Chapter 14
One heartbeat.
Two heartbeats.
It was like someone had turned off the speakers in his ears. All he could hear was the thump…thump…thump… of his own heart inside his chest. The falling rain, the rushing water, the cries of despair, the shouts of confusion… He heard none of it.
Thump…
Thump…
Thump…
Then with a roar of sudden intensity, the switch was flipped and the speakers came blasting on and he heard it all. Hands lifted him. Pirate fought them as if he could undo what just happened so long as he stayed there. Right there.
Sounds of shouted orders, loud horns of fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars, the continued onslaught of the downpour… It didn’t matter that he could now hear it. None of it was making any sense to him. Nothing was making sense to him.
It kept replaying over and over in his head again.
Running, the gunshot, the fall, getting Sophia up, and then Scar…that look in his eyes…and then the splash of river water… Over and over again like someone was inside his head rewinding a video tape. Running, the gunshot, the fall, getting Sophia up, and then Scar…that look in his eyes…and then the splash of river water…
Pirate was dragged back over the guardrail. It took him a moment to realize that Steel had a tight grip on the front of his shirt and had his face right up to Pirate’s. He was shaking Pirate like a rag doll.
“Snap out of it, Marine!”
Time was playing tricks on him again. How long had it been since he’d let go of Scar’s hand? An hour, maybe two? Why had it taken so long for everyone to arrive? Pirate had been alone on the bridge. He was one man with one and a half legs. How could they have left him alone?
What good was he to anyone?
He looked down at his right hand. Like a phantom hand was gripping his, he tightened it. How could he have let go?
A roar like that of a wild animal broke through his haze. Pirate looked up in time to see Jumper and Ghost rushing to the guardrail. Both were in their skivvies. Like Olympic champions, they ran at the guardrail, planted a bare foot on the top, and leapt into the open air, diving down, down into the river’s depths.
The roaring was coming from Bulldog. He was being held back by Lucky and Bear, both large men having full body locks on the enraged SAA. At first, Pirate couldn’t make out his words through his shouted pain, but through repetition, he understood: “Julian! Julian! No, Julian!”
Two sets of clothing, cuts, and boots lay at the side of the guardrail. Jumper and Ghost. Two former Navy SEALs. They’d gone into the frigid water after Scar.
The sight of Bulldog’s cut on the wet bridge surface clued Pirate in that Bulldog had tried to follow. Lucky and Bear were holding him back. As experienced a soldier as Bulldog was, Navy SEALs were different. They went through severe training that not many completed. They were in a class all their own.
If Bulldog went into that river, he would not be coming back out.
Jumper and Ghost at least would have a fighting chance. Pirate wished he’d been able to stop them though. He knew something they didn’t. They thought Scar had simply fallen, that he’d hit the water while he was whole and healthy.
Pirate shook Steel off and rushed to Bulldog. Between Lucky and Bear fighting to keep Bulldog from following over the edge of the bridge, Pirate planted himself in front of his SAA’s face and slapped his open palms on the man’s broad chest to get his attention.
“Bulldog, stop!” Pirate shouted. “Stop! He’s gone! Scar’s gone!” When Bulldog continued to fight, Pirate pounded his closed fists against his chest. Hard. “You don’t understand! Bulldog, he was shot!”
Everything seemed to freeze. Bulldog, Lucky, Bear, Steel, the other club members around, the deputies, the paramedics... Slowly, Bulldog lowered his gaze down to Pirate.
“What?” The single worded question was barely audible.
Pirate met his eyes so the man knew he wasn’t fooling him. “Scar was shot. He was barely conscious! I couldn’t see the wound clearly, but… Bulldog, he was hit in the chest.”
It was a good thing Bear and Lucky still had a grip on Bulldog. The man’s knees gave out in the next second. Lucky and Bear fought to keep him standing.
Steel put a hand on Pirate’s shoulder, turning him. “You’re sure? You saw the bullet hit?”
Sadly, Pirate nodded. “It’s what threw them over the edge.”
