Chapter 21
CATCHER
My hand is wrapped so tightly around Robby’s throat that I can feel his pulse hammering against my palm. His fingers claw at my wrist, nails biting into my skin, but he isn’t strong enough to move me, isn’t even close.
“Catcher—” Ruby’s voice is rough from everything she’s survived in the last twenty-four hours, but hearing it still hits me square in the chest, hard enough to make something violent twist deeper inside me.
Robby wheezes beneath my grip.
“You got a fuckin’ death wish?” I growl, leaning closer until he’s forced to look me in the eye. “Showin’ up here after what those motherfuckers lookin’ for your ass did to her?”
His face is already turning red. Good. Maybe I should squeeze harder, finish this right now, and save everybody the trouble.
His mouth opens, but only a strangled sound comes out because my grip is crushing his windpipe against the wall.
Behind me, I hear the faint metallic clink of Ruby’s IV line shifting.
“Catcher,” she says again, sharper this time despite the weakness underneath it. “Stop.”
I don’t, not right away. Every time I look at him, I think about Ruby crumpled in that parking lot and our baby. And this worthless son of a bitch standing in front of me is the reason she’s carrying fear and bruises instead of peace.
Robby finally manages to choke out, “I came to apologize.”
The words snap something ugly loose in me. I shove him harder into the wall. The impact rattles the doorframe. “You came because nobody else would take you in,” I snap. “Don’t stand in front of her, actin’ like guilt brought you here. Fear did.”
The second he looks at his sister, my grip tightens again on instinct alone, pure animal reaction flooding my system so fast my vision edges darken.
“Catcher!” Ruby’s voice cracks through the room.
I drag in a slow breath through my nose and force my hand to ease before I crush his damn throat in front of her.
Robby coughs violently, sucking in broken breaths.
Ruby shifts carefully in the hospital bed, pain flashing across her face before she masks it. Even bruised and exhausted, she’s still trying to hold herself together, still trying to protect people who don’t deserve it.
I reach into my pocket with my free hand, pull out my phone, and toss it onto the bed beside her. “Call Riggs.”
Robby goes still beneath my grip. “Wait!”
I slam him back into the wall hard enough that his teeth snap together. “Shut the fuck up.”
Ruby stares at the phone for half a second before looking back at me.
The room feels too small.
The monitor beside her bed keeps beeping steadily, but every sound feels distant under the pounding in my skull.
“Last call,” I tell her. “His number’s there.”
Her fingers curl around the phone slowly. She knows once Riggs steps into this room, the line between her family mess and club business disappears completely. But she also knows we’re past pretending this shit can still be handled quietly.
Ruby swallows hard but hits the call button anyway. Her voice is soft, shaky around the edges. “Catcher needs you.”
That’s all she has to say.
Robby squirms. “You don’t understand—”
“I understand enough,” I cut in coldly. “Men put their hands on her because of you.”
Silence stretches heavy afterward, except for Robby struggling to breathe and the hum of fluorescent hospital lights overhead. He smells like sweat, cigarettes. His throat works beneath my hand, “She’s my sister. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
His words hit wrong.
If she matters that much to him, why has she spent the last year drowning because of his choices? Why is she stuffing overdue bills into kitchen drawers? Why is she the one lying in a hospital bed?
The hospital room door opens. Riggs walks in first, and Nova is right behind him. Their eyes sweep the room once and take in everything exactly as it is—Ruby upset in the bed, me with Robby pinned against the wall, and tension choking the air thick enough to taste it.
Riggs’ gaze settles on my hand around Robby’s throat. “Let him breathe.”
I don’t loosen my grip right away.
I don’t want to.
Then Ruby inhales softly behind me, and that sound cuts through deeper than Riggs’ order. So, I ease enough for Robby to suck in air without letting him go completely.
He coughs hard, eyes watering.
Nova shuts the door quietly behind him and leans against it, arms crossed, watching Robby as if he’s already deciding how many pieces the man would break into under pressure.
Riggs studies Robby for one long second before speaking. “You’re walkin’ outta this hospital with us.”
Robby’s face drains.
Ruby closes her eyes briefly, because she already knew this was coming, the second I tossed her the phone.
“Catcher…” she whispers.
“Babe…” I say carefully, “… we need answers.”
“He’s still my brother.”
Robby’s eyes shut hard for a second, like the words hurt worse than my grip did.
I feel nothing for him.
