7. Chapter Seven
ACE
M y phone rang, echoing throughout the vast secluded woods, scaring off the birds in the trees above me. The boys hadn’t turned up with Neal yet, so I knew they must have gotten lost.
I pulled it out to see it was Kirby.
“Yeah?”
“You need to come back to the clubhouse.”
“Why?”
“Something’s happened. Hawk and Chains are in the hospital and Orla is here freaking the fuck out about Sheridan and the girls.”
My heart sank.
I got on my bike and tore through the roads toward the clubhouse, my heart felt as if it were being pulled apart in every direction, all sorts of scenarios playing out in my head the entire way back. Why the fuck hadn’t I stayed with them?
Once I got to the compound, I saw the bikes were all lined up but one of our vans was missing. Why the fuck were they in the hospital? They were right behind me.
I ran inside to find Orla pacing like a mad woman, her face full of tears while Bear tried to get her to drink some water.
“What is it?”
Orla’s eyes lit up when she saw me. She raced over to me. “He came…he came for them, Coop. He’s got the girls.”
“Sheridan?”
“She’s in the hospital, beaten. He looked like a wreck when he came into the shop, Cooper. Like he’d been put through a boxing match with no protection. He hit Sheridan so hard she went down immediately. Shauna and Ryleigh were dragged to a car.”
Fuck.
“Why the fuck are Hawk and Chains in hospital? How’d he get loose?”
Orla wheeled on me. “You attacked him and didn’t kill him?”
“It was the plan, Orla,” I spat. “Hawk and Chains had him in the van.”
Kirby looked to Kendrick who spoke up. “The van was involved in a collision. Hawk and Chains were at the scene, but there was no one else around.”
The fucker got away and went straight to attack Sheridan and kidnap his daughters.
“What do we do, Prez?” Kirby asked me, eager to punch a couple of fuckers. He had grown attached to the twins, just like half this fucking club had. Just like I had in just a few days. The rage I had for the asshole was building, forcing me to make stupid decisions.
“I’m going to the hospital. Bear…you know what to do. Orla, help him.”
She wanted to argue but she finally nodded before I left, taking my bike and riding to the hospital. I could feel the pain inside of my chest at not being able to protect her. Why hadn’t I just shot him in his house and been done with it? I should have gotten them out of Kilkenny the day I found out what that fucker was like…until I took care of business. I’d been selfish keeping her here.
I pulled into the hospital, leaving my bike by the entrance to leave fast if we had to and moved into the waiting area.
“Sheridan Foley.”
I fucking hated saying that name. She was Sullivan, always will be to me.
“I’m sorry, she’s not taking visitors at this time,” the older lady said with a sneer to her face. She was working for that fucker, I could tell.
“Casey Byrne and Bede Kelly,” I said, forced to use them to get me in. She looked down at her computer, and realised she couldn’t keep me away from them. I was their next of kin. I was everyone’s next of kin for this reason alone.
“Second floor,” she said with annoyance. I knew the second I walked away, she was going to call Neal and tell him I was here.
I leaned over so she could hear me but no one else could. “If you think calling your boss and telling him I’m here is going to win you brownie points, don’t forget I have the means to find your family, your friends, and anyone you love. A threat to someone I love, is a threat to me and my club. I don’t take kindly to that, and the only way I express my anger is with violence. He won’t be able to help you if I find you. Trust me on that.”
She gasped and sat back in her chair, her eyes wide as she slowly nodded.
I moved toward the elevators and hit the number 2 on the wall, watching her as the doors closed. My heart was in my throat as I looked through the second floor for my boys. Hawk was standing at the end of a bed, an ice pack on his head and a few cuts and grazes. I joined him at the bed to see Chains knocked about pretty bad.
“He was driving,” Hawk answered my unasked question. “Took the hit harder. Doc says he’s all right, just needs to be monitored for a concussion.”
“What the fuck happened?”
“He must have had someone watching the house,” Hawk told me. “We were rammed straight into a tree. He was taken out of the back, and we were left for dead.”
“You good?” I asked him, looking him over. His eyebrow had a cut over it as well as some bruising on his neck, but he looked okay.
“I’m good, man.”
He always was.
“Have you seen Sheridan?”
Hawk’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “No. Why would I?”
Shit. They didn’t know.
“Orla told me the fucker grabbed the girls and put Sheridan in here. Nurse wouldn’t let me in to see her.”
“Since when did you ever ask for permission?” Hawk asked. “Come on. We’ll find her. Chains stay the fuck down.”
