7. Hawk
7
HAWK
“ H awk!”
I started, my thirty-five-year-old back protesting at the uncomfortable seated position I’d been sleeping in and my shoulder aching like I’d torn a muscle or two digging Kara out of that grave. My ass was numb, and War’s sharp shout was enough to drive pins into my brain.
War, Bliss, and Rebel all stood in front of me, their eyes wide.
“What?” I stretched painfully. Fucking hospital seats.
“They’re just wondering why I was letting you sleep on my shoulder,” Chaos said dryly.
I jerked, realizing my arm was still pressed against his. “No, I wasn’t.”
“Um, yeah, you were.” Rebel pointed at Hayden’s shoulder. “Had your head on him and your face pressed into his neck like you were inhaling him.”
I scowled at her, but my gaze quickly moved to War, who wasn’t anywhere near as gleeful as Rebel had been at the chance to tease me about something. War looked vaguely murderous. Bliss just seemed concerned. And very, very pregnant. How the hell she hadn’t popped that kid out yet was beyond comprehension.
I got up quickly. “Sit down, Bliss. That baby is gonna tip you over.”
She didn’t complain, groaning as she lowered herself into the seat, which I was grateful for because it drew some of the attention away from me.
I glared at Chaos and muttered, “Could have woken me up, asshole.”
“I tried. You sleep like you’re dead. And you snore.”
“I do fucking not.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And drool. I have a wet patch on my shoulder now.”
Oh, fuck this guy. I hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours. So I was tired and fell asleep on him. Didn’t mean I wanted to go to bed with the guy.
I shoved my hands in my pockets, not wanting the reminder of what Chaos and I had been talking about earlier before I’d apparently taken a little nap.
Thinking about fucking his mouth and his ass sent another hot flush through me that I wished would just piss off. He was hot. So what? I wasn’t into guys. Anyone who didn’t think him attractive would be lying. He had his dirty-blond hair scraped back into a tie at the nape of his neck, and he was filthy from digging in the dirt with me, smudges all over his cheeks that only made his blue eyes pop. His T-shirt clung to his pecs and abs, but I only noticed them because I was forever working on my own, so I paid attention to them in other guys. Didn’t mean I wanted to get them naked and go down on them.
Except my idiot brain wouldn’t stop conjuring up images of Hayden doing exactly that, and it was really starting to irk me.
I wanted Kara.
Kara with her full tits and sweet, curvy ass.
“Any news?” Rebel anxiously peered past me through the windows in the doors to the treatment rooms and wards.
I didn’t fucking know because I’d been asleep. We all looked at Chaos.
“Not much,” he said reluctantly. “Only that she’s stable and talking. They wouldn’t let me…us…see her.”
Rebel drew her mouth into a determined line. “They’ll let me. Unlike you two, I’m family.”
I didn’t bother telling her that we’d tried claiming we were her husbands in order to get in. To be fair, that probably hadn’t helped our case. I doubted anyone believed we really were brother husbands.
Though my sleeping on Chaos’s shoulder had probably raised some questions.
I left Rebel to go yell at the nurses, and turned to War, a million questions playing over in my head. “What the hell happened last night?”
War glanced at Chaos, wary distrust in his eyes. “I’m going to walk five steps that way to talk to my VP. I’m going to leave my woman right there beside you because she’s exhausted, and if you want to live to see Kara, you’ll not only not lay a finger on my old lady, you’ll also make sure nobody else does.”
Bliss rolled her eyes at War’s little speech of dominance and waved him off impatiently. “Stop hovering. He’s Liam’s brother. He’s not going to hurt me.” She turned to Chaos and held out her hand like they were at a business meeting. “I’m Bliss. Forgive me if we’ve met before.” She pointed at her bump. “Baby brain is real.”
“Bliss, you do remember he shot me in the leg, right?” I complained.
Rebel glanced over from the nurses’ station. “Can you blame him though? I think about shooting you daily.”
Chaos chuckled.
Rebel shot him a look. “Don’t you be getting your giggle on. Bliss and Kara are a whole lot nicer than me. I wouldn’t trust you as far as I can throw you.”
War dragged me across the room before I could conjure up a comeback for the pipsqueak who was forever a thorn in my side. She was lucky I actually also liked her, because she was a permanent, attitude-filled, pain in my neck. If she was going to pick on Chaos too, I could be down with that.
War positioned us so he was watching Hayden and Bliss chat, but I already knew Chaos wasn’t going to pull anything.
He’d had all night to try and he hadn’t.
I couldn’t believe I’d fallen asleep on him, though my right side was still warmer than my left from where I’d been cuddled up to him.
Fucking mortifying.
I scrubbed a hand over the back of my neck. “What the hell happened out there last night?” I asked again. It had been a madhouse of bodies and clubs and Josiah’s fucking voice playing down a speaker.
War let out a long sigh. “I don’t know. Two dead. Ratchet from our crew, Thunder from theirs. Riot says he saw Ratchet put a bullet in Thunder. Riot was the one who put Ratchet down for breaking club code and killing another member. He was within his rights to do so.”
