Chapter 23

You don’t have to be crazy to be my friend. It’ll happen on its own…just give it time.

-Wolf’s secret thoughts

Wolf

“You can’t go!” Hannah cried. “You’ve got a gunshot wound to your head!”

I pushed off the gurney where I’d been placed when I passed out, and stood up on my own two feet.

“What’s going on?” Peek asked.

“Fry’s at my place. With Raven and Nathan.”

The entire room went wired at the mention of that.

“Where’s Mig?” Peek asked.

I shook my head.

“I’m afraid to ask,” I admitted.

Core appeared and gestured to me, and I took the moment of confusion between everyone to slip out past Hannah, who was arguing with Griffin and Peek.

Peek followed me with Griffin following him.

Core and Casten were somewhere behind them, and together as a unit, we exited the diner and made our way to Core’s boat which was brought around by one of the police officers.

With my heart in my throat, we made our way as fast as Core’s boat would take us to where we’d left our vehicles.

My heart was pounding a million miles an hour and not just because of the blood loss.

My cell phone rang, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw who was calling.

“Raven.”

I woke up, heart pounding as I relived my worst nightmare. Again.

“Raven!” I cried. “Nathan!”

“Shhh,” Peek said, his Irish brogue causing me to turn my head to the side to see him.

He looked banged up as hell, and there was something wrong with his right arm.

My eyes slid down the sling to the neon green cast that was encasing his arm.

“What the fuck?” I breathed, voice raw.

It felt like I’d smoked a pack of cigarettes, and all I could smell was smoke.

My head was pounding, and I was fairly sure I couldn’t feel my feet.

Was it normal to feel like you were floating?

Peek reached forward and pressed a red button beside my bed, and sweet soothing relief started to flow through me.

“They’re okay,” Peek said softly. “Everyone is okay.”

My eyes closed.

“Okay,” I said. “Fucking great.”

My eyes closed of their own volition

***

Raven

I swallowed as I looked in on Nancy, smiling as she talked softly to her grandson about why her eye was black.

“That horse just jumped up and caught me good, right in the noggin,” she said to him.

I backed out of the room, thankful that she was okay, and waved at her granddaughter as I left.

Her granddaughter waved back, and I closed the door firmly before rounding the corner and heading to the next room.

I was making my rounds.

Six of the seven members of The Uncertain Saints MC were in the hospital, and five of them had been admitted.

Peek and Mig being the only two who weren’t occupying a hospital bed, five rooms in a row.

Then there were Nancy and Xavier, although they weren’t Uncertain Saints, who were also occupying the same floor.

It was like a fuckin’ reunion for the sickly.

“Everything okay?” I asked Annie, who was standing outside Xavier’s room.

“Yes,” she breathed. “How about yours?”

I nodded my head. “Wolf’s still in and out. Nancy is awake and talking. Apparently, she never saw a thing that happened. She woke up on the floor with her granddaughter standing over her.”

Annie breathed out roughly. “Xavier told us that he got an email from his father, except it wasn’t his father, it was Agent Fry sending him a picture of his father who was dead.”

“Goddammit” I growled. “That guy needs to fucking die.”

Annie nodded her head in agreement. “Peek was released and is in Wolf’s room from last I heard,” she said. “And the rest of the ladies are in the rooms with their men. All have received the green light that they can go home after they’re sure the concussions haven’t done any damage.”

My head dropped and I rubbed the back of my neck.

“My brother’s about two seconds away from checking himself out AMA,” I said. “Against medical advisement. Seriously. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”

“There’s nothing wrong with him,” my brother said from behind me, dressed in street clothes that I had no earthly idea how he got by himself when he could barely stand up straight.”

All of the men had concussions. All had at least one broken bone. Wolf, however, being the hero of the group, had the worst of all the injuries.

He had a broken arm to match my broken arm. He had a broken tibia. Seven broken ribs. Burns on twenty percent of his body. A concussion. A shot to the head that they were watching closely. Gunshot wounds to his belly. Oh, and he had a kidney injury that they were watching closely due to a concussion blast when the grenade went off.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked him, putting myself between him and Annie, which also happened to be me putting myself between him and the exit of the floor.

“I’m going down to the county jail.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I’m looking to make a better acquaintance with ex-agent Josh Fry.”

I grinned.

“You won’t find him at the jail,” I said. “Mig got to him before the cops could. Said it was his jurisdiction, and that was that.”