He was woozy enough that he listened when Hawk barked the order at him. Hawk joined me in heading up the stairs to look for her.
“Try the fourth floor,” Chains said. I had no idea why, but I knew better than to not listen to him. We climbed the fire stairs until we got to the fourth floor. It was a quieter ward, private hospital section of the hospital. Hawk made a move up to the nurse’s station, the blond flirt taking over as he turned the nurse into a puddle. He had an uncanny ability with women, one I used to be jealous of. He’d even been this way in school.
I moved through the ward while he distracted her, but a lot of the curtains were drawn on the windows so I couldn’t figure out which one she’d be in.
“Ace,” Hawk called me over. I turned to see the nurse looking at him with concern, then over to me. I made my way back.
“Yeah?”
“You’re looking for Sheridan, right?” she asked me. I looked down at her name tag and saw it said Morena.
“Yeah.”
“You’re going to take her away from that bastard, right?” she asked me, her eyes looking into mine for confirmation.
“Yeah, Morena, I’m going to fucking kill that bastard as soon as she’s safe.”
She nodded. “Come with me.”
“You’re going to help us?” Hawk asked her.
She turned to us as we got to a door just down the hall a little. “Yes. Neal is a fucking asshole, and she never deserved what he did to her. Sheridan helped me…she got me into nursing school, she made my life better. When I saw her wheeled in here and him barking orders, I knew…please. Take her away from here. Hide her.”
I put my hand on her shoulder, feeling the tension in them. “Thank you.”
She nodded and opened the door. I looked over at the mass of red hair on the pillow around her. Her already pale skin was paler still, except for the black and blue bruises over her chin, eye and arms. I could feel my feet stop moving as I took in the woman I loved with every fiber of my being and knowing I hadn’t been able to stop this. I hadn’t been able to protect her.
“Go on, man.”
Hawk pushed me in the room. Carefully, I moved toward her, seeing more of the extent of the damage that fucker had done to her.
Fuck.
My eyes filled with tears as I looked down at her, asleep, the machines next to her beeping for her vitals.
He was so fucking dead. I should have just done it at the house. Why had I let him get away?
Moving to the side of her bed, I took her hand in mine. Her soft warmth warmed me a little as her eyes slowly opened and she looked down at me. A slow smile made its way onto her face. It broke my heart all over again.
She trusted me.
She believed in me. In Us.
And I’d failed.
“Hey there,” she said, her words almost a slur from the drugs.
“Baby, I’m so fucking sorry.”
Her smile dropped. “For what?”
Oh fuck, she doesn’t remember?
“Do you know where you are?” I asked her. She looked around, her eyes widening when she noticed she was in a hospital bed. She tried to sit up.
“No, stay there,” I held her back down. “Do you remember what happened at all?”
She shook her head, a tear making its way down her cheek. I kissed the back of her hand as she fell apart, the pain probably starting to take effect.
“I’m going to fucking kill him, Sher. I promise you. He’s not going to fucking hurt you or the girls anymore.”
Her eyes slammed open and she sat up, the machines beeping erratically enough that Morena came in to turn them off.
“Morena?” she glanced over, recognition sparking in her eyes.
Morena nodded. “Hey, Sheri. It’s okay. These guys are going to take real good care of you, okay?”
Sheridan looked back at me, her hand squeezing mine. “Where are Ry and Shauna?”
I took a deep breath before I delivered the painful news that was going to tear her apart.
“Orla says he took them and left you for dead,” Hawk interjected. “We’ll get them back.”
“How?” she sobbed. I held her against my chest, feeling the sobs wracking her entire body.
“You leave that for us,” Hawk said. “Now, come on. We need to get you to safety so we can go after them. The entire club is looking. He’s not going to get far, trust me, and when we catch up to them. He’s fucking dead.”
I held her until the sobbing eased, my heart was ripped into pieces as she fell apart. Hawk noticed and helped me to get her up and into a wheelchair. Morena unplugged her from the cords and handed us a bag of painkillers with instructions on how to medicate her for the pain and what to look out for. Hawk nodded, taking all of it in. I couldn’t take my focus off Sheridan. I wheeled her out of the room and Hawk bid Morena farewell as we took off down to the second floor, using the elevator this time.
“Hawk, go get Chains. We need to hightail it outta here.”
He nodded, taking off as the doors closed on the elevator. I took Sheridan down to the ground floor and waited. Sheridan was dozing in and out of consciousness against my hand.
Hawk came flying through the foyer without Chains.
“What now?” I asked, waking Sheridan with my voice.
“He’s gone. Checked himself out apparently.”