“That’s bullshit! Ratchet wouldn’t have shot the guy for no reason if they were working together. Something else had to have happened.”
War shrugged. “They’re both dead, so all we can do is guess.”
I forced myself to say the words I didn’t even want to think about. “Which of them put Kara in that hole?”
War shook his head. “Thunder was their contact with the Ethereal Eden group. He was working directly with Josiah, so it makes the most sense that it was him. All that shit about her having to be buried to be reborn…” He shuddered. “Creepy fucking cult.”
“Thunder was a piece of shit,” I mused. “Never liked that prick, and Riot has piss-poor judgement when it comes to prospects. He never should have patched that guy in, let alone let him handle a job like that.” I shook my head. “Ratchet was a good guy. He didn’t fucking deserve this.”
“Didn’t deserve it if he was innocent,” War said quietly. “There’s every chance it was him who took Kara out there. For all we know, Josiah’s people got to him and paid him off to get to Kara.” He shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “Or they were working together. This reeks of a two-person job. That grave was deep, and they had to have carried Kara and the coffin out there. That’s too much for one person unless it was planned really damn well.”
Anger rose inside me at the reminder of someone putting Kara in a box, closing her in, and burying her beneath the ground. I suddenly didn’t give a shit which one of them it was. “They can both go to Hell.”
War didn’t look like he agreed, but what else was he supposed to do? The only other person who’d been there when shots had been fired was Riot. He was the Louisianna club president. He’d been all over Kara earlier in the night. Maybe that had been part of his plan to lure her away.
But unless we wanted to start a war within our own club, we couldn’t accuse Riot of something like that. Not without a hell of a lot more proof than just my best guesses, which were likely tainted by the jealousy that still threatened to destroy me every time I remembered Riot giving Kara drinks, and the dirty way his gaze had undressed her without her permission.
“The security system was down last night when Chaos and I came in.”
War ran a hand over his face. “We were in church, and everyone else was in the clubhouse to keep Riot and his boys in check. Their chapter is so much bigger than ours, and the vibe was so off, with them just turning up out of the blue. I don’t even know if there was anyone on the gate. I’m sorry, man. That’s on me. My head isn’t in the game right now.” His gaze slid to Bliss again.
A sharp whistle cut through the room, and Rebel glared at me and then at Chaos. “The nurse here says Kara’s husbands can go see her.”
Chaos shot up off the chair like a rocket, then nodded at War, as if handing back custody of Bliss’s protection.
Fucking brown-noser.
I used the moment to push ahead and get to the nurses’ station first.
Rebel was like a tiny little bottle of soda that had been shaken up and was ready to burst. “Husbands, my ass,” she mumbled. “I just want to see my sister.”
The tiniest twinge of guilt plucked at heartstrings I didn’t know I had. I slung my arm around Fang’s girl and drew her in so I could talk in her ear. “Just let me have this one, pipsqueak. You want to see her. I need to. She was damn near fucking dead when I pulled her out of that hole, and I’ve never been so scared in my entire life as I was trying to get her to breathe again. Let me have this.” I swallowed hard. “Please.”
She glanced up at me in surprise, like perhaps she, too, hadn’t realized I had a heart that had apparently only started beating for Kara.
She nodded once. “But don’t be too long!”
I kissed the top of her head, and she shoved me away.
“Ew, God, Hawk. Get away. You smell like a sewer.”
I sniggered as I followed the nurse down the hallway, Chaos so close behind me I was aware of his every move. He smelled no better than me at least. Both of us in dire need of a shower.
That I refused to think about, because if I thought about us both needing to get clean, then I was going to get hard, and that was fucking messed up when the only place I actually wanted to be was at Kara’s bedside.
The nurse stopped at the doorway to the room and gestured for us to go inside. “The doctors are just finishing up with her. You can go in.”
I froze two steps in the room.
Kara was swallowed up by the large white hospital bed and walls. She had oxygen tubes in her nose and more lines plugged into cannulas in her hand.
But she was alive. “Hey, Little Mouse,” I managed to choke out.
Kara’s eyes met mine, moved to Chaos, and then eventually came back.
“Get out, Hawk,” she said softly, but with an edge I’d only heard from her in the last twenty-four hours.
Chaos glanced at me in surprise, and damn if I didn’t want to punch his stupid face in. I knew it was unfair and Kara’s rejection now was my fault. Saving her life didn’t mean she owed me her forgiveness.
But I’d earn it.
“Hawk, leave. Please.” Kara’s eyes filled with tears, her voice a wobble.
Her fingers twitched, and I wanted to believe it was because she was fighting the urge to reach for me, and not the urge to curl them into fists.
Chaos cleared his throat. “Kara, he saved—”
“I don’t need you talking to my woman on my behalf,” I seethed at him. All the hurt and anger and fear that had been sitting like a rock in the pit of my stomach swirled to life. I logically knew it was misplaced, but I wouldn’t take it out on Kara, and laying the blame squarely on my own shoulders was asking too much when all I wanted to do was cross the room, pull her into my arms, and tell her that I fucking loved her.
