Chapter 16
It’s been two months since the explosion, and we haven’t been able to find any leads into who fucking blew up my woman or why the fuck they did it.
Stone lifted the lockdown but makes sure that we are with someone when we go anywhere.
My gut tells me that it was her bastard father and his cult, but I can’t prove shit.
After the scene last month at the hospital with Shepherd Walter, I’m even more convinced but don’t have a leg to stand on.
I’m sitting in my chair, that’s fully molded to my shape since being here almost eighteen hours a day, when a commotion in the hall catches my attention. I turn putting my hand on the inside of my cut where I store my gun when Walter fucking Meyers comes into view through the glass window.
“Where is she? Where is my little girl?” he calls out heading for the nurses’ station. “I know she’s here! Look in your system, her name is Sutton Meyers.”
I quickly type out a text in the group MC chat.
ME
Fucking Walter is here. Might get heated.
“Sir, if you aren’t on the approved list, we have to ask you to leave,” a nurse tries to explain.
“List? I’m her next of kin and emergency contact. I should’ve been notified weeks ago,” he demands in a booming voice, but I don’t buy it. Now that I know what he’s done to Sutton and others her age, he is nothing but a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
I stand in the doorway of Sutton’s room, blocking him and anyone else that might be with him.
They’ll have to pry my cold, dead hands away from the door jamb for them to enter.
What he doesn’t know is that Hawk went in and changed all of Sutton’s medical files and backdated them to show that she made me and Raegan her emergency contacts right after she got back from her trip to South America.
“I’m sorry, sir, but we’ve notified her emergency contacts, and they have set up a list of approved people who can visit,” the nurse tells him.
Walter grabs his chest dramatically in shock.
He’s good, I’ll give him that. It’s probably why people follow him around in the cult.
“But I’m her father, how can I not be on that list?”
“I’m not sure, sir, but if you leave your name and a phone number, I’ll have them contact you and give you an explanation,” the nurse says, trying to pacify the good Shepherd.
Walter turns around just as Stone, Brass, Riot, and Reaper come bounding down the hall from the elevators. He sees them, and I chuckle at his expression. He looks over at the rooms on this floor and sees me.
“You!” he points over at me. “You did this, didn’t you?”
My shoulders rise then fall in a I-don’t-give-a-fuck kinda way.
“Hello again, Walter. I see you haven’t changed much since the last time we spoke,” I chirp in the most cheerful way. My brothers make it over to me, and they stand in a line to block any way to enter Sutton’s room.
“I’m calling the police!” he shouts, trying to gain as much attention as possible.
“Call them,” I challenge.
A man in a white coat comes rushing over.
“Sir, we are going to have to ask you to leave if you aren’t on the approved list,” he tells Walter.
“But…but…”
“Call security,” Reaper says to the nurses’ station. “Or if you prefer, I can lead you out of here.”
Walter takes a step towards us, but looks me right in the eye, “Remember that you caused this. You did this to her and damned her to a life of suffering.”
A chill climbs all the way down my spine from his words. I saw the expression on his face as his mask slipped for a few seconds. Pure evil. This man is evil and dangerous and something doesn’t sit right with his words.
Stone steps right up into his face, towering over the false preacher.
“I suggest you take that fake as fuck concern and shove it up your holy ass. Get out of here before you occupy a bed in this hospital. If I see you around here again, it’ll be the last thing you ever do in your sorry excuse of a life. ”
That was the last we heard from Walter. Stone made sure to keep two people on Sutton until further notice. One is to be in the room at all times, and the other standing by the door, monitoring the people on the hospital’s burn unit floor.
Now a month later, Stone and Riot have forced me out of the hospital for several hours every day.
I mostly spend it with Zane, but today they need my help at the auto shop with Reaper.
For some reason, we’ve had a flood of cars and bikes that need work, so it’s becoming all hands on deck.
With the colder weather coming in, most people want their bikes fixed up while they can’t ride them.
I have to admit the reprieve from the hospital is nice since there’s nothing I can do but just sit and wait.
Raegan is up there right now with Ivy. Ivy’s been here for almost a week.
This is the first time she’s been able to break away from a fashion thing in Europe to come see Sutton and Raegan.
After our talk with Turner, Stone’s started construction on rebuilding the house. Rocky comes over and watches as the crew that Stone hired works. He wants it built just like what he and Sutton had put together.
