Chapter 27
Hellfire
Limping forward, my eyes were glued to Hush.
He had blood everywhere and there was a tortured look on his face.
"Kit?" I croaked. Hush hadn't given Lockout many details when he called, just that Kit had been severely injured and was in a nearby hospital in surgery.
Smokehouse was right by my side, fear etched into his features.
Our brothers were surrounding us, listening to Hush while trying to give me and Smokehouse comfort.
"The doctors haven't come out yet," Hush said with a shake of his head. "I'm so fuckin’ sorry, Hell." He shot both me and Smoke an apologetic look.
"What the fuck happened?" I asked. I wasn't pissed at him. Or her. I was just fucking terrified of losing her. How could she be taken from me after I finally made her mine?
"She tracked your phone," Hush explained. "Wouldn't listen when I told her to stay at the clubhouse. She was worried you were lyin’ on the road somewhere. I didn't think it would be a big deal to just let her come along."
My heart constricted in my chest. My sweet, perfect woman had gone to help me and I hadn't been there for her when she needed me.
"We found Pixie's house."
"Where is she?" Lock asked, putting a hand on my shoulder.
"Dead. Kit shot her when Pixie went after her with a second knife.
" He gave me an apologetic look. "She was supposed to wait out front while I checked around back to make sure no one was hidin’ there, waitin’ to ambush us.
She went inside and I didn't see most of what happened. There were two of Amato’s men in the back.
If I hadn't stopped to take care of them, I might have gotten there before Kit was stabbed. "
I reached out and squeezed his shoulder.
"If you hadn't killed them, then you both would have been attacked and would have ended up dead or in that mansion beside me and Butcher.
It's not your fault, Hush. What did the doctors say?
" It was getting hard to fucking breathe.
I didn't want to hear any of this, but I needed to know.
"They didn't really take the time to talk," he replied.
"They barked a few questions at me and one of the nurses thanked me for not pullin’ the knife out of her.
" We all had enough basic medical training to know not to pull an impaled object out.
Not unless you were near a damn hospital because that object was likely all that was keeping you from bleeding out.
He rubbed a blood-stained hand through his hair. "Fuck."
"She's going to be okay," Smoke said, his voice cracking. He had tears in his eyes.
I nodded, trying to reassure myself as much as him.
“Here.”
Looking over my shoulder, I found Priest standing there holding clothes. Frowning, I took the t-shirt and sweats. “Where’d this come from?”
“I always keep extra shit in my saddlebags. They’ll be a bit small on you, but at least they’re not covered in blood.” He tossed a second set to Hush. It didn’t take us long to find the bathroom and change. I winced as I shoved my injured leg into the gray sweatpants.
A quick look in the mirror had me slowing down and taking the time to wash off my face, neck and arms. The pink tinted water flowed down the drain as I watched. Hush cleaned off too, then we went back out to the waiting room.
“Thanks,” I told Priest.
Before he could answer, the door opened and we all turned, ready to jump on whoever it was just to hear any kind of news. A doctor stepped through, her eyes widening as she took us all in. "Are you here for Kit Kincaid?"
I stepped forward. "Yes."
She looked around at all of us, her eyes soft with sympathy. "Are you family?" she asked.
"I'm her brother, Knox Kincaid," Smoke told her. He nodded toward me. "This is her fiancé."
I gave him a grateful look. If I had to wait to find out what was happening, I was going to lose my mind.
"Kit is out of surgery and is in recovery," she told us. She looked weary. "She's not out of the woods yet, the knife nicked her liver."
Swallowing hard, I searched the doctor's face. "What are her chances?"
"Well, the liver is able to heal itself better than most organs and it wasn't a very long laceration. She should pull through, but she's going to have a lot of healing to do," the doctor warned.
Smoke bowed his head, resting his hands on the back of it as he stared down at the floor. The relief I felt was cautious, but I couldn't help but feel hopeful. Kit was going to be okay.
"Can we see her?" I asked.
The doctor nodded and led me and Smoke down the hall to a room where Kit was lying in a bed. There were so many machines hooked up to her and tubes everywhere. Her skin looked pale against all the white of the hospital sheets and bandages.
"Your friend saved her life," the doctor told me. "If he hadn't gotten her here so quickly she would have bled out before we could help her."
"Thanks, Doc," I replied. Not bothering to wait for her to leave, I walked over to the side of her bed and took Kit's hand in mine. "Hey, Baby," I said softly, leaning down and kissing her forehead.
Smoke came up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder as I sat down in a chair. "I'm going to go call Dad," he said. He was giving me a few minutes alone with her, something that couldn’t have been easy for him.
I nodded, not looking away from Kit as he left. She was still out from the anesthesia. I squeezed her hand, trying to give her something to feel, to hold onto. She was strong and she was going to pull through this. I couldn't lose her.
Laying my head down, I rested it on her shoulder. "I need you to fight, Vixen. Come back to me." Exhaustion tugged at me, but I couldn't sleep. Not with my girl lying here in this bed, machines beeping as they monitored her, and the adrenaline from the fight still pumping through my veins.
"How is she?"
Glancing over my shoulder, I motioned for Hush to come in. "The doctor told me you saved her."
"The fuckin’ ambulance was taking too goddamned long. So, I just drove her myself."
A sigh huffed out of me when I thought about Kit bleeding in the backseat of her car while Hush drove like a bat out of hell to get her here in time. "Don't know how I'm ever going to repay you," I told him, voice thick with emotion.