“Hmmm,” Raphael said, grin getting larger. “That’s too bad for him.”

“I need your help.”

My brother, surprised that I was willingly asking him for anything, turned to face me fully.

“Anything.”

“If you’re bound and determined to see him, I have a favor.” I looked over at Annie, then back to Raphael. “I need a ride to where they’re holding him.”

***

I can’t say that the next two hours were among my finest moments.

In fact, I would say they were some of the darkest moments in my life.

Once we’d arrived at the clubhouse, Raphael had worked his magic and got me time with the Uncertain Saints prisoner.

Mig hadn’t been willing to give it to me at first, but when Peek showed up two minutes after we’d arrived and told Mig to allow me to have the time, he’d done it. Albeit unwillingly.

And I say prisoner lightly.

He was in the kitchen of the houseboat, plastic sheeting underneath his feet as he sat tied with his hands behind his back.

“Get him up for me. Put him in the seat so I don’t have to bend down to see his eyes,” I swallowed. “And then leave.”

“Raven…” Raphael hesitated. “You know I can’t do that.”

I raised an eyebrow at him.

“Sure you can,” I said. “All you have to do is put him there, and leave. Easy peasy.”

He shook his head. “Wolf would literally kill me.”

I smiled at him.

“If you do this for me, I’ll forgive you. I’ll let you back into my life. I’ll stop ignoring your calls and texts. Everything you always wanted. Just do this one thing for me,” I said pleadingly, knowing he’d do it.

Raphael looked at me, contemplated it for point two five seconds, and then grabbed Josh Fry by his throat, and immediately punched him in the head to knock him out.

My brother’s anger and pain seemed to be exponentially larger than I’d thought, and I idly wondered if I should let him stay and witness what I was about to do.

The ex-agent fell to the floor, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

Once he’d strapped him down to the table, his hands above it and the rest of him securely tied to a chair that was bolted to the floor, he left the room.

I knew he wouldn’t go far.

In fact, he was probably watching me.

Raphael tied his arms with a scratchy rope to the table by a loop that was welded in the very middle.

His feet were next, only these were attached to the metal chair itself by a pair of manacles that’d been welded to it.

His head lolled, and I smiled at Raphael to let him know I’d be alright.

“Thank you. You can go.”

Raphael clearly didn’t want to leave me, but with one look in my eyes, he did so.

“Yell if you need me,” he said, and then made his way out of the room before closing the door.

It took ten minutes for Fry to regain consciousness, and in those ten minutes, I’d gathered my supplies.

A groan from behind me had me turning to survey the man.

His eyes trained on me, and it took everything in me not to punch the man’s face in.

“What did you think?” I asked the man in front of me. “Did you think that I would just forget that you touched my kid? One who’d done nothing wrong, who was just the child of the man you perceived as a threat to your fucking livelihood?” I stepped forward. “I saw the marks on his chest when I took him to the hospital. Bruises on his ribs from where you kicked him before my brother could stop you.”

The man, now ex-agent Josh Fry, sneered at me.

“When the police come, you’re going to go to jail for what you’re doing.”

He knew just as well as I that this wasn’t protocol. The law was looking for him, undoubtedly.

“Yeah,” I agreed. He was likely right. Would that change what I was about to do? Fuck no. “My brother’s been with you for months now. Did you know that?”

“Not until tonight, no,” Fry said. “But I knew he wasn’t right when he wouldn’t fuck the merchandise, which should’ve been my first clue that something wasn’t right.” He grinned. “I used to show him pictures of me fucking the women. Some as young as fourteen.”

I don’t know what came over me.

One second I was staring at the man in front of me who was giving every detail of his last eight years, how he sold hundreds of women to men that purchased them to be used as slaves, and the next I just snapped.

The cleaver that I was sure was for decoration rather than actual use was mounted on the wall over the kitchen sink.

The moment I grabbed it, my body became numb.

Taking the cleaver over to the man—no, filthy scum because the man didn’t deserve the title of a man—I reared back, cleaver in hand, and brought it down over the man’s tied hands.

It imbedded in his flesh, went all the way to the metal table, and stopped.

Dropping the clever on the table while Fry screamed, I looked at him dispassionately as the door to the room opened.

“Let’s see how well you can touch people who don’t want your touch with no fuckin’ hands.”

With that parting comment, I rushed out of the room, past my brother, and straight to the back door.

I made it all the way to the side of the boat before I lost my lunch.