“What the fuck?”
Sheridan cleared her throat. “Did you tell him about the girls?”
“No, only you.”
“Why?” Hawk countered. Sheridan smirked a little before she grimaced in pain. I wheeled her down to my bike, realising it wasn’t the best idea to ride in her condition but it was the fastest way to get her back to the clubhouse.
“He likes Shauna,” Sheridan said. “And she likes him. They had a fight when she tried to kiss him last night and he pulled away from it and told her it wasn’t going to happen and she…being Shauna took it out on him by ignoring him. I saw the texts on her phone when we were at the shop.”
“He’s too old for her, for fuck’s sake,” I swore. “I’m going to kill him.”
“No, you’re not. He’s nine years older which is why he told her they can’t be a thing, but to a sixteen year old girl, that’s rejection of the highest order.”
Hawk and I helped her on the back of my bike, where she belonged. I jumped on and motioned to Hawk that I was taking her back. He nodded and flung the wheelchair to the side to join me. I made sure she was holding on tight as I rode through the streets as fast as I could to get home, my mind on Chains and his fucking stupidity.
I got to the clubhouse and helped her off the bike, carrying her in my arms into the clubhouse. Orla gasped when she saw her. Bear ran to us to help me with her. I took her to one of the rooms and laid her down on the bed as gently as I could.
“Where the fuck is Chains?” I growled, anger seeping out of every pore I had.
“Better question would be,” Sheridan said, trying to pull herself up. “How the hell Neal knew where we were in the first place.”
“I know the answer to that question,” Orla said, for once being sheepish and not her outlandish self. She looked paler than normal and I realised that she felt at fault for what happened to her best friend and goddaughters. “Shauna posted it on her stories on Insta.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I asked. Sheridan tried to laugh but clutched at her side. I lifted her shirt and saw the bruising under her ribs. “Jesus, did you break a couple of ribs too?”
“No, just bruises they said.”
“Instagram is a social media platform, you caveman,” Orla bounced back. “Jesus.”
“I know that, woman, I mean what does post to stories mean. I’m not exactly social media savvy.”
“Clearly,” she rolled her eyes. “It means she takes videos of what she’s doing and posts them to her stories for her followers to see what she’s up to. A lot of influencers do it.”
“I’m not even gonna ask you to explain that,” I said. “I need to know what to do now. Chains isn’t here. His bike is missing, which means he came here to get it after the hospital. Speaking of…how did you get home?”
“Bikes aren’t exactly hard to get going if you know the mechanics of them,” Hawk said with a shrug.
“Are you fucking serious?” Orla laughed. “Man, you really don’t change, do you, Hawkie.”
“Why mess with perfection?” he bit back.
“Enough,” I yelled. “What the fuck do we do now? Where would he take them?”
Orla gasped, looking down at her phone and closed it quickly before she tried to excuse herself from the room. I looked at Sheridan, who looked just as concerned as I did.
“Hawk…stay with Sher. I’ll see what’s up.”
Hawk nodded and sat down next to Sheridan to stop her from getting up. I chased Orla outside and caught up to her.
Her eyes were watering as she showed me the video of Shauna and Ryleigh tied up and being taunted by men on her instagram.
“What the fuck?”
“They knew once they turned sixteen, he told them he would sell them for money, to make him proud. I can’t believe he actually did it. We’ve lost them.”
I looked down at the names popping up on the screen. “What’s that?”
She looked at what I was pointing at. “Viewers who have seen it.”
Orla looked down and enlarged a button that showed a list of names. She sighed heavily.
“Chains knows where they are.”
“What?” I barked at her. “How?”
“That’s Chains’ social media profile name,” she replied. “Why wouldn’t he tell you guys?”
“He would tell someone,” I said. “Go and get Razor. Tell him to bring the guys out here.”
She nodded quickly and ran inside. I ran my hand through my hair, frustration mounting as I thought of all the things I would do to those men should one fucking hair on their heads be pulled from their scalps. Those girls were mine to protect. Neal Foley had fucked with the wrong fucking family. I would see this entire fucking town drenched in blood if anything happened to my girls.
Razor told me where Chains was - he’d tracked the warehouse the girls were being held in thanks to the Instagram story. I jumped on my bike and led the boys to go and get them. Tearing down the roads of Kilkenny, everyone turned their heads as they saw the outlaw MC causing chaos in their town.
Again.
I didn’t give a fuck.
This town was going to see a hell of a lot more blood spilled when I had the girls tucked away safely. No more corrupt cops, no more criminal empires rising to take our business. It was time to bring back the malice.
