world just fell out from underneath me.

“I have to get to them.” It was my only thought, and as I turned to leave, A ring of a phone and Booth’s shout stopped me in my tracks.

“Deck, it’s Stella,” Booth said in a rush. I quickly went back and watched him as he put it on speakerphone before answering.

The screams that came over the speaker chilled my blood. It was Shiloh. I focused in on Shiloh as she cried for me.

“Charlie! What the fuck is going on?” I yelled over the noise of Shiloh’s screams. Fuck! My baby girl.

“Booth, Booth, I don’t know what to do. He is slamming into us,” Stella shouted into the phone.

Fuck, I hoped she was using the Bluetooth and hands-free.

I still couldn’t hear Charlie. Where was she? Was she okay? Goddamn, why didn’t I go with them? Why did I let my girls drive away from me?

‘Stella, where is Dundee,” Creed asked. The prospect was supposed to be travelling with them.

“Oh, God, he is dead. Dundee’s bike was hit from behind, and when he came off, the car hit him as he hit the road. Oh, God, Booth, he is hitting us again.” Stella’s voice was a shriek.

Dundee was dead. Fuck me. The girls were unprotected. Completely alone. And some fucking whack job was ramming into them.

“Fuck, they are on the switchbacks.” Creed growled. He was on his phone obviously bringing them up on his tracker.

“Mummy, I is scared,” I heard my daughter cry out.

I looked over at Darth, who was ploughing his fingers through his hair. The look on his face must have mirrored my own, one of complete fucking helplessness. Ever since the day she was born, she had never been without one of us with her. Even when she was with Jason or my parents, one of us was either there or not far away. I could see Darth was on edge. We all were.

Finally, I heard my woman’s voice, and it was like a mini balm to my savaged soul.

“Mummy is here, baby girl, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I promise, sweetie, I promise. Deck, Deck, honey, I will protect our daughter, I promise,” Charlie cried out from somewhere in the car. Her vow to protect Shiloh broke my heart.

“Sweetness, I know you will. Baby, tell me what is going on. I need you to tell me everything you are seeing.” I was trying to become the soldier again, but this time, it was harder to compartmentalise. This time, it was my family in danger. Real fucking danger.

My heart felt like it was being ripped out of my chest.

“It’s the blue SUV. The same one from the park. He ran down Dundee. Dundee tried everything he could to keep us safe, Deck, but the truck rammed into his back tyre, and he had no chance to save the bike from going down.” Charlie’s words were rushed and high pitched. Then suddenly, she screamed, “Stella, watch out for the other car.”

We heard the screech of brakes and the girls screaming. Oh, my God, how could this be happening? It was like a horrible nightmare, but we were all awake and having the same one.

“Stella!” Booth boomed. His knuckles were turning white because of how tightly he clenched them. His jaw was ticking.

“It’s okay, I got it.” Her voice was unsteady, but we could tell by her tone that she was trying to pull her shit together. Good girl.

“Stell, it’s Creed, honey. You are nearing a really sharp forty-five-degree bend. Blondie, you can’t take that too quick. You will end up rolling. I want you to gear down, and go at it at about fifty. The truck behind you will have to do the same.” Creed’s voice was calm as he told Stella what to do, but he was anything but. I could see the sweat on his brow and the tick of his jaw. And I knew it was taking him back to the darkest day of his life. This wasn’t going to do anything for his PTSD—or any of ours, for that matter. Not even my worst night terror about that night years ago in Afghanistan came close to how helpless I was feeling right now.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Stella cried. Her panic and fear could be felt in the room.

“Honey, you got this. Please, Stella, you have to drive y’all to safety. Please, honey.” Booth tried to calm her. He was on edge, but I was over it. My whole world was in that truck, and they were being terrorised by someone who used to be our friend and on our team.

All I knew was when I found the cunt and finally got my hands on him, I would make him pray for mercy before I tore him apart limb by limb.

“Booth, I—” She didn’t finish, but by the look on Booth’s face, she didn’t have to.

“I know, honey. Now focus, the sharp bend is coming up.”

“Daddy, Daddy, please come get me. Darf, Darf, can you come, too, please,” Shiloh cried. I heard a commotion over the noise of the truck’s engine roaring that I couldn’t quite understand, but it sort of sounded like a…

Oh, God, like a harness being unbuckled.

Jesus, fuck no.

“Shiloh, no,” Charlie yelled.

Darth let out a muffled growl and roared, “Squirt, don’t you fucking dare.”

“Shiloh, baby, no.” My voice cracked. Oh, sweet Jesus, Shiloh was totally in danger of being thrown through the windscreen if Stella had to brake in a hurry. Fuck, how many times had I told her about that shit?

“Charlotte, no, get back in the seat. Don’t take off your belt. Charlotte, what are you doing?” Stella was hysterical.

And I knew why.

Charlie had taken her belt off and was climbing into the back seat to get to Shiloh. I was a hundred or more kilometres away, but I knew in my gut that was what my beautiful woman was doing. She was protecting our daughter with her very life.

