Chapter 1
ROCK
“What the fuck happened in there with you?” I asked Mick.
“Nothing. I swear to you. He was fine. Talking. Coherent. I don’t know what the hell just happened.”
“They’re fucking reviving him in his damn bed, Mick! What the fuck happened!?” I yelled as I stood in Mick’s face.
“Rock, calm down,” Knox said as he gently put his hand on my shoulder.
“Calm the fuck down? He just went into cardiac arrest for fuck’s sake. What do you mean, ‘calm down’?” I asked and I pulled my shoulder out from underneath his hand.
The fights went on like that for hours while Brewer was out. After what seemed like an eternity, the nurses were able to get him stable, but no one could seem to backtrack what made him crash in the first fucking place. God Damn it. He had been stable for three damn days!
What the hell had happened to my best friend?
I spent the rest of the week hanging out at the hospital. I told myself that I was standing outside his door for protection, but deep down, I knew it was because I was too scared to leave his side. I wasn’t going to let anything else happen to Brewer.
Luckily, nothing else happened, and they were discharging him today. I’d been in to see him a few times since he started to flatline, and he was still foggy on all the details of what happened. I had decided not to push him on it, for fear that his heart would shit out again.
“Do the doctors know what’s happened yet?” Makenna asked with a shaky voice. I turned around and watched Makenna run up with a small little girl at her side. Her daughter looked just fucking like her. Same brown hair. Same determined blue eyes. No wonder Brewer was smitten with the two of them.
It was a valid question. Brewer had been in the hospital through the damn weekend without another incident. “A fluke, they called it. Just a hiccup in the road to recovery.” But people’s hearts didn’t fucking stop just because. That wasn’t a fucking hiccup.
Brewer would’ve been dead had he already been at home.
“They’ve run every damn test imaginable, and nothing’s coming back. One doctor told me that as Brewer continues to relive the trauma, it might throw him into these episodes. Another doctor is calling it a fluke.”
“A person’s heart stopping isn’t a ‘fluke’.”
“You’re telling me,” I said.
“Where’s Brewer?” the little girl asked.
I bent down and looked straight into her eyes as worry filled her stare.
“He’s in his room waiting for you,” I said.
“He is?” she asked.
“Have you missed him?” I asked.
I looked up at Makenna and she smiled down at me.
“Oh yeah. I haven’t read my book at all. He’s supposed to read it,” she said.
“Oh, he is. Well, then it will make you happy to know that he is being discharged today.”
“He’s what?” Makenna asked.
“Yep,” I said as I stood. “They’re letting him go today. He’s been here a week, and except for the ‘hiccup’, they say he’s good to go.”
Makenna took off past me with Ana running at her side.
I watched them barge into Brewer’s room and throw themselves at him.
What the hell was it with these guys and making fucking families?
Now we had more women and children we needed to protect from this madhouse our lives had become.
I shook my head and gave them a second to settle down.
I watched from off in the distance as Makenna wrapped herself around him and her little daughter crawled up into his lap.
Family life suited Brewer.
You know, if he wasn’t a killer with illegal police connections who rode with the biker gang that owned Redding.
I sat in the fucking waiting room and hung out while they gathered Brewer’s things.
The doctors came in and checked him over one last time before handing him his discharge papers and instructions.
He was probably going to Makenna’s place or some shit, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t offer for him to come stay with me.
Ana kept giggling and talking her head off while they packed up his shit, then the three of them came walking out of the room hand in hand.
“No wheelchair for the injured?” I asked as I stood.
Brewer smiled at me as he clapped my back.
“We need to talk later,” he said into my ear.
It was low. Almost whispered. I looked at him as my brow ticked.
Whatever it was, it was serious business if he didn’t want to say it in front of the girls.
Hell, I didn’t want to fucking say anything in front of the girls.
Editing myself in front of them was hard enough, but doing that shit in front of kids?
Let’s just say ‘Uncle Rock’ wasn’t going to be a family favorite.
“You got it,” I said as I nodded my head.
“Rock, can you help Brewer downstairs? Ana and I are going to pull the car around,” Makenna said.
