Chapter 9 Grave
GRAVE
My cock was aching with the want for release as we pulled up into her damn driveway.
I felt every single stroke of her hands.
I felt the way her fingertips explored my body.
I felt each hot-blooded kiss she placed into the crook of my back.
Between the muscles that twitched for her and were dedicated to keeping her safe.
It was like she couldn’t control herself.
Like she had been trying to for so long and was no longer strong enough to fight the pull between us.
I had sped like a demon through town, trying to quell the urge to pull over, slam her against an alleyway wall, and take her right fucking there.
I clenched my jaw to keep it from quivering as my eyes scanned her property.
No one was watching us, which meant Everly could get what she came for.
“We need to make this quick,” I said as I slid off my bike.
“I know,” she said. “I’ll be as fast as I can. I want to take a look around and make sure I won’t need anything else.”
“Ten minutes, tops.”
Even though there was no one in sight, I still felt as if we were being watched.
I helped Everly step over the splintered piece of wood that had been her front door and that shit made me nervous.
Her house had been more than vulnerable for an almost forty-eight-hour period.
So, I took my phone out and sent Diesel a message.
I told him where we were and what we were doing, and I told him that if he didn’t hear from me in ten minutes that everyone needed to get to Everly’s house.
Then I sent her address off into the ethers.
Everly walked down the hallway with tears in her eyes.
But I was looking at everything else. The pictures.
The television set. The carpet. The walls.
I was making sure there wasn’t any possible sign that someone was inside the house waiting for her.
No signs of any trap that had been set that would alert anyone to the fact that we were here.
I stood in the doorway of her bedroom while she gathered a few things in a bag, then I escorted her to the bathroom so she could get what she had come for.
But then, I heard a sound.
A small rustling sound outside.
“Come on, Everly. We gotta go,” I said.
“I can’t find my medication. Hold on. I think I know where it is.”
“We don’t have time. We have to go,” I said.
“It’ll only take a second. I think it’s in the kitchen.”
“Everly, you’re not listening.”
“And neither are you. All I have to do is check the kitchen. That’s it. Okay?”
She pushed past me and strode down the hallway, rounding the corner before I could get to her. I ran after her, my heart slamming against my chest. If there was one thing I knew about my line of work, it was to never go against my gut.
And my gut was screaming for us to leave.
“Everly, we’ll get you some more medication somewhere. But we have to-”
“Grave!”
I came around the corner and saw Everly in the arms of another man. His arm was around her neck and he had a gun pointed at her head. I froze, staring at the leather cut he had slung over his shoulders.
Fucking navy blue.
The Black Saddles were here.
Everly was whimpering and clawing at the man’s arm.
But the more she fought, the tighter his grasp got.
She was struggling to breathe and I was struggling to count the number of men that were at the house.
I saw three scrambling around back and heard at least four different pairs of footfalls behind me.
We were seriously outnumbered. Especially since Everly didn’t have a gun on her.
A gunshot pierced the window behind Everly’s head and she screamed. I ducked and scrambled into the kitchen, then withdrew my gun from my side. I cocked it and took aim at the man trying to get a grasp back onto Everly, but she bit down into his arm and got away.
I reached out for her hand and pulled her across the kitchen floor, sliding her behind me.
“Hang on. I’m getting you out of here,” I said.
She wrapped her arms and legs around me, her bag dangling from her hands. I stood up on my feet, hunched over the bar of the small kitchen in her home. Two shots through the window lowered one of the gunmen outside, but I could hear multiple sets of footsteps pouring through the front door.
This was going to take a while.
I perched us behind the kitchen table as bullets whizzed by our heads.
Everly’s face was buried into my neck and her tears were coating my skin.
I popped off two more rounds that took down another Black Saddle, but for every bullet I delivered three were shot our way.
I had maybe nine rounds left in my gun, so I had to make them count.
As I leveled my gun at the man running towards us, I felt my body being ripped back.
Everly was screaming in my ear and she was furiously clinging to my body.
I shot the man coming at us between the eyes before I turned around, and I caught one of the men behind the house reaching through the busted window.
He had a hold of Everly’s hair and he was trying to tug her away from me.
But that shit wasn’t happening today.
I reached behind me and grabbed Everly’s hair before I wrenched her forward. She was yelling my name and trying to a lock on my body. I whipped around and thrusted my hand out as gunshots rang out in the front yard. My hand came down around the man’s throat, and I pulled him into the house.
