3. Hawk
3
HAWK
“ L eave the van!” I shouted to Hayden. “Those shots came from the woods. We’re going to have to go in on foot.”
I wasn’t waiting for him. We had rules about guns within our boundaries. Nobody was permitted to use one without some sort of very good reason, and the punishment was harsh for breaking the rules. It was to stop drunken Friday night arguments over a pool table from turning into a shootout. When everyone was armed and nobody’s moral compass gave a shit about ending a life, we had to have some sort of guidelines or we’d have no members left living.
The prez was the only person permitted to fire a bullet and walk away without question. So either War or Riot was getting trigger-happy, or somebody else had found a reason to send a bullet into the night air.
All I could think about was someone taking Kara from me. But imagining someone forcing her onto a bike to take her back to her husband, or putting a rope around her neck and drawing it tight until she couldn’t breathe was useless.
No one was hurting her.
Shouts came from ahead, muffled by the blood rushing in my ears and Hayden’s heavy footsteps crunching through the undergrowth behind me.
A second gunshot splintered the night, this time louder. Closer.
I doubled down, stumbling on the uneven ground, catching myself on the trees as I fought my way through the scrub in the darkness, no time to stop and turn on flashlights.
A figure stepped out of the darkness, and I pulled my gun. Moonlight caught the Saint View Slayers’ emblem on the back of his jacket before I needed to question whether I should shoot.
“Ice!” I recognized the prospect’s fair hair and slim build. “Did you find her—”
A bellow from somewhere up ahead cut me off. “Hawk! This motherfucker has buried your woman alive!”
My blood ran cold.
The sound Chaos made behind me was something between a shout of anger and a moan of agony. I let go of Ice’s shoulder and sprinted for the clearing ahead, Chaos at my side, both of us bursting out of the trees at the same time.
Riot, president of the Louisiana chapter, was on his hands and knees, scooping dirt from a hole.
Not a hole.
A motherfucking grave.
Beside it lay two dead bodies, both in Slayers’ jackets, one a Saint View original, one with a Louisiana patch. Their blood seeped into the ground, spreading out around them like halos.
“What the fuck have you done?” I yelled at Riot, staring in horror at Ratchet’s dead body, lying completely still next to Thunder’s. I didn’t need to check their pulses to know they were both dead as fucking doornails.
Behind me, Ice let out a string of cuss words, but it was Hayden who caught on quicker than any of us. He skidded to a stop at the edge of the grave and peered over the edge.
He’s buried your woman alive.
Riot ran a hand through his hair, gripping the back of his neck in dismay. “I heard her scream. It was weak, but I heard it.”
“Kara!” Hayden and I shouted in unison.
There wasn’t a sound.
He stared at me in horror. “How long has she been down there for?”
It had been hours since I’d lost track of her at the party. Terror coursing through my veins, I shook my head. “Too long. Way too fucking long. Get her out!”
Frantic, I scraped my fingers through the dirt, hauling it to the edge of the hole and then up, spilling half in an attempt to remove the soil. Over and over we did the same thing. Ice grabbed the shovel while Chaos, Riot, and I dug with our bare fingers. Other members found their way out of the woods and into the clearing. If they questioned what we were doing, I didn’t hear it.
All I could think about was getting this fucking dirt off her so she could breathe.
And that we weren’t going to be fast enough.
Something inside me snapped. Some floodgate that had been holding in everything I felt for the curvy brunette.
I was so fucking in love with her, and she was going to die, all because I’d lied to her. If I’d been a better man, an honest one, maybe she would have chosen Hayden, but at least she’d be in his arms, breathing and healthy, instead of suffocating beneath the earth.
I couldn’t stand it. The realization made me want to claw my face to pieces.
“Women look to us for guidance. They are lost sheep, while you are their shepherd. It is your job, men of the Lord, to guide them to their rightful place. To teach them how to behave and how to honor the Lord by honoring the men the Almighty made in his image.”
“Wait, wait. What is that?” Chaos asked, clearly hearing it too. “A recording?”
A scream of frustration and agony ripped from my chest. We could wipe serial killer off the suspect list, at least for tonight. “That’s her psychopath husband’s podcast.” I’d searched for it when Kara had mentioned it, and there was no mistaking Josiah’s smarmy voice, luring men in with promises he couldn’t fucking keep.
There was no way she was dying in that hole with his words the last thing she heard. I refused to let that happen.
I threw myself in.
Boards beneath my feet cracked.
I stared up at the others.
I didn’t need to voice what we’d all heard. We were nearly there.
I tore into the remaining dirt, my nails catching on the cheap wood, splinters spearing through my fingertips as I tried to get a hold. “Give me the shovel!” I shouted at Ice, who obediently handed it in.