I just finished putting new sparkplugs and belt on the car I was working on and drove it up to the front, ready for the customer to pick it up.
“Hand me that wrench,” I hear Reaper call out from under the truck he’s working on.
I’m taking a few minutes before starting on the next one in line, so I walk over to his station and grab the tool and place it in his outstretched hand.
“Thanks, brother,” he tells me.
Stone’s phone rings, echoing throughout the garage.
“Can someone grab that for me?” he yells from under the car he’s working on next to Reaper.
“Got it,” I say. When I reach for it, I see it’s from Rocky so I swipe to answer and place it on speaker phone, bending down so that he can hear his brother. “Hey, Rocky, you keeping those construction workers in—”
“STONE, HELP!” we hear Rocky scream, and the garage goes deathly silent. The sound of scraping comes from all around the area as the guys rush over to where Stone’s at. In a split second, Stone is up from under the car and on his feet.
The panic in his voice sends a blanket of dread over my bones.
“What’s wrong, buddy? Talk to me,” Stone’s trying to stay calm, but the waver in his voice says otherwise.
“Sutton, come quick. I found her! I found her!”
We all look at each other confused because not two hours ago, I was just sitting down next to her at her bedside.
“Wait, wait a minute, buddy, slow down,” Stone tries to calm him, but we can’t understand all the words he’s saying because he’s trying to say too much at once. “Where are you?”
“I saw Sutton. They have her. She saw me and screamed for me to get help. She was yelling ‘butterfly’,” he says out of breath. The hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention, and I find myself leaning closer to the phone.
“Did you dream this, Rocky? Where are you right now?” Stone starts demanding, and I feel like I’ve been punched in my gut.
“I’m at the house, she’s here, they have her next—”
The sound of gunshots ring through the phone, and in slow motion Stone fumbles the phone, and it falls to the concrete floor of the garage.
“Rocky! Rocky! Are you there?” Several brothers all reach to pick it up along with Stone.
I’m frozen in place, processing what Rocky was saying.
“Fuck!”
“Let’s go!”
We don’t hesitate as we sprint out of the garage bay and towards our bikes.
Not one brother stays behind as we charge out of the parking lot and onto the street.
Stone is weaving in and out of cars as are the rest of us.
By the time we make it to our neighborhood, several of the neighbors are out on their lawns.
Blaze and Allison are in the middle of the street next to someone.
“Oh God, no!” I say before hopping off my ride and rushing over just as Stone does. Numbness spreads across my body as I look at one of my brothers. My stomach threatens to empty the small breakfast I had with Zane this morning.
“FUCK!” Stone screams as Allison is rocking back and forth with Rocky’s prone body in her arms. Blaze is saying something to his baby brother, but the noise in my ears buzzes as I see a lifeless brother in front of me.
“No, no!” Stone grabs Rocky and lays him flat on the ground.
His eyes are open, but he’s staring through us.
Stone starts CPR yelling for someone to do something.
“Stay with me, buddy. Please don’t go, not like this! God, don’t do this to me!”
The sound of sirens come into earshot as Blaze stands over both his brothers with his hands in his hair crying. Reaper moves Allison out of the way. He takes off his cut then shirt to apply pressure to the gunshot wound in Rocky’s chest.
“What do we have?” Both an officer and paramedic come rushing over.
“Step aside and let us help,” one of the paramedics says.
“I’ve got him,” Stone screams when a medic tries to move him out of the way.
“Sir, we need to get him on the gurney and to the hospital.”
Somehow Stone moves just enough, and they are able to get him in the ambulance. Stone is covered in blood as are Blaze and Allison. We hear the medics say that there isn’t a pulse as the door slams shut and the vehicle takes off.
“Oh my God!” Allison repeats over and over as she looks down at her bloody hands. “Who did this?” She starts to look around at all the people watching. “Who did this to our brother?”
Blaze comes over right before she falls to the ground and sweeps her up into his chest. She’s hitting against his torso, demanding answers.
“What the fuck is happening?” Brass looks around. “Go talk to them and see if anyone saw anything or heard anything?” he directs the brothers to spread out to cover the street to hopefully find answers.
I don’t feel like I’m in my own body right now. Like I’m in a nightmare, watching all this unfold. It’s like a few months ago when this fucking house blew up.
Stone hasn’t taken his eyes off the spot where his baby brother was just at.