Chapter 38 #2
Drew sees it. He fucking loves it. “You all so tough when it’s a room full of you and one guy in a bar,” he says, eyes flicking over the line of us, then landing back on me. “Different story when I’m holding what matters, huh?”
Blaze’s jaw clenches so hard I hear his teeth grind from three feet away.
Landon looks like he’s one breath from just charging and letting whatever happens happen.
Shadow and Cain don’t move.
That’s worse. That’s trained violence barely leashed.
Drew’s dirty mouth drops to Allison’s throat.
For one horrible second, I don’t understand what I’m seeing.
Then he bites her. Hard. His mouth sinks into the side of her neck and she screams.
The sound rips through the lot so violently it feels like somebody jammed a knife straight between my ribs and twisted.
Every man around me reacts.
A step. A curse. A gun shifting higher.
No shot. Still no fucking shot.
Drew drags his mouth back from her skin, smiling against the blood already rising there where he broke it. He’s doing it on purpose. Not just to hurt her. To make me watch. To shove my own helplessness down my throat until I choke on it.
And Christ, it works.
Because there is not a single thing I can do right now except stand here with a gun in my hand and murder in my chest while he puts his hands and mouth on my woman and dares me to try him.
“You see that?” he says, eyes never leaving mine. “She’s mine now.”
No.
No, the fuck she isn’t.
My vision narrows so sharply I can barely see the edges of the lot.
Everything reduces down to him. Her. The gun. The line of his body where her body isn’t.
Find the shot.
Find it.
Find it.
There isn’t one.
He shifts her too well. Uses her too neatly.
And he knows exactly how much it’s killing me.
“She came with me,” he says. “Didn’t fight too hard once she understood I was serious.”
Allison makes a broken, furious noise and tries to stomp his foot.
Good girl.
Drew jerks her backward hard enough to make her gasp and laughs again.
I want him dead.
Not eventually. Not abstractly. Not when this is over and the moral calculus has been sorted and the club’s decided which version of justice fits best.
Now.
I want him dead now.
And for the first time in my life, I understand with terrifying clarity that wanting something and being able to do it are two very different hells.
“Let her go,” I say again. Still low. Still rough. Still one thread away from feral.
Drew’s smile widens. “Make me.”
A beat.
Then, softer, with the kind of ugly satisfaction only a dead man should wear: “Problem is you can’t.”
He’s right.
That’s the knife.
He’s right, right now, in this second, with her in front of him and every clean shot gone and six armed men standing in the lot forced into stillness by one bastard with a hostage and just enough recklessness to mean it.
Logan’s voice comes again, quieter this time. “Keep him talking.”
I hear it. Somewhere under the screaming in my own head, I hear it.
Time.
Create time. Make him run his mouth. Stretch the seconds until something changes.
I can do that. Maybe. I swallow blood and bile and fury all at once and say, “What’s the endgame here, Drew?”
He blinks. Not expecting the question.
“You think you’re getting out of this?” I ask.
“Don’t need out.”
“Then what?”
He breathes hard through his nose, gun still welded to her temple. “She was supposed to choose right.”
The words hit like acid. So damn pathetic I almost laugh. And maybe that’s why I do. Not much. Just one short, disbelieving sound.
Drew’s whole face twists. “Funny?”
“No,” I say. “Just realizing exactly how much of a bitch you really are.”
Blaze mutters, “Jesus Christ,” under his breath.
But Drew is angry now.
Good.
Angry men make mistakes.
“She was supposed to see what I was trying to give her,” he spits. “Instead she ran back to trash.”
Allison’s eyes flash with something like fury even through the pain.
That’s my girl.
Drew feels the shift in her and jerks her tighter again. “She thinks this lot full of animals is going to keep her safe?”
I answer before anyone else can. “Yes.”
That lands. Hard.
Because it’s true. Because everybody in this lot knows it. Because if he hadn’t caught her when he did, if she’d gotten three more seconds free, she would’ve made it.
Straight to us. Straight to safety. Straight home.
Drew sees the truth in that too, and it infuriates him.
Good.
Stay angry.
Stay messy.
Make the mistake.
He moves the gun a fraction. Then back. Not much. Enough to show me he’s agitated.
Still not clean enough. Still too close to her. Still too much risk.
My hands are steady on the gun. That’s the terrifying part. My body is a war zone, but my hands are steady. And there is absolutely nothing I can do with that.
The silence stretches. Tightens. Burns.
Then...a sound.
Not from Drew. Not from Allison. Not from the lot.
A crack.
