Chapter Thirty-One
Mama’s Boy
Kingston
Forty was absolutely distraught. Our sergeant at arms, D-Man and my brother’s uncle, Preach held him back when the police caught up with Kennedy. The man wasn’t to be deterred, and by the time they were done wrestling with him, he’d bitten Preach.
The disbelief in the old man’s eyes while he stood behind them massaging his fingers and staring at Forty was comical.
“We’re going to handle this,” D-man repeated.
“Don’t worry about nothing, brother,” my dad agreed, “They’re just gonna take her for a nerve pill or something. Kingston will go up there now and make sure that’s all it comes down to.”
He shot me a look and I nodded. I took the club van, and prayed she would be well medicated.
I could feel the somberness written across my face, but it wasn’t because of Paxton Kohl. It was because I hated being right. My brother was a fucking traitor to our family.
My father could blame it on Roy’s soft-hearted mother all he wanted. It wasn’t Penny’s fault her son was a bitch.
I’d heard Roy shouting at her during Forty’s phone call.
He was at her house. And he’d known exactly when to show up to save his little girlfriend, which could only mean she'd been there with him all along.
I blew out a restrained breath and parked at the hospital. I waited thirty minutes, and started toward the front desk.
“What are you here to be seen for today?” a woman asked, without taking her eyes off her computer screen.
“I’m not,” I poured every ounce of charm into my tone. “I’m sorry. I’m Kingston, my wife, Kennedy Crowe was brought up here for a disturbance. I was at work, but the father-in-law told me her brother died and she must have had a nervous breakdown or something?”
She stopped everything and nodded like she knew just which patient I was referring to. Without another word, she moved to the hallway. Something buzzed and the big doors swung open.
“This way.” She smiled, walking me down to the room with a county officer standing outside.
“Your wife is sedated right now. Doctor has given her an Ativan injection to help her rest. He is going to send three tablets with her, and I understand the officer will let her go once she has a sound driver.
The man in the uniform nodded, and I was never happier to have made contact with a rookie. I’d never laid eyes on him, which meant he had no idea that I was lying through my teeth.
“Great, I’d really like to get her home and in bed before she has a chance to get wound up again…”
“It’s probably best, take advantage of the medication while you can. Let me check with the doctor and see if we can’t move her discharge along a little. Poor thing.”
She moved along, and so did the cop, after giving me a parting nod.
I didn’t think it would be that easy, but within twenty minutes, I’d loaded her into the passenger seat and strapped her seatbelt across her lap.
I didn’t plan on any pit stops, but when the highway appeared, I found myself turning in the direction of Penny’s house.
She didn’t come out to greet me, instead she glared out of her window, until she saw me wrestling Kennedy out of the van. She disappeared, and I lugged Kennedy toward the front door as quickly as I could.
It wasn’t easy, she started to become more conscious as we neared the entrance and squirmed against my side. Her displeasure was clear, even if her words weren’t.
The door opened, and Penny froze in the threshold.
“What did you do to her?” she demanded.
I innocently shrugged, “I just fetched her from the hospital and brought her here. Didn’t do anything to her.”
Her gaze narrowed and she reached for Kennedy like we were about to exchange a bomb. Kennedy lurched toward her when she tugged, causing Penny to nearly lose her balance.
The minute she regained it, I pulled my pistol out and hugged the trigger. Kennedy sucked in a breath and froze; her face covered in Roy’s mother’s blood.
I tsked and reached out to smear a bit of it across her pretty face, “Don’t panic yet, darlin’. We’re just getting started here.”
I shot my hand up and gripped her throat, snuffing her scream before it could erupt, “This is the price. Your loyalty to me, for his life. We’ll let him walk, but you have to come and acknowledge the change of power.”
I shoved her away from me and started back toward the van.
She was reeling through a fog of benzodiazepines; I watched it play out from the driver’s seat. Her blood speckled face and wild, roaming gaze were worth the bullet I’d wasted on Penny.
She kept looking around like she’d lost every ounce of wit she’d once possessed, when her gaze crawled toward the van and she began to stumble toward me I got all warm and tingly inside.