Chapter 14

It hurts because it matters.
– John Green

Tex

I wake up to a strong stinging pain in my side, it radiates from the front right of my stomach and spreads into my back. I try to turn, but it’s no use. I’m not able. I fight it, hating how weak I feel in this moment. I turn my face to the left and look around me, seeing Roxy laying on the bed curled into a ball next to me. We’re in a bedroom, or what looks to be one. We both lay on a massive sized bed, a king if I had to guess. The sun shines in through the curtains, the walls a dark shade of blue. Dark brown oak furniture covers the room, a dresser and then a vanity over on the far wall.

Right about now I’m wondering where the hell she took us, and then it hits me – we have to be at her brother’s club. It’s the only place she would have thought to go, and from the looks of it, it’s a good thing that we’re here.

She rolls over, hitting my side and jolts up, her face turns into pure fear. “Oh, my god! Are you okay?!”

I snake my arm around her and try to pull her closer to me, showing her I’m perfectly fine, but when I go to pull her I strain myself, the pain becoming sharp like a dagger.

“No, no. Stop, don’t hurt yourself,” she murmurs, scooting closer to me, concern laced through her voice.

I scan my eyes over her body, checking to make sure that she’s alright. “What happened?”

“The short version? After you were shot, I drove us here, kind of fast. Lloyd has a doc on payroll with the club, and she patched you up. You lost a lot of blood, had to have a couple transfusions, and you’ve been out of it for a few days. The bullet went through which was good, but you have to take it easy…”

“I’m not gonna stay in this bed forever, firefly.” I won’t. She knows me better than to sit down and get waited on hand and foot.

“You are, ‘cause you know that the second you get up off this bed without allowing your body to heal, I will be terrified beyond belief. Please, it’s only been a few days… we’ve both been through a lot… you need to rest. Please, just do this for me.” And just like that, she’s got me hooked. Rox knows I’ll do just about anything for her, including bowing down and sitting my ass in this bed for a few more days.

“Four days. It’s all you’re getting, take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it, and I’ll take this too.” She leans over me, careful to place her hands on the bed and not my body. She meets her lips against mine, kissing me slowly, passionately in a way that I’ve never kissed any other woman before. I snake my hand up her back, grabbing the back of her neck and hold her in place, getting everything I want out of her. She tastes like cotton candy, vibrant and sinfully sweet.

She moans into our kiss. Right about now I hate how any time I try to move pain shoots through my body like a raging inferno. There are so many things I want to do to this woman, and I’ve already had to wait for far too long. I don’t want to wait any longer, it’s pure torture. She was supposed to be mine years ago, and now I finally have her back in my grasp, right where she’s always belonged.

“We can’t.”

“I fucking know,” I grumble, skimming my hand from the back of her neck down to her perfectly sculpted ass. I give her a good squeeze, holding what’s mine – what she knows is mine.

“Mmmm.”

A knock to the door makes her jump, almost to where she falls straight on top of me. She hops off the bed while I put my arms under me and pull myself up so I’m sitting, pain expanding through my body yet again.

The door opens, and in comes three men, two of them look undeniably similar to Rox. Each of them shares the same medium shade of brown hair but have small differences in their eyes. The men have a light shade of blue where Rox has dark chocolatey brown. “These are my brothers, Lloyd AKA Fist, George AKA Cracker, and this is their Dad, Boone.” Rox points to the taller brother, showing me who is who. The first one is Fist and the muscle packed one is Cracker. Boone is the last man standing with a long white beard that goes down to the bottom of his stomach.

Each man meets my eyes, offering a nod as a greeting. “It’s nice to meet you all. I do wish the circumstances were a bit different, though.”

“Damn straight, you two brought a helluva mess up here,” Fist tells me.

I nod. There’s no denying it. Honestly, he’s being easy on us. We brought a fucking war. After being alongside Rage for years I know what he’s capable of, and I understand how his mind works. He will do everything that he can to hurt us. There are no lines that he will not cross. Anything is fair game at this point.

Roxy starts to shake, tears slide over her cheeks. I try to get up from the bed and fail yet again. Fuck, Rage did a number on me. I’ve been shot a couple of times when club business went south, but never did my body need this long to heal. Usually after a day or two I just bit my lip and dealt with business, but all the other times they were flesh wounds. This did a hell of a lot more than just go through flesh, I hardly even noticed the one that hit my leg.

“What’s been going down since I’ve been out?” I look to Boone first, assuming he’s in charge but quickly remember the Reapers aren’t his club anymore. He’s handed the gavel down to Fist, and now he runs the show.

“Rage has been fucking shit up per usual. Rumor has it he’s got some shit going down in the South with the Sons of Gods. Not really sure what he’s trying to get at, though.”

Roxy’s head pipes up. “Oh my god, you have to get a message to Zeus.” Zeus is the Prez of the Sons of Gods, he wasn’t an ally to the Demons of Hell, but I have a feeling he’s in it good with the Reapers. “One of the other charter Prez’s knows his wife’s routine, there was talk about going after her and the kids. Something was said about their daycare, please Lloyd, you gotta tell him. If something happens to those two baby girls he has…”

“Consider it done. Crack, go call up Zeus and tell him what we’ve learned.” Cracker exits the room on command, leaving us with Boone and Fist.

“From the sounds of it, you’ve been the one to watch out for my sister,” Fist tells me.

“She gives me more credit than what’s due.” I wasn’t there for her enough. I’ve failed her in more ways than I can count, but I will promise her one thing; I will never let her down ever again.

“I don’t really give a fuck how you ended up here or what you let him get away with. Point is, you’re the reason she’s here today, and I gotta thank you for that. She needed a wakeup call, and I’m not really sure what you did, but you got her here. I worried every day if I was going to hear about her being killed. You know how much it pissed me off that I couldn’t just go down and get her? How much it tore me apart knowing that my selfish need to take my sister from that monstrosity of a man would get most of my club killed? It fucked with my head, man. I couldn’t make the decision to go down and take her from him, but her coming here on her own opens up the playing field. Her running from him changes things. It means I have a right, as her brother, as her Prez. I have a vow to protect every Reaper, and a Reaper she sure as fuck is. Same blood that runs through my veins runs through hers. Rage can try as much as he wants, but no way in hell is that motherfucker going to make it here alive. So, I’ll ask you both this, who do you stand with, the Demons of Hell, or the Reapers?”

Roxy and I look at each other, speaking at the exact same time. There is no doubt in our minds. “The Reapers.”

“Good. We’ve got some shit we need to discuss later. Our bylaws are a lot different than that stupid fucking code y’all have down South. We’ll make things legitimate, and we protect our own. For now, rest, we can wait a couple days before we have to go into the nitty gritty.”

“Thank you,” Roxy says to her brother.

“Don’t thank him yet, cupcake. You two haven’t heard the bylaws.” Boone cackles, smacking Fist on the back. Fist walks out through the doorway, and Boone is left alone in the room with us for only a moment.

“I hope you two are ready to get branded.”