Sharp. Clean. Distant and immediate all at once.
A rifle shot.
For one impossible second, nobody moves.
Then Drew’s body snaps backward. His eyes go wide in stunned, animal confusion. His grip breaks. The gun jerks. A shot fires wild as he falls. And he takes Allison with him.
The whole moment turns into chaos.
Bodies dropping. Dust exploding upward. The sound of women screaming from the porch. Every man in the lot surging forward at once.
I don’t think. I run.
Straight through the dust cloud blooming thick and hot around the impact point, straight toward the place where her body disappeared under his.
No idea what I’m going to find.
No idea where the bullet went. If it hit him clean. If the gunshot he fired hit her. If she’s conscious. If she’s breathing.
Nothing.
Just movement. Panic. Need.
Somewhere behind me, Logan is shouting orders. Cain is peeling right to the left. Shadow and Blaze are angling wide in case Drew’s still got a hand on the gun. Landon is right behind me or maybe ahead of me, I don’t even know.
All I know is the dust is too thick and my chest is too tight and for one endless second I can’t see her at all.
Then I hit the ground where they fell.
The dust is thick enough to choke on.
It rolls across the road in a hot, gritty cloud, swallowing shapes and sound and sense for half a second that feels like half my life. I hit the ground hard on one knee and one hand, dirt grinding into my palm, and shove through it blind because I cannot lose sight of her now.
“Allie!” My voice tears out of me raw enough to hurt.
My heart slams once, hard and terrible, against my ribs.
She’s on her side half-curled into the dirt a few feet from Drew’s body, her bound hands trapped awkwardly behind her, hair wild around her face, blood and dust streaked over her skin.
For one second the whole world narrows to the exact shape of her and every single worst-case scenario my brain’s been trying not to build since this started hits at once.
I’m on her in the next breath. My gun is gone. I don’t even remember dropping it. “Allie, baby—”
My hands shake once before I force them still. I touch her everywhere and nowhere at first, terrified to move her wrong, terrified not to move her at all.
Blood.
There’s blood. Too much of it for my sanity. Not enough of it to tell me where it’s coming from through the dirt and the bite mark and the cut at her temple and the scrape burned raw along one leg.
“Jimmy.” Logan’s voice cuts in sharp from somewhere to my right, but I barely hear him.
I need to know where the bullet went.
I force myself to focus.
Head. Neck. Chest. Shoulders.
My hands move fast now, rough only because panic is trying to eat me alive and I am fighting it with every scrap of training and control I’ve got left. I slide one hand under her back just enough to check, the other over her ribs, her stomach, her side.
Nothing.
No wet bloom. No hole. No hot spill of blood that wasn’t already there from before.
I check again because I don’t trust relief. Because I don’t trust God. Because I don’t trust the world not to hand me the thing I want most just so it can rip it away a second later.
Still nothing.
No bullet hole.
Thank God.
The words hit my head so hard they almost knock me sideways.
Thank God.
Air tears into my lungs like I’ve been underwater too long. “She’s clear,” I choke out, not sure who I’m talking to. “No bullet hit.”
Around me, the lot is still in motion.
Cain and Shadow are on Drew’s body like they’re making sure dead means dead.
Blaze is kicking the gun farther out into the gravel.
Landon is there suddenly, dropping to one knee opposite me, face white under the dirt and adrenaline. “She shot?”
“No.” My voice comes out wrecked. “No, no hole. I don’t—” I drag my gaze over her face again. “I think the fall. Crash before. Maybe head. Fuck—”
I look up for one second, instinct pulling my eyes toward the crack of the rifle shot that saved her life.
And there he is.
Joker.
Up in the watch tower over the gate with the rifle still braced against his shoulder, body loose now that the shot’s done, mouth curved in that calm, dry, almost lazy smile of his like he just handled a problem exactly the way he meant to.
Our eyes meet across the lot.
He lifts his chin once. Not smug. Not showy. Just certain. Took the shot. Hit the mark. Your girl’s alive.
I have never loved another man more platonically in my life.
Then I’m back to her. “Allie.” I touch her face, careful this time, brushing dust and hair back from her skin. “Baby, open your eyes.”
Nothing.
The panic comes back meaner. Not a bullet. Still unconscious.
“Call Doc!” I roar, my voice cracking so hard it shreds. “Now. Get Doc the fuck over here now.”
“Already on it!” Dad yells from somewhere behind me.
I slide one arm under her shoulders and the other beneath her knees, but stop before I lift because I need her to give me something first.
Anything.
A sound. A breath. A twitch.