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you how to treat a lady?” I asked.
I squeezed his neck so hard his eyes began to bleed red.
He was choking and gurgling as his bones cracked underneath the pressure of my fingers.
Everly was sobbing into the crook of my neck.
Her body was shaking. I could feel strands of her hair falling to my skin and blowing in the wind that was seeping in through the broken window.
Gunfire was raining down outside as I choked the life out of the man who had grabbed her.
I released his body and he fell to the floor with a thud. I grabbed Everly’s bag off the floor and started for the front door. I grabbed my gun and checked how many bullets I had left, then cocked it so I would be ready for the assholes waiting for me outside.
But instead of finding Black Saddles with their guns trained on me, I found my club hovering over their bleeding bodies.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Diesel asked breathlessly.
“Everly needed tampons,” I said plainly.
She was shivering against me as I pulled her body close to mine.
“And you couldn’t go to a fucking grocery store?” Rock yelled.
“You know I hate that damn place,” I grunted.
“Is she okay?” Mick asked.
“No,” I said. “She’s not.”
“The two of you never should’ve come back here,” Knox said.
“Thanks for coming, guys,” I said.
“Thanks for sending that damn text. Though it pissed me the fuck off,” Diesel said.
“I’m… sorry…” Everly said.
I watched as the faces on all of the guys slowly sank to the floor.
“We need to get out of here before any of those other asshats show up,” Rock said.
“And we have to assume your house is compromised,” Brewer said.
“Rock?” I asked. “Do those fuckers know where I am?”
“We encountered too many of them waiting for you guys to consider it a coincidence. Until we know more about why so many of those dicks were staking out her house, we have to assume the worst,” he said.
“Fuck. Where the hell am I gonna take her?” I asked.
“You leave that to me,” Diesel said.
I watched him hold out his hand before a piece of paper emerged between his fingers.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“A suggestion,” Diesel said. “Keep her safe. We’ve got a lot of work to do. You got your phone on you?”
“I do,” I said.
“Keep it charged. That’s how we’ll be updating you on things,” Diesel said.
“I’m not leaving you guys,” I said.
“No, you’re not. You’re protecting her,” Knox said. “Protecting our club. And right now, you’re probably the only man she trusts.”
I felt Everly sniffle into my skin and it broke my heart.
“Okay,” I said. “Keep me updated on everything.”
“Now get the hell out of here,” Diesel said. “And let us try to finish this.”
The guys rode off on their bikes and I got Everly and I situated.
I had to go back to my house. There was no other way around it.
Wherever we were going, we would need Everly’s clothes and some of the food I bought for us.
I kicked on my bike as police sirens sounded in the distance and I made sure to stick to the backroads.
I traveled them all the way to the house, tacking on at least another hour’s worth of riding.
And the entire time, Everly’s nails were digging into my skin.
She was petrified, and I couldn't blame her. After all, her own brother’s club just tried to have her fucking killed. And the sickening thing was, it felt more and more like Rex ran that club.
Which meant he’d ordered a hit on his own damn sister.
I pulled up to my house and pulled Everly close to me.
I rushed her inside and grabbed her duffel bag, making sure to shove all of her shit in it.
I went outside and hooked up the trailer to my bike, then stuffed her bag in there.
Then I ripped open my fridge and grabbed everything I knew I could fit.
The juice I’d bought for her. The beer I’d bought for myself.
The good meat that would spoil and the vegetables that wouldn’t hold out.
Shit to make chili and coffee to keep us alert in the mornings.
The milk and eggs that would spoil after a while and the bread that would mold.
I stuffed shit into my trailer until I couldn't stuff any longer, then I put everything else in the freezer to try and preserve.
I turned off all the lights and set my alarm to trigger if someone came in. Then I locked my house down and got us back on the bike.
I opened the slip of paper Diesel handed me and the only thing on it was an address.
An address I didn’t recognize. I plugged it into the GPS I had on my bike and sighed when I saw the hour-long journey Everly and I had ahead of us.
I wrapped her arms around me and forced her to hold on tight, then I buzzed off and left my house falling into the horizon.
If they fucked with my home, I was going to kill all of them. That place was my safe haven. Hell, it was the entire club’s safe haven.
And no one was living if they took that from us.