Chapter 40—Kooper
Ilove my club. I love everything about it.
I fuck up sometimes, and when I do, I know my club will deal with it.
I’m not going to fuck it up so much that I get kicked out.
But not talking about my feelings for Ruby?
Hell, having feelings for Ruby at all? Using my own team because I hid shit from them that I knew they wouldn’t like?
Not only do they get it, but they get over it. Sort of. The free shots to the face probably helped too.
But for all the love I have, if Casper doesn’t fucking hurry the fuck up and end this meeting, I’m going to lose my shit.
At least he was willing to move it to the hospital. I haven’t left it. If Ruby’s here, then so am I. I lost her for seventeen days. Never again.
“Any word on Gina or Big Mike?” he asks.
Bulldog shakes his head. “Saw them leave before us. They took off to the west.” Opposite where we took off. They probably planned it that way.
“You see them?” Casper asks Walker.
He nods. “Got eyes on them for a second. They saw we had the roommate, and that was it. No looking back, not even to see if she was alive as I fireman-carried her out.”
“Probably able to check vitals on that tracking system they have on her,” Flint adds.
“We know what that’s about?” I ask. I want my girl to have answers when she wakes up, not more questions.
And I know she’ll be asking. Ruby isn’t the type to sit in the dark and be happy about it.
And I’ve got no issues with sharing with her.
I trust her. I know she’ll keep her shit together if needed.
“None. Still got jack shit back on facial recognition. Want me to put the feed out to our friends?” Flint asks the boss.
We didn’t tell the other groups who we were working with. Especially since we don’t know either. Not that they asked. They answered when we called, and that was all we wanted.
Casper shakes his head. “No, not yet. They didn’t ask for a favor, just gave us intel. My guess is that the favor was in getting Natalie out for them. We did that. As far as I’m concerned, we’re square.”
“How’s she doing?” I ask.
General answers. “Still running scans. She got it worse than Ruby; that much is clear. Initial report shows a fractured fibula and three broken ribs. Fractured jaw as well. We’ve set the leg and have a call out to a plastic surgeon to come in to help us after we reset her jaw.
I’m hoping to keep her here for a few weeks just to be on the safe side. ”
“And Ruby?” Casper asks. Everyone looks at me when he says it. I feel the eyes as I stare at my hands.
I know some of it. We agreed she’d find out most of it when she wakes up. After we got back, we came straight here. General put her under to give her body time to sleep a bit and give me time to talk. Also, so he could run some tests without freaking her out.
“Broken ribs. Broken nose. Torn rotator cuff. She got off easy in comparison.”
“Nothing easy about it,” Walker says, and I look at him, giving him a nod in appreciation. He gets it. Just because you don’t wear that many war wounds doesn’t mean you didn’t feel all of it.
“And the rest?” Bass asks.
They all want to know something. Even I do. We found a third woman, naked and cold on the floor. That could have been Peaches. Maybe it was. Either way, she’s mine. No matter what happened there, she’s mine, and I’ll hold her through whatever the answer is.
“Still waiting on results. But….” I look up at General when he pauses and see his eyes on me, waiting for me to look at him when he speaks. “No initial findings.”
I hear the collective sigh, and I just nod.
“We done?” I look at Casper, ever the respectful bastard that I am.
“Go see your girl. I’ll let Law know she’s back.”
He should be here. Law should be by her side through this, but he’s not. Still no memory. But that’s fine. I’m here for her. I’ll be all she needs till he remembers. Even then, I’ll still stand by her side.
“I’ll be in later to check on her,” General says, and I pause at the way he stands. Something’s off. Something he isn’t saying. Something he wants her to know before the rest of the brothers. Before me.
I nod, and then I’m out, heading down the hall and giving King a chin lift as a greeting before I walk into her room.
Her open eyes greet me, and it’s like the sun is finally shining after years of rain.
I go to her and kiss her forehead. She’s multicolored but still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Hey, Peaches.”
“Hey.” Her voice is soft and rough. I grab the water on the table beside her and hold the straw for her while she takes a sip.
When she’s finished, I set it down and look her over once more before I speak. “How’re you feeling?”
She closes her eyes and breathes. I watch her chest rise and fall and look at the monitor. Steady breath. Thank fuck. Hearing her breathe is like damn birds singing and angels spouting poetry. It’s the best damn thing I’ve heard in my life.
“Like shit.” That pulls a chuckle from me, and she cracks an eye open. “And I know I look it, so don’t try to say anything nice.”
I hold my hands up in surrender. “Not my style.”
She smiles, knowing it’s bull. I’ll tell her anything she wants to hear, lies or truth, just as long as I get to talk to her.
I sit on the side of the bed and grab her hand, running my fingers over her skin gently.
“Is my dad here?” She’s looking at my hand, not my face. But I know she can see me when I shake my head, and I watch as a bit of hope dies in her eyes.
“That’s okay. I… I guess it’s better that he doesn’t see me like this. I wouldn’t want this to be the reason he gets his memory back. He might think you did it.” She huffs out a sad, pitiful laugh as she looks up at me.
Her dad would for sure beat my ass if he remembered her and knew about us. No doubt about it.
“Then we could match.” I give her a wink and a small smile.
One I only give to her. I doubt she knows that.
Not yet. But she will. She’ll know everything about me.
I already know everything about her. It’ll take time, but I know that one day she’ll get it.