"I shouldn't have let her go in the first place," he admitted. "I thought I could handle whatever was goin’ to be waitin’ for us. If it had just been The Italians, it would have been fine. Didn't account for Pixie. Didn’t think she would…"
There was no grief. No sadness in knowing that my cousin was dead. I was relieved she was gone. The only thing I worried about was having to tell Uncle Hal what happened. Pixie may have been a traitorous cunt, but she was still his kid.
"It's better this way. She was going to be a problem for us down the road."
Hush moved forward and bent to brush a kiss over Kit's forehead. All of the men here thought of her like a little sister. She's been here since the beginning. It was going to be ripping them up almost as much as me.
"I'll go let the others know how she's doin’. How long do they expect her to be out?"
"They said a few hours. Tell them they can come visit once she's awake and comfortable," I told him.
Hush nodded and walked out the door. He stopped and said something in a low voice to Smokehouse as they passed.
Smoke came in and pulled up a chair on the other side of her bed.
I watched as he took her free hand in his and kissed the back of it.
"You're not going to fucking leave me, Kit. You hear me? I need you."
I had to swallow hard at the emotion in his voice. He looked like he was barely holding himself together. I knew I looked the same. "She'll be okay, Smoke." It was almost as though I was convincing myself.
His eyes met mine and I could see the worry there. "I know." His voice was gruff as he bit out the words.
We sat in silence, listening to the beeping, moving out of the way when nurses came in to check on Kit and do whatever they needed to with her. The hours ticked by on the clock and soon my eyes were too heavy to hold open.
Something touched me, jerked me awake. My eyes flew to the wall where a clock was hanging.
I'd been asleep for three hours. A hand brushed over my hair again and I turned my head, my breath caught up inside my lungs.
Kit looked exhausted and worse for wear, but she was still the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
The metal chair I was sitting in flew backward as I stood in a rush and carefully cradled her head to my chest. I rested my cheek on top of her head, eyes closing. It was an awkward maneuver to curl my huge body up so I could hold her like this without hurting her, but it was worth it.
Smokehouse had been asleep, his head tipped back, arms crossed over his chest, mouth hanging open, but he jerked awake at the sound of the chair slamming into the wall.
Our gazes met and I saw my own relief reflected in his eyes.
"Kit," he breathed as he stood and moved around the bed to stand next to me. "How do you feel?"
She groaned and shifted in my arms. "Like I got stabbed." She tried to sit up and gasped, "It hurts."
"I'll get someone," Smoke said immediately and left the room.
Bending down, I cupped her cheeks in my hands and kissed her. "You scared the fucking hell out of me," I said voice hoarse with emotion.
"I'm so sorry," she told me, her eyes searching mine. "I lost my temper and went in there to find out where you were. I didn't actually think she was going to do anything to hurt me."
"I know," I told her soothingly. "You've known her almost as long as you have me. She betrayed us all."
Kit's eyes fluttered closed, then popped back open. "Are you okay?"
I wasn't about to mention the bullet that was still lodged in my thigh.
"I'm fine, Vixen. It's you we're worrying about now.
" Crash Cart would fix me up later. Thanks to Priest giving me new clothes, I didn’t have to worry about the doctors or nurses wondering what happened.
I was free to get it figured out later, once I knew my girl was going to be okay.
"Hi there." We both looked over as the same doctor from before came into the room with a smile on her face.
"I'm so glad to see you're awake." She met my gaze as she said, "That's a very good sign.
" She looked back at Kit. "You're going to need to stay as still as possible and just focus on resting. You're feeling pain?"
Kit nodded and despite the pain her eyes kept fluttering closed. Her body was worn out and trying to force her to sleep.
"I'll up your pain medication a little so you can rest comfortably," she said.
"Thank you," Kit whispered before closing her eyes again.
"You should let her sleep," the doctor said as she messed with the controls and tubing that were feeding medication into Kit's body.
"I'm not leaving," I told her, voice firm.
"Only one person can stay overnight," the doctor advised as she left the room.
"I'll stay." Smoke had come in behind the doctor, and stood watching.
I growled at him, about to rip him a new one for suggesting I leave her. I didn't give a fuck if she was his sister. She was my everything.
"You need to go get that leg checked out. Not to mention help Lock and the others get Pixie's place cleaned up."
"Shit." He was right. I had to get my phone and bike away from Pixie's place and there were at least three bodies to clean up. Indecision warred within me.
"Don't make me go to Lock," Smoke warned.
"Fucker. Fine. I'll be back first thing in the morning.
" I leaned over and kissed Kit on the lips.
Between exhaustion and the extra meds she was passed back out again.
I limped my way out of her room, every fiber of my being screaming at me to go back and sit by her side, my leg, my bike, my responsibilities be damned.
"You good?" Lock asked, his eyes taking in my limp as he fell into step beside me.
"Yeah." He didn't say anything else, just walked with me down to the parking garage. "Let's go get this done."
"You need to go see Crash Cart."
"After I deal with my cousin."
"She's dead, Hell. We can deal with the body. You don't have to be the one to do it."
"Yeah, I do. I owe it to my uncle."
Lockout studied me for a moment, then nodded. "We'll wrap this up as quickly as we can."
I sighed and took Kit’s keys from Hush. Someone had moved the car from in front of the emergency exit to where we’d parked our bikes and I was grateful it hadn’t been towed when Hush left it there to get Kit inside. The last thing I needed was to pick her car up from an impound lot.
The next few days were going to be complicated as fuck.
The last thing I wanted to be doing was leaving my girl in the hospital, but I had to get my shit straightened out.
I owed it to my family. I planned to be back first thing in the morning so I could sit next to Kit until she was able to come home.
Nothing would keep me from her. No one would hurt her again as long as I was alive.