But I feel every damn crack in her voice.
Riggs weighs in. “Then he should’ve remembered he was your brother before he handed your life over to monsters.”
Silence settles heavily.
Nobody argues because there’s no argument to make.
Robby finally looks at me again. Fear sits plain in his eyes now. Good. He should be terrified. “You don’t understand who these people are,” he says quietly.
I lean closer. “Then when you get to where we are goin’, you better start talkin’.”
The energy shifts the second club business locks into place, and everybody in the room feels it, Ruby, especially.
I can see it in the way her shoulders tighten against the bed, and her fingers curl tighter around the blanket, even while exhaustion drags at her face.
She knows what the Kings are capable of.
Still, she looks at Robby as though she’s searching for some last piece of the brother she remembers.
That’s what kills me about her.
Even if a person is broken, she still loves too hard.
“Please don’t hurt him,” she says softly.
Nova lets out a low breath through his nose.
Riggs stays steady. “That depends on how honest he decides to be.”
Ruby’s eyes come back to me, and the look in them damn near guts me—fear, trust, confusion, and something deeper.
It hits hard enough to feel like a wound opening in my chest, because every time she looks at me, I feel myself slipping further into something I can’t stop and sure as hell don’t know how to survive.
I grab my phone from the bed and slide it back into my pocket. “I’ll come back for you.”
Ruby’s throat works. “Okay,” she whispers.
I lean down, careful of the IV line and bruises, and press my mouth to her forehead like I’m trying to leave something of myself there. Something that’ll stay with her until I get back. “Rest, babe.”
Her eyes close briefly, and I straighten before leaving gets harder.
Nova shoves Robby toward the door.
Riggs pauses long enough to look at Ruby one more time. “You got brothers downstairs, sweetheart. Nobody gets near you.”
She weakly nods, and then we leave.
In the hallway outside the nurses move fast behind rolling carts while fluorescent lights buzz overhead. Normal hospital noise, normal day, only nothing about today feels normal anymore.
Nova keeps Robby moving down the corridor while Riggs walks beside him, silent as death. I trail behind them, ribs aching with every step, head still pounding.
Robby keeps glancing at me, then cutting himself off halfway like he realizes eye contact might get him killed faster. It’s the smartest thing he’s done so far.
When the elevator doors open into the lobby, I spot the rest of the club right away—Everest by the front windows, Wick and Fender in chairs, and Kiwi by the coffee kiosk. The women are there too. Every single one of them looks up the second we step out.
Tension thickens.
Riggs jerks his chin toward the exit, and the rest of the men follow.
We move through the lobby together, boots thudding against polished floors while people stare and then look away the second they clock the cuts on our backs.
Outside, Louisiana heat slams into my skin, thick and humid like breathing through a wet cloth.
Once outside, Riggs turns to Everest. “Ride to the clubhouse and get the van.” He then turns to Kiwi.
“Tag along. We don’t travel alone.” Riggs shifts his attention to Wick.
“Kiwi stays with you after he gets back. No one walks in or out of this place or around our women without you knowin’ about it. ”
“You got it, brother.” Wick nods.
“Where are you taking me?” Robby asks, his voice shaky.
Nobody answers. I pull a cigarette from my pocket, light it, and drag smoke deep into my lungs while I watch him silently come apart. He keeps scanning the parking lot—twitchy, paranoid, scared, as if he expects somebody else to step out of the dark.
His paranoia infects the rest of us, making every movement around us suspect.
I exhale smoke slowly and stare straight through him without saying a word, because if I open my mouth right now, all that will come out will be violence.
It’s taking everything in me to keep my hands off him and not make him feel a fraction of what Ruby already has.
Everest pulls up, Kiwi right behind him on his bike.
Everest steps around the van door and opens the back.
Nova shoves Robby inside. Riggs climbs in behind him.
I flick my cigarette to the pavement, grind it under my boot, and follow.
The door slams shut, and a few seconds later, we’re rolling away from the hospital.
Nobody talks during the drive.
The van hums low beneath us while New Orleans slides by outside. Robby sits across from me, trying not to shake. Every time he looks up and catches one of us watching him, he looks like he’s about to vomit.
The closer we get to the clubhouse, the heavier the silence becomes.
By the time Everest turns down the gravel driveway leading toward Kings’ property, Robby looks ready to crawl out of his own skin. Everest doesn’t stop near the main entrance.