She’ll understand that all I see is her.
That all I want is her. And if I have to take a beating to get her dad to remember her, I will.
“Nat okay?”
“Yeah. General says she’ll need some surgeries but will live.”
She nods. “She was tough. She kept me sane in there. Kept me from losing my mind. I…. Things got dark. I had thoughts. She made sure I didn’t act on them.”
“No shame in that, Peaches. Shit was dark. Every man here, brother or not, will never begrudge you of what you thought. You didn’t know we were coming.
You had no idea what was going on. Braver men than you or I take that step.
The one you didn’t. So hold your head high, baby girl.
You survived. Doesn’t matter how, just that you did. ”
I brush away the tear she lets slip down her face away.
“Still, I need to thank her. Maybe you can get me over there later to see her?”
I run my hand through my short hair and take a beat. “Honestly, Peaches, I’m not sure if that’s such a good idea. You can thank her and all, but wait till we know more.”
“More what?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. More about her? Know what’s true or not.”
She tilts her head at my words. “What’s true?”
“How well do you know her?”
“We’ve lived together for six years.” She says it as if that explains everything, and I give her an eyebrow lift.
She shakes her head. “Not well. We both kept things to ourselves, and I… I didn’t push.
I wanted to just be me with her and not have to deal with…
well, everything else. I kept my distance, and she did the same. ”
“She has a tracker on her. I don’t know where or why, but Kitten found a woman who knew her.
Or yelled at her or something. Not really sure about the connection.
All I know is that she said they turned the tracker on, and that’s how we found you.
” I take a breath, steeling myself to tell her the truth.
She deserves it. “We were looking for Natalie. But we were hoping for you.”
Her hand tightens on mine. “It’s okay. I don’t care who you went there for, as long as I got out.”
I lean in close and press my lips to hers. Softly, like she deserves, before pulling back just a little. “You. It’s always you I’m looking for.”
She smiles as I lean away and sit back a bit. “She must have someone watching her. You think she’s in trouble?”
“No, they didn’t seem to care if she lived or died. Or so they said, but they waited to get eyes on her before leaving.”
“Probably family.”
I nod in agreement. “Probably.”
She licks her lips. I already know she’s going to ask me something, so I bring her hand to my lips and kiss her knuckles. “The answer is yes. Just ask.”
She smiles. “Can you keep looking? She always said she was an orphan. But if she has family, I don’t want her to be alone. Like… like I was.” She corrects herself before I can do more than part my lips. “Like I thought I was. I know I wasn’t. I never was. Not with you in my life.”
I rub her hand again, keeping it warm between mine as she closes her eyes to rest. But I can’t wait. I know I should, but I can’t. “Peaches….”
“Yeah?” She keeps her eyes closed as she speaks.
“There was a woman.” Her eyes flutter open. “She didn’t make it.”
A soft smile touches her lips as she nods. “Her name was Ava.”
“When did she die? She….” I look for a polite way to say this.
“Wasn’t decomposing?” Ruby supplies.
I shake my head.
“It was right before they moved us. I’m not sure how long ago it was, but I think it was the same day, or the day before. Time was different down there. I don’t know. But I wasn’t moved long before you found me. And she was—” She swallows her emotions. “She was shot before that.”
Something to tell Casper. It might be a coincidence, or they got wind that we were coming and were taking out liabilities.
But if that was the case, why not kill Ruby or Natalie?
Why just this other person? We didn’t have time to do more than see that she didn’t have a pulse before we moved on.
Maybe if we had, we could have gotten prints to find out who she was.
Tell whoever was looking for her that she was found. That she had some peace finally.
“They….” Again, she takes a second to control her emotions, even closing her eyes, removing the tears that had appeared a second before.
“They raped her. Not sure how many, but we heard. We heard it all. They killed her and then separated us. I think… I think we were next. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I don’t—”
“Shhh.” I shift closer to her. “You never have to think about the what-ifs. I did show. And I always will.”
“Oh good, you’re both here,” General says, interrupting our closeness.
I glare, and he only smiles.
“Did I come at a bad time?”
“Yes.”
“No,” Peaches says at the same time and swats at me. I move down a bit so she can see him a bit more but still hold my glare.
General’s smile widens. “Ah, patient wins.”
“What’s the verdict, General. Am I going to live?” Her joke makes my heart stutter a bit at the thought. Something I won’t get over soon, I’m sure.
“Wouldn’t be here if you weren’t. I still want to keep you for a few days to get your fluids back up and make sure you put on a few more pounds before I let you go.”
“Trust me, I am willing and ready to eat. Just not Jell-O. You bring it and I’m chucking it at your head. You get me?”
He grins, as do I. “Noted.”
“There something else?” He wouldn’t be here just to say that. I know him. Not as well as my girl, but enough to know when he’s stalling.
“Yeah.” He looks at his clipboard and then back at us, resolve showing on his face as if he battled with a decision and just now made the call.
“We did a full scan when you were out. We wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything in your system that we didn’t know about that could be harmful to you. We took some blood.”
“Okay.” She doesn’t seem worried but still looks at me for guidance. Something I find pride in.
“What’d you find, Doc?” No need to pussyfoot around this. I hold her hand tighter. Whatever it is, we can do this together.
“We found a higher-than-average level of hCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin.”
“English, Doc,” I grumble. Stupid doctors are always saying shit that no one understands.
“You’re pregnant.”