Steel closed his eyes, bowing his head. Rain continued to fall. “What happened?”
“Sophia and I were driving to the steakhouse. A cage came out of nowhere and—” Pirate gasped. “Pumpkin!”
Steel’s head shot up, his eyes darkened. “What about him?”
Pirate looked around frantically, as if he could spot his friend and brother just up and walking around the crowded bridge. The firetruck had a large floodlight on a high pole that helped to illuminate the entire area. He was surprised it had taken him so long to notice.
“The cage,” Pirate rushed out. “It slammed into Pumpkin’s hog. He went flying. I don’t…” Pirate shook his head. “I don’t know what happened to him.”
“Where?” Steel snapped.
Pirate turned to look down the bridge at where his shot up cage, the Hummer , the bodies of the two gunmen, and Pumpkin’s destroyed bike were. An ambulance, police cruiser, and a fire engine were by that accident scene as well.
Without words Grumpy, Demo, and Cage went running down the bridge to find their club brother.
Steel turned back to Pirate. “What happened next?”
“My cage. They started shooting at us.” Pirate looked all around. Where was his M18? He didn’t remember what he’d done with it. He’d had it in his hand when he’d been running up the bridge, but now it was gone. He glanced down at his empty palms. Blood seeped from the deep gash across the palm of his left hand from his grip on the guardrail.
But there was no gun, no Scar.
Pirate’s head shot up. “Sophia! Where’s Sophia?”
“She’s with the paramedics.”
Pirate looked around until he saw her amongst the sea of firemen yellow, police beige, and paramedic blue. She was sitting in the back of an ambulance. Soaked to the bone, looking like a drowned rat, she had a blanket around her shoulders as a paramedic looked her over.
As if she sensed his gaze, Sophia looked up. Their eyes met. Sophia threw the blanket off her shoulders and bolted out of the ambulance, running right for him.
Pirate wished he had such speed, but his leg wouldn’t cooperate. His right boot dragged more than lifted as he fought his way through the throng of people to get to her.
They collided together with a wet splat! and Pirate had never felt such peace as he did in that moment. The fear of knowing he was going to watch her die was unprecedented. To finally feel her in his arms, to know she was alive and safe…
Fuck. It was hard to breathe. He couldn’t seem to draw in enough oxygen to satisfy his lungs. The pain in his chest was twofold. The echoed memory of thinking he was going to lose Sophia and the knowledge that he had lost Scar.
And the guilt.
Because, as painful as it was to know he’d failed to save Scar, he would not have been able to survive it if their roles had been reversed. If Sophia had been the one to fall…
That knowledge tore him up inside.
Carlos suddenly streaking past where Sophia and Pirate embraced caught his attention. Still gripping Sophia tightly to his chest, Pirate turned them slightly to see Carlos body slam Bulldog down to the ground. Bear and Lucky came to a skidding halt just before the brothers now on the wet pavement. Pirate hadn’t seen what happened before that moment but could take a guess.
Fletcher Montague, now cuffed, was being escorted to a police cruiser. Bulldog broke free or had already been free of Lucky’s and Bear’s hold on him. Seeing Fletcher, Bulldog made a running charge at the man who’d shot his best friend. Lucky and Bear had given chase at the same time that Carlos must have seen his brother going for the prisoner, taking him to the ground before Bulldog could reach his intended target.
The rage Pirate felt at seeing Fletcher was all consuming. The bullet that had hit Scar, after all, had been intended for Sophia. There were no words for how much Pirate wanted Fletcher to suffer for his actions.
Bulldog thrashed and fought under Carlos’s weight. Bear and Lucky looked torn between helping Carlos or going after Fletcher themselves. The two deputies who had hold of Fletcher, who even now was spouting bullshit about how his father would have the deputies’ badges for daring to arrest him, were frozen in place. As if they didn’t know what to do while their sheriff wrestled with his brother on the pavement.
Carlos bent and whispered something in Bulldog’s ear. Pirate couldn’t hear whatever he’d said, but it must have had some effect on Bulldog. The man stopped struggling. More calmly, the SAA nodded to Carlos.