“Sure thing, boss,” I said with a grin. “Come on, old man. Lean on me, would ya?”
I wrapped Brewer’s good arm around me and hoisted him onto his tiptoes.
Brewer was a tall son of a bitch, but I was the tallest of the group.
And I always made it fucking known to anyone and everyone whenever I had the chance.
They wanted to mock me about my technological skills and how I hunched over a damn keyboard all fucking day until I loomed over them with my steel gray eyes.
They didn’t have shit to say then.
“So, when do you wanna talk?” I asked as Makenna and Ana took off down the hall.
We waved them off before Brewer and I slowly made our way to the elevator.
“Not here,” he said.
“This have anything to do with that incident a few days ago?” I asked.
“You mean where my heart stopped and I had an out of body experience?”
“You fucking what now?” I asked.
We stepped into the elevator as I quirked an eyebrow at him.
“We can’t talk about it here,” Brewer said. “But I think I believe this rat shit a hell of a lot more now.”
My eyes widened as the elevator dinged and the doors opened.
“What? You’re gonna drop that shit on me and then leave it like that?” I asked.
“The shock of it threw me into my cardiac arrest,” he said.
“And you didn’t fucking think to tell anyone?” I asked.
I reached over and opened the door so we could pour ourselves into the lobby of the hospital.
“Not here,” Brewer said as he shot me a look.
Frustration clenched my throat as I helped him out the main door.
“So, putting a pin in that shit for a second. You know now that you’re injured there’s no way in hell you’re going along with this fun little plan to take care of Rex, right?” I asked.
“I don’t like it, but I get it,” Brewer said.
“Good. Because I was ready to fucking fight you on it. Which really only meant I’d shove my thumb into your shoulder until you cried for mercy.”
“Cried for what now?” he asked.
“Mercy.”
“You’re going to have to define that word. I don’t know what it means.”
I grinned at him as we stood on the curb, waiting for Makenna to pull around.
“So, the plan’s still being put into action?” Brewer asked.
“Honestly? Shit sort of came to a halt when you almost died. Twice,” I said.
“Then I’ll expect a church meeting soon.”
“Yep. Probably for the best. Diesel’s been on edge ever since you got yourself shot. But you should’ve seen the way Makenna stood up to him when he told her not to come with us. Holy hell, I’ve never seen someone command Diesel like that.”
“Makenna’s a hell of a woman. You’ll really like her.”
“Trust me. I think I already do.”
“So, regarding this other… shit. You want to talk sooner or later?” I asked.
A car pulled up in front of us and quickly parked itself.
“We’ll talk soon,” Brewer said as he looked over at me. “Right now, I have to figure out what to do about them. I have to keep them safe with a bum fucking arm.”
“Ready to go?” Makenna asked as she walked around.
“You got your drugs?” I asked as I opened the car door.
“We’re heading to pick up his prescriptions now,” Makenna said. “Then we’re headed back to my place.”
“Well, if he pulls too much shit-”
Brewer shot me a look before he nodded towards the car. Ana waved at me and I waved back as I gritted my teeth.
Fucking kids.
“If he pulls too much crap or you need help in any way, you got all our numbers now. And if we don’t pick up, you know the number to the mechanic shop.”
“I practically have it memorized now,” Makenna said with a smile.
I helped her get Brewer’s big ass into the car before she reached in and buckled him up.
She really was a good woman. I could tell by the beauty of her daughter and the way she cared for my friend.
I still didn’t like the idea of bringing more women and children into all this shit when we were in the middle of fucking sorting through it.
But it was what it was, and I’d help in any way I could.
“I’m serious,” I said as Makenna stood up. “If you need anything-”
“You’ll be the first one I call. Promise,” she said.
She reached up and cupped my cheek like only a mother would.
Then she turned and walked back around to the driver’s side of the car.
I stood there and watched them drive off while Ana continued to wave at me like the cute little thing she was.
I sighed as I stood there on the curb, watching until that piece of shit car was completely out of sight.
Then, Brewer’s words echoed off the corners of my fucking mind.
I think I believe this rat shit a hell of a lot more now.
What the fuck happened to my best friend?