The last thing I needed was Chaos being all fake nice to get brownie points with her. The very thought pissed me off so bad I could barely see straight.
Whatever truce we might have called for a few hours was over. He could go to Hell.
I stared at her, so broken and bruised, and I wanted to kill someone all over again. Thunder. Ratchet. It didn’t matter which. If I could have made them deader than dead for what they’d done to her, then I would have in a heartbeat.
I strode to Kara’s bedside, ignoring her demands for me to leave, and took her chin between my fingers.
She stubbornly jerked out of my grasp.
“Look at me, Little Mouse.”
She did. I’d expected fire in her gaze. Anger.
But when I saw the pain there, the hurt I’d caused, I realized I’d been hoping for the easy way out and she wasn’t going to give it to me.
Good for her.
I was fucking proud of her for letting me see how much I’d upset her. Her anger had never bothered me. But hurting her…that was fucking inexcusable.
“Just go, Hawk. I can’t do this with you right now.”
I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “Fine. I’m going. But only as far as the corridor. I’ll be here to take you home when they let you leave.”
She ripped my hands away from her face and then wrapped her arms around herself. “No.”
I squinted at her. “Fine. I’ll get Fang or War—”
“I’m not going back to the compound.”
I froze. “What the hell does that mean? Of course you are. It’s your home.”
She stared at me miserably. “It’s not my home. It’s my prison. I can’t go anywhere. Can’t go shopping. Can’t see my sister. Hayley Jade can’t go to school.”
We’d talked about this at dinner the night before…shit, had that seriously only been last night? It felt like a lifetime ago. Like we’d been different people who’d had that conversation across a little table in a shoddy Saint View diner. She’d told me the compound had become a new sort of prison.
And I’d become her jailer.
“We can fix that,” I promised her. “Whatever you want to do, you can.”
As long as someone went with her. But that wasn’t going to help my argument, so I zipped my lips to keep the words from spilling out. “Kara, that cabin is your home. Hayley Jade is happy there.” I’d thought they both were.
She shook her head.
Anger made its way through the regret. She was so fucking stubborn when she wanted to be. I threw up my hands in frustration. “Where then? Where the hell else are you going to go, Kara? You can’t go to Rebel’s place, all beaten and bruised the way you are. You’ll scare the shit out of the kids. You can’t go to Bliss’s place. She’s about to have a baby any day. They need time to be a family. The only other place is the compound.”
Kara’s shoulders slumped.
I almost hated she knew I was right. I didn’t want her to not want to come home. The idea was killing me that she didn’t want to come back to the club. Back to me.
Chaos cleared his throat. “She can stay at my place.”
Kara looked up at him in surprise.
At the same time I growled, “No. Fucking. Way.”
Kara snapped her head in my direction. “This isn’t your decision.”
“Like hell it’s fucking not!” I lost a grip on my control at the very thought of her being out in the middle of the Saint View slums, only protected by Hayden fucking Whitling. She’d be a sitting duck for his enemies, as well as her own, and probably mine too. “You think Josiah is going to give up after one attempt at getting you back? Chaos can’t protect you!”
“He did before,” she said softly.
Oh, her fucking Stockholm syndrome was going to be the death of me. “He held you against your will, Kara! That is not the same thing!”
Anger flashed in her eyes. “You have no idea what happened between us all those years ago. No one does but him and me.”
I ground my molars. “He has you as brainwashed as Josiah did.”
“Watch your fucking mouth,” Chaos swore at me. “I get you’re mad. And you’re scared—”
Oh, that was fucking rich. “I’m not scared. She’s just not going with you.”
Kara’s face flushed with hot red anger. “Fine, Hawk. I’ll come back to the MC. On one condition.”
Something loosened in my brain, relief flooding in. “Anything.”
She pointed at Hayden. “He comes too. You give him a room at the clubhouse so I can see him whenever I want.”
“What?” I practically squawked. “You want me to let a Sinner stay at our clubhouse?”
Even Chaos looked wary. “Kara, I…”
“So it’s a no?” She glared at me, challenge in her eyes. “You’ll let me stay there. You’ll protect me. Give me whatever I want. As long as what I want isn’t him. Is that about how it goes?”
It was the truth. I didn’t want to admit it, but it was.
But the bigger hurt was what she wanted wasn’t me. With him in the picture, I was out.
Clearly, I had to let that go. Let her go. I couldn’t make her come back with me.
Hell, she’d gotten hurt on my watch, so maybe Hayden really was the better choice.
I gave in. “If you really want me to let you go, Kara, then go. Go live your life with him. I hope he makes you happy.”
The worst part about the whole thing was, when I walked out the door, I truly meant it.
At the end of the day, I wanted her and Hayley Jade’s happiness more than I wanted my own.
I’d fucking grown up. Pulling the woman I loved from a hole in the ground and breathing life back into her had forced a change I hadn’t known I’d wanted.
It was a shame it was twenty-four hours too late.