“I love you.” Gumby grunted when his proclamation was rewarded with a sharp bite to his pec.
“Again.”
“I fucking love you.” Another bite. “Aw, fuck, more.”
“I love you too.” Screw bit him again and Gumby swore he’d come in his underwear if something didn’t give.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
They stilled. Screw dropped his head to Gumby’s chest. “Fuck. This better be fucking important.”
“Y-you need to get downstairs. Um, now.” LJ spoke through the closed door.
Screw lifted his head, his confused gaze meeting Gumby’s. “He sounds freaked.”
With a nod, Screw called. “On my way.”
“No, uh, both of you. And hurry.” The sound of LJ’s retreating footsteps echoed through the room like sonic booms.
“Shit,” Gumby said as they both scrambled off the bed. “Think something happened with the CDMC? Retaliation? Why do I feel like the rug is about to be yanked out from under us?” He located his jeans and shoved into them the same time Screw found his.
“Because it fucking is.” Screw lifted his shirt off the foot of the bed, sniffed it, then shrugged. “Let’s go,” he said, working it over his muscular shoulders as they left the room. Normally, Gumby would hang back a second to appreciate the sight of Screw’s ass as he jogged down the hallway, but today he kept pace though each step brought with it an increasing sense of doom.
Part of him wanted to keep running straight out the door but he stopped with Screw at the bottom of the steps. There stood a handful of Screw’s brothers, each with wild-eyed gazes on him and Screw.
Copper and Zach stood side by side each yelling into separate phone calls, but it was the devastation scrawled across Maverick’s face that had Gumby grabbing Screw’s hand, onlookers be damned.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Screw asked the crowd at large.
An eerie hush of silence descended on the room. Copper ended his call then walked to where he and Screw stood, hands still linked. With each step that drew Copper closer, Screw squeezed Gumby’s hand tighter.
Once he stood directly in front of them, his expression one of solemn despair, Copper said, “Thunder called. There was an explosion at the diner. Jeremy threw a brick and a grenade through the window. Thunder chased him down and caught him, but Jazz and Viper were inside.”
Screw’s knees buckled. Copper reached out and caught him while Gumby staggered backward, shaking his head.
No.
Oh, fuck.
No.
His heels hit the bottom step, causing him to lose his balance. He went down hard, his ass landing on the fourth step up. God, he couldn’t think. He could barely breathe. “Is—is she—Oh, fuck.” He dropped his head into his hands as the room flip-flopped.
“We have to go,” Screw said, attempting to push past his president. His voice rose, thready and panicked. “We have to go.”
Copper held him back.
“Copper let me fucking go to her.”
“Wait!” Copper yelled. He shoved Screw so he was on the steps next to Gumby.
“She’s alive, Screw. She’s fucking alive.”
“Oh, thank Christ,” Gumby said, the words hitting him square in the gut. Beside him, Screw sagged.
Copper got right in Screw’s face. “Listen for one fucking second. She’s alive, but someone dragged her off.”
“What?” both he and Screw shouted as they shot off the steps as one.
Copper held his hands up. “As Thunder was dragging Jeremy back, he saw some guy shove Jazz in a car. He couldn’t catch them, but he did get Jeremy and he’ll be here any second with that mother fucker.”
Wait…so that meant? “Where the fuck is she?” Gumby felt the overwhelming urge to shake Copper until the words he wanted to hear fell from his mouth.
“We don’t know.”
Not those words. Ice slithered through Gumby’s veins as the stark reality of that statement set in. Jazz survived an explosion only to be hauled off. Was she hurt? She had to be fucking terrified.
“CDMC?” Screw croaked.
With a shake of his head, Copper said. “Don’t know.”
Gumby shot to his feet. “I wanna see him.”
“Let us have five fucking minutes with him and we’ll know what the fuck is going on.” Screw got in Copper’s face. “Fuck!” He shoved past Copper, kicking a chair halfway across the room with the force of his anger.
“They’re less than a minute out.”
Screw turned. “Did you ask Viper if he got a look at the guy?”
“Viper didn’t make it.” Copper’s voice broke. “We think he died protecting Jazmine.”
A sound of pure torture ripped from deep within Screw as he doubled over.
Gumby barely knew Viper. Only on a few occasions had he met the former Hell’s Handlers VP, but it’d been enough to see how the loss of his life would ravage the club. Screw’s gaze met his and when he saw tears shimmering from his lover’s eyes, Gumby couldn’t possibly hold back. Even if this hadn’t been a prime opportunity to prove just how much he really did love Screw by claiming the man in public, Gumby would have gone to him. How could he stand by and watch the man he loved suffer such deep agony?