Pulling the bottle pieces from her neck, blood squirts like a hose that has sprung a fucking leak. Her eyes have closed and a puddle is already forming at our feet. The liquid claret of her life is leaking all over me and the stench of blood permeates the air. My little sister is sobbing in Scorch’s arms, and Brenner is glaring at him like he’s going to kill him. Well, fuck you, motherfucker. I’m going to kill you.
Avery’s scream is otherworldly and pierces me right through the heart.
Fucking Brenner.
The door to the Prez’s office opens and he spills out with two Cutters brothers behind him. “What the fuck is going on…?” His words halt when he sees the body of Jenna dead in my arms. His eyes drop to my wife hyperventilating on the floor, Kiwi by her side, holding her. Avery is clinging to her.
“Ain’t that Brig’s girl?” one of the Cutters asks, staring right at Avery.
“This shit’s fucked up.” Gears shakes his head, rubbing a hand over his mouth.
Prez points at Jenna and growls. “What the fuck is she doing in my club, bleeding to death?” My old man ignores the Cutters brother and asks me instead.
“Ask your other son,” I answer, desperate to get my hands on him.
“Fucking hell, Brenner. When are you going to stop being a fuck up?” Prez growls.
Brenner pulls a pistol from the back of his jeans and I drop the girl to pull out my own.
“What the fuck?” Bullseye grunts, and Gears has his hands in the air, shaking his head between Brenner and his Prez.
Pop. Pop.
The two Cutters brothers fall to the floor and everyone yells. Gears actually fucking ducks.
“What the hell?” Prez bellows, his eyes wide on Brenner.
“They got their cell phones out. We couldn’t risk them telling their Prez, right?” He glares over to Avery. “We should just get rid of her too and tell Brig these two took her and ran.”
He slides his gun into Avery’s line of sight and I find my feet, marching to come toe to toe with him, my gun resting against his temple.
“Slade! Brenner!” Rhiannon screeches, pulling from Scorch’s hold.
“Put your fucking gun away before I do this entire club a favor and take you to ground!” I bark.
“Slade,” our father warns.
“You would really choose that Cutters whore over your own flesh and blood?”
The atmosphere in the room is dark and thick, and everyone is standing on a knife’s edge. Everything has just changed in this room. Brenner killed two Cutters brothers here on business, and I’m threatening to kill him over a woman who has now passed out in Kiwi’s arms, the shock too much for her body to handle.
Silence hangs in the air until a chirping rings out and Scorch pats down his body and brings his cell to his ear.
“Not a good time, brother.” He hangs up.
“Frost.” Scorch frowns. “That was Echo. Something’s wrong.”
He’s holding up his cell phone and Brenner’s eyes dart to the corner of the room where Buzz is standing next to Rhiannon, who is covering her face with her hands.
“Lower your weapons. Now,” Prez orders. “Slade, take Avery to your room and then go see to Marie and Echo. Take Scorch. Buzz, get my daughter in my office now, and Brenner and Gears, you help me move these bodies.”
Everyone’s tense postures relax as Brenner and I lower our guns at the same time, our eyes locked, and then we do as we’re told.
Avery looks up at me with her beautiful but heartbroken eyes when I lay her on the bed. “I hate that I have to leave you,” I whisper, the ache in my heart speaking for me.
Her small hiccups obscure her words, but I understand them.
“Stay safe, Slade.”
Pressing a kiss to her forehead, I whisper, “Stay strong, my beautiful girl.”
She curls up and turns over, each distraught sob a knife to my soul. “Kiwi, look after her.”
She nods, for the first time her crassness subdued by her sadness for Avery. “I promise, Frost.”
I look down at my blood-soaked clothes and sigh. Pulling a fresh shirt from the dresser and taking one last look at Avery, I quietly close the door behind me.
I pull Bullseye over before I leave the clubhouse and ask him to stay here and stand guard, and if Brenner goes near my room, to shoot him in the leg.
Pulling the keys from the engine, I hop off my bike and head toward the motel room Echo has held Marie in until I can question her some more over Stormy’s stabbing. Scorch brought the truck so we can move locations if she’s not cooperative. He’s parking it around the back, but I need to get back to Avery ASAP and don’t wait for him.
