Viper (Hell's Handlers MC 9)

An ear-piercing crash of shattering glass rent the air. Jazz jolted so hard, she bumped his shoulder. Without thought, as he went into full-on alert mode, Viper shoved her body behind his. Jesus Christ, the entire center front window of the diner now lay in a million sharp shards all around the dining room. And there in the middle of the disaster lie a red brick.

“What happened?” Jazz screamed as she tried to peer around him. He held her back as best he could, but she still caught sight of the wreckage. “Holy shit!”

“What the fuck was that?” Thunder sprinted from the kitchen as Viper’s attention went to a man standing outside the window. Before he had a chance to react, a grenade was lobbed through the place where the window once stood.

“Fuck!” Thunder screamed even as Viper opened his mouth to do the same. “Grenade.”

Behind him, Jazz froze still as a statue.

“Get down!” Viper screamed as he grabbed hold of Jazz and shoved her to the ground.

Thunder screamed, “I see him! It’s that fucker, Jeremy. I can fucking catch him.”

Jazz grunted as she hit the unforgiving floor, but Viper didn’t have time to apologize or ask if she was okay.

“Go get him!” he shouted to Thunder. “I got Jazz.” If Thunder could catch that fucker, the club would tear him limb from limb and find out a wealth of information about their enemy’s plans.

Thunder’s long legs ate up the distance from the kitchen to the broken window. He practically sailed through the air, up onto a booth, then straight out through the gaping hole of what used to be the front window of Toni’s Diner.

Viper didn’t even spare a second to consider his options. He started forward, gaze focused on the bomb as every second brought them closer to death. After not even one full step, two surprisingly strong hands fisted the back of his cut, and the next thing he knew, he was falling toward Jazz.

“Viper, no!” she screeched in a way that would leave her voice ragged.

Just as he found his footing and prepared to shake loose from Jazmine’s hold, the entire diner shook as though in the midst of a catastrophic earthquake. At the same time, a thunderous boom that put action movies to shame stole his hearing, leaving a high-pitched ringing in its place.

The force of the blast propelled him backward, and somehow he managed to spin his body and wrap his arms around Jazz before hitting the floor.

The moment they slammed into the ground, he squeezed her snug against him and curled the pair of them into as tight a ball as possible.

Debris rained all around them. He grunted as painful blows and stinging cuts pelted his back. Loud noise seemed to come at him from every angle, but he couldn’t make sense of any of it. Shattering glass? Falling ceiling? Parts of tables and chairs flying through the air only to crash to the ground? Between the roar of blood in his ears and the shrill ringing, he couldn’t tell what the hell was going on.

All he could do was cling to Jazz as she screamed below him and struggled to claw her way free. Thank God she was alive. It was all that mattered. Jazzy’s life was just beginning, with two men, both MC brothers. She didn’t deserve a tragic ending like this, and neither did her men.

Again and again, he was bombarded with flying fragments. As a particularly sharp sting pierced between his shoulder blades, Viper groaned and squeezed Jazz tighter. The move only served to send a searing shot of pain through his system.

Fuck.

Something was wrong.

Numbness began at the tips of his fingers and traveled up his arms but never seemed to make it to the throbbing area in his upper back.

Hard as it was to process his surroundings with the noises, intense smell of smoke, and Jazz freaking out below him, Viper felt the warm flow of blood spreading across his back.

Fuck. He opened his mouth to ask Jazz if she was okay just as a blow to the back of his head rendered him speechless. He went slack, his weight crushing into Jazz. His dead weight probably smothered the poor kid beneath him. He’d move if he could, but none of his limbs obeyed the screaming commands of his mind.

“Viper!” she screamed.

He heard it. And he wanted to respond. Tried to respond. He really did, but the words wouldn’t come. Hell, he couldn’t even blink to let her know he was fine.

Though he was starting to think he was pretty far from fine.

Blackness began to take over his vision, starting at the edges and encroaching on the center.

“Viper!” she screamed again, fighting like a madwoman to move him off her. He could offer no assistance.

He couldn’t see any longer, and Jazz’s voice grew more muffled by the second as she screamed at him. He needed to make sure Jazz wasn’t injured. Needed to call her men to come for her, and then he needed to call Copper. Most importantly, he needed to see his Cassie one last time…