Cautiously, Carlos stood back up. He slipped slightly on the wet road, but Bear steadied him with a hand on his elbow. Everyone was as drenched as Pirate and Sophia by now. Bulldog got to his feet. He turned his murderous gaze on Fletcher, who lost some of his bravado at the sight. He actually looked like he would willingly go into the police cruiser now to get away from Bulldog.
The whirl of an ambulance’s sirens rose up on the night, dragging everyone’s gaze to the bottom of the bridge. An ambulance sped away in the direction of the hospital. Pirate could see two sheets on the ground over the bodies of the gunmen. He could only hope that the ambulance held Pumpkin and was speeding away in an effort to save his life.
Pirate pulled away from Sophia just enough to look her over. He moved her sodden hair out of her face. “Are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital too?”
Sophia shook her head. He could see tears down her face mixed amongst the raindrops. “That man?” she asked. “Who was he?”
It occurred to Pirate then that Sophia might not know who Scar was or his importance to the club. Scar had left the club a year ago last month. Jasmine and Jumper had only started dating officially in June of last year. Neither Jasmine nor Sophia had been around the club when Scar had been a member. Though they had occasionally gone to Demon’s , the club’s bar where Scar used to be a bouncer, Scar wasn’t someone they would have talked to or socialized with.
Would not have been , Pirate morosely corrected his thoughts to past tense. Fuck, that was painful.
“Scar,” he answered reluctantly. Sophia might not know Scar at a passing glance or have seen enough of him tonight to place the telling scar on the man’s face, but she would know the road name. Scar was often brought up amongst the ol’ ladies.
Her eyes widened. “Oh God… And he…?” She turned her head towards the river. “Pirate, he stepped in front of a bullet for me. Who the hell does that?”
Scar does—or did. Bulldog had once said that none of the club truly understood Scar, that they would be shocked if they knew how much Scar cared about them.
Pirate was sickened by the knowledge that he’d never taken the time to get to know Scar. He was always such a mystery, and the club had made a joke of it. The fact that Scar didn’t speak but Bulldog insisted that he could . Or how they’d say he was like a ninja, just popping up randomly in places. The club kids talked about Uncle Scar visiting them in their homes, especially Scotty. If it was anyone but Scar, the parents would be unnerved and terrified that a man had randomly shown up in their kid’s bedroom. But not Scar. It was like a part of him. The way he looked out for everyone, even when he was no longer a club member.
Pirate still remembered the look of horror on Bulldog’s face when Scar had given Steel back his cut and walked out of Church.
Bulldog and Scar had a history. That much was clear to the club. Bulldog wouldn’t have chosen Scar to be his Enforcer otherwise, but no one knew the extent of their history. And, again, they’d made a joke about it. Calling Bulldog and Scar ‘BFFs’ like they were little girls.
Pirate recalled the pain in Bulldog’s voice as he’d shouted the name Julian over and over again. With a jolt, Pirate realized that he’d just learned Scar’s real name.
Julian.
How fucked up was it that it took the man dying for Pirate to finally learn something about him?
Pirate closed his eyes and buried his face into Sophia’s hair. The others might have hope, but Pirate knew the truth. He’d seen the gunshot, seen the blood… All the first responders searching and even Jumper and Ghost in the water, they might find him, but it would be too late. Pirate knew it down to the marrow of his bones.
Time started to play tricks on him again. Pirate couldn’t tell how long it had been since he’d let go of Scar’s hand as he hung precariously over the edge of the bridge.
A paramedic came to bandage his hand and to look at his ear. All the while, his leg continued to throb but he refused to move from his spot where he held Sophia. He was fairly certain he was never going to let go of her again.
He saw fire trucks and ambulances being moved. State troopers arrived and started to help direct traffic over half of the bridge. Motorcycles roared to life and sped off in the direction of the hospital. Pirate had no idea where his parents, the ol’ ladies, or anyone else who was going to be at the steakhouse with them were and he didn’t care.