Anxiety flashes though me when, on approaching the door, I find it slightly ajar.
“Echo?”
Silence and darkness greets me and I reach for the knife stashed in the back of my jeans.
“Echo? Marie?”
Feeling for the switch, I flick the lights on and stumble back at what meets me.
Marie is slumped against the bottom of the wall. A single gunshot to her forehead explains the splatters of blood on the wall behind her. It’s then I notice the slight bulge of her stomach and sickness stirs. She is–was–pregnant. Who shoots a fucking pregnant woman?
My eyes hastily scan the room in search of Echo.
“Shit!” I hiss, when I spot him on the floor behind the small bed, clutching his stomach in effort to stop the blood pouring from the two stab wounds to his chest.
“Man!” I rip the sheet from the bed and tear it into strips, winding them around him, endeavoring to stem the flow.
“Frost.” He voice is quiet and gruff, the pain he’s in making him breathe funny after trying to say my name.
“Shh,” I order. “Don’t try and talk.”
Scorch appears and hisses. “Fuck. I shouldn’t have left them.”
“If you hadn’t, you’d be lying here too,” I say, grateful for once for the affection he offers my sister.
“Your… your.” Echo gargles. Blood stains his lips; he isn’t going to be breathing when he leaves this room. He’s only twenty-three years old. A good brother. He grabs at me, digging his fingers into my wrist to push through the pain. “Brenner…” He gasps. “Bren and Tats….”
The blood in my veins freezes when I get the gist of what he’s trying to say. Saliva evaporates and the roof of my mouth sticks to my tongue, making it difficult to form words. “They did this?”
He half nods, his eyes closing.
“Stay awake for me, man. Stay awake.”
“I can’t,” he whispers as his eyes close fully and his chest stops rising and falling.
Attempting CPR is hopeless. I’m too late. My brother has gone.
“Jesus. Fuck. FUCK!”
“Why would Brenner want Marie dead?” Scorch asks the million dollar fucking question.
Pacing the room, I grab at my hair. “What the fuck?” I repeat over and over as the rampant thoughts in my head drive me crazy.
Surely Brenner wouldn’t have stooped to this, to killing one of his own brothers?
Except, it’s the knowledge that he would do this that has me slumping on the bed in defeat. “You’ve gone too far this time, motherfucker!”
“We need to clean this up, Frost. Contain it.”
I need to get this mess cleaned up as quickly as possible, but it will take hours. Hours away from Avery.
“I’ll stay.” Scorch nods his head, reading my mind. “You go back to your old lady and send Bullseye or Gears to help me.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Go.”
Getting up from the bed, I slap Scorch on the back and creep out of the room. I’m just about to call Prez when I spot the three cops circling my bike.
Can this shit get any worse?
“This yours?” one of them asks when I approach. The way he puffs out his broad chest notifies me that he’s gonna be trouble.
“Yup. Got papers. You need to see them?” I’m trying to keep calm but the gruesome image I know is in the room behind me is making my heart go crazy. Glad of the hot day, I pray they’ll assume the beads of sweat rolling down my face are because of the heat.
“License?”
Pulling it from my wallet, I hand it over. He inspects it and shows it to the other officer.
“Walker.” One of them nods, saying my name. “You do know it’s an offense to ride without headlights?”
I frown in confusion, glancing at my lights. “Yeah, I know. Nothin’ wrong with my lights.”
“You sure about that?” He smirks at me before smashing my headlight with his baton.
“What the fuck?” I step forward but the restriction of the other two cops grabbing hold of me stops me from tearing the motherfucker’s face off.
Sighing, dramatically when I struggle, the prick of a cop who busted my lights tuts at me. “And now resisting arrest. Gonna have to take you in!”
“What the fuck? You crazy motherfucker!”
I’m strong, but I ain’t no match for three heavyset cops as they bundle me in the back of the car. There’s only one consolation to this predicament; the fact that their vendetta against me kept them out of that motel room.