“Shiloh, Mummy is coming, baby girl. Sit back, please, baby,” Charlie shouted. Her tone was pleading and agitated. Goddamn, that little girl was going to get a paddling after I kissed and hugged the fuck out of her.

‘Fuck, I gotta get to them,” I implored the whole group. We were just staring at the phone on the table. Creed, Steel, Mannix, Booth, Darth, and me. All formerly trained killers, specialists in many fields, and all of it was utterly useless to us right now.

“Sweetness, fucking hell. Sweetness, Shiloh, put your belts on, please,” I screamed, my words garbled. I could feel wetness on my cheeks as tears ran down my face.

The next noise literally brought me to my knees. It was the sound of a crashing car, and then female screams tortured me. The sound of crunching metal was the last sound before the connection was lost.

Had I just lost my two reasons for breathing? Oh, my God. I was lost.

We were all stunned into silence. All of us were still staring at the phone. Ford was the first one to speak. I hadn’t noticed until then that he was on his phone.

“Deck, I have Lincoln Brand on the way to the scene. He is five minutes from them.” Lincoln was a former drill sergeant we went through commando training with and had retired a few hours from here.

Arms moved around my waist and hauled me up from my knees. I was surprised to look into Darth’s wet eyes. “Our girl and your woman need us, brother.”

“Let’s go. I’ll drive.” Booth was already out the door, heading for the main room. I could hear him yelling orders to Vegas and the prospects.

My mind was all over the place. I just needed to get to where Charlie and Shiloh were. I needed to hold them in my arms.

“Then pull yourself together, Deck, and I will get you there, brother, I promise,” Darth vowed.

Shit, I didn’t know I’d said that aloud.

“Steel, stay here and lock this place down tight. No one in or out. I want two guys on the roof, rifles at the ready. Mannix, lock down the bar and grill and the strip club. Get the dancers and staff home safe. I want Mia and Rainn here. Prospects, stay here. Creed, you and Darth are with us. Steel, get back onto Linc and find out about Dundee.” Booth was in commander mode. He needed to do that to get through it because we really didn’t know what we were going to find when we got to the women.

They’d better be alive because there wasn’t a place that cunt could hide where we wouldn’t find him.

It didn’t take us long to grab my truck and get on the road. Creed and Darth were on their bikes. It was where I wanted to be, too, but my wits just weren’t with me. I couldn’t seem to take my heart out of the situation this time. This time, it was too close to home. This time, my daughter and my fiancée were, what? Hurt? Dead? Strewn all over the fucking road because neither of them had their seatbelts on at the moment of impact? The next hour or so was going to do my head in with all the fucked-up scenarios I was coming up with—so Booth decided to drive, which left me to climb inside my head, a place I really didn’t want to be.

We were only halfway to the scene when Darth’s signal came on to tell us to pull over.

Why the fuck were we stopping? I just wanted to get to the girls.

I watched impatiently as Creed climbed off his bike and hurried to Booth’s window, which he was powering down.

“Gonna take a left half a kilometre down the road. Just got a call from Steel, and the girls are on their way in an ambulance to the local hospital. Linc called and is following them in his car. He said he won’t leave them until we get there.”

I listened to everything Creed was saying, but I didn’t hear the words I wanted to hear.

They. Were. Okay.

“Injuries?” Booth asked, a tiny quiver in his voice. Creed looked down for a second, and his mask slipped just a bit.

“Stella had her belt on, so she isn’t too bad. A few bruises from being hit in the face by the airbag. Plus, she hit her head on the window. Squirt and Charlotte copped it the worst. Linc was a little vague on the details.”

Liar.

He knew but wasn’t telling me. It was too soon for me to know what my girls were going through. I was too far away from them, and losing my shit on the drive was not ideal.

“Are they conscious?” Just give me that at least.

“Yes.” One word. Then he turned and took off towards his bike once again. I noticed Darth stayed on his bike the whole time. Knowing him, he probably didn’t want to know until he got where Squirt and the girls were. Like me, he needed his wits about him. Squirt meant more to him than anyone else in the world.

“Don’t go thinking up shit that ain’t true, Deck. If Squirt was really bad, there was no way Creed would keep that shit to himself. Think on that,” Booth said before powering up his window and pulling back onto the road.

I didn’t talk anymore. I couldn’t. We were both thinking about what was waiting for us at the hospital.

When the hospital finally came into view, less than forty minutes later, I was about ready to spit nails. We pulled up next to Creed and Darth, and I threw myself out of the truck.

By the time we left the compound, the weather had turned, so the poor bastards were probably fucking frozen to the bone. They removed their helmets and were right behind Booth and me as we sprinted our way to the emergency room entrance. As soon as we hit the automatic doors, we clocked Lincoln. He was standing by the security door, obviously waiting for us so he could tell us which direction to go and not have to waste our time at the front desk.

“Creed, Deck, Booth, Darth. Good to see you boys arrived in one piece. Let’s go back this way. Shiloh and Stella are in triage.”

I was on him in a millisecond.

“Where is Charlie?” My heart was beating so fucking hard, it was a wonder no one could actually see my T-shirt moving.