Eventually, he heard the shouts that two men had emerged from the river downstream. Jumper and Ghost were out of the water, but they were empty-handed.
Scar was gone.
The wedding was postponed. No one was in much of a celebrating mood.
Pumpkin was on life support at the hospital. Both of his legs and arms were broken, along with three ribs, one clavicle, and all the teeth on the left side of his mouth. He had massive internal bleeding and his heart had actually stopped beating at one point on the ride to the hospital. The doctors had induced a coma to help keep him calm while they were waiting for the swelling in his brain to go down. His chances of living were better than what they had been, and increased with each day that passed, but he was still in critical condition.
His bike was completely demolished. There was no repairing it and the insurance company had labeled it a loss.
The ol’ ladies and Frankie were taking care of SJ in his father’s absence. The club did not leave Pumpkin alone, even though he was in a coma and there was a debate as to whether or not he could hear them. Each day, someone brought SJ to the hospital to see his dad. With the permission of the doctors, they would lower Pumpkin’s hospital gown down to reveal his chest and then they would place his infant son over his breastplate. There was speculation that the bond between father and son was strong enough that feeling his son against his bare skin would help Pumpkin heal. As if he could sense his father’s pain, SJ would lay quietly on his father and curl his little body against him.
The mystery of why Pumpkin had been on his motorcycle in the rain was solved by Frankie. She had indeed been driving behind Sophia and Pirate, following Pumpkin to Grumpy’s auto body shop where Pumpkin also worked. The two had planned on driving to the garage all along, knowing that Pumpkin needed to drop his hog off there. Since it was on the way to the steakhouse, it made the most sense to do it on the way.
Frankie and SJ had been the only ones in the club’s SUV. When the shooting had started, she’d put the SUV into reverse and sped away. The dash cam in the SUV not only caught the impact of the Hummer colliding with Pumpkin’s bike and the first couple of shots, but also a clear picture of Fletcher’s stationary sports car as he watched from the other side of the bridge.
Frankie had called 911 to report the shooting. Not knowing where else to go, she’d taken SJ back to the clubhouse. In her shock, she’d delayed calling Steel and informing him what was going on. By then, Carlos had already gotten the call. Like Steel and many of the others, Carlos had been on his way to the steakhouse with Zoe and Kyle in his cruiser. Carlos had called Steel before Frankie got her wits about her enough to. The poor girl kept apologizing for leaving Pumpkin, Pirate, and Sophia behind, but no one blamed her. With SJ in the cage, she’d made the right decision.
The decision Pumpkin, were he awake and coherent, would have told her to make.
Just because Ghost and Jumper came out of the river empty-handed did not mean the search for Scar’s body was over. The first search into the night went on for miles. Boats were launched into the river, along with rescue divers. With each hour that passed, the more the responders despaired that their search and rescue would become a recovery effort.
The mountain water was just too cold, the current too swift.
By the third day, the search was officially called off. That did not stop the club from searching. Keys pulled up satellite imagery, Scissors used her drones with heat sensors, Ghost and Jumper went back into the water with the proper equipment, Ranger scoured the surrounding woods for any signs Scar had survived and dragged himself onto land…
Bulldog put his efforts in elsewhere.
A jailbreak, the first in Mount Grove history, took place the night of Fletcher Montague’s arrest. The cameras caught nothing. One minute Fletcher was sitting in the jail cell, the next he was gone.
If Keys wasn’t so busy looking through satellite imagery, there was a good chance he would have added some special effects to make it look like Fletcher had been abducted by little green aliens.
Beneath the floor of the clubhouse’s main room was a hidden cellar. The club hadn’t even known it was there for the first couple of years that they owned the property. It had never been on any floor plans. Once discovered, it had sat empty for years until the club needed a secret location to put Richard Hannigan, Deputy Mark Connelly, and a cartel thug named Marcos. After that, some work had been put into the cellar to make it soundproof. Chains with manacles had been installed into the ceiling and a wall of tools had been added. A work table and single chair were also kept below.
