Chapter 4
GUNNER
“Basa De La Rosa,” I grind out, more than furious at the name. My anger has me seeing red as I pace the hallway of the hospital for days, not leaving Zinnia alone. I haven’t seen my daughter except on the phone during a video chat.
I know she doesn’t understand why she’s not with me, considering I’m not on a run. Usually, if I’m home, she’s with me. It’s just the way it is. I don’t like to be away from her, but I can’t have her here at the hospital with me. Not when it means she could be in danger.
Now that I know the extent of the said danger, I need my brothers on this and looking deep into it.
Shit.
I reach into the front pocket of my jeans and pull out my cell phone. I don’t waste a moment in getting Hammer on the phone. He needs to know who Zinnia escaped from and whatever else he’s done to her.
I hold the phone to my ear and wait for him to answer.
“Everything okay?” he asks, answering.
“You need to get down here and bring Malice, Axe, and Cy with you.” It’s all I can do to not leave the hospital and go find the motherfucker myself. Seeing the fear in Zinnia’s eyes, the total terror radiating off her kills me more than knowing I had failed her when I stopped looking.
I never should’ve stopped.
Motherfucker.
How can I face the woman who’s my very soul and ask for her forgiveness?
“That bad?” The tone of his simple question is one I’ve only heard when called for. Here lately, it seems to be needed more often than not.
“Worse, Prez,” I answer and hang up. I don’t need to say more. Not until he gets here—him and the others.
I take a breath and walk back into Zinnia’s room to find her staring up at the ceiling . . . silent tears seeping from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks.
Fuck. I’ve always hated seeing her cry. It always does my head in. Mainly because seeing her cry meant she was hurt in some way, and I hated it.
Staring at her now, those tears still make me crazy to want to do something to stop her from crying.
With a heavy sigh, I move to her side and sit next to her hip. Zinnia doesn’t look at me, but with the way she tenses, I know she knows I’m there.
“I’m sorry for stalking out of here the way I did,” I say softly, not wanting to spook Zinnia.
After the way she’d freaked when she first woke up here in the hospital, I don’t want to take a chance of her doing something like that again.
Never in all the time I’ve known her have I ever seen her flip like that.
Then again, she’s been through hell for nine years.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she mutters nearly inaudibly, still staring up at the ceiling.
“Dimples, look at me.” I don’t like how she’s so distant.
I know I’ve gotta remember she’s not been around me in years and things change, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have the memories of us together clashing in my head. I can’t help seeing the woman who has always been mine. No matter how much time has passed between us.
Zinnia slowly brings her eyes to mine. “You didn’t have to come back in here,” she says, her eyes devoid of emotion I’m sure is churning inside that head of hers. “You don’t need to stay in here. I’ll be fine. When I’m able to, I’ll get out of here and out of the way.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I demand, not liking the words spilling from her mouth.
She looks back to the ceiling and sighs, “What I’m talking about is, I can’t stay here.
You don’t understand why, and I really don’t want to tell you, but you are the reason I finally escaped.
God, it sounds stupid just saying it like that .
. . but you and the club. I needed to warn you.
I’m sure, though, you already know about De La Rosa from the way you stormed out. ”
“You can say that,” I grind out, not liking the name on her lips. “What do you mean I’m the reason you finally escaped? Me and the club?” Shit doesn’t make sense.
Zinnia drops her gaze from the ceiling and brings her eyes back to me.
“Basa and his father enjoy talking in front of me. They didn’t keep anything secret around me.
I think they got great pleasure in tormenting me with it, because they know who you are to me and our past. They have something planned for the club . . . something big.”
“What is it?” My stomach tightens at the thought of anything happening. Because of the De La Rosas, we nearly lost Rogue not too long ago. He’s still healing from the wounds he received when we walked into an ambush.
“They have a group of siblings . . . they’re related . . .”
“I know who you’re talking about,” I interrupt her, nodding.
“Right, well, they’ve supposedly been terrorizing, tormenting their sister by going through the club.
” She takes a moment to breathe and shakes her head.
“They’re going to try and get in their sister’s good graces now.
They want all of you in the club in order to take everyone out.
One of them is going to plant drugs in the clubhouse. ”
“That all?” I highly doubt it, but I have to know if it is.
“They want the ol’ ladies. Something to do with a group called the Supreme Masters. Someone in that organization wants them. And to make the club pay.”
Fuck. Could Malice’s family be trying for us once more? With him having been born to prestige and who his family is, it only makes sense they would be behind it.
“What else, Zinnia?” I demand, doing everything I can to keep my anger in check.
Zinnia fidgets with her hands, and her breathing grows heavy. “You can’t protect me. If I stay here, everything will escalate tenfold.”
“Why?” I swallow down the acid building.
“Because I’m Basa’s, and he won’t let me go,” she says as the door to the room opens. “He’ll know where I came and is crazy enough to come for me himself. Basa De La Rosa doesn’t like to lose his possessions, and he considers me his favorite.”
The venom lacing her words wraps itself around me, and I don’t have to ask to know what she’s talking about.
If she is considered his favorite possession, it means she was his slave.
Motherfucker.
“Did you just say, De La Rosa?” Hammer demands, making himself known alongside my brothers who joined him.
Zinnia jumps like she didn’t even hear them come into the room. Her eyes widen, and she nods her head wildly as she lifts her gaze to look from me to the men now standing in the room. “Y-yes.”
I cock my head to look over my shoulder and take in the men’s expressions.
Hammer briefly meets my gaze, his jaw ticking.
I take in the way he regains himself quickly.
“Zinnia, it’s been a long time since you’ve been around the club, but you know how we work.
I might not know what all you’ve told Gunner just now; however, from what I heard, I’ll reiterate, we protect our own. And you are one of us.”
“But I’m not one of you,” she whispers stiffly.
“Zinnia, you’ve been a part of the club since you were fifteen,” Axe declares, crossing his arms in front of him. “Shit, how many times did we have to go to school with you and keep the assholes from fuckin’ with you? Whether you see it that way or not, you’re a member of this family.”
“I’m not . . .”
I clench my jaw tight to keep from going off the deep end and narrow my eyes on her.
“You are Zinnia. You’re a part of this club as much now as you were then, and that’s because you were my ol’ lady, and I was claimin’ what was mine finally that day.
Told you I’m not goin’ to make you tell me shit you’ve been through, but you will acknowledge the fact you aren’t goin’ nowhere. We’re gonna protect you.”
Zinnia opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, only to close it. I know this argument’s not over, but for the time being, it’s done. And hopefully, when we start it back up, we’ll finish it, because I’m not letting her go.