Chapter Forty-Two
Molly
I drop to the ground like gravity just grabbed me by the throat.
Evan hits the floor hard, his shoulder already blooming red through his shirt, blood slicking my palms as I drag him by the collar and haul him into the narrow trench of space behind the wood, between the bar counter and the liquor shelves.
We shelter behind the thick, polished oak while the crack of gunfire tears through the room.
Above us, glass shatters, bottles explode, the mirror behind the shelves spiderwebs, then rains down in glittering silvery fragments. The Noble Fir — my bar — turns into a storm of splinters and smoke and panic.
“Stay down, you stupid, stupid man!” I bark, not sure why I’m yelling when my face is right next to his.
He grits his teeth, one hand clamped over the wound as if he can hold himself together by force.
“Yes, ma’am,” he growls, voice tight.
A round punches one of the shelf supports behind me, sending the whole tower collapsing and blasting my cheek with a chunk of glass. I flinch, taste copper, pull out the offending shard, and keep my focus on the job: keeping us alive. First, I shove my fist into Evan’s chest and force him flatter.
“Stay. The. Fuck. Down.” After a second, I add, “Please.”
“I just took a bullet,” he snaps. “I’m not exactly going to get the fuck up and dance.”
“Stay still,” I repeat, deadly calm. “You handsome idiot. And thank you for taking that bullet… That was… stupid, but nice.”
The gunfire pauses, just long enough to warn me of something worse — I hear heavy boots. Multiple. Spreading. Flanking.
In seconds, they’ll be over the bar and we’ll be dead, or wishing we were. I inhale once, sharp and fast, then reach under the bar to where I keep my insurance policy. My fingers close around cold metal, and my shotgun comes out like an old friend.
Evan’s eyes flick to it, then to me. Even bleeding, even pale, he looks at me like I’m a goddamn miracle.
“Jesus,” he mutters. “You keep a twelve-gauge under the bar?”
“It’s Oregon,” I hiss. “We keep firearms next to the napkins.”
I shove shells into the shotgun with hands that don’t shake.
This clubhouse is my castle, my home, and these assholes won’t take it from me without a fight.
A shadow moves beyond the bar’s edge. Someone crouched low, trying to creep up on the margins.
I rise just enough to sight over the counter and fire.
The shotgun booms. The recoil rocks into my shoulder. The blast sends the man scrabbling backward and a cloud of red misting the wall behind him.
“Just try me, assholes!” I shout, before I fire again two more times, each time aiming towards an asshole who thinks his cut and his gun give him the right to encroach on my space. Fuck them and their entitlement.
Their answering booms send me ducking while shrapnel rains down on me and the air fills with the smell of gunfire.
Evan laughs, a harsh, broken sound. “Goddamn.”
“Not the time for admiration, though I do fucking deserve it,” I snap, shoving more shells into the chamber. “Where’s your gun?”
He shifts, reaches behind his back, and, while grunting in pain, draws a pistol from the back of his jeans. “Got it.”
“How bad are you hurt?” I say. I punctuate my sentence by rising a moment and sending a booming retort toward the Sons.
“Shoulder. Through-and-through, I think. I’ll be fine.
” His words are reassuring, but the blood that keeps streaming from his shoulder is anything but.
My throat tightens. I do not let myself look at his face too long, because if I do, something in me will crack and the resolve I feel right now will break; I’ll probably go soft, try to talk emotions with Evan, and die with my lips locked to his.
Fuck him and his handsome, self-sacrificing face.
Motion moves in my peripherals. On the left side. And the right. They’re going to rush.
I duck lower, press my back to the hardwood counter, and force my voice steady. “They’re gonna storm us.”
Evan’s eyes track the bar’s ends. “Yeah.”
“You ready? We’re going to have to hold them off. Hope the Devils can get here in time.”
“Ain’t got no fucking choice,” Evan says. He shifts, readying his weapon.
I catch a glimpse of Midnight in one of the broken shards of mirror still clinging to the wall behind the bar. He’s smiling, watching like he’s enjoying the show.
Evan sees him too. His face goes dark.
“I want him,” Evan says.
“You’re bleeding out.”
“I’m fine.”
“If you say ‘I’m fine’ again, I’m going to shoot you myself.”
He actually grins, pained. “Bossy. It’s kind of hot.”
“Damn right. To both counts.”
“I want you to cover me.”
“Cover you? So you can fucking run out there?”
He swallows hard and turns his head toward me, eyes dark. “Molly, just do what I ask, okay?”
“Don’t,” I warn, but my voice breaks on it. “That’s a stupid fucking idea, Evan. They’ll shoot you down and then it’ll be just me here. Do you want to fucking ditch me a third time?”
“Fuck no.” He doesn’t flinch. “If I die here… I need you to know that…”
“Shut up,” I snap. “You’re not dying.”
Boots scrape closer again. Two sets. Three. They’re almost at the end of the bar.
I rise, as does Evan, and a torrent of fire from my shotgun and his pistol sends the approaching Sons diving for cover and one Son falling to the ground, one of Evan’s bullets taking him in the hip. He screams. Evan and I duck, just in time to avoid a hail of return fire.
Evan checks his magazine. “I’m low.”
“I’m lower,” I mutter, counting shells by feel. Not many left.
The room hums with approaching violence. Death growing closer with each passing second, with every round fired. And I realize that, as the end gets nearer, I have no idea if I’ll die a Devil, but at least I can die honest.
I glare at Evan, chest heaving. “You’re a handsome asshole, you know that?”
His mouth twitches to something between a grimace and a smile. “I’ve been called worse.”
“Why the fuck did you take that shot for me?”
“Because I care. Because you don’t deserve to be hurt like that. You never did. You just deserved to be loved, and to… fuck… I don’t know, learn accounting?”
“That might be true. And I’m still an idiot,” I spit, voice shaking, “for letting you in. For forgiving you. For—” A tear burns hot behind my eyes. I blink it back hard. “For still loving you,” I finish, like ripping out a tooth.
Evan goes still.
Even the gunfire seems to pause in the space between us.
He stares at me like the words are oxygen.
“Molly,” he whispers, wrecked. “I still love you, too.”
My throat closes. I reach up, grab his shirt, and yank him in.
Our mouths crash together — desperate, furious, real.
We break apart on a breath, foreheads almost touching.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay. We’ll hold them off as long as we can. Maybe… maybe that’ll be enough time for the club to…”
I can’t finish. The man I love is bleeding out in front of me, and a knot of a dozen trained killers is slowly closing around our neck.
There’s no room for hope. I load my last shells into the shotgun, and Evan raises his pistol with his good hand, teeth clenched.
We brace shoulder to shoulder behind the wood, low on ammo, pinned in my own bar like prey.
And we wait for the storm to hit.