Chapter 2 #2
Ace thanked him and we headed into separate rooms. I wouldn’t sleep, I knew it, but the other two were exhausted. I was fueled by my desire to find Orla. The more time we wasted, the faster I could lose her.
I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t survive it.
The mansion Dario had brought us to sat on a hill, large trees covering the entrance. There was a big gate around the property that was heavily guarded with gun toting dickheads. Emil sat with me, as we waited for the sign that we would approach.
“One of them is your woman?” Emil asked me, finally speaking.
“Yes,” I said, even though I knew she wasn’t. “Orla.”
He nodded. “I will fight beside you to bring her back, brother.”
“Thank you,” I offered. I didn’t say that often, but I meant it. He understood what we needed to do and how vital this was. “You have a woman waiting for you?”
Emil shook his head. “No, I would never assume that just one wants to settle with me.”
I chuckled. I knew that was what most of the boys felt when they first joined. Women threw themselves at you. There was never an end to the pussy when you had a cut on your back and a bike underneath you.
“There seems to be a weakness up there,” he pointed to an area where the guards didn’t seem to be pacing.
“You’re right.”
“Let me tell Dario,” he said. “We can go in through there.”
“The rest of the club here?”
Emil nodded. “Scattered. We have at least thirty men here, we pulled some of the Irish boys over for it during the day.”
While we slept.
I waited for Emil to speak into the phone in Italian, but every part of me was buzzing to get inside and find Orla. Everything I’d left unsaid was killing me. She didn’t know. She didn’t know how much I loved her, and always had.
I had to tell her.
Emil came back over to me. “They’re in position. We should get down there.”
I followed him eagerly, wanting to get in there and bust a few skulls. Slowly, we made it down to where Ace and Hawk had met up with Dario and Enzo.
“We take the side, the boys will take most of the heat out here, drag them out.”
I nodded at Dario as we ran down to where there appeared to be an opening in the security.
I could hear gunfire at the front of the mansion, Matteo’s security detail were all running down as I chanced a glance to see at least forty bikers shooting and engaging with the security.
Following Dario, he led us through the gardens and up into the back of the mansion.
Ace had his knucks on, Hawk held his knives in his hands at the ready.
I opted for my guns; one strapped to my ankle, one in the back of my pants and one in my hands.
They were fast and efficient, and I knew I didn’t have to get close to let off a couple of rounds.
The Rabid Wolves moved down one hall and told us to split down the next hall. We had to get out of here as quickly as possible.
A door opened to our left and we froze on the spot, my gun aiming up at whoever it was.
A man in his mid twenties opened the door and looked at us, a steely resolve on his face.
He sighed and motioned for us to continue down the hall and to the left.
Confused, we looked at each other as he leaned against his door, his head hung low, as if he were waiting to be killed.
When we didn’t do anything, Ace and Hawk running past him, he moved back into his room and closed the door. I kicked open the door, my gun trained on him, but he was just sitting on the end of his bed.
“I won’t tell him,” he said. His accent was thick but his English was perfect. “He’s done wrong by this, and I don’t condone it. All I ask is you take him out, because he won’t stop. This is not what we are about.”
“His name.”
“Matteo.”
“Yours,” I asked.
“Bastian. I’m Bastian Barone.”
I nodded, remembering the name, and backing out of the room as I closed the door again, following the boys. Ace was already in a room, clutching onto Sheridan, checking her over for injuries.
“Where is she?” I barked out.
She looked up at me, her cheek bruised but she was otherwise unharmed. Her face was wet from tears.
“I don’t know,” she sobbed, her voice hoarse. “They separated us immediately, but I heard…”
“Heard what?” Ace asked her, softly, wiping her hair from her face.
“I heard a gunshot from down the hall earlier,” she sobbed again. “I can’t.”
“Take her out of here,” Hawk ordered. Ace nodded, and slung his arm around his woman.
I stopped him, pulling my leg up and handing him my ankle piece.
He nodded his thanks and left the same way we came in.
Hawk and I moved through the hall, only two doors left.
We looked at each other before we each opened a door.
I burst open my door and stumbled when I saw her.
She was shaking in the corner of a bed, her arms wrapped tightly around her legs. She hadn’t even seen me yet.
“Orla,” I said, softly, lowering my gun after sweeping the room for anyone who may be hiding.
