Jack has passed out, but his eyes are half open, and I can see the sparkle of his irises as they stare back at me lifeless.
Fear weaves its cobwebs through me. He is bleeding profusely, and the thick, metallic tang of his blood fills the back of the ambulance.
Every minute is excruciating. It’s like any second, I’m going to break down and start screaming.
Yet Doc’s confidence and innate calmness keep me cool. His voice never rises. Even when Jack doesn’t respond to a drug he injects into him, he moves like a man who knows his shit. If something doesn’t work, something else will.
He has nerves of damn steel.
While mine are as steady as wet noodles.
It’s terrifying seeing Jack so motionless. I can barely breathe as his limp arms sway lifelessly on the gurney as Dakota Joe races us toward the clubhouse.
I look down at my own blood-soaked hands, and the enormity of the situation hits me like a wall of water crashing over the top of me.
Please don’t die.
“You doin’ okay back there, bee?” Dakota Joe calls out.
Doc eyes me sideways. “Yeah, she’s doin’ great. Like a regular Nurse Nightingale.” He gives me a wink. “You can breathe now, bee. He’s gonna be okay.”
I give him a small smile. “You promise?”
He gives me another wink and whispers, “I super-secret pinky swear.”
“Good,” I reply weakly. “Because you can’t break a pinky promise.”
BRONTE
Someone slides a shot of whiskey in front of me.
“He’s gonna be okay,” says a calming voice.
I look up and met the ice-blue eyes of Abby, Boomer’s wife. We’re sitting in the kitchen back at the clubhouse.
Over the next few hours, the clubhouse will fill with old ladies, girlfriends, and family as the club goes into lockdown because of the assassination attempt on Jack.
Assassination attempt.
That’s what they’re calling it.
At the severity of the situation, I fight back a new wave of anxiety.
Doc is working on Jack in the makeshift clinic in the basement in what used to be the cold store room back in the days when the clubhouse was a hotel.
Despite Doc’s reassurance, I still feel weak with worry. “I hope so.”
Abby sits next to me. She’s the type of cool you can’t imitate. With her icy blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, she looks like a Viking shieldmaiden. She brings an air of calm with her, and her tough outer shell is comforting as fuck.
“Doc would’ve sent him to the hospital if he didn’t think he could handle it.” She nods to the whiskey. “It’ll help.”
I take her advice and throw the shot back, tensing at the burn as it slides down my throat and into my chest.
“Are you sure not taking him to the hospital is a good idea? I mean, they have all the medical equipment, and this is a clubhouse. What if something happens, and Doc doesn’t have what he needs to help him? What if he can’t save him?” My mind is jumping all over the place because I am panicking. “What if me not calling an ambulance means Jack dies?”
Abby places a comforting hand on me. “Relax, he’s going to be fine. Like I said, Doc would’ve sent him to the hospital. Hell, he would’ve driven him there himself if he thought it was the right thing to do. But he didn’t because he knows he can save Jack. He’s got this.” She gives me a gentle smile. “It’s going to be okay.”
She pours a second shot for me and one for herself. We clink shot glasses and throw back the scorching whiskey—both of us relishing the burn.
Abby is a true biker queen. She was born and raised in the MC. It was her grandaddy, Hutch Calley, who started the Kings of Mayhem back in the late sixties.
A few years ago, when Abby still lived in Mississippi, her twin brother had been a member of the Kings of Mayhem mother chapter. However, he’d been murdered by a psychopath obsessed with making the club pay for his sister’s death. When Jack and the Tennessee Chapter visited for the funeral, Abby and Boomer became close. Over the following months, their friendship grew into something more, and after trying to make their long-distance relationship work, Abby eventually relocated to Flintlock for love.
Now they’re married.
“So how long has this thing between you and Jack been happening?” she asks.
My eyes dart to hers. “Oh, no, you’ve got the wrong idea—”
She holds up her hand and fixes me with her piercing eyes. “Don’t even try, girlfriend. I know lovesick when I see it. Now spill… what’s going on with you and our president?”
I don’t have the energy to lie. “Nothing has happened yet, but it was going to. He was coming home, and we were going to…” I think about the way he kissed me up against the wall. I can still feel the phantom brush of his lips against mine, and my chest aches with longing to feel them again, “… things were progressing.”