Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Luke sat outside on the top of an old wooden picnic table, in a grassy area in between the parking lot and the doors leading into the Emergency Room. The night was so dark, he could barely see his watch. It was close to eleven p.m., but it felt much later than that.
Holly was still inside the hospital, and for some reason he missed having her next to him.
“Hey.” Uncle Gage appeared in jeans, black T-shirt, with his leather jacket folded over one arm.
He held disposable coffee cups in both hands and passed one to Luke.
Then he tossed his leather jacket onto a nearby bench.
“Ben and Jacob are arguing about something in the cafeteria, so I grabbed two coffees and made my escape.”
“Thanks.” Luke took a sip and grimaced. It tasted like old cardboard and burnt regret.
But he sipped it anyway, keeping his hands wrapped around the too-thin paper cup, and kept his eyes trained on the visitor parking lot where cars sat, hidden within shadows.
Somewhere in this building, his half-brother lay sedated and broken.
Somewhere in this building, Holly was probably meeting her new colleagues and making future plans.
Plans that he hoped, irrationally, would involve him.
“What were Ben and Jacob arguing about?”
“I didn’t stay to find out.” Uncle Gage placed his coffee cup on the table and sat on the bench near Luke, moving with the tired grace of a man who'd seen more than his fair share of late nights and worse mornings. “I know we haven’t seen each other recently, but you look like you’ve aged ten years. ”
Luke shrugged. “I feel like I’ve aged twenty since this morning.”
Gage didn’t speak. Just waited with his calm, steady presence that had a way of making Luke talk whether he meant to or not.
“I keep thinking I should feel more… something. Damian’s my brother. But all I feel is numb.”
Gage raised a brow. “Half-brother. Who you only found out about seven months ago.”
Luke still remembered Jacob’s phone call telling him that Damian Fawkes, the kid they’d known forever and had grown up with, was their half-brother.
It’d been a blow to the gut, especially when he realized that Damian’s birth might’ve been the reason his mother had abandoned them.
Not unlike how Caleb’s wife—Uncle Gage’s mother—had left her boys behind.
Luke rubbed the back of his neck. “Damian might be blood, but he’s not family.”
“That’s not true.” Gage stretched his arms over his head and straddled the bench. “Damian is the part of your father none of you want to deal with. That doesn’t make him any less real. And the truth is that, sooner or later, you are going to have to address the situation.”
“Has my dad had any contact with Damian since the truth came out?”
“You’ll have to ask your dad that question.” Gage studied the dark parking lot beyond their grassy knoll. “I think he’s in France. Or maybe Italy. Buying new grape vines for his vineyard.”
Luke was so disgusted with his father, he wanted to spit. Instead, he pulled the map he’d taken from beneath Damian’s bike seat out from his back waistband. “I’ll leave that job to Jacob. That’s an oldest brother’s responsibility.”
Uncle Gage laughed and reached for his coffee cup. “From one youngest son to the other, I wholeheartedly agree.”
After they clinked coffee cups, now filled with cold, bitter yuckiness, Luke tossed his into the nearby trash bin. “I need to tell you something before Ben and Jacob get back.”
Gage tossed his coffee cup away as well. “What’s that?”
Luke held up the folded map wrapped in plastic. He hesitated, then slid it across the table.
Gage didn’t touch it. “Where’d you find that?”
“Taped under Damian’s motorcycle seat. I thought it was weird… and meant to be hidden.”
Gage took off the plastic, opened the map, and laid it out on the table. Luke used his cell phone’s light over the map and scanned the red Xs marked over towns up and down the Shenandoah Mountain range, as well as the rough coordinates scribbled in the margins.
Gage muttered a curse. “Have you shown this to Ben?”
Luke shook his head. “I didn’t want to drag him into this. Not yet.”
Gage met Luke’s gaze. Even in the dim light, Luke could tell that Gage’s brown eyes were filled with both anger and frustration. “I’ve seen something similar like this before, when my daddy Caleb was alive. This smells like MC business.”
“It is MC business,” Luke said, his voice low. “And Ben’s wearing a badge. That’s a problem. Especially with him putting away all those Black Jacks last year. I heard they received fifteen years in a Federal prison.”
While the Devil’s Renegades ran most of the outlaw operations in Virginia, the Black Jacks—a rival MC from Salem, Massachusetts—had been trying to take over the Virginia territory until Ben found a way to put some of them in prison. An act that had made him a Black Jack target.
Luke tapped the town of Kingsmill marked on the map with a red X. “Do you know what this means? Could it be a route? A drop zone? Or something else?”
“I don’t know.” Gage folded the map back up and shoved it into the pocket of his leather jacket. “But I know someone who might. Do you mind if I take it for now?”
“No. But I’m worried that whatever Damian and the MC are mixed up in, it’s not garden-variety club trouble.” Luke laid back and placed a foot on the table, his knee facing the sky.
“Luke, if this map means what I think it means, you’ll need to decide how deep you want to go.”
“I didn’t come back for this, Uncle Gage. I’m here for Hawk’s wedding. Nothing else. I didn’t sign up for more trouble from that damned MC.”
“Except life doesn’t care what you sign up for.” Gage pulled out his phone and typed out a text. “Isn’t that why you left your law firm in the city, followed every adrenaline-generating job across the country, and then—on a whim—purchased a rundown surf shack in Miami?”
He grunted his agreement. He had bought the surf shop on a whim, drawn in by the promise of ocean views and the cheap rent in North Beach.
What he hadn’t realized was that that part of Collins Avenue didn’t see much foot traffic—unless you counted retirees walking miniature poodles or kids running to catch the school bus.
