McCoy (Golden Glades Henchmen MC 3)

"Hey, what's going—" Eddie started, coming in. "Aw, man, not the pretty chick. Mami, I was picturing rings and trips to white sand beaches and shit," he added.

"You met her?" Huck asked.

"In the kitchen a little bit ago."

"Did she say anything?" Huck asked.

"About wanting to put a plug in one of you all? Nah, man. I'd have remembered that. She just said she didn't want a drink. And she drives a beater. I gave her a card for The Shop. That's the extent of it."

"And yet you were picturing rings and honeymoon trips," Huck said, voice dry.

"What? I want me a sweet honey to make a dozen babies with. And this honey couldn't be sweeter-looking. Shoulda known. The pretty ones are always fucked in the head. It's my type," he added, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

Eddie, a hangaround and employee at our repair shop, was generally unfazed by shit like shootouts and crazy chicks with guns.

We knew him as an old racing buddy of Che's, but there was clearly more to his history than nice cars that went fast if he was so calm in the face of a serious situation.

"Here," Remy said, moving in at my side. "Let me take her," he offered, reaching past me to put his hand on her arm. "Hey, honey, alright," he said, voice soft, coaxing, the same voice we'd all heard him use on wounded or wild animals a thousand times in the past.

"You're gonna soft-voice the chick who put a bullet in your brother?" Huck scoffed.

"She's having a fucking breakdown, boss man," Remy insisted, reaching down to scoop the woman up.

There was no denying his words, of course. She was shaking and sobbing, her whole body racked with the cries.

"I'm not saying we let her have the gun and finish the job. I'm saying we need to calm her down if we are going to get anything out of her," he added, carrying her past me and into my bedroom where he put her down on the bed.

"Here, sit," Seeley demanded, putting the lid to the toilet down and gesturing toward it. As soon as I did, he yanked up my sleeve, inspecting the wound. "Eh, you'll live," he declared. "Alaric, grab the first aid kit from the downstairs bathroom," he demanded, talking to the tall, blond, green-eyed, ex-stripper brother to Che's woman, Saskia.

Unlike the rest of us, Alaric hadn't been in the criminal world for long. Mine was probably his first look at a real-life gunshot wound.

We'd taken him on not only because of his connection to Sass, but because he was the best fucking shot any of us had ever seen. The rest of it, that shit would come with time and experience.

He paused for a minute before turning and running to grab the kit.

"Alright. What happened?" Huck asked as he rifled through my medicine cabinet, finding some old pills I had from getting an impacted wisdom tooth pulled, and shaking one into my hand.

"I came up here to try to get some sleep. She was in the bathroom already. I figured she wandered up here, so I told her it was off-limits. But then I noticed she seemed off."

"Off?" Huck clarified as Seeley took the plastic container from Alaric, rifling through to find tweezers, alcohol, and a suture kit.

"Yeah. Sweaty and shaking. I thought she was fucked up. Or that someone slipped her something. I was just trying to ask her what happened when she pulled her arm out from behind her, aimed, and shot me."

"She could be on something," Alaric said, glancing over toward where, I imagined, Remy was trying to calm the woman down. "There's so many new party drugs on the market these days. You wouldn't believe the fucked up ways some of the chicks at the club used to act after popping something new."

"But she came in here with a gun," Huck reasoned, reaching up to rake a hand through his hair, realizing he wasn't going to get the quiet night in bed with his woman like he'd hoped.

"Yeah, that I can't explain," Alaric agreed, shrugging.

"Why don't you check in on Che and Donovan?" Huck suggested. "And make some coffee. Fuck knows we're going to need it. Have the others tell the women everything is alright," he added, knowing Harmon and Sass were going to be worried sick until they heard something.

"And one, two..." Seeley started to count down as he held up the alcohol, but started pouring before he got to three, making me let out a string of curses so bad I was going to need to go to fucking confession and apologize for it. "Yeah, sucks," Seeley agreed, likely thinking back to when we'd had Harmon fix up his bullet wound not so long ago that he forgot the misery of it.