“They took her off for some tests a minute or so ago. Shiloh won’t calm down for Stella since they took Charlotte. Charlotte was feral when they wouldn’t let her take Shiloh with her. Fucking nearly punched a nurse in the face when she told Shiloh to grow up and do as she was told,” Lincoln said with pride. Proud how my woman, my ballet-dancing, non-swearing, softhearted, soft-spoken woman would protect our girl with such ferocity.

I was proud but not surprised. She would die for Shiloh. This was something I knew for certain. Something that very well nearly fucking happened today.

Following Lincoln, he led us to a curtained-off area. Immediately, we heard Shiloh’s pitiful cries and Stella doing her best to comfort her. I pushed my way forward and burst through the curtain first. My eyes searched for my girl. Her tiny little arm was encased in a pink cast, and she had white gauze over her forehead where a small amount of blood seeped through it. My calm was dissolving just looking at her.

“Oh, fuck me. Shiloh.” On the bed and sitting in Stella’s lap was Shiloh, her body tightly wrapped in Stella’s arms. I took my first real breath since this nightmare had started.

“Daddy.” Shiloh sobbed. Her little body was scrambling out of Stella’s hold, desperate to get to me.

But she stopped abruptly, wincing as she did.

“Shit, baby, be careful.”

I hurried over to the bed, then sat at Stella’s feet and carefully took my daughter into my arms.

It was a little awkward. On top of one arm being in a cast, her other had an intravenous drip, containing what I could only assume was a painkiller.

“Shh, Squirt, Daddy is here. It’s okay, baby. It’s okay,” I repeated over and over, soothing not just her but me as well. And my brothers, too, who had crowded into the small cubicle after all of them totally ignored the request of one of the nurses to wait out in the waiting area. Now I thought I remembered hearing Darth mutter a ‘fuck you’ as he made his way right behind me. No force in the universe would keep him from seeing Shiloh for himself.

“Daddy, they won’t let me go wif Mummy.” Her little wails cut straight to my heart. I ran my hand over her curls and held her close to my chest.

“Stella, where did they take Charlie?” For the first time since getting my daughter into my arms, I looked at Stella, and I was taken back by what I saw. I gasped, and I wasn’t the only one. I could hear Booth growling behind me.

“Oh, fuck me, Stella. Honey, are you okay?”

Her face was black and blue. Both eyes were black, and one was swollen shut. Her nose was swollen as was her top lip. A small cut just above her eyebrow had been stitched.

Her eyes were on Booth. He was standing behind Darth, and his face was unreadable to those who didn’t know him, but to those of us who did, he was fucking livid. His whole body was one big ball of tension. His narrowed gaze was honing in on Stella’s battered face. I knew he was blaming himself for this as well.

Giving a slight nod, she winced from the movement.

“I’m fine. Charlotte was hurt the worst. She covered Shiloh with her body and took the brunt of the impact. They took her away a few minutes before you arrived in here. They wouldn’t let Shiloh go with her.”

Taking a much-needed pause, Stella reached out and stroked my little girl’s back.

“You should have heard her, Deck. Charlotte refused to go without Shiloh. She was fighting the nurses and the ER doctors like a real mamma bear.” Her giggle broke some of the tension in the room.

“Daddy, Mummy said a bad word,” Shiloh piped up without her usual enthusiasm, which was partly due to the painkillers they were giving her and partly due to the shock of the day’s events.

Each time someone mentioned Charlie, my heart constricted.

I fucking needed to get to her, needed to put eyes on her. Her voice said those three words I lived for, and I needed to see her and check her injuries for myself.

“Brother, I will go and see what I can find out about Teach,” Darth offered, his eyes moving over Shiloh one more time. His teeth clenched when he scanned her cast.

“No, no, no, Darf. Yous stays wif me, please,” Shiloh protested as soon as Darth made for the curtain.

He turned around and looked at her. “Hey, hey, Squirt, if you don’t want me to go, I won’t, okay? Now calm down, kiddo.” The big man sat down next to me on the small hospital bed, and even though it was a little too cosy, we made it work. Shiloh and keeping her calm was our main focus here. I felt so fucking torn. I didn’t want to leave my daughter, who was obviously distressed, but I needed to find out where my fiancée was.

“Hey, little-bit, it’s okay. Daddy and Darth will stay here with you, and I will go check on your mummy,” Creed said, giving me a chin lift.

“Thank you, Creed. Please, tell her I wanted to be with her.” I stopped myself from saying the rest. I didn’t want Shiloh to feel like she was keeping me from Charlie. And I certainly didn’t want Charlie to think I saw her as my second choice.

“Deck, Charlotte will understand,” Darth said quietly as if he were reading my mind.

In some part of my logical side, I knew that. But after what had happened at the park—leaving and forgetting about her when she was injured and making her walk back to the compound in the dark with a bleeding leg—letting her believe even for a while that I didn’t see her as an important part of my life… Jesus, the very fucking thought made me want to crawl into a ball and weep.

I sat next to Darth on Stella’s hospital bed with Shiloh lying sleepily in my arms while Booth stood by Stella’s head and waited for Creed to see how the other beat of my heart was.