“It’d seemed like a good idea at the time. ”
“It wasn’t a bad idea.” Laughter edged Uncle Gage’s voice. “I mean, my brother John and I both invested in it. I just wish we’d all done some more market research.”
Luke turned his head to meet his uncle’s gaze. He was very grateful for Gage and John’s investment money and had every intention of paying them back. “Did you know that Caleb invested in my “crazy dream”?
Gage’s eyes widened. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“Well, technically, it wasn’t a direct investment.
But he gave me a ton of money as a bribe to leave the MC and go to college.
But since I got scholarships for UVA and for law school, I invested the money.
Then I used it to live on during my “searching years” as Caleb called them.
And, what was left, I used as a downpayment on the surf shop. ”
Gage laughed and kept texting.
Luke’s thoughts wandered back to Holly in the ER, her calm voice, her steady hands. The way she’d met his gaze when things were spiraling and somehow grounded him.
“You like Holly,” Gage said quietly.
Luke flinched. “It’s not like that.”
Gage gave him an exasperated look. “Luke, I have seventeen nephews. I’ve watched all of you knuckleheads long enough to spot the signs. Don’t lie to me. More importantly, don’t lie to yourself.”
Luke blew out a long breath and sat up again. “I don’t know what this thing with Holly is yet. But you might be right. There’s something there.”
Gage shoved his phone into his back pocket. “Then don’t screw it up. She’s smart and strong. You might need someone like that if what’s coming from that map is bigger than we think.”
Before Luke could respond, the rest of the cavalry showed up. Ben, still in his dirty uniform, was all tension and sharp eyes. Jacob, in a blue T-shirt and jeans, was as quiet and steady as ever. And Hawk… was here?
Hawk resembled the rest of the Mosby men in physical size and conditioning.
But, unlike Luke and his brothers, Hawk had long blonde hair tied at the base of his neck and green eyes, so similar to Caleb’s.
And, also unlike Luke and his brothers, Hawk wore his black leather cut that labeled him as the vice president of the Devil’s Renegades chapter in Ravensburg, Virginia.
“Hey.” Luke hopped off the table and hugged his cousin. “It’s good to see you, bro.”
“You too, brother.” Hawk stepped back with his jaw clenched, like he’d just walked out of a war zone. “How is Damian?”
“Are you asking because he’s my new-found half-brother? Or because he’s the president of the Kingsmill Devil’s Renegades chapter?”
“Both.” Hawk shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. He acted nonchalant, but Luke knew from the way Hawk chewed his lower lip that it was an act.
“Damian is in surgery,” Gage said. “He’s got a compound fracture and has lost a lot of blood. The surgeons are doing what they can.”
As usual, Hawk didn’t sit. He paced, appearing paler than normal. But he didn’t look worried. He looked… haunted.
Jacob frowned. “You good, Hawk? Or is this nervous energy due to the fact you’re getting married in less than forty-eight hours?”
“All of the above.” Hawk fisted and unfisted his hands as he paced. “Damian had some tools with him. Might’ve been on his bike.”
“Tools?” Ben sent a concerned glance to Jacob, Luke, and Gage. “What kinds of tools?”
“Custom tools. Maybe they made it into the ER. I can check with security.” Hawk shrugged, as if what he was asking about was no big deal. But the fact that he kept downplaying his question made it all the more suspicious.
Luke looked at Ben. They hadn’t found any tools at the crash site. Nor had they carried anything with them back to the hospital, other than four injured men.
And that map.
“Are you looking for anything specific?” Gage kept voice level, almost too casual.
Hawk hesitated, then scratched his jaw. “Damian had a flash drive. Might’ve been in his jacket.”
Luke blinked. “I didn’t see one.” At least that was the truth.
“Okay,” Hawk said too quickly. “No big deal.”
But it was. Luke saw it in the way Hawk’s hands curled, in the tic of his jaw, in the way he wouldn’t quite meet anyone’s eyes.
Ben moved forward, in total sheriff-mode, until Jacob clasped his shoulder and held him back.
Gage leaned, slow and deliberate, toward Hawk. “What was on this flash drive?”
Hawk shrugged again. “Dunno. But if you come across it, let me know, yeah?”
Everyone nodded, but Luke’s gut twisted into knots. He didn’t like secrets. He especially didn’t like the look in Hawk’s eyes—like a man preparing for fallout.
Hawk cleared his throat and headed for the Emergency Room doors.
Once he was inside, Gage studied all three of his nephews. “Let me deal with this.”
Ben, always the law-and-order brother, shook his head. “What is there to deal with, Uncle Gage? What do you know?”
“Nothing yet.” Gage’s phone rang, and he walked away to answer it.
Ben and Jacob began arguing about Hawk’s weirdness, and Luke walked toward the edge of the parking lot, where the grass met gravel.
He stared up at the almost-full moon and closed his eyes.
He needed a second to breathe. To get his new bearings.
The ground of his life that once seemed so familiar now felt foreign and uncomfortable.
Everything had changed in less than twenty-four hours. Damian’s accident. The map. The drive. And meeting Holly.
The weight of it pressed down like a storm coming in fast—until he remembered that one of his favorite jobs during those adrenaline-soaked years when he was “finding himself” had been as a storm chaser.
A noise pulled him from his thoughts, and he turned to see Holly leave the hospital. She paused and searched the dark parking lot. Once she caught sight of him, she walked toward him, her wave soft but sure.
His heart swelled, and he pressed his fisted hands against his thighs. He'd faced down hurricanes, rode the edge of wildfires, and outpaced funnel clouds that tried to tear the sky in half. But in that moment, he knew the truth.
He’d spent years chasing danger to feel alive. But Holly? She didn’t just stir the air. She changed the forecast.
And right now, Dr. Holly Westfield was the only storm worth chasing.