The cellar was not glamorous by any means. To quote Demo, it was “fucking creepy”. Creaky old stairs led down to a stale and dingy eight by eight room. A single light kept the cellar barely lit, adding to the eerie atmosphere.
Nathan Moore was the cellar’s permanent resident. The child rapist was working off a debt to Angel in blood, pain, and torment. While Angel did her best to make Moore’s life hell, it was Bear’s responsibility to keep the man alive. Moore owed Angel over two more years of suffering before she would end his miserable existence.
The night of the town’s first jailbreak, Nathan Moore got a roommate.
Carlos had known that Bulldog wanted Fletcher to pay for Scar’s death. But he also knew that he could not allow his older brother to do so publicly. Fletcher was in custody and there were far too many witnesses around for Carlos to hand Fletcher over to the club or turn his back as the club took him. There’d been no choice but to let Fletcher be taken to jail.
Bulldog later confided in the club what Carlos had whispered to him on the bridge to get him to calm down. “Not here! He’s in police custody now. If you do it here, you take his place! Think about Abby. I’m sorry, fratello , but it’s too late. The only way you’ll be able to get to him now is if he somehow escapes from jail.”
Pirate, who was also owed blood from Fletcher, joined Bulldog in the cellar. While he knew of the cellar, he’d never been down in it before. As prospects, it had been Pirate’s, Star’s, and Lionheart’s job to clean the cellar and dispose of the bodies. Pirate had always been on the disposal end due to his leg giving him trouble on the unreliable stairs.
Now, he worked alongside Bulldog to exact revenge onto Fletcher Montague.
Bulldog swore to Fletcher that he would remain in the cellar until Scar was found alive.
While neither Pirate nor Bulldog asked any questions of Fletcher, he spilled his guts anyway—anything to make the pain stop.
The two men who had been helping Fletcher were buddies who had joined the Army with him. Both had washed out of boot camp. Fletcher stayed in touch with them and used them on occasion to help with his various plots to mess with people or get his way.
After Sophia had rejected him in front of her mother and then stood him up, he’d sent one of his buddies to her house. But she hadn’t been home. Fletcher actually thought Sophia would call him if there’d been signs of a break-in or she thought someone was downstairs. Fletcher claimed to know nothing about his buddy returning to her house the next two nights and never mentioned anything about why the buddy would move her boots.
It was all useless information anyway. It didn’t change anything or his circumstances.
Fletcher claimed that he did not even remember reaching for the deputy’s gun. That he’d been so enraged by Sophia’s defiance that he’d wanted to kill her but hadn’t meant to actually kill her.
“I just wanted her to see me! But the spoiled bitch thought she was too good for me. Always had! I just needed her to see me! ”
Some information did come to light through Carlos’s investigation into the jailbreak. Turns out that Fletcher’s father cut him off months ago. While he’d been honorably discharged, it had only been through his father’s interference. Fletcher had been arrested and charged with raping a civilian secretary on the base where he worked. The military had swept the situation under the rug, the secretary’s silence paid for with a very fat check, and Fletcher had been discharged.
Then his father had said enough was enough and cut Fletcher loose.
Fletcher’s trust fund would not last him forever and so Fletcher hatched a plan to get at the Grovetons’ money by dating and then marrying Sophia. But Sophia wouldn’t even give him a moment’s notice.
Remembering from their high school days that Sophia liked the ‘bad boys’, Fletcher had tried to prospect for the VDMC, believing they were like other less reputable motorcycle clubs and having that cut would get her attention. He had not expected her to already be with a man in a cut, throwing a wrench in his plans. The lawyer that had shown up with Montague to get his motorcycle back had not known that Fletcher had been cut off from his father’s resources.
A week passed and then two. The club had to make the devastating decision to stop searching.
Tessa went into labor and had her baby girl, but not even the arrival of a new club kid could brighten the mood. Upon learning Scar’s birth name was Julian, Tessa and Bear named their second daughter Julia. It tugged at the heartstrings to see so many of the club trying to be happy for Bear and Tessa while also mourning the loss of their friend.
