Curly (Hell's Handlers MC Florida Chapter 1)

“Fuck, you say?” Curly snapped, rising to his feet. “You got a problem with the way I handle my shit? With the way I treat my woman?” He got in the shorter man’s face.

Pulse’s eyes bugged as he shook his head. “What? No! Fuck no. I just meant—”

Ty tugged his sleeve. “Sit the fuck down, cuz. You’re attracting unwanted attention.” He gazed left where a few others in the waiting room had begun to watch them with guarded expressions. “Take a goddammed breath. Pulse is right. She’s not gonna tell you shit if you walk in there like a bomb about to explode.”

Christ, they were fucking right, but he felt like a climber dangling from the side of the mountain, watching his rope fray one strand at a time. It wouldn’t be long before the final thread snapped, and he did as well.

Yanking his arm from Tyler’s hold, Curly spun to take a walk, but a pinched-face nurse met him three steps in. “We’re finished with Ms. Williams,” she said in a haughty tone as she stared down her nose at the group of rough bikers. Curly, especially as he soot and dirt covered him from head to toe. “I can take you to her now.”

“’Bout fucking time,” he muttered.

“We’ll hang around, prez,” Scott said. He was the only one whose ire seemed to match Curly’s. He’d stayed quiet since arriving, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a hair’s breadth away from combusting. A deadly volcano resided deep within Scott, just beginning to wake. What would happen when it finally blew?

He had enough on his plate without worrying about Scott.

“Here we go,” the nurse said. “Room four. We’ll be moving her upstairs to her room on the floor in a little while.” She pushed the sliding door open. “Okay, Brooke, I have your gentleman here. Push the blue button on the side of the bed if you need assistance with anything,” she said to Brooke before casting Curly some serious side-eye as she left the room.

Brooke lay on her back in the reclined bed. Both hands had crisp white bandages resembling mittens. A clear tube under her nose provided oxygen, and some kind of fluid dripped into her left arm through an IV. Someone had given her a hospital gown to cover her and replace the destroyed clothing she’d arrived in. Nobody had bothered to help wash her face or hair, which still had streaks of black and flakes of ash. Lying under the plain white hospital blanket with minor burns on her arms and a sad smile aimed his way, she appeared so small and vulnerable. So unlike the Brooke he’d come to know and lo—

Know and respect.

Lying there injured because she’d been too goddammed stubborn to ask for his help.

And there went the final strand of his rope. Snapped like he’d love to do to Prick’s fucking neck.

“Hey,” she said in a ravaged voice.

He gripped the foot of her bed hard enough to make the plastic creak. Then he pulled the notes from his pocket. “What the fuck are these?”

Brooke’s eyes widened, and her mouth parted, but no words came out.

“What?” he asked as he stepped closer tossed the papers onto the bed. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out? That some asshole would threaten you, set fire to your fucking property, and I’d just go on living in the dark? Christ, Brooke, somebody almost killed you!”

If he’d been two minutes later, fuck thirty seconds later, the outcome would have been very different. If he’d stopped at that yellow light instead of blasting through it Brooke would be dead. He’d have arrived to find her burned and broken body lying beneath flaming rubble.

His stomach lurched, and his chest ached so bad he might need to check himself into the next room.

He was going to be sick.

He was going to lose his mind. All he could see in his mind was the image of Brooke, shattered, scorched, dead.

He needed to hurt someone. To make someone pay for the agony of the past few hours.

“The dogs—”

“Fuck the dogs!” he shouted. “You could have died, Brooke!”

Even the tremble of her lower lip didn’t break through the fog of fury. He was too close to the edge of his sanity to stop now.

“Is this Prick? Did he fucking do this?”

“I-I think so. But—”

“Fuck!” He struck out, slamming his fist into the cheap vinyl recliner next to the bed, making Brooke jump. With his eyes closed, he asked, “How long has this been going on?”

She met his gaze, defiant and bold as though daring him to call her out on her foolishness.

Oh, he’d call her out all right.

“Started shortly after Prick caught me at the farm.”

“Fucking hell.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I handle my own problems,” she said as though he were short a few brain cells. “I don’t need someone to do things for me.”