I fit the shovel head to the corner of the box and stamped down hard.
A satisfying crack came back to me. There was no room in the hole to get decent leverage to pry the nailed-down box open, but fucked if I was going to let that stop me. I stomped on the shovel again, deepening the crack.
The attempt split the lid enough that I could fit the shovel head in and pry up one side of the lid. Dirt slid back down the sides of the hole and into the box I’d made.
“The sides are going to collapse!” Chaos shouted. “Get back!” He shoved Riot and Ice away from the edge. “Hawk! Get her out!
If the side collapsed and filled in the hole again, there was no way we were getting Kara out in time.
Hayley Jade would be without her mother.
I wasn’t going to be the one to break that kid’s heart again. Or my own.
I fit my fingers into the thick crack I made, flinching when they touched her skin.
A knot formed in my throat, but I forced it down, wrenching the wood with everything I had.
It splintered. Came away in my hands. I fell back against the edge of the hole, pain shooting through my back at the force of the impact, but none of that mattered.
She had air.
“She’s not breathing!” Hayden shouted, the flashlight on his phone bouncing off Kara’s face.
I scrambled onto my knees, her body yielding beneath my weight. I hated that I was crushing her, but bruises wouldn’t matter if she was dead.
Her face was covered in dirt. I picked her up by her shoulders, shaking her hard and removing the soil from her face at the same time.
Her head flopped around like a rag doll.
Hayden reached for her, but there was no time to get her out. I laid her back down, ignoring his shouts and the reaching hands of Ice and Riot and the other members who crowded around, watching on, trying to help.
The entire world boiled down to her and me.
The weight of her life in my hands.
The only woman I’d ever fallen for, lifeless unless I could get her back.
I didn’t give myself time to think or feel. On autopilot, I turned her head. Cleared her mouth.
The faint thump of her heartbeat met my fingers. “She has a pulse!”
But that didn’t mean she was breathing. Hayden had been right.
I tilted her head, pinched her nose, and breathed for her, forcing my air into her lungs until they expanded.
Above me, Riot shouted for someone to get an ambulance, but we were way out in the woods. It would take any ambulance twenty minutes to get out here. Twenty minutes Kara didn’t have.
“Come on, Little Mouse,” I whispered, releasing my hold on her nose to see if she’d breathe again by herself. “You aren’t fucking dying in this goddamn hole with Josiah’s bullshit in your head. I won’t fucking let you. Breathe.”
Her chest didn’t lift.
“Hawk, please,” Hayden pleaded. “I can’t lose her.”
My heart ached at the sincerity in his voice. Not just for him, having to watch her so lifeless, but for me. Hayden hadn’t seen Kara in years, and yet he knew exactly what he wanted. What she was to him.
Everyone knew he loved her and how she felt about him. We’d all seen it in the way she’d defended him, despite the shitty things he’d done. I’d downplayed it as Stockholm syndrome, all while knowing it was more than that. It was why I’d been so damn scared to tell her the truth, knowing whatever the bond was between them, it was stronger than anything I could try to compete with.
I’d had her in my arms for weeks. Had her naked in my sheets. And all I’d done was make her come. I’d been too fucking gutless to tell her the truth. To tell her I wanted more than just what was between her legs.
Wanted her for her.
I pinched her nose again and breathed two short breaths into her mouth before releasing her nostrils.
I glanced up at Chaos.
“Please, Hawk,” he begged softly. “I’ll do anything.”
Fuck. I’d held a gun to the guy’s head no less than thirty minutes earlier, and I’d been fully prepared to pull the trigger.
Now I was watching him break in a way that stirred up memories I had spent a long time trying to bury.
The memory hit me hard.
“Hawk, please! Save her!”
It was another man’s voice in my head. Another set of eyes that pleaded with me to save the love of his life.
No matter how much I hated Hayden, nobody deserved to lose their soulmate. Not him.
Not me.
Neither of us was losing her tonight.
Hades could go to Hell alone. None of us were following him.
I pinched her nose again and pleaded with her, my lips barely above hers. “Come on, Kara. If you aren’t going to breathe for me, I get it. I never deserved you in the first place. But maybe you’ll breathe for him. He’s right fucking there. You just gotta open your eyes.”
I didn’t care who she wanted. Only that she wanted it enough to live.
I forced more air into her lungs.
She jerked beneath me. A gasp for air followed, the sound pure joy to my shattered heart. “She’s breathing,” I bit out, fingers shaking as I rolled her onto her side and stroked her back.
A cheer went up around us.
Which was so out of place when there were two dead bodies and a whole lot of questions that needed answering.