The fear.
The violence.
As we approached the old warehouse that had been condemned, we got off our bikes as quickly as possible, grabbing our assortment of weapons for the fight of a lifetime, and we headed inside. We located Chains quickly as he stepped out from the shadows. He looked down at his feet, knowing he had fucked up. His injuries were still very present, but somehow he was on his feet and ready to fight.
“I don’t have the time for this shit,” I said to him. “We talk about this when both of them are safe at the clubhouse.”
He nodded, looking back up at me before I saw the anger lash over his face. Good. I needed angry Chains right now.
We marched through the warehouse, toward the noise above us. Blood rushed through my veins, blocking out noise in my ears as we headed into what I could only imagine was a scene I didn’t want to witness.
Chains burst forth with Razor ahead of Hawk, Bear and myself. Savage and Viper were leading the prospects behind us. I heard the grunting from men taking on Chains and Razor just as I looked in to see more men coming at us. I raised my fist, ensuring my knuckle dusters were over my knuckles just as I unloaded on the first guy who came at me. He went down, groaning and clutching at his face. I took on the next guy who came running at me, smashing him in the side of the cheek.
I heard the crunch of his bone smashing under my knuckles before he fell to his knees. I landed another punch in his gut to which he fell over onto his hands and knees, trying to suck in air through the pain. The sound from behind a curtain was intense as I looked up, only narrowly missing a fist coming at me. I ducked, issuing a knuckle duster to the ribs. The guy howled in pain as he fell to his knees. I punched the side of his face twice, blood splattering over my arms as his head bounced back after every punch.
I shoved the wearied fucker away from me, listening to him land with a thud on the cement floor. I ran for the curtain, pulling it back to see Chains and Razor taking care of the men closest to the girls who were gasping and screaming. I didn’t see any injuries on them as I tried to get to them, but a fist came from out of nowhere and I hunched over. I heard the girls cry out as they witnessed me hit the ground.
The fucker had knuckle dusters on himself. The brass hit the soft part of my cheek, so blood was pooling out of the cut he’d made. That only made me rage more to see my own blood. I unleashed on him, blocking his next punch, snapping his arm upward and unleashing the fury inside of me. The guy’s face was a bloody pulp by the time Hawk pulled me up.
Chains had run to Shauna’s side and I felt funny about seeing him check her over to make sure she was okay. I knew they had grown close, him taking a protective watch over her, but the gentle way he was checking on her had me on edge.
She was sixteen.
I know Sheridan had said that he’d rejected her, but I could see the tenderness in his movements. He liked her.
He pulled both girls up as the rest of the guys finished piling the guys up in the corner, beaten and bloody. The girls clutched onto Chains, his arms around them both, as he offered me an apologetic look before he took them out to our bikes.
“Do a check for any others,” I yelled to Savage. “See if there’s anything here that leads back to Foley.”
Savage and Viper took the prospects around the warehouse while I headed outside with Hawk, Razor and Chains. Ryleigh ran up to me and wrapped her arms around my waist. For a moment, I didn’t know what to do, until I felt myself soften and I wrapped my arms around her, to comfort her. I didn’t know a strong feeling could envelop me like this. She’d run to me because I’d saved her, I’d protected her from something going wrong with them. I had saved them from their own goddamn father. In this moment alone, even though I already knew I would, I would die to save them if I had to.
Chains was on his bike, Shauna at his back, clinging to him as he revved his engine, reading to get out of here and back to safety.
“Come on,” I said to Ryleigh. “Let’s get you home.”
She nodded and let me lead her over to the bike. I put the helmet on her head and ensured it was tight on her head.
“What do I do?” she asked me, her voice wavering with emotion.
“Just hold on, kid,” I said, getting on the bike in front of her. I pulled her arms around my waist so she was hugging me from behind. I peeled out of the warehouse lot, Hawk, Chains, and Razor behind me. Viper, Savage and the prospects would follow once they’d destroyed any evidence laying around. I struggled to comprehend what we’d just done and what Neal had done to his own daughters.
I had known he wasn’t going to be there, but I was a little pissed off that he wasn’t. He’d left his teenage daughters to be used and abused.
His right to exist in the same world as us was revoked.
And I was going to do the reaping myself.
I pulled into the compound and helped Ryleigh off the back of the bike. She was shaking, but she appeared to be okay. Chains was helping Shauna, until I moved over to them. Shauna ran and hugged my side so that I had one twin on each side as we walked down to the clubhouse. Orla was at the door, relief flooding her features as the girls ran into her arms. Chains caught up to me, his hand on my shoulder.