Bulldog would not stop searching. He didn’t care that Steel had ordered him to stop. Every day since the search had been called off, he would be found knee-deep in the muddy bank trying to find something, anything , that would let him to believe Scar was still alive.
It wasn’t until Abby made her way down into the muddy bank after her husband that Bulldog ceased his frantic searching. As much as he loved his friend, he loved Abby beyond measure. Her statement that if he continued to search, she would be right alongside him, helping, seemed to snap Bulldog out of his frantic need for answers.
The truth of the matter was evident, but the lack of a body made it difficult to believe. No one wanted to believe.
But everyone eventually had to.
Jasmine and Jumper were not getting married. At least, not right away. While no funeral or service was being planned for Scar—many of the club wanted to but Bulldog wouldn’t let them—it didn’t feel right to either Jasmine or Jumper to plan another wedding immediately. They were, however, still taking their six week honeymoon trip. They postponed it to help in the search for Scar but were still planning on taking it.
It was just going to be a pre-wedding trip versus a honeymoon.
They lost out on some non-refundable deposits and the catering company still delivered all the food as that couldn’t be returned. The clubhouse kitchen was stocked a while after that.
The veterinarian who would be taking over Jazz’s practice during their wedding weekend and through their honeymoon was sympathetic to her plight when Jasmine told him about the death in the family. He not only continued to cover for Jasmine while she was helping the club out during the search, but also agreed to come back over the summer.
Jasmine liked the other vet. She’d confided in Sophia one night that she might consider offering him a partnership when she got back from her honeymoon.
Sophia was busy trying to help Jazz cancel everything between her wedding and her original honeymoon and then reschedule everything for their pre-wedding trip. She was also trying to help Pirate. The guilt Pirate felt for letting go of Scar’s hand and not being able to pull him up to safety was immense. Despite knowing that Scar was shot in the chest, Pirate got more insistent with each passing day that he could have saved Scar’s life if he’d only been stronger and faster. Pirate blamed himself for his leg having to be amputated four years ago, which led to him being too slow to save Scar. Round and round he went, unable to let go of the guilt.
In between helping the club search, Pirate was training like he was trying out for an Ironman Marathon. He rarely wore his walking prosthetic anymore and was always in his running blade. She also took note of the fact that he was always armed now. Pirate became extremely clingy and the two were rarely apart. Not that Sophia minded, per se, but she knew it wasn’t healthy. He wouldn’t allow her to go anywhere without him and he even quit his job at the high school so he didn’t have to go to work without her. The only times he left her was when she was in the apartment with Jasmine and Jumper to go do something he wouldn’t tell her about with Bulldog.
She couldn’t prove it, and wasn’t trying to, but she had a feeling that the club had something to do with Fletcher’s miraculous prison break.
It got to the point where Sophia called Dr. Rutenberg, Jumper’s therapist and her former therapist, to see if there was anything either Dr. Rutenberg or Sophia could do to help Pirate.
Dr. Rutenberg asked for Pirate to come in to see him. Pirate agreed—but only if Sophia could come with him. She wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t want to be away from her or if he wanted to be as open and honest with her as he could. Either way, it got him in to see Dr. Rutenberg, so she agreed.
It was during their second session that Dr. Rutenberg tried hypnosis with Pirate. Dr. Rutenberg was concerned that Pirate kept using the phrase “I let go of Scar’s hand.” The doctor clearly picked up something in that phrasing that Sophia didn’t, or maybe it was Pirate’s tone of voice. She wasn’t sure.
During the hypnosis, Dr. Rutenberg had instructed that Sophia needed to be extremely quiet and to not interfere, even to correct Pirate on something he believed or thought he saw. It was so weird to hear Pirate speak in such a relaxed and low voice as he slipped into the trance Dr. Rutenberg guided him to.
She was sitting in the doctor’s usual chair while he sat closer with Pirate on the couch. It was difficult for her to hear Pirate’s side of that night, but it was also cathartic in a way. She might have been the one Fletcher pointed the gun at, but Pirate was the one who’d been too far away to help her.