She didn’t move. She didn’t say a word. I moved closer, reaching out to her.
She shook again, and my heart all but seized.
There was a bullet size hole in the wall next to her, right next to her fucking head.
What the fuck had they done to her?
I put my gun in the waistband of my pants, and grabbed at her hands. She fought me like a wet cat as I pulled her into my arms, wrapping an arm over her chest and holding her hands down to stop the punches.
“It’s me,” I said. “Orla, it’s me, it’s Bear.”
She continued to scream. Fuck.
Orla pulled out of my grasp and I let her go, as she made a move to throw a punch in my direction. I caught her fist in my hand. With my other hand, I cupped the side of her face. Pulling her hard against me, I smoothed her hair away from her face and forced her to look up into my eyes.
Slowly, her fierceness dissolved and she sought my face, the tension in her body disappearing.
“Alex?”
Fuck.
No one called me that. I hated to hear my name, except from her lips.
“Yeah, baby, it’s me,” I said. “Can you walk? I need to get you outta here.”
She nodded and relaxed. I let her go slightly, but not completely only to look down and see her top and bra were sliced open, revealing those perfect tits to me.
Fuck.
I pulled my shirt over my head and handed it to her.
She slid into it with ease, the material hanging off her like a dress.
Grabbing her hand, I led her out of the hallway and toward the exit.
Hawk called out from in front of us that he had Wolf and was carrying him out already. We were the last ones.
A door opened and I looked over to see a man stopping in his tracks, probably aware his mansion was under attack. He looked vaguely familiar, like I’d seen him before, but I knew I hadn’t.
He was related to Bastian, the genetic markings were there. Orla froze in my grasp as she looked over at her tormentor. I knew it the second I saw her freeze.
Fury took over as I moved to get my gun from the front of my waistband, letting go of her hand for a moment. He raised his gun too, and I instinctively moved in front of Orla so she didn’t get caught.
“Run,” I ordered her. But I knew she hadn’t moved. She was frozen.
Fuck.
“Ah, the infamous Bear,” the man said, a cocky grin to his face. “Sergeant at Arms with the Ghost Rebels, am I correct?”
How the fuck did he know who I was?
“How on earth you can stomach all that ink on her body is beyond me,” he sneered. “But, I do suppose you’re as disgusting as she is.”
I felt my finger twitch, ready to pop off a shot when movement behind me distracted me, my gun being pulled free from the back of my waistband.
I spun to see Orla standing there, the gun aimed directly at the fucker, a look of determined glee in her eyes.
“Go on, baby,” I urged. “He’s yours to end.”
The shot was loud in my ears, and then the sound of him grunting made me look at the body of the once cocky asshole, now slumped against the wall. Blood streamed out of him, his eyes closed.
I slowly took the gun off her, and grabbed her hand again, running out of the mansion and to where everyone waited. The gunfire was dying down, security detail scattered everywhere over the grounds. I saw a few MC members lying down as well, obviously fatal.
Fuck.
Once we were out of there, I made sure we were clear and pulled Orla under my arm in the back of the truck as Dario sped us back to the clubhouse, and away from enemy fire. He gave the command to the others to ease up and flee from the gunfire.
Orla clutched onto me, as if I were her only comfort. I fucking hated how much I loved it, and yet I knew in the morning, she’d not touch me again.
For now, I would relish her touch.
Orla
The clubhouse was similar to the one in Kilkenny, but obviously, most of them spoke Italian. The woman behind the bar had kind eyes as she filled my drink, knowing exactly what I had gone through and giving me endless shots.
Nothing could wipe the pain from my mind though. I was going to need time to get over what that asshole did to me, planting seeds of doubt there that had wormed their way into my heart.
The gunshot though.
I shuddered as I thought about it.
It had whizzed past my head, so fast that I hadn’t been able to hear for a few minutes out of that ear. The bullet lodged in the wall beside me, and I’d been mesmerised by it, to the point I hadn’t stopped shaking as I sat next to it for hours.
“Orla,” I heard Hawk as he sat down next to me at the bar. “You good?”
I nodded. “Want one?”
“Nah,” he said. “Gotta stay sharp. We’re gonna head out with some of the wolves soon to do a run with them, you know, since they lost some guys.”
Because of us.
“Oh,” I replied.
“Bear’s been lookin’ for you.”