“Not now, Bede.”
“Fuck, Prez, I don’t know what happened. I was drinking, playing pool, and we were just having fun, then she came up to me and planted one on me. I told her no and she lost her shit. I’m sorry.”
“I know that you did the right thing,” I told him. “But I saw the way you looked at her when you picked her up from the floor. That’s not a protector, that was something else. She’s sixteen, brother, it can’t happen.”
He nodded. “I know, and I don’t want it to. She’ll get over it.”
I nodded. “Yes, I’m sure she will. Keep your distance. I’ll make sure they’re protected by the others.”
He nodded. “There’s the run up to Galway next week. I’ll go with Savage and Viper, maybe stay with the O’Farrell’s for a few days. Give her the space she needs.”
“Good,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
He nodded and headed back to his bike, probably to head home. I could see the remorse on his face, but I couldn’t tell if that was true remorse for leading her on, or if he truly liked her. This wasn’t like him. He didn’t do shit like this. He was reliable and yet I saw what I saw.
I moved inside and headed down the hall to see Sheridan. The girls were both crying into her chest when I got there. Sheridan looked over at me with relief over her features before she saw the blood splattered on my chest and on my face.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m good,” I said. “Are you able to walk?”
She nodded. “Yeah, Orla had me up before. The painkillers are working it seems.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m going to take you girls somewhere safe. When you’re ready, meet me outside, yeah?”
She nodded and I left the room, feeling as if I’d let those girls down, and it made me angrier than I ever was before. Hawk sat at the bar, tossing back a whiskey. His own face was starting to swell from a few punches that obviously connected.
“I’m taking them up the hill,” I told him.
“Good. I called some reinforcements in for us earlier. They should arrive soon.”
“Who?”
As if on cue, the doors opened and two familiar faces stood there, smiling over at me.
“Killian, Conor,” I greeted them. They moved into the clubhouse, looking around. “Thanks for coming.”
“Hawk filled us in a little and we came straight away,” Conor said. “Ready for a fight.”
“I appreciate it,” I said. “I gotta take my woman to safety, but Hawk will give you a place to stay, and tomorrow we can catch you up fully.”
“Sounds good,” Killian said. “Go take care of business.”
Sheridan led her girls out from the hallway and toward us. Conor and Killian looked at them and then back at me.
“You sure you want to wait until tomorrow?” Conor asked. He was serious and I knew it. He’d have no problem joining me right now and taking Neal out once and for all, but we had to be careful about this. Kilkenny needed to accept us here, and Neal had way too many connections for that to go awry.
“Believe me, if I didn’t fear for their lives, I would be taking you up on that, Con, but it’s not about me right now.”
He nodded. “I understand. We’ll be ready and waiting.”
I helped Sheridan outside to one of our trucks and got the girls strapped in before I jumped behind the wheel.
“Who are those guys?” Shauna asked. “They don’t look like they belong to the club.”
“They don’t,” I replied. “They’re friends who can help us.”
“Where are we going?” Ryleigh asked.
“You’ll see in a minute,” I told her. “It’s safe. No one knows about this place, not even half the people in the club.”
I drove up the hill where the house sat behind gates that only two people knew the code to. I keyed it in and drove up to the front door.
I helped Sheridan out of the car and then the girls.
“What about our stuff?” Ryleigh asked.
“Hawk will bring it up for us later,” I told them. “Don’t worry. You’ll be comfortable here.”
“What is this place?” Sheridan asked, looking up at the second floor.
“Uh,” I said, moving to the door and unlocking it. “It’s my place…well I guess, our place now. If you want to move in, that is.”
Her eyes widened and she took the place in from the bottom of the steps. Ryleigh and Shauna both joined her in looking at the place.
“I love it,” Ryleigh announced, moving up the steps and in through the door. Shauna followed, leaving Sheridan on the front step with me.
“And you?”
“This looks exactly how I described my dream home when I was sixteen, Cooper.”
“That’s because it is,” I told her. “I started construction on this place about eighteen months ago. I knew I would be back here eventually, so I hired people to start it so that when I finally did settle here, I would have somewhere to go.”
“Did you know you’d bump back into me?” she asked.
“I hoped,” I told her. “But after not seeing you for a few months, I did question whether you were still here, I’m not going to lie.”
Sheridan grabbed my neck and rested her forehead against mine. “You need to clean that cut up. Come on.”
“It’s fine, I’m more worried about you.”
“Don’t argue with me, Cooper Malone. Get your ass in here and show me the first aid kit.”