Chapter Twenty-Two
River
With the women safely out of the way, I feel comfortable taking some risks. I’m not waiting for Romeo.
I wait until the most opportune moment, when Mark’s focusing on Jeremiah, probably wondering if he’s going to bleed out, and run for him, knocking the gun out of his hands. It goes off, but hits one of our cars instead of anyone else. Jag runs over and gets the gun, and I roll Mark over and pin his hands behind his back. He struggles, bucking his legs and trying to free his arms, but I hold steady. Good luck if he thinks he’s going to overpower me.
Romeo arrives shortly after with a few of the older men and Damon.
“What are we going to do with him?” I ask.
“I have no fucking idea,” he replies gruffly, heading into the house with him. Looks like it’s back into the garage for our old friend Mark.
I rush inside to check on Bella, and find her and Corey in the kitchen pouring everyone alcohol. Even though they are supposed to be in the bedroom, I can see the appeal. Much needed. She runs up for a hug as soon as she sees me. “Thank God you are okay.”
“Take a lot more than that dumbass to take me down,” I say, kissing the top of her head.
Corey hugs me from the side, wrapping her arm around Bella, too. “Do you want a drink?”
“I’d love one,” I say, before swallowing a shot of tequila in one gulp.
Damon steps into the kitchen. “You ladies okay?”
“Yeah, we’re good,” Bella replies.
“Tequila?” Corey offers, holding out another shot glass. Damon grins and reaches out to accept.
Bella takes a shot herself, slams the empty glass down, then pulls me out of the room. “What’s going to happen now?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, holding her against me. “Mark was obviously desperate to save his woman, and I can’t blame him for that. I don’t think any of us can. But we can’t exactly just let him free to try to kill our president again. Jag took Jeremiah to the hospital to be checked on. We have a doctor we’re friends with there who won’t ask any questions, but we’re lucky it didn’t kill him. Mark’s obviously not in the right headspace right now.”
Understatement. The man is a loose cannon, and he needs to be contained before he does something stupid. That, or simply put out of his misery.
I know which one I’d vote for.
I don’t like leaving Corey alone with Damon, but I’m trying not to be too unreasonably overprotective of her. And when Bella tells me how she came out with her gun, wanting to join in on the fight, I need to remember that although she is hurting, she is still the badass sister I helped raised.
Albeit a little fucking impulsive.
No idea where she got that from.
As if there wasn’t enough drama for one day, the police show up and ask us if we’ve seen Mark. I’m pretty sure they are his cop friends and not here on official business, because they don’t arrest anyone or give us any trouble. Which is probably the first time that has ever happened. Romeo looks over at me, the two of us contemplating what we should do, while the cops stand at the door waiting. Do we hand him over? It would buy us time to keep him away from us, but also he is our only lead to our grandma, because she contacts him and no one else.
Although I suppose we only need his phone, not him.
When I open the garage, he’s sitting on a chair with his head down on the desk. “Mark, come on. There’s some people here to see you.”
“What people?” he asks, blinking furiously. “The FBI?”
“Yeah, sure,” I mutter, helping him up.
Romeo grabs him and delivers him to the police out front, explaining how Mark showed up with a gun, and we have video surveillance to prove that. These cops look like they don’t care what the hell we were doing with him, they just want him, for what I have no idea. Probably something shady, because that seems to be Mark’s trademark.
We send him on his merry way, handing over his gun to the cops, then lock up and hide in the clubhouse, not wanting to deal with any more shit today. Jag returns with a patched-up Jeremiah, who we sit on the couch with movies and beer. “You took Mark’s phone when he got here, right?
“I know we can’t trace the calls, but maybe we can try to speak to her,” I suggest to Romeo, who is about to leave to get Julianna.
“Yeah, that will have to be a me job,” he replies, rubbing the back of his neck in frustration. “I don’t know if it’s safer to leave Julianna with her family or bring her back here, but she wants to be here. And I’d rather be with her.”
“Yeah, she’s safest with us all,” I agree, resting my hand on his shoulder. “You know we would all do anything to protect her.”
“I know.”
He goes to pick her up and I find Bella in the gym walking on the treadmill. She removes her headphones when she sees me.
“Will you show me how to shoot a gun?” she asks, surprising me. “Just in case, I want to be able to defend myself.”
“Yes, I can show you,” I say.
She smiles and puts her headphones back on, so I decide to join her and lift some weights and punch our boxing bag.
It’s been a weird week, and there’s still some things I haven’t dealt with, but we’re all still here and healthy and together, so I can’t really complain about anything.
An hour later, we finish up our workout and are walking to our bedroom to have a shower, when we come across Corey in the hallway.
Kissing Damon.
I really fucking try to not lose control, but all I can see is red.